I was not expecting to make this announcement, at least for a while: these diaries are going on hiatus until August/September.
I did not want to do this. I truly didn’t. I had a dandy diary lined up for this week about a pioneering archaeologist whose work in another field was one of the great cultural and scientific misfires of the twentieth century. After that was going to be yet another stab at writing about Aloysius “Trader” Horn, a once famous traveler and adventurer who is all but forgotten thanks to an exciting and largely fictitious Hollywood biopic. Then it was my usual Kalamazoo break to finish a paper, and then back to the diaries….
But it’s not happening. And since a fair number of you still read these expeditions into the wilds of Badbookistan, I owe you the courtesy of knowing why.
There two primary reasons for this:
Academic paper — I have a paper due for Kalamazoo, and will need several weeks to work on it. It’s an expansion of a previous short article so I have plenty of time, but I’ll still need the time off to do the actual writing, and before that the research, and the outlining, and everything else. It’s going to take a couple of weeks, and then there’s the Kalamazoo Medieval Studies Congress itself, which will take the better part of a week. And of course I’ll need to recover from the first in-person K’zoo Congress in three years (especially the flight home, which leaves the Kalamazoo-Battle Creek International-because-Kellogg’s-executives-have-their-private-planes-there Airport at 5:30 am on Sunday...and if they don’t serve coffee and lots of it on the flight to Connecticut, I am going to be Most Severely Displeased (she said in her best Lady Catherine de Bourgh imitation)).
Novel — I am very happy to announce that after several false starts and failed attempts, I am at long last making serious progress on a novel. Even better, it’s part of a “shared universe” group headed by two old friends who’ve been self-publishing for a while, so this is going to get into print/e-format barring the long-dreaded kaiju invasion of Easthampton, Massachusetts.
This means that the odds are excellent that this work will actually make it into e-format as long as I hit my early August deadline. And much as I love you all, writing and publishing an actual book, even a fantasy romance set in 1936 involving psychic foreign correspondents, missing artifacts, and stopping a nefarious plot to 1q343214ipsumloremqwertyuiopyeehawupjenkinsandsmashems for Kindle/Nook/Kobo, is the dream of a lifetime and I’m not going to risk blowing it.
Watch this space for details.
Seriously.
So...barring a kaiju invasion that takes out Markos’ home and servers, I’ll be back in September. As much as I love you all, right now something has to give, and I’d rather it not be my sanity.
Take care, everyone, and remember: even Books So Bad They’re Good deserve love, or at least the occasional smile.
Peace,
Ellid
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Have ever had a hard deadline for something? Ever written a book? Ever wanted to? Are you buried under snow? It’s coming down hard at the Last Homely Shack as I write, so grab a shovel, help dig out the driveway before I’m forced to put the cats to work, and share….
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