Crash and Burn

Just realized that I haven't posted in the cave in well over a month, and to be frank, I'm not that surprised. Something's been happening over the last several weeks, the least of which is that my hard drive completely crashed and I lost an awful lot of stories, one novella, and two half-finished novels. We also lost some pictures of the kids (which was the largest tragedy) and some other miscellaneous data. (As an aside, before you all gang up to tell me what to do to recover the lost info, let me say "thanks" and "we've already tried that." Of the six recovery procedures/programs I tried, none worked.) At any rate, the computer is up and running again.

What's odd is that when I reinstalled XP and started mounting programs back into the system, I was a bit relieved at how... "blank" it all was. It was a clean slate. It was... new, for lack of a better word, and it seemed like something that had needed to be done. I'm a big believer in the universe pointing you in the direction that you need to go if you're only smart enough to listen, and perhaps the crash was something that needed to happen.

A lack of a computer for several days, however, wasn't the reason that I hadn't posted a blog in over a month, however. Life gets in the way, and all that is an easy excuse, but to tell you the truth, I'm not in the mood for excuses. As much as I'd like to keep you all updated on what I'm doing and what I'm about to be doing, "doing it" has to take precedence, and that's what I've been "doing" - if that makes sense.

But, I know you folks dig it when I tell you what's what, so here's a condensed version:

The sunflowers on the garage aren't finished, but they're a hell of a lot farther along than the last picture I posted on the blog. When I have TIME, I will post new pictures.

I've been enjoying building Blair Witch Totems with the kids that we are hanging all over the house and in the trees outside for Halloween.

My wife and I celebrate ten years of marriage next week. Hoo-rah! (I can't believe she's put up with me for so long!)

I get to see Metallica for the 16th time in a little over a week. Hoo-rah!

I'm going to be in Minneapolis in November to see a lecture with Stephen King and Audrey Niffenegger. Hoo-rah!

Since all of my work on the computer was wiped out (no jokes and/or admonishments about not backing up my work!) and "Delving: Culminations" was completely wiped out - I will now be working on that novel full time.

And that's about it. I'd like to get some more promotional things going on the website, and maybe do something special for the mailing list members over Halloween, but a lot of that has to do with Ren and his timeline. Finally, I feel free enough to let him deal with all the online hoopla and keep myself to the writing and the artwork.

So that's the way it goes! I hope you're all doing well, Troops, and we'll talk soon.