Peak Gemini season....

I treat myself for my birthday and I have a treat for you

The arrival of June is special for me as it’s my birthday month and I treat myself in a number of ways all month, because why confine myself to a single day?

I just turned in copyedits for Improvisers. It was my last big hurrah with the book, and it’s here the book moves from a work in progress to complete. I get a PDF of how the book will look when it’s printed and I can’t make any drastic rewrites just smaller line edits.

This is also the stage where things get rather hard in another fashion. I have to start practicing how to condense the book into a few quippy statements AND have it make sense! Such is the paradox of writing. You write all these words and have to figure out how to convey all of it in much, much, less. It’s always a bit hard for me at first, since I’m so close to the story. I find myself wanting to tell everything, and it’s hard to figure out what’s key and compelling to those who know very little. But with anything, practice and necessity always helps me figure it out in the end!

We’re five months out from The Improvisers launching out into the world, and as a reminder of how close things are, I’ve gotten physical ARCs! It’s the first time I had early review copies of my books and it was a delightful surprise to have land on my doorstop.

Given I have limited shelf space, over the next few months there may be some giveaways, so be on the look out!

(Don’t worry, for those living the e-reader life, it’s also up on netgalley!)

Upcoming events

• I’ll be around (virtually!) for this year’s SFWA Nebula Conference, as well as being on a panel for one of my favorite topics, video games

• I’ll be at Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, VA in conversation with Esme Addison on June 19th

Other things

I’ve gotten back into taking walks as spring warmed up. I often say I get some of my best writing done while on a walk. I’ve noticed I have stopped listening to music while I’m out walking. It started by accident. I had misplaced my headphones, so I went without music, and found to my surprise I actually enjoyed the walk better.

It was nice to hear bird chatter, the twinkling of wind chimes, and all the ambient noise that was all around me. For so many years I pressed play on my music while on walks even thought my neighborhood is fairly quiet I always thought I needed music as some sort barrier between me and the world. While it’s fun to have my own soundtrack at times, there is a great delight to be without it.

Which is probably for the best, since I still haven’t found those headphones yet!