Back from Hiatus

First day of fall and it’s a balmy 76 degrees out on the front porch this evening—a far cry from the triple-digit weather we had most of this summer. A nice breeze, courtesy of an impending storm, and lots of warm, golden sunshine. One of our cats is curled up on the glider beside me, enjoying a little nap.

I hope it stays like this for a while longer; I’m not ready to trade sitting out on the front porch for staying indoors. Nor am I quite ready to give up iced coffee (we’ve been drinking a modified version of Pioneer Woman’s recipe all summer), though even for me it’s been a little too chilly in the morning the last few days to drink something with ice in it. (Which is absolutely hilarious because, thanks to the heat, I didn’t drink hot coffee from sometime in June until last week. :D)

I took an unintentional hiatus from writing blog posts this summer. Part of that was due to health issues, holidays, family things, ect., but also because I’ve been working on Portal Woes like a crazy woman.

On that note, I finished the second draft of PW on Tuesday! 😀 The last few chapters were a bear to straighten out, but they finally came together. (The spreadsheet I have for the story’s timeline is insane.)

Rough draft ended up being 147,698 words. The second draft topped out at 155,624 words. I expect the finished product to be somewhere between the two.

My cover artist is currently finished up the artwork. What I’ve seen so far looks amazing. 😀

I’m excited about finishing PW and moving on to Book 3—I’ve been looking forward to writing the next installment in The Guardians series for years. 😀