Musings for a Summer's Night
It's almost Litha, or Summer Solstice, here and I'm getting used to the fact that there's very little darkness at night this far north. Sunset is around ten o'clock at night, and the sky stays the deep blue of Astronomical Twighlight instead of going completely black. It'll be a few more weeks before we start getting full Night again and are able to really see the stars again. I'm finding this rather fascinating, from a weather-nerd point of view.
It does, however, make it difficult to maintain a good sleep schedule. I'm primarily an night owl, and I've tried to train myself to go to bed around 10 or so, but my body keeps saying, "The sun's still out! Not time for sleeps! Time for doing stuff!" At the moment, all I can really do is give in to this and try to work with my mental state instead of fighting it. There's been a few times where I'll still be wide awake at 3 or 4 am, brain full of scenes for my books, where I just sigh, put on some clothes, and head for my office. I think it's better for me to just dump all that's in my head rather than try and fight my brain.
On the upside, my creativity is skyrocketing right now. Between having my immigration stuff sorted out, the long days, and being in the land of Druids and Bards, my mind is just overflowing with ideas. It also didn't hurt that my Wife introduced me to writing in Markdown with VSCode, which makes my former-Quality-Control self positively giddy. Traceability! Versioning! Being able to see all my book files at once! Being able to add italics and bold without disrupting my typing flow!
I'm fully converted now, and, like my ergonomic keyboard, it's a tool that I will use until the grave.
The other advantage of working in markdown is that it will make the publishing workflow easier, too. Definitely a win. Especially since I'm getting close to finishing The White Queen (Loba Hot Springs Series Book 1). I'm not sure when it's exactly going to come out, but hopefully at the beginning of next year. I'll keep you all posted.
There have been life things getting in the way of getting Nemetona (Survey Series Book 5) out, but I'm hoping we can get it out by the end of the year. Along with the Nemetona release will be text revisions and formatting corrections to all the Survey books and updated covers with my pen-name. But those revisions are going to happen after I finish The White Queen manuscript.
I'll also be publishing the poetry I did for Lent into a book (under Rev. Gina A. Pond) which I'm calling Beatitudes of an Immigrant. The manuscript is complete and I'm excited that my Mom is doing the artwork for the cover! We'll probably release that sooner rather than later to test run our new publishing workflow before we run the novels.
The other exciting creative thing I'm doing is taking voice lessons so I can act out my audiobooks better. I was telling my new voice teacher that there was a time, especially after my undergrad where I used to be an over-the-air radio DJ, where I wanted to be an NPR Radio presenter. I did do a religious interview podcast called This Week In Heresy (which you can still listen to), and of course, many of you have heard me on Twitch and listened to my Tales from Flat Space podcast, but even with those, there's a lot of technique that I need to learn so I don't damage my voice and to sound more convincing in character. I'm hoping that I'll have enough practice in so that when I start doing the Nemetona podcasts on Twitch, it'll be easier and better!
(Side note: I won't be doing any of the Loba Hot Springs series on the podcast as they are NSFW and violate Twitch's TOS, but I will record regular audiobooks for them eventually.)
One last thought for this post is that, if you're not already subscribed to my site, it's to your advantage to do so, since I will be posting more subscriber-only sneak peeks and information, including pre-order announcements well before I announce them publicly. I know, I know, you're thinking: "Gah! Another subscription!" and I get it, but my blog will always be free to subscribe to. It's the best way to get the most up-to-date info about my books, especially if other avenues, like BlueSky or Tumblr, are taken away from me (which, unfortunately, is not out of the realm of possibility).
Now it's time to go back to finishing The White Queen and listening to the sounds of the pub next door. Sundays get pretty lively, actually.
Stay safe, friends, and Blessed Solstice!