Before I get into what this post is actually about, I need your honest opinion. This picture is what I was going to use as the background for my dystopian dark age steampunk (yes, I went there) novel, The Ogress Son. SO strongly feels that it looks too “concentration camp” like, which doesn’t exactly fit with my novel. To me, it comes across as rugged, ancient industrial, and I love it. What do you think? Your comments and input are appreciated!

Moving on to the actual purpose of this post – I just checked when the last time it was that I was able to sit down and work on it. Believe it or not, the date said April 2017. April!!! And I’d totally feel guilty but for the fact that my life has been out of my hands insane. We’ve welcomed into the world an addition to our family, but it was far from normal or easy. Our addition spent three months in the NICU, and we are just now (but not really at all, because it’s a new baby with medical problems) starting to get some sort of stability.

But I have been going almost six months without giving in to the creative drive. If you’re an artist, you’re probably wondering how it’s possible that I was able to stay sane. The answer is, you just do. Because when the chips are down (is that the way the saying goes?) you put the pedal to the metal and you just do it. How’s that for mixed metaphors?

And to be honest, it was easier than it would be if we had no problems. When you’re in pure survival mode, e.g. the kids have food, clothing, shelter, and someone to watch them, there is little to no energy left over to create squat. Which also explains why I’ve pretty much abandoned this blog, my fan page on FB, and my newsletter – and I actually do feel bad for all that. At the very least, I could have clued you (my few, dear and cherished readers) in.

But, I’m baaaaack (and yes, you have to imagine the scene from the SHINING when you read that.) Life is still cray-cray like none other, but my sanity is requiring some maintenance, so I plan on using at least a half hour every night, if not every other night, to work on getting The Hellhound of Derbyshire written and The Ogress’ Son published. What I am not going to do is rush to get it out there because you never rush perfection, amiright? Plus, you savvy readers can always tell when an author rushes a novel. It’s never good.

So where am I at in The Hellhound and when is the new adjusted (readjusted? Gah, I am so bad at deadlines!!!) publishing date? I can tell you I have 35k words written and I hope to get it out sometime in the spring of 2018. Sooner if I possibly can, because three years from one book to its sequel is just a level of embarrassing I’d rather not have to face.