Oh, wow! Mess, mayhem, and the first (rough draft) of Watergirl 3

Hello! How are you guys doing? Good? So glad to hear it, unless you said bad, and then, man! Isn't that life. Good, bad, you know...

Our kitchen is in the basement. In boxes. It sucks. I don't know if it will ever end. Construction, that is. VROOOOOOM that's the saw you hear in the background. My dearest love is earning his keep for sure. And he hasn't chopped off any fingers yet.

Besides this madness, I've been feverishly pounding away at Water Gambit, you know, the rewrite that is hopefully less dull than the first one. It's kind of awesome. I'm waiting for the paperback so I can sit with a cool drink and a straw by the pond and pretend like I have a working kitchen sink. I'm all about the fantasy. I'm going to do a few free days and let ya'll know when I do it so you can pick up a copy of the new and improved version after I get it all clean and well-dressed. It's so fun that I'm writing a quick rough of the next book, Watergirl 3. Genevieve has a brother! Can you believe it? Is he good, bad, or something else altogether? I can't wait to find out!

Laced gas guy was so awesome! Hey Jim!

The quote was 1600 for plumbing. Yeah. Google mmhm.

July!

I had a rather ambitious scheme in the past year, to increase my published books from 3 to 10. In one year. Yes, rather ambitious. It's been a crazy writing year! I published Hunter in November, Wilds in December, Forget Me Not in January, Wilds II in March, and Water Gambit in May.

Five books in a year!!!! Writing that makes me sit here stunned. That's impressive. Far and above anything I realistically could have accomplished, so I think that right now, I'm going to pat myself on the back instead of sighing about how I did not get those last two (Wilds III and Hollow) out before July.

Right now I am rewriting Water Gambit. I reread it and thought, "hm, some good parts, but overall a little bit boring." Can't have that. It's overwhelming though. I feel like I'm going backwards. I'm not writing in a rational manner. Of course, that's fantasy for you.

I had Hollow finished, ready for edits but then had this realization that the ending needed to be entirely reworked because of some specific things that would be just so much more TA-DA!
So on Hollow, I'm taking some time. I really don't enjoy working on House of Slide in the summer. It's too serious. I want to write something fluffy and nonsensical.

Wilds III is practically finished, but I had to force myself to write it because it is too dark and intense for summer.  It's actually really, really good. Matthew and Helen's love is so tumultuous! Sigh.


Also, my kitchen is, well, it isn't. The pieces of it are on the back patio waiting for all the remodelling to end. No kitchen. Life is a bit interesting right now, and I have to wash dishes in the pedestal sink. Which is fun, of course, but maybe a little bit too fun. Construction does not make for good writing. So that's what is going on with me. I think that maybe after I finish this rewrite of Water Gambit, I'll do a quick fun draft of Water Gambit, or something else summery, and then get back to the House of Slide to publish it in the fall.

I'll tentatively say September, Maybe October, but I hope not, because I have this other series that I want to start, Butcher Baker, Vampire Slayer, and I REALLY would like to have it out in October. I don't know. I hate to drag out House of Slide because it's been so patient for me, and it's so close to done, but I'd rather not have to rewrite the whole thing post publish.

So here I am, an author of 7 published books, without a kitchen. I hope your summer is going really well and that if you don't meet your goals you can still feel okay about what you did accomplish.

<3

Girl's Room, or No One Is Sleeping in the Living Room!

It's so exciting! We have all the bedrooms finished, finally! All those floors, sanded, refinished, glossy and beautiful! It's the nicest floor, I think. This is the before and inspiration photo. It's not bad at all. We could have left the boring beige carpet (that you can barely see) and called it good, but what would be the fun of that? Besides, the girls were sleeping on mattresses on the floor while their bed remained lumber in the basement. Now it is beautifully sanded and painted wood. What do you think? I think it's pretty awesome. There are still future things, window seat, quilts, that kind of thing, but they're sleeping in their room, so I'm calling it done. Woo Hoo!!!!

view from the hall door. The floor is so gleaming beautiful! I think it's fir.

Our dear little doe who inspires this room. She turned out more brown than the walls. Oh well.

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I love this photo. She's about to hide behind the curtain and eat my roses. :D

The Pondsy Scheme

We've been dealing with water, seepage, flooding, swampage, that kind of thing and it's been a messy, mosquitoey miserable thing. We decided that we'd take the water the sump pump has been dumping on the side lawn and put it into a water feature, containing the problem and creating something beautiful.

Well.

After months of figuring out how to do this sort of thing, we finally have it finished. When my darlingest dear did the electrical, he worked on it until after midnight with the help of our brilliant boy, who held the umbrella and the flashlight. What a team.