A Random Update Post

I feel like I never blog anymore. In fact, I missed my tenth blogoversary last month - and I'd had some pretty fun plans for it.

Life's just had me stretched thin, lately. Hair We Go Again marked my sixth official release within the space of a year, and I'd not had a nice July. My aunt (who'd lived in the upstairs trailer from me, helped with bills, and provided my rides to town), moved out at the end of June, and while I'd known this move was coming, I'd been expecting more fall-timing, so to suddenly have her GONE has added a lot to my plate that I wasn't prepared for. Especially as her air conditioner went out while they were unloading her house into the moving van. Air conditioner has not been fixed, and our houses are connected by a not-airtight door. In fact, I'd call it rather the opposite of airtight.

I also don't have running water in my own house, so I have to go up there to use the bathroom, take showers, and wash my dishes. I live in Texas. So, yeah, heat's been melting me. (Fortunately, the nights have been ... decent, so I leave the screen door open at night - though locked - so the house can breathe.)

In July, I had two back-to-back "vacations." Realm Maker's the third weekend, and then I was a Sponsor at a Church camp (Basically, I was the Responsible Adult who was brought to be in charge of my younger cousins and sister.) the following week. This required two weeks off from work, so I'd requested some extra days in the weeks previous to my vacations. What I'd not asked for was extra days in the weeks following, but that's what I've gotten. Including eating THREE out of the five days of the Golden Braid's blog tour, and I'd only planned to work the last day.

(Note on my work schedule - I work part-time at McDonald's, and it's supposed to be three nine-hour shifts a week. This is because I live thirty minutes from town and don't drive, and so, while working, have to crash at my parent's house, who live within walking distance from my work. They don't really have room for me at their apartment, so I like to minimize the time that I'm there. And, with my Aunt moved out, I've had to rely on my other aunt for rides, and her schedule's a lot more rigid, resulting in extra time at my parents' house.)

So, yeah, Hair We Go Again didn't get the launch I'd planned for it, and I'm utterly behind in everything and have no idea how to catch up.

You guys may remember some posts concerning my sister earlier this year. Yeah, that's still a continuing saga. I don't really want to say anything more on the subject, but it's been something on my plate that's been making life frustrating.

I don't want my writing to be about the numbers, I really don't. But, the frustrating thing about growing up and being an adult is that life costs money. And it'd be much nicer if that money didn't require me squatting at my parents' house. I want to give you guys great stories, but life is squeezing all of the time and energy I have for that. I mean, I have managed six releases in the space of a year (I'm insane), and my royalties for the first half of the year have been somewhere over $400 - nothing to sneeze at, as it's about what I made in the WHOLE of last year, and that'd been my best year yet. But it's still not enough to replace my minimum wage part-time paycheck.

I'm honestly not sure how I'm moving forward. I'm working my hardest to get Love and Memory out next year. Not sure how it's going to happen, but it's been three years already since LDTD released, and that's enough of a gap between books. Cost and Song are both too much of a mess to make progress on, but I do have a number of Bookania projects that are high-priority, including book 6, a couple short stories, and A-Parent Loss, the first book of a new series called the Bookania Misadventures. Also Misfortune and The Dancing Princess are both still on my plate, and I'm going to try to have the former out before the end of the year, and The Dancing Princess ready in advance of the Tattered Slippers release, rather than fifteen minutes before it's due to Amazon, as has been the case the last several releases. (Maaaaybe I should spread them out a bit more, but life's too short and I have too many books.)

But what's going to happen next, how I'm going to pay my bills AND keep up with writing, I don't know.

And to those of you waiting on your preorder bundles ... they are coming, but my schedule hasn't allowed me to really focus on any of them. Update on the audiobook - my Microphone has decided that it doesn't like me and won't talk to my computer. I'm hoping that it's an issue with the cord (it wasn't a cheap mic, but that was a cheap cord), but I haven't had a chance to chase down another cord that will fit it (it's picky).

So ... with all that said ... Kendra out, and maybe consider buying a book?