Whew! Summer blew by like a motorcycle driver really needing to pee. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t consider summer done yet. I mean, it’s only August 2nd, right? But my kiddo starts school really soon and that means one thing: I get my writing time back! (Okay, two things…I will also be depressed and miss him for the first week, and then get sick the second or third. So three things… Ah, parenthood – the art of one thing leading to another…) I’m trying hard to settle back into a normal routine, one that gives me ample time to percolate, but it’s tricky.

I attempted to release the first book in my new Reluctant Godmother series back at the beginning of July. And then for pretty much the whole of July. I just wasn’t ready to finish it. Or maybe I should say the book wasn’t ready… One of the two! Now that I’m back home and able to think with my professional brain instead of Summer Brain (“Let’s go to the beach! No, the park! Or just veg! Let’s do NOTHING! Wheeeeeee!”), I am better equipped to figure out the changes I wanted to make. Especially since I got back to my outline for the sequel. 

Summer Brain is clearly not a solid decision-maker, ’cause it was really a no-brainer.

So now I have to finish up the major editing pass of the second half, figure out what to put where the removed subplot was, and then do a clean-up pass. It’s not common for me to change character names in my stories – for me, their names are part of who they are. But I changed…four? I think. Four names in this book. So now I have to do the resulting work to make sure there aren’t residual nicknames and such. (Speaking of which, I know I saw a wayward “Em” in there while reading to my sister on our cross-country trip to move her from the East Coast to the Rockies…there. Better.) This is the absolute messiest book I’ve ever written. No contest.

Anyway, point being that I have some work left (that I made more of for myself…), but the actual release date is close at hand! Maybe as soon as this weekend, if I stay motivated and don’t get weighed down by the insanity of living in a small three bedroom house with five other adults and two (soon to be three) kids 6 and under. Fun stuff.

I will update as soon as it goes live. I’m so excited!! Wheeeee! (Apparently Summer Brain hasn’t gone back into hibernation yet… 😀 )