the Author

Category Archives: life

Posted in life.

A comment that came in reminded me that I have been entirely absent from my author site for a couple of months. I have not been writing. On the 8th of November, my youngest son had a hemor­rhagic stroke. The strokes with which I’m most familiar are ischemic — blood clots. Hemor­rahgic strokes differ by cause and by how damage to the brain is done. The cause was uniden­ti­fied high blood pres­sure, as opposed to an aneurysm, and it took some time to figure out what had caused this, although they now feel reason­ably certain they know (hyper-aldes­tero­nism). Of the four people in our family, he’s the one who’s in the best phys­ical shape — or he was, before the stroke. The stroke took left-side func­tion­ality from him, … Continue reading 

Posted in Cast, covers, life.

Nothing else in my house broke down (I say, knocking wood). The heat of summer has passed into the cooler, early autumn, which is my favorite season of the year. (I find Spring too muddy, Summer too hot, Winter too cold (plus snow)). Sadly, it is also my worse allergy season >.<. We had a lovely thanks­giving dinner, a much quieter one than in our early years as a family, with my long-suffering spouse’s parents, sister and brother (and his wife and his young son). It’s been a year, with a lot of ups and downs, a lot of changes. Some­times those feel over­whelming, desta­bi­lizing. But when we’re panicked or stressed — or at least when I am, as I shouldn’t speak for anyone else — I tend to not see the things that … Continue reading 

Posted in Elantra, Essalieyan, life.

It’s been a long month. In fact, it feels like it’s been three long months, all condensed into September. I was sent copy-edits of Heir of Light, the new Sagara novel (it’s the sequel to Shards of Glass). I was given enough time to do them. I… have a bit of a flinch response to copy-edits. My father’s 90th birthday was this September 11th, and because he’s getting on in years, my sister flew in from LA, and my brother from Victoria. So — we were all going to have dinner together. My sister and brother were staying with my mother at our child­hood house, which is what normally happens. My brother, however, tested posi­tive for covid the day after he arrived. My father tested posi­tive Tuesday morning. … Continue reading 

Posted in Cast, Elantra, Essalieyan, writing, Mira, life, Academia.

In 2023 I finished and published Hunter’s Redoubt, the first book in the final sequence of the West universe. In 2024, I intend to finish The Wild Road. Or at least finish the first draft of the book. It will still have to be revised, editing, copy-edited, proof-read. Having a publisher didn’t mean those things didn’t have to be done, but my part in the doing was much smaller. It was reac­tive, not active. But having done it once, I think I’m more aware of what can go wrong, and things should be much smoother. *** In 2023, I finished Cast in Atone­ment, but that’s author-finished; the book will be published in, I think, August 2024. 2023 also saw the publi­ca­tion of Shards of Glass. For me, “finishing” a book is done … Continue reading 

Posted in Audio books, Cast, Essalieyan, self-publishing, writing, life.

I’m writing to you all from Australia, where I have come on my writing retreat, which used to be an annual thing until Covid. I have an unfor­tu­nately tight dead­line, and I’m neck deep into Cast in Atone­ment, which is not yet done. I hope to be finished before I leave Bris­bane. And when I say finished, I mean: finished first draft. After which I will revise for submis­sion, and then submit. Shards of Glass is due out at the end of November, so I’m fielding a few ques­tions about that — but my head is fully entan­gled in the Cast novel, so Shards feels like it was written years ago (it wasn’t). My toe has improved enough it doesn’t bother me much, but according to X‑rays taken a week before I left, … Continue reading