Time flies when you spend most of it in conference calls – or at least that’s how the last couple of weeks have felt, at least! The day job is still doing its best to consume my brain and this month (and next) are offically Show Month for my dancing school (while I’m not a performer, I am part of the gang of volunteers who help make it happen) so things aren’t really likely to improve on the sanity front any time soon.

However, despite all that, I’m still making good progress on book 4. Although the first half still isn’t really finished, I have started making inroads into the second half now (believe it or not, I have a chunk of the final climax written!), so my goal this month is the same as last month’s: finish the first half! In an ideal and perfect world, not only would I finish the first half but get it over to my editor (*waves to J*) – but I think that’s severely optimistic, given the RL stuff.

I’ve also continued to work on Sage to get that book into shape. I did mention last month that there was a possibility that I could swap book 4 and Sage over, but the more I’ve worked on Sage and book 4 the more I think it would be better to retain the order as-planned. What this, potentially, means is book 4 may get pushed into next year (I am not trying to do another December release!), depending on how well writing and editing go over the next couple of months. Watch this space.

One thing that did fall quite severely by the wayside last month was the Friday Fiction post. I thought I had a story all ready to go and then I did a final reread of it and spotted about thirty places that needed work, so that ended up being shelved. However, I will have some time later in the month (I actually have a holiday planned!) where I can give it a proper edit, so it will appear later in the month and, in the meantime, I’m working on a brand new short story that I’m hoping will emerge next week. So this month should be a two-fer on the Friday Fiction front.

On the Music Monday front, there’s two posts remaining, plus a round up post. (Gosh, that one’s gone by quick!) Once that’s done there’ll be another haitus until book 4 comes out, although I may do a special music feature through August.

And in other news, Sekhmet has been entered into the SPFBO. This is an ‘awards’/competition for self-published fantasy novels, run by the novelist Mark Lawrence (who writes extremely compelling fantasy, though most tends to land on the GrimDark end of the spectrum). For more information (and to see how Sekhmet is doing), go here . And while you’re there, do check out the other books – there are some seriously awesome books involved. There are also links to past SPFBO editions as well, if you’re seeking more summer reading!

And I think that’s all.

Happy reading 🙂