finished! (for now)

As you may have guessed from my silence, I’ve been engrossed in writing the last pages of my tragic queens book. And, as you may have guessed from the title of this post, I’ve finished — at least until I get edits back from my publisher.
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The manuscript went off to Doubleday last week. No word from my editor yet save a “we received it and how many bound galleys would you like” e-mail. So I assume all is well! I sent the manuscript as a design dummy — have about twenty pieces of black and white art to do, but that’s not due until July. For now, the heavy lifting is over (knock wood!).
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Predictably, I woke up the morning after sending the final book off with a sore throat which rapidly ripened into a nasty cold. Within twenty-four hours, I was coughing up a storm worthy of Violetta in the last act of La Traviata. As of today, I’m still under the weather, but am functional.
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Though I’ve met my book deadline, there’s lots of other projects on the horizon. Work on my storefront-studio-gallery is moving forward. Wood flooring has been installed and the space is currently being painted. Shelving will be delivered Friday. After that, I plan to start moving in and setting everything up this weekend!
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On the work front, I’m illustrating (actually adapting existing illustrations for) a new oracle deck with Nicki Skully and Linda Starwolf, authors of Shamanic Mysteries of Egypt. Some have you may have noticed that some areas of this site aren’t functioning as they should, primarily the newsletter sign up and e-cards. That’s because my website got hacked into over the holidays by a spammer; I’m currently looking for a new mailing list host, so if anyone has any recommendations, send ‘em my way. I’ll be fixing up the nasty mess the spammer left over time, since I plan to relaunch Art and Words in a month or so. In the meantime, things are what they are.
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Even with all of this, after the intensely focused labor of writing Doomed Queens, I feel like I have breathing room again — even with the croup.
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In my next post, I’ll bring you up to date on what’s going on with my storefront, complete with photos! I hope everyone’s new year is off to great start.

• Filed under art and words, new projects, queens, the art world | No Comments