It’s been a quiet last week here at the homestead. Here are Onion and Potato demonstrating cat chillery. I camped out an evening for the Fourth, but returned to the cats the next afternoon.
The final proofread version of The Deer Stalker is with the publisher, and layout for book should be done shortly. I’ll have a publishing date soon! The book will come out around the first of August: Lughnasadh.
You can barely see her, but that’s a doe in my backyard. She and (I think) one of her sisters have been hanging around here lately, bounding away if a local dog comes by.
It’s a fitting visit for another milestone for The Deer Stalker. I’ve finished and handed off my final copyedit. Now this draft goes to the pro copy editor for a few more refinements. Then it’s time to go to print. I’ll let you know when I have a print date.
I came back from a family trip to find my orchid blooming, after several years when it hasn’t.
Also waiting for me, I found the line edit from my publisher.
Book two, The Deer Stalker, is close to ready! We’re aiming at an early August release—Lughnasadh, first fruits.
After my morning witch-practice, I often leave my deity and ancestor candles burning a while for connection and in their honor.
This morning, after I was done, Potato decided to sit with my ancestors and deities too. If Cat-Mom does it every morning, maybe it’s useful for cats…?
This is a candle burning for Hekate, my muse and goddess, as I send my second draft to my publisher for review!
Outdoors, it’s celebrating spring. The dogwood is in bloom, and I’m editing book two to my publisher’s comments.
It’s a bit odd that it’s so springy out, when one timeline in the book is set in autumn. Another is set in spring, but spring in England. That timeline shares the bluebells and the blue skies but not the dogwood.
It had been over for a while, the relationship, really.
Toward the turn of the year, I started feeling bored. We’d been fighting a lot, but I kept hanging in there. And then part of me said, I’m done.
It’s rarely me who ends a relationship, although we all know that the first one out wins. Perhaps there’s a small thrill of victory.
I’m sad, though.
I’m waiting for my publisher to get comments back to me, from her initial structural-edit pass on book two. (Next pass is line-editing.) She does a great job, and I look forward … oh, who am I kidding? I look forward to her finding no problems whatsoever. But I hardly expect that.
In the meantime, I’m living life, and ignoring an essay I’m supposed to write. I had to go look at my astrology for the past couple of days, though, because what I’ve done is this:
So glad Mercury is going direct! It’s been a hard one, this Pisces retrograde. For me, it came as the return of old sorrows—old relationships snuffed out, things that will never be mended.
But luckily, it turns out, at least I won’t have to bother myself with writing any more. Potato has taken over the author’s chair.
Witchy beauty of a full worm moon, how I love you! The wind is up, spring is here, the frogs are calling out romance. Woodsmoke floats in the air, sweet and a little dangerous. Equinox, hello.