It’s Starting to Look Like…

Last night, I finished revising Hard Strike (Decker’s War Book 7) and sent it to my editor. With Christmas coming up next week, I don’t think she’ll get to it until after New Year’s Day and probably not until the second week of January. But the holidays won’t impede a late January publication date, so I’m not worried.

I now intend to put the pen (or to be more accurate, the keyboard) aside for two or three weeks to recharge the batteries. As usually happens once I finish a book and send it to my editor, I find myself drained. A good thing I have an agreement with Mrs Thomson that I don’t work or even think about work at this time of year. But come January, I’ll dive into Ashes of Empire: Imperial Twilight.

Since this is likely my last blog post of 2018, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all.

Count your blessings instead of your crosses.

Count your gains instead of your losses.

Count your joys instead of your woes.

Count your friends instead of your foes.

Count your smiles instead of your tears.

Count your courage instead of your fears.

Count your full times instead of your lean.

Count your kind deeds instead of your mean.

Count your health instead of your wealth.

Love your neighbor as much as yourself.

 

The End

Yesterday, I wrote the final sentences of Hard Strike (Decker’s War Book 7).  When I’m putting down a first draft, I rarely know where my characters will take me and the story, and this time was no exception.  Hard Strike‘s ending surprised me quite a bit.  Until a few days ago, I had no idea it would turn out as it did, but perhaps I should have seen it coming.  This is Zack Decker we’re talking about.  His adventures always have a twist.  I won’t say anything more.  You’ll just have to read it when it comes out in the new year.  I still have a few weeks of revising before my editor takes over sometime around mid-January.  And then there are the holidays.  I have an agreement with Mrs Thomson:  the two week period around Christmas and New Year’s Day are non-working, even for a sometimes hyperactive author.

What comes after Hard Strike?  For starters, my next project is Ashes of Empire: Imperial Twilight which I hope to see published around the late April, early May time frame.  Then, the sixth Siobhan Dunmoore of course.  And I’m mulling over a fresh idea that doesn’t involve the Commonwealth/Empire universe featured in each of my books, but that’s still in the embryonic stage. 

If you’ve joined my mailing list, watch your inbox sometime late January 2019 for the announcement that Hard Strike has hit the virtual and physical bookshelves.

Another Gray Sunday

We Canadians like nothing better than to complain about the weather, but this weekend, we had snow, freezing rain, rain, and fog after a gray week, so I think I’m just a bit entitled to grumble.  This morning again, just like last Sunday morning, the damp fog closing in on our part of town transported me thirty years into the past and to a different continent.  At this rate, I’ll probably be happier once real winter settles in with minus twenty degree centigrade temperatures – no rain, no fog and more chances of sunshine.  Of course, after a few weeks of minus twenty, I’ll be complaining again.

In just over three weeks, it will be Christmas.  Another year gone.  Where it went, I couldn’t say.  My brain tries to ignore the passing of time but my body feels it, even though I’m at the gym six days a week, exercising harder and more regularly than I did in my forties, or even my thirties.  Being my own boss these days helps me get out there and pump iron instead of sitting in endless, futile meetings where, when all is said and done, much will have been said and precious little done.  I don’t miss those days at all.

Hard Strike (Decker’s War Book 7) is in the home stretch.  I’m at the 85% completion mark and intend to see it done by the end of the coming week.