My youngest landed her layout with a twist this week—that was quite cool to see. She hit it on her first attempt. Just had to overcome the fear of it. Prolly a life lesson there somewhere. I do have a video, if anyone wants to see it. They asked her to move up to the elite level after class--for those few of you in Austin, that's Westlake elite, so moving pretty high up the ladder.

Speaking of ladders... here was my fun for the week: a hole in the roof that probably happened last winter… found while hanging Xmas lights. Likely a limb broke off the overhanging tree last winter, and the rains this spring rotted a fair section of wood.

Not beautiful, but it saved me $650 to do it myself, so I can live with the quality. Got any good patchwork fix stories you're hesitantly proud of? Oh, and do you need some felt paper or shingles? I have a lot now.

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I am sooo frustrated with the writing industry. Many people have built livelihoods around sucking money from people who want to publish books. That’s my message to your wife’s writing club, Brett—don’t believe anyone in book marketing. I sent out a podcast email a couple of days ago--I have relegated that to the high end of the scams. At the low end, I get two to four emails daily of really poor quality trying to get me to buy into their marketing services... video creation, thinly disguised paid-for reviews, marketing advice. Twice in the last month I've had to notify Goodreads of slews of sloppy reviews from a new tactic where groups are throwing reviews on your books, then asking you to pay for it! I mean, it is frustrating enough to filter through all the cheats; now I have to exert energy to fix problems they create. It's terrible!

On that cheery note, I sent Shepherds out for structural editing. It’s at about half its intended word count, and it’s a good place to see if the story holds, whether any arcs should be cut, and to hear someone else’s opinion on what needs more fleshing out. For my fellow authors, I use Libby James. I'd highly recommend her.

All books by Steven J. Morris