I know I haven’t been blogging much recently.  Bad me.  There are two reasons.

1) My cover artist (and supplier of all the other decent graphics for this blog) has been going through some family medical issues, and thus hasn’t had the time/energy to produce anything for me.  I think a lot of my posts rely on graphics, because otherwise I turn them into Great Walls of Text, so I haven’t had any shiny-pretty-monstery things to chatter about in a while.  But conditions are improving, so hopefully we’ll be back in the groove soon.

2) I am neck-deep in the redraft.  As of now, I’m working on chapter 31 of 36, and I’ve come upon one of the major revelations/emotional blows/turning points of the book (and possibly the series).  And I’ve discovered that the way I handled it in my first draft was CRAP.  I’ve felt this way about a lot of the stuff in the final quarter — Erica can no doubt attest to my whining — but this is one area that’s going to require a complete rethink and rewrite, including redoing the two and a half pages I just redid (unsatisfactorily) this morning.  I have a concept in mind, but it’s going to take some work and a lot of section-shuffling.

Obviously this requires a lot of brain-energy.  Cob’s thread has been kicking me in the noggin because it’s 50% of the story but I’m really dissatisfied with how I did the original draft; in contrast, Sarovy and Geraad were little darlings who didn’t need much clean-up.  So instead of having the mental capacity to write interesting world-posts, I’ve been doing tropes and Q&A stuff or sometimes just slumping in my chair going ‘aaaargh’ and then watching Adventure Time.

So I apologize for that.  But I don’t apologize for dedicating my brain-space to the story.  Turning points are delicate, guys, and as much as I don’t want to disappoint you….I don’t want to disappoint me either.  The perfect words are out there somewhere, but it’s taking some excavation to reach them, so bear with me.

The book is still on track for February, as far as I can tell — though it might be late February.  But then, that’s the benefit of self-publishing: I set my own targets and can adjust them as needed.

Stay tuned.