Weekend Recap:
Well, this weekend we became pet parents again — this time to some tiny, fluffy, adorable baby chicks. For any that don’t know, when the Hubs and I moved into our new house in August 2021, it came with its own flock of chickens. We got six hens with our house and have spent the last year learning how best to take care of our feathered friends. But the ladies are all a bit older, so they’re no longer laying eggs, and three have crossed the rainbow bridge. Because we love them, and enjoy the eggs they produce, we decided to expand our flock.
Unfortunately, so has everyone else in the world, because eggs are so expensive now.
I have a wonderful friend who offered to pick up the chicks for me because she’s not locked into a nine-to-five, and she has two little ones that love tiny, adorable creatures. She went when they came in, but being number eight in line, there were very few left; so we ended up with only little BJ there on the left, a black jersey, and Brahama Mama on the right, a light brahma.
We hope to have another four sweet babies by the end of the week, so we have a full, happy flock.
Stay tuned!!
Okay, writerly world. I thought I was well overdue for an update on all my WIPs.
- The New Hope Chronicles
- Tree, Caine, and Damien are in the midst of critique edits. Book 1: FUBAR and Book 2: RECON are both fully read, critiqued, and edited, and I have been throwing FUBAR at any agent or editor that’s interested in YA and something dark. We’re about a fourth of the way through Book 3: MALADE, but slowing down. The quadrilogy gets darker as we go along, as I raise the stakes in each book, so it’s a little too dark for some of the group. And I’m sadly at a point right now where I’m wondering if it’s worth it if no one is interested in FUBAR? I don’t want to make my amazing group read something they don’t particularly care for without any reason. I greatly value their opinion, and should interest actually come for the NHC, then I would beg greatly for them to finish my books so that their excellence is all throughout the stories, not just the first half. But for now, I think I may have to back-burner it.
- The Gates of Humanity
- Chaos, Michael, and Finnegan are quietly sitting in the dark, on a back shelf, waiting for me to finish their story. Book 1: Chaos Unleashed is done, as is Book 2: Chaos Endures — but when I’d asked my critique group which they’d rather read, they chose New Hope. Which is okay by me, as all of New Hope is written and complete. I still have Book 3 to finish for Chaos. It’s started, and probably a quarter or more done, but Chaos has stopped talking to me. I mean, in all fairness, I put her in a coma… so I probably deserve it. But hopefully she at least acknowledges me sometime soon so I can pull her out of there and finish the trilogy.
- Dogwood
- At this point, I have three short stories in anthologies, and my one standalone novel, and I still absolutely love the world and the characters I was allowed to create for the originators. But since so many of those originators want to move on to other creative endeavors, we’ve put aside Dogwood. Not to say it’s gone or closed forever, it’s just not actively being planned and written at the moment. They’ve given all of us the rights to continue stories in the Dogwood world, so there might someday be another Dogwood book to give Topher his own story.
- Small Town Treasure in Secrets Unsealed
- Puppy Love in A Dogwood Valentine
- And the slightly supernature From Beyond the Rainbow Bridge in Dogwood; Fortunes Revealed, which was the most personal story I’ve written to date.
- And of course, #KissMeKieran is still out there as my first, and so far only, published novel.
As for all of my flash fiction and short stories, I’ve been toying with the idea of live readings of them on Instagram, or Facebook, just for the fun of it. And because I’ve been told I read pretty well. So, maybe in March, we’ll start having some short stories read aloud by the author.
