Clearly the stress has started to take its toll. My mind is breaking slowly, but certainly. Last night I had a dream that we had a dog, a big dog, named Buckley. At some point in the course of things, he was knighted by the Queen.

Apparently this was not according to the plan, because someone said, “We didn’t get into this just so Buckley could get knighted.”

Let’s not get sidetracked here, people. It’s good that the people in my dream can stay on point.

More distressingly, Sir Buckley got pepper sprayed at one point. I have no idea why, but it was entirely unnecessary. Then I woke up, probably to the sound of a dog barking outside.

So, next week, my mom is going to be staying with me for a few days. We’re planning on hitting the town, hanging out, seeing some shows and overall having an absurdly good time. Last night, I decided to test out some better-for-you snacks. I picked up some super tasty corn tortilla flat bread crackers, pepper jack cheese (was lazy, didn’t stop at the really yummy cheese place in town), and got some veg and hummus from Trader Joe’s.

Mmm, tasty treats

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I call it, “fury of the sea.”

Holy shit. Chapter eight was the hardest chapter I’ve had to write so far. I fleshed out a formerly minor character (though a pretty interesting minor character), into a much more important character, then decided she made a lot more sense in a different part of the world and in a different book. I literally switched her out with her brother. It fits. It’s the right thing to do. But it took a week of obsessively mapping out the details and trying to write several versions of the same chapter before I figured it out. This was a problem that went back to some of the original drafts, where this character was a key player and essentially had to be in two places at once. I think this is an efficient and rather elegant solution to that problem, and it means we get to see a lot more of her in the future (which I like – it’s a nice consolation prize for the fact that she’s only briefly mentioned in the first book). She also got a name change.

Anyway, for those of you who have so kindly offered to beta read, I will be sending some more chapters out in the coming week. In the meantime, if you’re in the US, please have a happy and safe fourth of July! For everyone else, have a great weekend.