The Best Laid Plans

Hail, adventurers! It has been a wild three months, and I have quite a few updates—some good, some not so good.

What’s the deal?

Well, a few days after my last update, I was laid off from my full-time job. I adored that job, and it was a big hit in a lot of areas. Since then, I have been working “full-time” as a freelance editor while looking for other opportunities. Unfortunately, in order to complete the volume needed to break even while just working as an editor, I have to devote most of my time to it. I have not been able to work on any writing of my own in the past three months. I am hoping that I will be able to find something supplementary soon and cut back on the editing, which would give me more time to work on Ambergrove.

Events

The first event of the year was back in April. I attended with the cover artist, Heidi Thompson. This was an author fair at Lawrenceburg Public Library in Indiana. It was a nice, little event, and I hope they decide to make it an annual one. There were dozens of authors there, organized by genre throughout the library. I was late packing up because someone ran back at the end to get Ranger’s Odyssey. I love, love, love doing events and meeting readers—old and new.

Unfortunately, there won’t be very much of that this year. I had to cancel my attendance at a Viking festival in April due to financial concerns. I hoped that those concerns would not persist, but they have. After another hit a few weeks ago, I cancelled another event, one I absolutely adore, because it became clear that funds were needed for other things, and that is my biggest, most costly event of the year: Ohio Renaissance Festival.

It was not a decision made lightly, and I will be spending this year working on stabilizing this financial boat so I can return to ORF next year and add some new events as well.

At this time, there are two events remaining for this year: MCPL’s annual author fair (pending application approval), and the Medieval Faire at Clayshire Castle. Both will be later this fall. For more about these two events, check out the Events tab!

Books

I do still have something in the works that I hope to be able to complete this summer. I am doing my best to make it happen. Once I have stabilized everything around me, at least to a manageable level, I will be returning to work on Ember on the Anvil. I hope to have that completed before the end of the year, but if that ends up not being possible, I will be shooting for Spring 2025 instead. I am giving Ember the time she needs, despite what delays there are on my end, so I will always err on the side of pushing deadlines instead of rushing to put out something that isn’t ready. I will update as I can—hopefully more frequently than I have so far this year!

So, what else has been doing on?

Well, my husband had to have a moderate surgery right after I was laid off, so I took some time before getting gung-ho into the editing to help him in the first weeks of his recovery. During that time, I did put the first draft together for my other project. I also made CDs of the informal audiobooks to have at events. I also figured out how PC mods work and played Stardew Valley with the Baldur’s Gate mod, Baldur’s Valley, which currently has two fan-favorite companions added to the game (Karlach and Astarion).

We also watched the eclipse that came through in April, as we were in the path of totality. Totality was surprisingly very, very cool. We missed the aurora that was visible last month, but you can’t win them all! Next time!

In May, I said goodbye to my motorcycle. Selling it made the most sense, but as disappointing as it was, it helped significantly with other things to have sold it. May also brought complications from my husband’s surgery and the cancellation of my appearances at ORF 2024.

However, though I hope I am not jinxing it now, June feels like the turning-over of a new leaf. June 1, I took a long jaunt to attend a wedding that was long overdue. Four hours one way should have been a terrible drive, but it took me through quite a lot of farmland in the northern part of the state and more than a few pleasant towns. I also took a small detour through some Amish country, which was pleasant as well. The wedding was lovely.

June 2, I drove three hours one way to pick up a truck. Not just a truck, this truck was a significant part of happy memories in my childhood, and I have been trying to find a way to get it for ten years. I had a windows-down, tears-streaming, ethereally peaceful drive home.

The first draft of Ranger’s Odyssey featured this old pickup, though I described it differently because Mara didn’t have blood relatives on Earth besides her parents. In the end, as I was cutting out the events at the beginning on Earth to bring Mara to Ambergrove more quickly, I cut out her driving the truck over to the game night. In honor of my finally getting the truck, here’s the first-draft first line of Ranger’s Odyssey from five years ago (from the Scrivener compilation PDF I made in April 2019—my first attempt at it, when I clearly didn’t know the right settings for compilation!):

On that note, I’m going to go drive my truck to the park and stretch out in the bed to work on an edit in the sunshine. Until next time, adventurers!