Rip van Who?

You know, I think Washington Irving was on to something about Rip Van Winkle.

Except in my version of the story, I fly to New York in April to attend my first Edgar Awards Banquet (it was amazing); catch a horrendous case of bronchitis on the flight home (or more likely on the way there, since I was seated in front of a poor, coughing teenager); am out of commission for a full two weeks; and then put my head down and ...

WRITE. No sleeping, not for this Winkle.

As we speak, I'm nearing the conclusion of CITY OF SPIDERS--the sequel to CITY OF DRAGONS. I hoped to have it finish much earlier, but this has been an extremely challenging year in many ways, even for a double Gemini with Multi-Tasking as my middle name. Somewhere in June, I even celebrated a birthday ... like van Winkle, I emerge from my blogless state older and a little confused.

From you, dear blog readers, I have been absent in the spring ... but I hope you forgive me. :) As soon as CITY OF SPIDERS is finished, my goal is to wax weekly at Writing in the Dark!

Now, today itself is of some note: FIRST THRILLS, the International Thriller Writers anthology featuring just a ton of wonderful authors, all of whom I'm honored to be published with--is released! My Miranda Corbie short story "Children's Day" is included, and takes place nearly a year before CITY OF DRAGONS--the entire story is set during the World's Fair on Treasure Island.

I was also very lucky to be interviewed by the San Francisco Examiner, and that article also came out today! So ... between the solstice, the launch of FIRST THRILLS, and the Examiner, I decided to take a novel writing evening off. ;)

I'll also be taking a weekend off to fly back to New York for Thrillerfest in just a couple of weeks! And soon ... very soon, I hope ... CITY OF SPIDERS will, at last, be finished.

THEN I sleep ... and start writing again. :)

Thanks again for reading, and if you're up New York way for Thrillerfest, I hope you stop by to say hello! :)