I can’t believe we’re into August 2021! For me, it’s been a strange, wonderful, busy year.

Unbelievably.

I thought I was going to be able to get back to recording audiobooks in June, but the weather until recently was so hot that it didn’t happen. Things are finally cooling off, so I imagine that I’ll be getting back to my booth more as we head into fall and definitely this winter. To be mostly soundproof, a space has to be mostly air-tight. That means my 3’x3′ Whisper Room gets hot fast, especially in the summertime. I much rather prefer to be in the booth when it’s cold outside so I’m nice and toasty warm. My house is not air-tight, so in the winter it can be quite a shock when I step outside of the booth. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve retreated back inside the booth.

The wildfires aren’t helping either. They cut my time short last year because all the smoke we had in the air aggravated my throat and I didn’t dare record while feeling raw. This year, we haven’t had the amount of smoke as we did last year, probably due to fires being further away from us. Still, the last thing I want to do is injure myself senselessly.

Anyway, it’ll be a while before there are more audiobooks from me, though I am about halfway through my current recording project for Merri Halma. There are so many diverse characters in this story and I’m having a fun time (when I can get in the booth) with the voices.

I’ve been using a lot of my time to finish The Missing Thread (Legend 5 of the Sacred Knight series) as well as writing book #6. I’m within spitting distance so to speak of finishing that book. I even have a beautiful cover mocked up for it, which makes me so excited to get it done. Anyway, the plan is to have The Missing Thread out in time for FanX in September 2021. That means there will probably be a release date sometime soon.

I’ve also been writing a bunch of short stories. Some of them are involved with projects that I have coming up, but there are two out now.

In Space Ninjas Aren’t Real, I introduced soulcolists, people who collect the souls of the dead. Tree of Death is about a soulcolist named Spencer. He shows up at a cemetery and there are no souls there. What gives? His story took an unexpected turn for me and was a lot of fun to write, so much so that I’ll probably have to write more stories with Spencer. He would certainly give me a good character to explore several ideas through. The ebook is only $1.99 (as of this writing – price subject to change at any time). It’s also in print from Amazon at $5.99.

This light, fun short story is not about a soulcolist, but rather about a woman on vacation who sees ghosts. They ignored her until she laughed at their antics. Now they want her attention. They have a problem that only she can solve. The ebook is only $1.99 (do I have to say it again? Yes, I guess I do. This price is subject to change, but as of this writing is good and will be for the current foreseeable future).

Well, I don’t want to go on too long, so I’ll stop here for now. I’ll be back with more summertime updates soon.

PS. I would love to start doing a daily blog like my writing friend, Dean Wesley Smith. He’s been at his blog for 9 years, every day, through power outages, hospitalizations, computer crashes, etc. However, I think my life is too boring for that sort of thing. (I know, to someone else my life is exciting). I also wonder if we’re writing for two different audiences, which is okay. If you have ideas or suggestions for things you’d like me to present on my blog, let me know in the comments section below. Maybe it’ll get me started.