According to Nik, my editor at Aspen Mountain Press, Bittersweet will be released as a stand-alone ebook on August 14th.

I can’t wait to see what people think of the Candy Man :)

I got the art for Bittersweet’s ebook release. Amanda has done a great cover for me – look at this!

I just love it!

As you can see on the word meter on the right, I have been making some progress on Desert Alchemy. Not as much as I’d like but the last week has been a series of doctor appointments and Things That Must Get Done. I have managed to get my research and world binders set up, though.

My hand, however, is much better. The ER doctors should have put me on a different antibiotic (usually it’s Augmentin but I’m allergic to penicillin). Now that I’ve been on this one for a few days, the hand swelling is now confined to only where the actual bites are and the wounds aren’t pussy and gross. Now I have ugly huge scabs and it’s starting to itch. Itching is supposed to be a good sign but it makes me want to chew on the finger.

My doctors are pretty convinced that I dodged the bullet on having to have surgery to clean the wounds out. I’ve been diligently soaking it in warm water and cleaning the pus and gunk off so it can heal better and the punctures can drain. I did take some delight in grossing out my co-workers, though.

Today I can leave the finger without a dressing which is making typing MUCH easier. I have a followup appointment next week and the week after and have 15 more days of antibiotics to survive, then it will hopefully be cleared up. YAY!

Gah – can’t believe I haven’t blogged in two weeks but it’s been insane here. There are two things going on in the writing front. One is a massive update and revision to the story Escape to Me which is contracted by Ellora’s Cave. My new editor had some great points about things that needed to be changed and, of course, while I was in there, I found other things I wanted to change. Escape to Me was the first story I ever wrote and it shows – but not for much longer.

The other thing taking up a bunch of time is work on my Great Egyptian Steampunk – now called Desert Alchemy. I have an agent who would like to see a partial so I’ve been trying to get that done as well. This has been a bit strange because this is in first person and I’ve never written first person before. It took me probably 3 or 4 starts before I got what I wanted. Now to get the first 3-4 chapters done…

Forsake Not, which was going to be part of the July 4th anthology from Aspen Mountain Press, was not going to make the deadline with everything else I had going on. Not only would I have driven myself crazy to try to make it but I fear it wouldn’t be as good as it could be. So I’ll finish it a bit later and submit it either as a single title or for an anthology next year. Sorry guys, but I didn’t want to write crap or delay the anthology.

The really NOT fun part is that I was bitten on my left hand, rather seriously and multiple times, by one of my cats. It’s not the poor guy’s fault – I scared him and he reacted to try to get away. It’s solely my own fault. But cat bites are horribly bacteria laden and I’ve now spent time at the Emergency Room, my doctor’s office, a hand surgeon’s office and the office of an infectious disease specialist. The antibiotics given to me in the ER weren’t the correct ones and it took a day for me to get on the right ones. Then another day to take effect. So I basically have a red, swollen, pussy hand at the moment and it’s making life difficult. I THINK the redness has stopped spreading now – which is a good thing. Otherwise we’re talking the hospital and IV antibiotics plus maybe hand surgery. Keep your fingers crossed (mine are too swollen) the drugs all work and this clears up asap.

More in the next few days!

This is a tree that I thought had an interesting structure and loved the look when I stood under it and stared up.