Dawning Sky – An Artist's Site

It would appear that the last “public” post I made on the blog happened in the middle of October. According to all of the calendars at my disposal, we’re nearly a third of the way into November, and lots of things have happened since that last post. While some challenges have come up, most things have been overwhelmingly positive. New titles have hit Audible, a favorite series has resumed, and several changes for the better have resolved at the dayjob. And to top things off, the past few weeks have been gangbusters with respect to audiobook sales.

(Insert celebratory dance here.)

For the past few months, I have had the amazing fortune to read for some very talented authors. I’ve finished the main read for Empire of Bones by Terry Mixon, and we’ve been making the final tweaks on some of the characters and dialogue. Note to self: always ask about accents and write that stuff down. I can’t wait until the audiobook goes live; the story has a fantastic cast of characters and is written at a compelling pace. It’s the literary equivalent of eating that entire bag of peanut butter pretzels and not realizing that you got to the bottom until you’re hitting the crumbs and wishing you had more. Luckily, Terry is doing this as a series, so people won’t have to wait too long until the next story.

November marked the beginning of recording the second story in Jennifer Melzer’s Edgelanders series. Sorrow’s Peak is such a joy to read, and Jenny’s characters have already burrowed into my heart to stay there for a very long time. This epic fantasy is a beautiful example of worldbuilding and how to use a rich mythos to carry characters through their own trials and tribulations. The first book in the series has been one of my best-selling narrations, and I can’t wait to see how Veil of Shadows does when it comes out at the end of the year.

A few weeks ago, I decided to start up the eighth season of the Secret World Chronicle. Having a Sunday evening release schedule makes it a little easier for me to maintain the recording on top of the rest of my commitments. I had thought about splitting the season, but the book doesn’t have a good halfway point. So, Season Eight will span the entire fourth book and will be comprised of forty-five separate episodes. My intent will be to wrap the season in time for Parsec eligibility (because keeping the finalist streak up is important) so there will be some weeks where more than one episode will drop. Those will likely happen after January, but they will happen.

And the dayjob… well, without going into too many specifics, the dayjob situation has improved. Some of this improvement has happened because of larger university changes. While it will never make me complacent about my job description or the roles and responsibilities ascribed to that job description, it does answer some of my concerns since moving into my role seven years ago. One of my programs finally got a national certification, so that was definitely a Good Thing. And finally… I’ve gotten better about picking my battles and choosing where to direct my energies. This past weekend at a conference for the dayjob was an interesting reminder of the skills I already possess and the value they represent.

Oh, and I received the reminder that confidence will always be a sticking point when trying to get to the next level in any profession, be it behind a microphone or behind my desk on campus. Dan Sawyer said something about it to me at Balticon this past year, and one of the presenters at the conference told me that confidence was necessary if I wanted to combat the issue of bias against younger academic affairs professionals.

So, there is November. Thanks to recording obligations, academic priorities, and the need to rework Hollow, I am not participating in NaNoWriMo this year. Perhaps next year will allow for a monthlong dedication to a single novel. For now, I’m still writing every day and maintaining the habit until I can prioritize words for a single project.

And hopefully, I’ll write again before December rolls around.