Personally, at least, it was a week of mostly good news.
Deadly Inheritance is now past all proof-reading and review stages, for both hardback and paperback versions, and is going to print. I don’t have any hard and fast numbers, but I suspect it will be available for purchase very soon. I was contacted Saturday morning to make the last adjustments, if necessary (there were none), and thus I postponed my fence project for half a day.
Fence project, you ask?
Yeah. After spending more than I feared on a six-foot chain link enclosure for our new dogs, Trip and Trigger, I have now had to reinforce the enclosure with wood. The dogs insisted upon it. We adopted the dogs from the Jenks, Okla., animal shelter: two Siberian Huskies, fairly young. I brought them home last Monday. On Tuesday morning, I opened the back door to find them out of the enclosure, awaiting me and, I suppose, breakfast. The younger dog had worried the wire fence where it attached to the bottom of the gate, created a hole just large enough, and there you have it. The amazing thing is that they did not leave for parts unknown but were content to stay around the house.
Since Tuesday morning I have had them boarded in a nearby kennel until I could make improvements. Some of it took place on Thursday, most of it yesterday, and I finished the job this afternoon after my morning church duties. I’ll bring them home tomorrow.
In the meantime, I am sore, bloodied and fatigued from working on the fence. Bloodied only because I cut myself on various pieces of wood screws and wire, sore and fatigued because there was a great deal of crawling around on cold ground, and a lot of getting up and down. Not used to it.
But it’s a good fatigue because the job looks good, seems pretty secure, and the exercise is useful. (I’m in the middle of what looks to be a successful weight loss effort.)
In other news, I’m working on a second novel and, in the middle of it, a short story that I am compelled to write while the plot line is burning in my mind. I’m thinking it may anchor a collection of short stories I’ve been sketching.
I haven’t the heart at the moment to discuss what a garbage week it was for the nation. You can get plenty of that reaction elsewhere. I prescribe prayer and patience, no matter what you read, hear or view in the mainstream media or on social media, plus a plea to be as objective as you can and review all possible evidence before making judgments.
Later.
After the Gold Rush 