Health Update, Writing, and Emerging from the Studio…

Well, it has been three weeks since the great removal, and I suppose I could give you an update on these things. As of tomorrow, I will have made it 21 days since the removal of my gall bladder (why do Grammarly and the rest quibble over whether that should be one word or two?) I can write and say I’m doing quite well, and the prognosis is good.

I have been able to resume pretty much most of my life, apart from the no-heavy-lift order. Nothing over ten pounds, they say. Lifestyle change! I must set aside my briefcase bag thing, and downsize. I dug out the former man-bag that I’d left in the closet for almost 20 years. Back in the day, I could fit my little Asus minicomputer in there, along with whatever I needed.

I can just squeeze my Lenovo in there, plus the power cord and not much else. Might not be such a bad thing in the future. I can carry the podcast gear, as that’s about eight pounds.

My insides are pretty much okay, but I did have what I thought was either my inside stitches popping or I’d torn a back muscle. That wasn’t fun, but nothing unusual occurred. It feels a little weird in there, and the incisions - all five of them are still ugly.

But no matter. My innards have been a little touchy, but I can largely eat what I like, though I’ve steered clear of pizza on my cheat days for now.

What other things? Well, I’ve started working on a new novel. What else is new? I’m working with an old friend on what will be my next one in 2027, and several of my Brown Posey Press imprint peers and I will be part of a new collection.

The “News/Events” portion has lots of new things to check out. Suffice it to say, editing in earnest has begun with the BPP collection. We are the fiction, poetry, and related imprint. Lawrence, our intrepid founder and leader at Sunbury Press, decided we needed one!

Coming soon is a nice little selection of short stories, chapters, poems, and outtakes from many of our authors and poets. I have a small piece in this one, which is part of the returning Sweet Dreams Series.

Today, I had a nice meeting in the city with Stephen Grier Williams, a fellow author and local person about town. Stephen is the author of a fine series of works (there is a link to click there!), and he lives in my neighborhood. I knew that, but we found out a bit more this morning.

I usually do not do this, because most mornings I’m getting out of bed and taking the few steps down my hallway to get to work. I do head out to cafes and coffee places to write, to edit, and to just “be,” away from the house and prove that I do actually leave my home.

Well, Stephen, his wife, and their young son turned up while I was there. We caught up and talked. Congrats to them on NINE years of married bliss; good for them.

Stephen is working on his writing, same here, and he’s agreed to beta-read the elusive Book 4 of the SDS! This will be of great help. I’ve had a hard time trying to find someone to do that. I’ve needed a critical eye; now, to my knowledge, Stephen has not read any of the Sweet Dreams Series. I will give him an overview, but someone who bought one of my books told me that if a story within a series is well-written, it can stand alone.

I think I know who she is. I sold a copy of Call it Love, which is Book 2 of the SDS, and someone left a very nice review. It stood up on its own, yay!

So yeah, I have to get that to him. I would suggest going to the “Books” section here and getting the rundown of what the series is about. It should give you a pretty fair idea of the great journey that will again take flight.

Book 4 is provisionally subtitled, The Way of the Amida. We will catch up to Aki and the gang, two years after the end of Book 3. I have had to move the timeline up, and this will be a combination fiction/historical fiction work because…we will now find out what really happened to Aki’s mother…

I’ll leave it there.

But yes, there are other releases ahead of this one, but if this works out, we can bring back the series over time. I kind of prefer it like that. I gave three years of time to Books 1-3, and I wonder if that was the right thing to do.

Also, I am going to shoutout to an old and fine friend. Kathleen Carr Foster is a lady of great character, and I can say that because I performed in Rocky Horror with her! No, seriously, Kaci is a talented actress, singer, and yes, writer. She has debuted with The Jewel of Corlivo. I’ll admit, this is out of my reading wheelhouse, but I had to find out what she was doing.

This, so far, is an evocative, descriptive, and well-written tale of adventure, sensual and exotic locales, and a nice hint of feminism at a time when needed. So far, Kaci has set the table well. I’ll get her on the podcast yet.

Other than that, the BookSpeak Network podcasts are gaining quite a bit of interest. The most recent dropped Friday, and I speak with my old friend, Sandy Nork has released “Flood Risk,” the second of the Risk series, and the third one, “Personal Risk,” drops on the 29th of September. Congrats—I did the interview at her home, and it was great to see her and Bill once more.

Okay, I have Labor Day off, but more to do. I’ll get to that, and we’ll see what other things are going. My appearances have been updated! Please check them out!

Peace, Out.