The Prep Begins

T-minus-10 days until Thanksgiving. The prep begins. I started today with the baking of the pumpkin pie. Why start so early? Because I want to enjoy my Thanksgiving, thank you very much. I started today with cleaning a room, and baking a pie. Tomorrow, I have to get my head eyes examined, so I’m not cleaning, but I am going to get all the shopping done, and I’ll be making candied ginger because I need it for the cranberries and for the turkey, and I can’t find candied ginger without a wheat warning anywhere. I’m also starting sourdough rolls (technically I started today because I fed the starter, but I make the actual dough tomorrow.)

I actually sat down to make a schedule of what gets cleaned and/or cooked on what day covering every day between now and Thanksgiving. Every day has a room to clean or shopping to be done, and a dish to prepare. This early, things will head to the freezer, which will leave room in the refrigerator to defrost the turkey that I’ll be brining next week (I use Alton Brown’s turkey brine from Good Eats.)

My plan is that by the time Thanksgiving comes, all I have to do is get up, have breakfast, watch the parade, and put the bird in the oven. Everything else (with the exception of whatever fresh vegetables I make) will be done and just need to be warmed. That way, I can have a relaxing time with my house full of people. It’s a plan that’s worked very well for a very long time now.

I haven’t given much thought yet to Cookiepocalypse. One holiday at a time, right? But Cookiepocalypse is coming, and I’ll be taking requests from the young people in my life as to what cookies they want. And from the older people in my life, too. Once I know what I’m making, I’ll make a schedule for baking that allows me to also keep working on Balance of Power.

I’m starting to think that Balance of Power may need a new title. I’ve gone far enough away from the original outline that Balance of Power no longer quite fits the story. The current front runner in my head is Valley of Shadows. I think it fits better. We shall see what the Patrons think.

In other news, I found out the other day that Morrigan’s Heir has been pushed back to early 2024. As soon as I have a date, I’ll share it.

And that’s all the news that’s fit to print. It’s much later in the day than I usually post to the blog, but it’s been a busy day! And there’s another busy day tomorrow.

Catch you all next week.

Works in Progress

Balance of Power
Heir to the Firstborn, Book 7

Promotions!

First in Series Friday is Coming! Friday, November 24th (Black Friday in the US), the first books in Heir to the Firstborn, Rebel Mage, and Swords of Charlemagne will be on sale everywhere for 99 cents.

Then, on Cyber Monday, the sale continues! The Cavalcade of Authors will be holding a huge Cyber Monday sale, and for that sale, I’ll be adding in Forged in Fire AND Bones of Earth! To know when the link goes live for this one, you need to sign up for my newsletter. (I usually only put out one newsletter a month, although if there’s a new release or a big event, there might be a special edition.)