And so it goes…

It’s been a while since we last talked, and rightly may you ask “What on earth has the woman been doing?”

Well, I’ll tell you.

I finished with the Trader’s Leap copy edits, and returned them to M’sieur the Editor, who has passed them on to the typesetter.  Which, yes, means that there is possibly an eArc in your Nearish Future.

The serialization of The Wrong Lance has finished.  It will remain on Splinter Universe and Patreon through September 11 — coincidentally, my birthday.  On September 12 all chapters and authors notes will be removed and compiled into a chapbook, Splinter Universe Presents:  The Wrong Lance, for those folks who have requested a souvenir.  Here’s the cover art:

We expect to release this concurrently with the mass market edition of Accepting the Lance, on October 22.

Oh, what else?  Ah!  I moderated a panel at reCONvene on August 15, marking my first time as a moderator and a panelist at a virtual convention.  I had fun!  My panelists — Steven Barnes, Jenn Brissett, Br Guy Consolmagno, and Adrian Tchaikovsky — were brilliant and I’d do it again in a heartbeat, which!

Happens to be a good thing, because Steve and I will be participating in AlbaCon in the Afternoon on Sunday, August 30 — which is coming right up!  Other attendees are the writing team of Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald.  Steve and I will be reading — a bit from Trader’s Leap and another bit from a recent chapbook to be named later.  More information will be forthcoming as we have it.

Other than those two events, we’re staying pretty quiet, and healing from the Compleat Disruption of Everything which has been the last 19 months of our lives.  We’ve been reading a lot, as you can see from the lists I’ve been posting; taking advantage of the local Farm Pick Up for fresh fruits, veggies, meats, and cheeses, taking long country rides and visiting some of the little parks with which Maine is liberally sprinkled.  We depend on InstaCart for our grocery shopping, and I’m kind of pleased at the fall-off in necessary doctor visits.

On that front, I have do still have one more medical appointment — this Wednesday — before taking up the new aromatase inhibitor (the first having, um, invoked Unwanted Side Effects), and Seeing What Happens.  In the meanwhile, I have two pounds more to lose to hit the first 10 pounds my oncologist wants me to lose.  This is a two-part process:  first hit and maintain at 178 pounds, then move on to maintaining 170.

Yes, I have changed my diet, and it wasn’t really a hardship, since the “plant based” diet isn’t so very much different from what we’d been doing, anyway.  Basically, it’s less bacon, more fish, and lots more veggies, but — I like veggies.

I’m also slowly getting back to something resembling exercise, though — I never thought I’d say this — I miss the gym.  There you have it, though, I do miss the gym — almost as much as I miss going to the ocean.

Fans of the cats will wish to know that Belle has been feeling a little poorly.  The cause appears to be her calcium levels, and she is now on a weekly, very low dose of Fosamax, of all things.  She’ll have another blood draw in three to four weeks to see if this therapy is succeeding.

. . .I think that catches us up.  I will try to do better about updates, now that life has settled somewhat, if not exactly returned to normal.  Mostly, we’ll be writing, reading and cat herding here in Central Maine — which, come to think of it, is our normal.

Here’s a picture of Steve and me at Swan Lake State Park, in Swanville Maine.