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If only.

It'll be nice to have a week or a month off, once All This is taken care of. I got to wondering why I'm quite so tired and took a look at the year so far.

Since January, we've:

*written one entire novel
*driven 1800 miles, with a snowstorm on each end and a convention in between
*attended to the revision letter for the novel written
*entered what ought to be the last-sprint phase for Crystal Dragon, but feels more like a brisk walk, with discursions
*got the tax papers in order and visited the accountant
*not taken delivery of 500 books three times
*written a detailed synopsis for the artist
*read a book for quote
*took care of various SRM business challenges and backlogged accounting, as needed
*finally, say amen, took delivery of the 500 books, which now need to be signed, boxed and shipped.

This counts for 'way busy around here, though I'm aware that many people are much busier in the usual way of things. I noticed it particularly yesterday, when the books finally showed up, trailing snow flurries -- and my only thought was, "Well, finally. Missed that spurt of jubilation upon looking on the shiny faces of my children. Ah, well...

In other parts of the forest, busy people have been busy on our behalf:

Madame the Agent has placed the core three Liaden books (Agent of Change, Conflict of Honors, and Carpe Diem) with a German publisher.

and...

Meisha Merlin's agent has sold the right to publish Balance of Trade in Russian to AST.

Gonna sign some books now...

More on Eddie

We signed a couple boxes of books this morning after breakfast, when we were both still to bleary to work, then kinzel went off to finish the last of the Sword of Orion revisions and I boxed up the two most giant orders -- forty books going to Uncle Hugo's SF Bookstore in Minneapolis, and twenty going to Larry Smith. Then I filled out the waybills and called FedEx. Eddie arrived with dispatch and wafted the boxes away. If all goes well, there will be signed copies of Crystal Soldier in Minneapolis before the weekend.

I have written, and it's Really Good. Always a bad sign. Hard, hard scene, and I've been dodging it for a few weeks now (I'll just allude to it in conversation; that'll work, right? Wrong. Sigh. Think I'd learn. In any case, all done now. Phew.).

Time to go help kinzel celebrate his victory, and then -- maybe we'll sign some more books.
******

Project: Crystal Dragon, Second Draft
New Words Written: 935
Total Words: 101,087
Goal: 120,000+/- words on or before March 31