Back to work

Well it’s been a fun month since my last blog post (or a little over that, it seems?) 

Everyone will hopefully be pleased to hear that I survived October not only intact, but feeling better than I have in about a year.  The main reason for this was the visit from the extremely talented Nicole Castle, who flew out to stay with us, whooped my ass at making blueberry pancakes, and got me out of my house often enough that it didn’t seem so daunting to keep up with the habit.

We had a lot of fun.  Filled a bathtub with blood, saw some witches up in Salem, visited Battleship Cove and I introduced her to the best chowder in the U.S., she rekindled my love for socks and showed me a song that I’m now constantly using for Calvin.  Oh, and she showed me a much better way to make dirty Shirleys  :D

On a side note, her visit coincided with a once in a lifetime embarrassing situation for my husband, who made a bet with a friend, lost, and had to wear a costume of his friend’s choice.  This is him here, hating everybody with a smile on his face.  :) 

More than a few of my friends have notified him that he’s been ‘added to the bank.’  But, he did score us some extra candy, and you’d better believe that Nicole and I made him work it too – we had as much candy as the kids because housewives started to throw it at him.  Personally, I think the choice of costume was kind because I would’ve chosen Harley Quinn for him and Nicole had mentioned a sexy Bo Peep costume.  Keep in mind it was under 50 degrees here on Halloween, and he couldn’t wear anything but underwear under that bobsledding costume.  See kids?  Gambling is wrong hahaha

I apologize for the delay in my blog update but I had a bet of my own that I needed to win.  Which I did.  In a video game.  Every one of my friends had been informed that I would be elsewhere (Azeroth) until I’d sped through all available content for the one game I can’t seem to permanently kick, and every single one of my friends called me, concerned that I’d died while playing because they didn’t see or hear from me after the night it came out lol.  But I was fantastic: my husband rearranged the living room and had me playing on the TV, supplied me with takeout and drinks and even took care of the kids so that I could kick some ass without interruption.  I was so immersed in smashing orcs and hunting rares that when I was as finished as I could get with the game for the time being, I felt incredibly refreshed.  Not everyone can enjoy a vacation at home, but I did and I even reconnected with my old team, not that I don’t have all of their contact info anyway, just felt nice to do something with them online again since most of them live across the country or in a different country altogether. 

Now I’m getting ready for Thanksgiving, making myself and my family look decent, getting a dish together to bring to my mother’s house, and baking a pie for my mother in law the racist bigot – a woman who has admitted multiple times with enthusiasm that she wouldn’t want to see me if I don’t bring her an apple pie.  Does she ask about her grandchildren?  No.  Does she ask about her SON?  Nope.  But, she asks about the pie, so I’m making a pie with the closest thing to love that I can, which happens to be apathy. 

I put a little work down on Playing with Tigers 3 and Swordmaster Dasan 3, but need to sort out a few things that would mess up either of the timelines before I can finish them.  Sadly, these books are not a top priority for me – The total earnings of all four of the published books don’t even cover a week of very light groceries and I truly want to rewrite them in the near future anyway. 

Cat & the Crow will have a print edition hopefully available by Christmas, we will see how that goes.

The Disassembled Life of Duncan Cole –

Despite the many statements and suggestions that I should split the book into two books, I will not be splitting Duncan at all.  Ever.  It’s two books that need to be read together in order to get the full story, two books packaged together because I wanted to cut the cost to the reader and ensure a better overall reading experience.  There should be no mistake about the fact that this was intentional on my part, because I was considering the readers who have a tighter budget and the readers who would’ve reached the end of part one and been unsatisfied.  I should mention that if I had split the books, that the first chapter of part 2 would’ve been tacked on the end of part 1.  You would meet Calvin, see what’s happened to Dan, realize that everything is falling apart for Duncan, and been told to wait a few months for the next one.  Some people would be okay with that, but I’m not one of them.  I’ve refused to purchase sequels before on the grounds that the first book did not tell a complete storyline and I will not be charged twice for one product – I won’t charge twice for one either.  ;)

As for future works regarding Duncan, I play around with ideas for promotional short stories every now and then, but I’ve been too busy working on the second Duncan book and a Calvin book to follow that, and they’ve been too fun to move away from for very long. 

I am off to go and murder my kitchen, cook some breakfast and jump back in Spannerdire – I left a house on fire in there and really should get around to dealing with that.

Anybody looking to contact me can find me at goodreads.com and as always I thank each and every reader who took the time out of their day to review any of my books – Love the book or hate it, that’s the best feedback in the world and I appreciate it. 

Happy Hunting  ;)

S. K. Hart