I’m barely functioning here due to the parents’ 70th bdays & 40th anniversary party.  It was fun, the food was good, and nothing went wrong.  That leaves me plenty of time to plan for my exile.

So I’m basically putting the kid to sleep on Thursday night and then leaving for a nearby hotel.  Once there, I wander out to get food from time to time while writing . . . or something.  There’s a pretty big wrinkle in the situation.  I will have editing of Book 11 to do and I have a special project to format.  Yet the main event was going to be the release of The Merchant of Nevra Coil.  That was the hope anyway and I’m not sure if that’s going to happen.  Without going into details, I’m still missing an essential piece.  Once it’s in my hand, I can get everything out and do all the marketing emails.  Then the blog post, which I’ll copy and send to all the volunteers.  I’m hoping the character interviews are helping to get people excited about the new book.  Anyway, those things and maybe some notebook work will be what I do.

Am I happy about the exile?  I will get some extra sleep and not have to worry about being responsible for the house/kid.  Part of that is good because I’m also feeling like I’ll be in foreign territory.  A strange thing with many authors is that they have a ‘spot’ where they feel most comfortable.  These are areas where the muse can strike more freely or a person is so used to the pitfalls that it’s manageable.  Take an author like this out of the area and they might feel lost.  I don’t have a microwave or oven to cook.  No games or DVD player to relax with if I need a break.  No control over the Wifi if it goes down and it will be incredibly quiet.  Yes, people around here get underfoot a lot and it stresses me, but to go to the opposite extreme is jarring in its own way.  So we’ll see what happens.  Releasing the next book will definitely help take the edge off.

As far as everything else, I’ll be trying my best to edit as much as I can and get things ready for the exile.  A lot of delays and distractions have put me back, but I should be done before I get home.  That’s when I’ll become a rarity for 3-4 weeks.  My son will no longer have school, so I can’t sit on my computer all day.  Book 12 and ‘Crossing Bedlam’ will have to wait, but I really hope to finish those two projects before the end of the year.  That means I can release the latter at my leisure and I’ll be 3 books away from writing a first draft of every Legends of Windemere book.  Not sure what comes after that.  I could go to the next series after a break, but there’s a potential one-shot.  A downside to that is it reveals a lot of the ending of the main series.  So I might write it and put it aside until the last book has been out for a year.

So I’m rambling and exhausted and my Internet connection keeps cutting out.  Here are the goals:

1. Edit Book 11 more.
2. Pack and prepare for exile.
3. List potential September posts.
4. Laundry at some point.
5. Bike at least twice before I leave.
6. Make sure I have everything needed for notebook work.  Will involve bringing several notebooks to condense information.

Don’t forget. Next Sunday will be a Twubs Chat from 7-11 PM EST.  Hope to see some people there.