It's been a grueling week at work, which I anticipated when I scheduled the timeframe for releasing Book 3 of The Guardian League. This work project is going to be in high gear until it completes, which is still months away--whew! 😔 Good thing it pays for book editing and picture creation, not to mention food and shelter. 🙃 I threw in a pic of my dogs, bowing down to the God of Walks at the end of the day (they know its time).

It's my middle daughter's birthday as I write this (but the email will go out days later). 🎂 She turns 14, and one of the families she babysits for just dropped off donuts on our porch. Su-weeet! 🍩 We have a karaoke machine set up for a slumber party, and bought some fairy-lights to frame a path out to the trampoline that they think they want to sleep on. [They did!] So different than my firstborn, who just wants to play whatever the latest variant of Halo is with her friends. (Now where did the idea of Red come from???) GL Trivia - Red's sisters have the same names as my younger two daughters. Love you, Treenies!

Friends images blurred to protect the guilty--several songs were harmed at the karaoke machine in the making of this party.

Calyx Twins

[Spoiler Alert - Book 3] My writing for this week proved difficult. I'd envisioned the side-story of the Calyx Twins being a two-parter, the first part taking place in the timeframe of Book 3 and the second part during Book 4. But I didn't get far enough--the Book 3 portion has suffered from an unduly amount of interruptions. Would it be interesting to see an early view, with notes? Or maybe you don't want to know how the sausage is made--let me know! I'll sit on the story another week, but if folks want to see, I can blast out the "as is" story-in-development.

Writing Updates

Still plugging dutifully away at editing of Book 3. I DID change the auto-emails, along with the landing pages themselves, so that the short stories I've been compiling are offered instead of Book 1--that email chain was just too long. I do appreciate the feedback on that. I apologize to anyone who got email-spammed by my changes. Changing the sequence apparently retriggered those who had already been through it. I didn't expect that. Now I know that I need to create a new one each time instead of reusing an existing automation. 🤷‍♂️

I made some headway on artwork, and I received the first feedback on Book 3 from an early reader. Thanks so much for that! While most of it was simple changes, there was one suggestion that will require some thought, but it will be worth trying to incorporate.

o To-Do list for writing last week:

• Email updates.
• Edit three chapters a day in Book 3 (target chp73 of 94)
• Fix the auto-emails on signup for mailing list.
• Submit specs for remaining (5/6) pics. (got to 3/6)
• Write the Calyx Sister email for next week. Partly written.

o To-Do list for writing this week:

• Email updates.
• Edit three chapters a day in Book 3 (target chp94 of 94, but likely will fall a little short this week)
• Not going to submit specs for remaining 3/6 pictures yet - need to follow the existing orders through.
• Continue on Calyx Sister short story.
• Incorporate Book 3 feedback.
• Add scene to Book 3, with Hughelas and Galad/Grundle pre-exile. (maybe it's in book 4?)