Hello Everyone!

Goodness, what a week, what a week! I hope you are staying calm and safe in the midst of the maelstrom. 

I have been doing reasonably well, although there have been some issues. Nothing to do with the madness in DC, but rather with my furry companions. Precious Renee, my Italian Greyhound mix, had to have a tooth removed last month. I thought she was healing well–and then she went completely off food over Christmas. Apparently she was in a lot of pain, although the vet and I were both unable to figure out what, exactly, was hurting her. She is a very delicate creature, poor thing.

I’m glad to say that she’s currently improving and has started eating again, although mainly liquid.

She does seem to be the mend, I am glad to report, although the world has been watching with bated breath to see if she would pull through.

Meanwhile, Zelda the senior cat also went downhill over Christmas. Fortunately with a medication adjustment and a new diet she has perked up for the moment too. But there have been a lot of calls to the vet’s office over the past few weeks! Also, I discovered that prescription cat food costs $68 a bag. I am glad to say that the cats have agreed to eat it, because it would have been extremely sad otherwise.

In the midst of all of this I have managed to do some writing and book-related stuff. I’m still working on The Singing Shore, my NaNoWriMo2020 project. I’m now about 220k words in and have just started Part III. It will be a serialized monster novel in several book-length parts, like the other books in the Zemnian Series. At the moment the main character is on the equivalent of the Arctic Ocean and is admiring icebergs. I’ve started an Iceberg board on my Pinterest page in honor of it, so you can check out beautiful pictures of icebergs here.

I’m also participating in an audiobook giveaway on Bookfunnel. Bookfunnel is now doing an open beta of audiobook services, so you can do download whole books, instead of just short stories and snippets, and listen to them on their free app. Since this is a new thing and still in beta, the giveaway is pretty small, but there are several good-looking audiobooks, including one of my own, available for free here.

So that is about it! I hope 2021 is starting off well for you, and you are staying safe and enjoying seasonally appropriate activities for your hemisphere.

All the best,

E.P.