First chapter of MORGAN BAROD’s back from the editor!

I look at the notes at random, and see something helpfully pointed out that I should have blessed well considered the first go-round. Plus the usual list of darlings to kill, most of which I thought I had gotten already. This is why you need an editor, folks. If you are going to self-publish, you can do a lot of stuff yourself; but you can’t do without an editor and you can’t do without a book cover designer. Sorry.

MORGAN BAROD is off to the editor!

Huzzah! Many thanks to my long-suffering wife and alpha reader, and the considerably less suffering beta readers, for their opinions and reactions. I dunno how long the book’s gonna be in edits, but hopefully we can hit a summer release date. The cover is likewise being worked on right now, and is getting pretty close to done.

In other news: Galactic Con is still a thing, although I’m still trying to figure out how to factor in bathroom breaks. TINSEL RAIN I start working on tomorrow, and I’m not entirely looking forward to it, honestly. There’s a lot of stitching that has to happen. And I would like to do a bunch of writing this summer, now that school’s winding down. But note the italics.

But enough of that. The book is at the editor’s! That means it’s not my problem until corrections start coming back! Huzzah!

The second shot is *hammering* me today.

It really is a lot worse when you get the second shot. Fatigue, my arm hurts, and I think I may be running an actual fever?

On the other hand, I woke up this morning saying Wait! Morgan Barod needs to kill a monster made of slime and human vertebrae! Which is correct: he did, and it fixed a chapter nicely, I think. So yay, vaccine-induced fevers.

Well, MORGAN BAROD proceeds apace.

Got about half of the beta readers back in full and the other half are sending me stuff, so that’s on track. I also have the editor confirmed, and contracted out for the map (I absolutely needed to have a map for this book). The cover’s being worked on already, as you all know. I expect MORGAN BAROD will go to the editor at some time in May. I expect I’m going to try to work on TINSEL RAIN also in May, and until it’s time for me to do edits for MORGAN BAROD. If I have any time left over after that, I’m going to get a jump on the new novel.

Oh, and I’m planning a side project involving “Pickman’s Model.” Keep watching the skies…

The alpha read of MORGAN BAROD has been processed.

This bad boy clocks in at just over 85,000 words. Now comes the fun part: the beta read. And the alpha-reread. And the edits. And more edits. And MOAR EDITS, until the end of time.

If you want to be in on the beta read, drop me a line. I am running a little behind, so quick turnover would be helpful.