November felt like I was drowning in travel plans – first we had a couple trips for regattas, then a trip to CA to see family with a quick visit to Ted’s parents on the way way, another visit to his parents for Thanksgiving, and then I had to reserve hotels and such for a vacation in Florida in January. It will be a road trip so there are a lot of hotels needed plus a car and cat sitter.
But! December gave me plenty of time at home and my beta readers were speedy, so now the The Heart of Percival is just about ready to go to my editor (maybe a few more tweaks…) She was able to make space in her calendar earlier than we’d planned, so I will be sending it off at the end of December. I wasn’t planning on starting the still-nameless Percival Book 3 until Book 2 was out in the world, but between the time until I send the THoP manuscript out and the time the editor needs to work through it, I’ve got almost a month. Which is why I got the first thousand words of Book 3 written yesterday.
I’ve also been playing with ideas for what to do PP (Post-Percival) because I think I am going to stick to my original intention to make it a trilogy rather than a longer series. Not saying I won’t ever come back to Percival, but if I do it will be a different story or another different main character. (There might also be a short story or two.)
One more thing: My short time-travel story, The SubTime Station, has now been published in The Sands of Time, a collection presenting SF stories from fans of Jodi Taylor’s Chronicles of St Mary’s series. So far it just seems to be available on Amazon (US | UK | Australia | Canada ). All profits go to charity.
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About Release Dates
One of the big differences between traditional and self-publishing is around release dates. When you’re working with a big publisher, they choose the release date and it depends on a lot of things including marketing and their other planned releases. As a result, there’s typically a long wait…
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Quick update (Status of the Author, Feb 2026)
I’m still well on track for releasing The Heart of Percival by the middle of March (though Amazon shows a later date – that’s for safety since they let you pull dates in but not push them out. I’ve incorporated all of the editor’s feedback, and now I’m…
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Books about stuff
Book 3, as yet untitled, is cruising along – well over 11,000 words! We’re heading out next week for a road trip, no idea how much I’ll get done on travel but I am taking my laptop. Meanwhile, the books I’ve been reading are making unexpected links in…
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Status of the Author, December 2025
November felt like I was drowning in travel plans – first we had a couple trips for regattas, then a trip to CA to see family with a quick visit to Ted’s parents on the way way, another visit to his parents for Thanksgiving, and then I had…
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My first reading!
Wednesday night I had my first reading as an author! When I published my first book, the publisher flew me out to Rhode Island to seek to a group of CEOs there that bring authors out every month. I’ve also presented on my book’s topics within companies I…
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Two photos that say a lot…
…but whether about retirement or the writers’ life, I’m not certain. I. When I was a kid, I used to tease my grandfather for wearing plaid pants together with a striped shirt. He was of the generation of old people that dressed more formally – he still wore…
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The midlife fantasy formula
So, there’s a subgenre that’s been proliferating like mad lately: Midlife Women’s Fantasy. I read it because there are so many things I love in it. Myths and magical houses are often incorporated. It makes me angry because the beginnings are generally so formulaic and stereotypical. And then…
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Breaking the rules
When I was writing and editing AHiP, I read a lot of advice from writing communities on places like Reddit and Quora. Some of it was extremely helpful, especially in detailing how to work with Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing and IngramSpark, and in whether and why I might…
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Why switch to fiction?
Mostly, to see if I could. So there I was, newly retired but too young to sit around, with 35 years of engineering and one nonfiction book behind me. I’m happy enough to spend time reading, rowing, knitting and all the rest of it, but I know how…
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Why did I write my first book?
Frustration (and opportunity) By the time I wrote my first book, I’d been a Quality Manager in a few different industries: aerospace, internet, semiconductor. We’d decided it was time to go back to the US after 6 years overseas, and there wasn’t a place for me in the…