Seriously. It may not seem like it, but I am actually still alive.
Apologies again for the paucity of blogging. I feel I owe you (both of you, the dedicated ones still checking this in vain hope) a bit of an explanation. My absence from these pages is not, all appearances to the contrary, owing to sloth. Well, no more so than usual. And it's not that I'm not writing — I'm just not writing here.
I've been in the final stages of the final story of the possible collection for the last several weeks. I've been promising people "Just a couple of days more" for a long, long time. The story, however, isn't cooperating. It just keeps getting longer. Which, as far as problems a writer should have, is a pretty good one.
It's just about done now, though. I mean it this time. Really. Tomorrow morning should put the first draft (weighing in at, oh, about 22,000 words) behind me. And then the revision, and a bit of tweaking on the other stories, and the collection is done, and Toronto-bound and out of my hands.
The last story? Well, I don't want to say too much, but let's see. It's called Winter's Tale, and it uses for its epigraph that line from the Shakespeare play of the same name, "… a sad tale's best for winter". I don't tend to write on demand too much, but this one's for Cori, the girl who worries about the state of my sanity given the darkness of some of my recent stories. Does this one have a happy ending? With a title like that?
Anyway, I promise, I will be doing more blogging shortly. There's lots to talk about, including birthdays and anniversaries, lunar eclipses and learning to fall on Bowen Island. But those are each entries in and of themselves and right now it's bedtime, that I might rise early and strong and write through to The End.
Stay well, everybody.