Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while know that I am a big believer in the magic of the morning pages. Writing three pages, longhand, every day helps to keep our artistic channel clear and us in touch with our own creative voice. This is never more true than when we are experiencing upheaval.

After several months of highly stressful politics, my husband’s company had another layoff and this time, he was let go. It’s a shame, really, since it means his former department is down to a skeleton crew and unable to discharge all the duties for which they’re supposedly responsible. Such is the way of corporate culture, though.

The silver lining here is that he is free to explore other options. That’s always the difficulty of being employed: if one is unhappy, it’s very difficult to muster up the energy necessary for escape velocity. This experience has helped give him the cosmic push out the door so he can now focus on his next adventure.

Of course, that makes things more complicated, not less, since it opens the field to Seattle a lot sooner than we had planned. We are vacationing there next week, in fact, to get the “lay of the land.”

In writing news, Rachel and I have been busy. Cat’s Cradle will be available this week! I know, I’m being cagey on the exact date, but there’s a reason: this will be the first time I’ve uploaded a book myself and I want to make sure I have the best product possible before I let everyone know. ~grin~

Rachel and I have sold Sealed by Magic to LooseId, and are pleased as punch to be back for another book with them. Their editing staff is professional and easy to work with and we couldn’t be happier. The release date is August 4th; stay tuned for a cover sneak-peak once we have the art. That will be in the next couple weeks. It’s a tight schedule; line edits are due tomorrow. Eeep!

Other than that, Rachel and I are keeping our heads down. I’m still on hiatus from teaching and the renewed focus on my writing has allowed me to flesh out several projects. We will be submitting Sapphire Dream shortly, but have completely rewritten it. We cut the original story in half and will be making the second half into a different book with a different POV (point of view). It should be a lot of fun.

TJ’s story, which is book 4 in Chicagoland Shifters, is coming along. We have the rough outline rewritten and are in the process of reworking the material we already have. We’re combining what was book 1 and book 3 of his story into the first book, and dropping part of the original storyline. Sounds complicated? Yes. ~grin~

It’s hard to believe it’s already July. This year has gone by very quickly. What are you up to, Dear Reader? I’d love to hear; tell me in the comments. And have a lovely rest of July!