Hello Readers!

I’ve been a bit out of whack lately. Amid an unusual amount of non-writing life stress, I thought I was being a Responsible Author by starting all of my GenCon prep two months out, and it was a good thing I did. The printer didn’t pack my bulk order of books correctly, resulting in about a third of the order getting damaged in shipping. The buttons I’d ordered went missing in the mail and neither the company nor the shipping service were interested in remedying the situation, so I didn’t have buttons this year (but I did have badge ribbons!). Then two days (I wish I was joking) before we were scheduled to head out for a cross-country road trip… both of our cars started to malfunction–mine quit holding coolant and the axle’s groaning, and my husband’s won’t turn on again if the engine’s still hot.
Long story short, the lead up to GenCon this year was crazy stressful, but we persevered and had an amazing time! Thanks to my talented artist friends, Cynthia Lu and Sarah Miller (who is responsible for my beautiful new banners <3 <3 <3 ), I had prints available to my readers, and Abaeloth, in one form or another went home a total of 331 times! GenCon 2019 is in the books as being my most successful convention to date, and I’d like to thank all of you who stopped by my table in support of Abaeloth.

I came home with a modest collection of books from a few of the new GenCon authors, and the most amazing pen (because every author needs an amazing pen!) which was crafted by Pens and More. And I somehow managed to convince my husband into investing in a new convention costume that I hope to bust out in the next couple months, so stay tuned.

Now it’s time for the confession.

When I first launched Blood of the Covenant, I’d done so with full intentions of releasing a new chapter every week. While I have the first arc nearly finished as far as the initial writing and beta reading goes, I thought, “Gee, I can edit this with all of the spare time and energy I have at GenCon!”

…

I’m sure you can guess exactly how that went. So the second chapter was going to be a week late.

And then, at the tail end of the best convention I’ve ever attended came the worst convention-recovery week I hope to ever have. I got blindsided by a virulent email which knocked me off balance for a few days. Then I had a man try to force his way into my car while driving to the bakery. Then I had another major convention tell me authors aren’t artists enough to merit the affordable tables at their event.

While I’ve not gone out of my way to hide it, I also try not to make a big deal about it, but I suffer from a terrible cocktail of half a dozen anxiety disorders and last week quite thoroughly threw me on my ass. I’ve since recovered (for the most part) and am still happily chugging along on Despair (with the first half already with my first set of test readers), but am a bit behind schedule with what I’d hoped to have out by now.

The good news is, Chapter 2 of Blood of the Covenant just got posted over on Wattpad, and by the end of the weekend, I should have the balance of Despair with my first readers. As always, I’m hoping to get a little bit more diligent with posting here on the ol’ website, and I may be getting close to the time where that can go from a hope to a reality. In the meantime, I’m wishing you all happy reading!