A Busy Summer

 


It's been a busy summer - the usual apologies for not posting. The picture is an old one, taken by R. Mann at a convention in 2016, but I wore the costume just a couple of weekends ago, at the Legacy Expo in Burbank. Legacy Expo is a WONDERFUL Star Wars convention. It concentrates on the "Expanded Universe" (i.e. both the current backstory of the Star Wars universe, and the backstory as envisioned in the original bunch of novels back in the '90s). It's an entirely fan-run convention, though their relations with Disney and Lucasfilm are very cordial. Thus, it's small, and feels very friendly - and, my thanks, here, to the wonderful con committee. I gather it's only put on every couple of years. I think the next one will be in 2028, but Legacy Expo is working on planning smaller events in the interim.

The convention fell in the middle of a tight deadline to read and correct the final copyedit of the next Hollywood murder-mystery - Death in the Palace - which came right after the stress and upheaval of having my house re-piped (during which the air conditioning system AND the refrigerator broke down), which co-incided with some rather extensive reading/research for a possible new project and with the writing of outlines for the next couple of murder mysteries. (During that time the State of California decided also to make repairs on the San Diego Freeway, which is the ONLY route through the hills from where I live to the dojo where I train, involving much backed-up traffic and two flat tires in a single week due to, I think, construction debris on the freeway). (Two visits to tire stores and a rather unexpected - though fortunately benign - afternoon spent in Urgent Care for a problem unrelated to traffic or cars).

So, I'm very tired.

Things are calming down. The manuscript is in, the toilets flush efficiently, the house is cool, ice comes out of the ice-maker, and supposedly the work on the freeway will be done by the end of the month. I am working at smoothing out the draft of an Asher/Ysidro novella which I hope to have up on Amazon & Draft-to-Digital in the next month or so, if I can figure out how to do the necessary formatting.

I hope all is well for all of you.

The usual promises to be better about posting in the future.

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