Evening, everyone!

It’s been chaotic over the last week. The Inauguration, the impeachment, stuff with my hands, my father in law here for a weekend, laptop drama with the son.

And two chapters that had been driving me NUTS for weeks!

One thing at a time, I suppose. We have a new President, and things are getting better. COVID is still around, we’re living in historic times that we’ll tell stories about one day. Whether or not we laugh remains to be seen. I do find it odd to know that three of the four impeachments have happened during my lifetime.

I really want morals, ethics, and compassion to make a comeback. Not just in politics, but everywhere.

After six weeks of wearing the splint at night on my right trigger finger, I took it off for a test run. It hadn’t misfired for almost five weeks. I was hopeful. Three days later, I woke up with it being stiff. I’m back to wearing the splint. It’s not big, doesn’t disrupt my sleep, but it’s obvious that my finger’s not healed yet. Given how wonky it was, I’m not overly surprised or disappointed. The plan is to wear it another six weeks and try again.

The son’s laptop cracked, so we bought him a new one. I drove to his University after work, dropped it off, came home. It was a long day, but that’s what moms do. Unfortunately, that particular unit was defective. He was having issues within a few hours and never got it working properly, even after updates, reinstalling the OS, and doing a factory reset.

This time, he drove home. Took him to the store, returned it, and let him shop for a different one. The new one was more expensive, but it’s perfect for art students. It works, too!

I’ve been working on ‘Shield & Scepter’ more, especially now that the holidays are over. I had two chapters, though, that I could NOT get right. Either the characters were wrong, the emotional notes were off, or dialogue was stilted. I must’ve rewritten each of them a dozen times, but I got them to work finally. Over the last two days, I’ve added over 4k words to the book. As far as word count, it’s roughly at the halfway point. I work tomorrow morning, but home early. I’m halfway through a chapter and I know how it’s going to end…even the first bits of the next one. My mind has to get into the right place to write it down, though. If I do this right, it’ll be a gut punch to the reader. Predictable for the character whose PoV I’m in, but still makes the reader wonder what happens next.

That’s the question all authors try to answer while making you guess at the same time. If we do our job, you’re surprised. Sometimes, you’ll scream at us. Other times, you’ll cry or be grateful that it came out the way you wanted. What a bad author will do is telegraph it so far in advance that you know everything before you get to the reveal.

I really try hard not to do that. Hopefully, those who read my books will say I do a good job.

BB/Chan Eil Eagal Orm