As I type this, I’m sitting and watching a Christmas episode of Doctor Who with my family (at -29C and after a week of snow, it seems about right) and, once again, marveling at the originality of the ideas these writers came up with. Like, seriously, every story they think of is just brilliant. Also, I’ve watched an episode and a half while writing this paragraph, so this is not a good way to multitask. (Note: I was watching the first two episodes of modern Season Seven with Matt Smith.)

But, I digress.

Since my last personal post, it seems as though the world has been turned upside down by coronavirus. That’s just my perspective on the timeline, of course, sheltered in the wilds of Canada. Three weeks ago, China had already been enduring the ravages of the virus for months, but it was only about to plunge our side of the planet into the plot of Contagion.*

What a different three weeks makes.

All the functions I was supposed to attend in the next few months have been cancelled—Creative Ink, Aurora-Con, and more than likely, my year-end piano recital at the end of May (though I’ve been holding off cancelling the hall in case things turn around by then). Not just those, of course. The world is on hold as people stay home and try to avoid coming into contact with or spreading the virus, doing our part to “flatten the curve.”

So, the kids came home a week early for spring break. After two weeks of scrambling and heroism, their teachers began teaching classes online this past week.

I also began teaching piano lessons through online streaming sessions in the past week, so that’s been a fun learning experience for everyone. I can see using that method in emergencies in the future during inclement weather or other emergencies. We’ll see how it goes. One thing’s for certain—the world may be in chaos, but streaming companies are having a very good month.

Writing News

Two weeks ago at this time, I was also in the middle of a different sort of crisis—a writing one. The word count on The Sphinx’s Heart kept going up, and based on where I was in the plot, my estimated final word count was getting into “alarming” territory, especially for young adult fiction. (For posterity’s sake, I suspect it would have finished up around 240,000 words—which is almost as long as Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. But I ain’t J.K. Rowling, and this isn’t book five of an addictive runaway series. That word count is just plain intimidating to most people.)

So, after a weekend of soul-searching and plot analyzing, I decided to split the book. And even still, I’m guessing the book will come in around 155,000 words—only 9,000 short of the first book.

Yep, it would have been a really long book.

That means my trilogy has now escalated to grand ol’ “series” status. As I’ve thought about it, I may even be able to split my planned original third book, making the main series five books long (not including my prequel The Waterboy).

The good news is, that means I will likely be able to finish the book in the next few months and publish this fall. The way things were looking before, I didn’t think that would be possible. Because really long books? They take a really long time to write.

In other news, I posted the cover for The Sphinx’s Heart on Patreon today. It’s so beautiful, I can’t wait to go public with it, but that will wait until next week.

Welcome Daisy Duke!

Only a week and a half after we lost Sunshine, we were asked to take another dog by a family friend who recently lost his wife to cancer and is moving away to be closer to his kids. We hadn’t planned to get another dog right away. But, given the circumstances, we agreed and welcomed Daisy into our family (whom he had named Daisy Duke, which is totally fun, but we just call her Daisy).

She and Hiro get along like two peas in a pod. Plus, she has an awesome doggy smile.

The only down side is they think tormenting the cats as a tag team is good sport, so we’re working on nipping that game in the bud.

Milestones

Yesterday, Levi would have been eight. Despite a busy work day for Jason and me, we celebrated with pan cookies and ice cream after supper. Jabin made the cookies, Jason bought the ice cream, and all three boys tried blowing out candles and still missed one.

It was perfect.

On Wednesday, I did a Facebook Live video on my author page talking about how I’ve been handling the pandemic, offering some encouragement, and even singing a song. You can check it out here:

Happy Friday, friend. May we all still fit into our wardrobes by the time we’re out of quarantine and have stopped binge-eating comfort food. (I kid you not, I’ve baked and eaten more baking in the last three weeks than in the previous three years. Jeepers.)

*Which we watched last weekend, by the way. I hadn’t seen it before, and considering the scope of what they were showing, it was exceptionally well done. However, I’m not sure watching it was a great idea. While the virus in that movie was way more aggressive than COVID-19, it was both a terrifying emotional journey and, once it was over, felt like we should also be on the other side of our current threat.

But that’s not the way it works.