Oh man. Neglect. Do you feel neglected? Don’t answer that.

See, this story ran away. Far, far away. Though when I look at the first draft, which was 50,000 words, I’m not sure why I thought the second draft would be 30k, though sometimes that’s the kind of trimming you do when you’re a yammer-on kind of writer. Instead, this puppy decided it knew exactly what it wanted to be, and led me straight on through.

So what the hell. I went. Because when a story knows exactly what the fuck it wants, you’re a damn fool not to hand it the leash.

It’s out for, ah, beta reading right now. Could be the story fucked me. You never know. But damn, even if it did, it was a good ride. I made myself cry. Twice.

(Well, once, really. I get teary when Hugh casually mentions his mom. I adore Cordelia Reynolds. Someday I’ll write her more, just for fun, for myself, because I’m interested. But man, the other time I cried during this story? I teared up again, re-fucking-reading it, because I knew it was coming and that actually made it more fucked-up. You haven’t met Davey yet, but I’m’a give that kid a happy ending one of these days.)

In any case, that brings me to this: STORY COMING OUT SOON. Not the novel I just finished, but the next in the line of dominoes that makes up the Scientific Method stories, which is called, newly re-christened, Take Three Breaths, and will be out Thursday. Yes, that’s right, Thursday. Because I fucking feel like it. I was gonna wait until next week, but fuck it, I like releasing things the first week of the month. Makes my spreadsheets make more sense.

But you’re not here for fiction! No! (Angst. This story is very angsty. Largely because Hugh is a depressive, and man, depression, amiright? Makes for angsty story. Some of you are going, Oh yes, I am familiar with the angst of depression. And some of you are going FUCK YES MORE ANGST DAMN YOU. Those of you in the second group will especially enjoy Take Three Breaths.)

Where were we? Oh yes. You aren’t here for book, you’re here for GIMP tutorial links, like this one: How to outline text in the GIMP. Works and everything, even though it’s for an older version of the program. You’re welcome! (You can tell me if you like the effect when I post the cover. Which should be…last week. Yes. About time travel. “Dear The Doctor…I really just need a very quick favor and I promise not to interrupt my personal timeline at all…”)

There you have it. And I’ll work on more with the podcasts. Because it was fun. Ish. But topics. Yeah, I don’t know. I can’t ramble for five minutes. I could ramble for twenty, probably, but five requires a topic. So. I am taking suggestions.

Also, I’ve got two short stories I should just throw up here. They don’t have covers yet, and they don’t have real solid places in the timeline, but they exist, and thus should be read, if you are a series groupie. I’ll add it to my list. Oy. List.