First off, I got the news a few days ago that Yamada Monogatari: Demon Hunter is going back to press. This makes the third printing. Not too shabby for a book that is, in essence, a themed collection.

Just in time for the 4^th, what should appear in my inbox but the copyedited version of the third book in the series,  Yamada Monogatari: The War God’s Son, which both Prime Books and Audible Books are waiting on. Oof. It did remind me of why I usually don’t show first drafts to anybody. It appears that there are certain words and phrases I’m waaay too fond of. “That” is one. There are others. Lots of them. Paula Guran at Prime pronounced the manuscript “structurally perfect,” but stylistically? Not so much until I clean up some of this. Okay, a lot of this. We suffer so that you don’t have to.

Well, not much in the way of suffering, really. While I am embarrassed by some of my writing quirks, re-reading the book in the process is reminding me of how pleased I was with it, overall. Not “satisfied,” because one never is, but pleased none the less. Coming back to it cold after this time away I’m a little relieved to say that I still like it, and maybe some of you will too. It moves Yamada’s story arc forward quite a bit. Plus you get to meet Yamada’s elder sister.

The great file purge is still in progress. I was one of those sods who held onto everything: rough drafts, rejection letters, correspondence, contracts…keeping the contracts, naturally. And some of the correspondence. The rest is either tossed or put through the shredder, depending. It wasn’t as depressing as if could have been, especially when I was reminded of who rejected what story, and with hindsight could either see that they were right or “You passed on that one? WTF were you thinking?”

My shelves are almost bare. Most of my books are already packed away, minus the ones I’m debating whether or not to keep. I hope I won’t need any of my references for a while, though I do need some information on Empress Sadako for the next project. Which I need to get busy on. Which has to wait for the current revisions to be done.

Which means back to work.