Weird year, which says a lot given the last couple of years. I couldn't take off work for spring break, but my kids were all free. So while the tension continues to mount at work, and we all snap at one another in frustration (still remotely), my wife took the kids to the rodeo, we had in-laws visit, and my household had fewer of the weekly run-abouts than usual. More than anything, I'm observing that I needed a longer break than I achieved in last weekend's getaway. That's two weeks in a row of whining--I've got to wrap my head around the work-load better. So, let me point out some positives:

• we're building a few chips that will transform the way the world communicates... again (if we don't do it, someone else will, but still, we're doing it). Whether you agree of disagree with the result, the technology is pretty amazing.
• the people are brilliant. yes, I fight with them, but they're all bright and dedicated people who simply disagree on details.
• some of the situations are fun--I'm doing some recruiting right now, and if I weren't so overloaded, I would quite enjoy that.

There. Documented goodness. I'm not entirely black-hearted!

I was asked whether, with all the book merch I've been playing with, I'm still writing. I am, but I'm not in a "crank out X words per day" phase. I'm in the phase of pulling together the pics, getting beta readers going, and editing. If I had more time, I'd like to get started on my next stories--I think about them when I'm out jogging. But I knew the first half of this year was going to be the worst grinder I've been through at work in my 25 years there, so I purposefully paced out the release of Book 4 to account for that.

I've mentioned this before, but I've screwed up the order of work for Book 4. I'm doing grammatical and style edits, while the beta readers haven't even started yet. That means I could be wasting time, as whole sections could get ripped out and replaced. But I'm good with that--I'd rather keep my focus on getting Book 4 out then starting up on something else while I wait for the dominoes to fall in the proper order.

On to some fun stuff. I have pics of new characters. I won't explain who they are yet, but they're fun additions. I have more I'll save for next week. I finished haggling with the artist for the price of the cover art, so I'll submit the description to them sometime this week. I wanted to make a sweatshirt for my youngest with some goblin-art--we wanted something a little different than the poses from the artist for her shirt. But even if I could draw well enough, I don't know how to turn a drawing into clean digital art.

I finished Edith Pawlicki's Loves of Shadow and Power--if you haven't read that series, go dive in. I thoroughly enjoyed watching her characters grow, struggling with questions of morality (or not struggling in some cases), and righting wrongs. She's also encouraged me to dink around with formatting in ways that would liven up Book 4--I'm taking baby steps in that direction.

o To-Do list for writing last week:

• Email updates
• Grammatical and Style edits for Book 4 - through chapter 35.
• Follow up on the remaining pic orders (including cover).

o To-Do list for writing this week:

• Email updates
• Grammatical and Style edits for Book 4 - through chapter 42.
• Update fonts for specific sections of Book 4 (can't say more without some potential spoilers leaking in).
• Submit order for cover.

Previous Newsletters

• ​#weekendgetaway - 3/15/2022
• ​March Merch... - 3/8/2022
• ​March on! (yeah, that's terrible) - 3/1/2022
• ​Late-Feb Slog - 2/23/2022
• ​No rest for the weary - 2/16/2022
• ​Book 4 of The Guardian League, The Song Unsung - 2/9/2022
• ​Happy Birthday to my Wife - 2/1/2022
• ​Finding Books "Connected" to mine - 1/25/2022
• ​Hunting for Silver Linings - 1/18/2022
• ​Starting off the New Year with a Bang - 1/11/2022
• ​​Happy Neo Year - 1/4/2022
• ​Treasure - 12/28/2021
• ​Happy Holidays - 12/21/2021
• ​A week of promotions - 12/14/2021
• ​Elf on the Shelf and the Bless-Yous of Winter - 12/05/2021
• ​Thanks have been given - 11/30/2021
• ​Reviews, but not bookish reviews... - 11/23/2021
• ​Lights, digital recording device, action… - 11/16/2021
• ​Annnnd... cue Christmas! - 11/09/2021
• ​Book 3 Hype-Up Coming Soon - 11/02/2021
• ​Losing Faith, a Calyx Twins Story - 10/26/2021 📜 Losing Faith, a Calyx Twins Story.pdf​
• ​New pics for Book 1 - 10/19/2021
• ​Happy Birthday, Middle Egg - 10/12/2021
• ​Age Before Duty -10/05/2021 📜​ Age-Before-Duty.pdf​
• ​Grundle's Hope - 9/28/2021 📜 Grundle's-Hope.pdf​

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