STILL HERE

Question: How do you know that you haven't written a blog post in a long, long time?

Answer: You forget the password to get into your blog posts.

I haven't gone through and read the last few posts I'd written, but I'm sure that they'd all do some apologizing for not posting in a very long time, and then go on to promise more frequent posts.

Let's not fall into that trap again, shall we.

I'm currently sitting in my blissfully quiet office listening to the wind howling outside the window. We've been treated to a few days of well above normal temperatures, and tomorrow we're dropping back down into the mid-twenties - normal temps for mid-February in Northern Wisconsin.

Let's start with what I've been reading.

Over Christmas, I received "The Complete Sherlock Holmes" and Volume II of Neil Gaiman's "Absolute Sandman."

I'm loathe to admit that I've never read any of Arthur Conan Doyle's famous mysteries before now. I'd always intended to, but just never got around to it. Then, shortly before Christmas, I was listening to an interview with Harlan Ellison, in which, on an Ellison-esque rant on religion, he happened to mention A.C.D.'s collection of Sherlock Holmes stories, claiming that if ANYone wanted to be smart, all they had to do was read the stories, and understand what Doyle was telling you about observation and inference. I thought to myself, "hey, you could stand to be a bit smarter," and here we are.

I'm about halfway through the Holmes stories and have enjoyed them immensely. Certainly, I've learned much, but what really surprised me about the tales is how much fun they are. Sherlock Holmes is a hoot, as is Watson in his role as straight man. The book is good fun, and I can highly recommend it before I've even finished it.

The other book I'm reading - (I've been bouncing back and forth between the two as they're both collections) - is Volume II of the Absolute version of Neil Gaiman's "Sandman." I was lucky enough to receive Volume I a few years ago, and again, it was the first time I'd ever ventured into the Sandman series. (Am I one of the only people in the world to come to Gaiman through the novels BEFORE the comics?) The Sandman is, of course, simply amazing. It's one of those things that even when you're in the midst of reading it for the first time, you realize you're reading something special. Something like a masterwork. At any rate, it's good fun, and I also pleasured myself by re-reading the first volume before starting this one. Amazing stories. Amazing mythos. Good times.

Now then, what are we writing these days?

The same thing I've been working on for what seems like the last few years.

"Delving: Culminations" is the toughest book I've ever had to write. A big reason for that is self imposed pressure, I suppose. I'm very proud of the first two Delving books, and as such I want to make absolutely sure that the final chapter of the trilogy holds up to the standard set in place by the first two.

I'd actually written almost the entire book in 2008 when I came to the conclusion that that version of the book didn't measure up to the rest of the series. I toyed with the idea of taking snippets of the book and rearranging them, but then thought that that would be cheating myself and you out of a good story. Instead, I trashed the whole thing and started fresh.

And then the hard drive crashed, and yours truly was too idiotic to have things backed up...

But let's not speak of bad memories. Lessons were learned - the hard way - and we do things differently now.

The book is going well. The characters you and I know so well are doing some surprising things. A certain Mr. Graff shows up in a big way, fresh from the pages of "Exile: The Collected Helman Graff." It's going to be a great book. It's due in late spring, and I'm hoping Stone Garden will be able to release it this summer.

What else...

Oh, I'm in the process of starting a company, but as this blog centers on the writing stuff, we'll veer away from that part of my life for the moment.

At any rate, I'm here. And that's a good thing. I had a pretty good scare involving a brain scan and some vision loss not too long ago, but maybe we'll save that story for next time.