This Writer's Diary
May 30th, and a summer hiatus (mostly).
I thought we had lost ‘our’ hummingbirds, after a day of high winds, driving, cold rain, and a temperature that never got above 9C (48F). And perhaps we did. For nearly two weeks, we saw no birds near the feeder except one curious Baltimore oriole. But yesterday, just after a discussion on whether to take the feeder down or not, a male ruby-throated hummingbird appeared to take a long drink. Maybe it’s a different hummer; maybe there’s a closer feeder to the nest of the pair that were coming before the storm: whatever the explanation, the feeder stays up.
The end of May now, and it’s been (and is) cool and windy, daytime temperatures hovering around 20C (68F), nights in single digits. There are worryingly few insects, and equally worrying low numbers of swallows and other insect-eating birds.
Frosts no longer looking likely, I planted the annuals this week, pots of begonia for the shade and Calibrachoa for the sun. Next week I’m going looking for a climbing rose for the front porch, and plan to transplant more Geranium macrorrhizum, my go-to plant for dry shade. Of which we have a lot! The bumblebees love it.
This will likely be the last Diary until the autumn, or at least they’ll be sporadic. I have a full summer: several books by other people to work on, An Unwise Prince to finish, a holiday to Saskatchewan, new covers (and in some cases interiors) of the first series to deal with. And I want time just to enjoy the summer, to sit by the river, have ice cream cones at The Boathouse, go to summer theatre and concerts and craft shows. If time and the muse allow, I may write about some of that.
The revisions to An Unwise Prince are nearly done; I’m engineering a few scenes still, moving them into places to create a better structure, and after that it’s a few minor changes and then into the third pass, looking for where I can condense, where I need to add, checking continuity. My mind is drifting more and more to the sequel, A Distant Obligation.
Empress & Soldier, the fourth book of Empire’s Legacy but also a stand-alone novel, is on sale (e-book only) this weekend (and for a few days afterwards). Because of the promotion it was the first book to get its new cover, so here it is (and the link). The imperfections in the central image are purposeful, for two reasons: early-medieval metalwork wasn’t perfect, and, this is human-created art, and I wanted that to be clear.
https://books2read.com/empresssoldier
On Patricia Fustenberg’s blog, she continues to share reviews of books by authors included in the Courage anthology, coming out June 17th. I’ll definitely be posting about that!
One of the writing groups I lead is doing something different this summer: with his permission, we’re following Iain Robinson’s Root & Branch nature writing program over the next eight sessions. I’m really looking forward to this, both to see what my fellow writers produce, and for some time focused on nature writing for me, too. Some of my pieces that arise from that may be posted over the summer, along with a few restacks from my original Substack, now defunct, and maybe a few excerpts from An Unwise Prince.
See you in September!
I love the new cover and wouldn't have noticed any imperfections in the central image. Perhaps my older eyes can't see them or I'm conditioned to recognize hand-drawn art as, well, just art.