We had an odd (maybe new normal) post-Christmas break. Because my oldest is in basketball, she had practice every day (tis the season), and my other two had various practices. For some reason, my work decided they needed to launch our yearly raise/promo cycle early this year. So none of us had the break we hoped for. I mean, historically, when the kids weren't in school, we did some things together. But neither their schedule nor mine allowed that this year. The kids are growing up and becoming more independent. Kinda sad, kinda proud. 🤷‍♂️

Now we’re back in the thick of work and school. I surprised myself by running 11 miles over lunch with my boss (who is also my friend). I haven’t run that far in years. It felt… good (except the hurty parts).

If I understood her correctly, my mother suggested I should include the blurb for the Mother of Trees in my newsletter. I just gave away my only copy of the book to a local radio station, or I'd send an actual photo of the back cover, but here's the graphic (minus a bar code). That said, I decided to pay a company to write a better one. I'll get that mid-January, but I just ordered my launch-day books, so they'll have my original book blurb. "Collectors Editions". Hmm, now that I look at that back cover, I think I need to separate out the Guardian League series from the blurb more. There's always stuff to be tweaked.

That reminds me of a funny story -- there's a few copies of Book 3 from my original series where the goblins sing a spice girls song instead of whatever non-copyrighted song I ended up choosing once I understood copyright laws for music better. It amuses me that those copies are floating out in the world somewhere. The original was so much funnier.

The release date for Mother of Trees is Feb 3… approaching rapidly. I’m excited! We're having a release party at Bat City Comics and Games, a place owned by fellow fantasy writer BK Greenwood. I don't really know what that should or will look like, but I will use the experience to learn and decide what to do for the next one. I've also worked with encouraging folks who intend to create posts on IG/FB to help me find my audience. So I've tried to create both a virtual and physical release event, and though a few pieces have fumbled, those mistakes create more opportunity to learn.

I'm having fun rewriting Book 2. My working title is “Bones of Cenaedth”. The pacing was all wrong, so I’ve started over—I think it’s shaping up.

I hope everyone is having a great start to their year. If you’re a resolution person or a dry January proponent, I wish you strength.