So yeah. About that novel. As many of mine do, this one topped out at 56K. I have not been able to hit the magical 80K-and-readily-agentable mark in some time, so it's likely, with edits and additions I have yet to enter, Comes the Flood will be around 60K, which will limit my submissions strategy somewhat. Still, I think it's a good book, or will be when I've polished the shit off its heels. I finished this novel in May. Since then the pandemic's gotten worse, I spent a month in a partial hospitalization and have slept the large part of those days in total withdrawal mode. Without the kids and Heather I don't know what I would have done. As a result, Tough fell behind and the lion's share of the reading load and all of the editing fell to Tim Hennessy, to whom I am eternally grateful. We're catching up and back to postiing stories, and will be adding three new staffers this week so we hopefully will never have to take time off again. I have a chapbook tentatively due out beginning of the year and I'm taking some time off from the novel to write some last poems for it. Here's hoping.
I keep buying books as if I'm going to read them, and I just haven't been able to keep up my usual pace, even with poetry. I'm going to top off this year at about eighty. Plans for next year include more reading, 150 books read, two written and completed novels, one of which will be the final book in the Ridgerunner trilogy. I'm getting my first tattoo. I'm 51 in a month. I'm tired of fucking around. Now if my brain just cooperates.
