Summer seems to have suddenly appeared on the horizon; in the short space of a month, I’ve gone from wearing my thermal running gear to something far lighter, and ditched the beanie for a sweatband. Back in Maine, it always felt like the dreary rain of Spring would never end; here in Arizona, we get like fifteen minutes of temperate weather before jumping headlong into Summer. I’ve come to appreciate that subtle shift from ice box to pizza oven, but have never really gotten over my surprise at how quickly it happens here in the desert.
It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other; I’m terribly sorry about that, but it’s been for a good cause. You might remember I began writing the next novel in the Vasily Korsokovach series back in late March with an eye toward getting it completed by the end of April.
I’m about two-thirds of the way through Mirage; considering I’ve only got two days left to hit my goal, it looks like work on this one is likely going to bleed over a bit into May. That’s not a bad thing — as my wife is fond of saying, it takes what it takes to get to a properly finished product, and I’m not a fan of rushing just to meet an artificial deadline that I set for myself. I suppose it’s just a little bit like that famous line from Pirates of the Caribbean: my schedule is more like a guideline than an actual rule.
Anyway, it’s been actually quite a fascinating novel to write. And as with most of my stories, when I get to the back third of the book, I tend to find things begin to happen very, very quickly. Occasionally it also means I need to go back and make a few minor tweaks to the beginning to ensure everything sinks up just right; it’s never a good thing to discover my detective is missing a key piece of evidence — which, of course actually means the author overlooked inserting something terribly important in the first third of the book.
I am hoping to get quite a few hours of writing in this weekend. There are a few other things competing for my attention of course, one of them being the second to last home stand for our beloved Arizona softball team. My wife and I have been season-ticket holders for years now, though this particular year has been a hard one for us to actually make many of the games. I have to admit to no small level of guilt over our inability attend, for the team has struggled quite a bit this year; I know having fans in the stands helps to keep them motivated despite the very real possibility they might not make the postseason for the first time in recent memory.
The end of April and beginning of May is always a transitional period for me. As somebody who works in a university campus, that’s always the time when campus clears out for the summer — and ushers in that brief but welcome period when we can park almost anywhere we want. The largest downside, though, is that that without students on campus most of my favorite coffee hang out places are closed for the season, and getting any kind of decent food is problematic. Still, it’s a small price to pay for the quiet solitude of getting the entire campus to ourselves.
Most of us who are full-time staff try to squeeze in our vacations over the summer since it’s the biggest amount of downtime that we get all year. I don’t have a lot planned myself this season, other than going to my usual Star Trek convention in August; I might take a few long weekends here or there and maybe pop in to some places that my wife and I want to get to you while it’s quiet. It’s not the students that evaporate when the heat begins; most of our winter visitors also head back to the far flung reaches of the country once the thermometer threatens to go above 90. I remember my first July here and just how empty the parking lot at my local Safeway was; it’s pretty nice to be able to park right in front of the doors, something we can’t really do between Thanksgiving and Easter.
As the calendar turns to May, that means my next release is on the horizon. I put the finishing touches on Focus a little more than a week ago; save for tweaking the X-Ray entries for the Kindle edition, it’s ready to go across all form factors. I used a slightly different system for preparing for publication and really like how it turned out. The best part is that now everything looks consistent — whether you read me on KDP or hardcover, I finally know for sure you’re seeing the text the way I’d intended it to be read. Let me know what you think when you see it — I’d love any feedback you might provide.
Okay — back to writing Mirage!