High Tide Episode 15: Dangerous Truths, Episode 16: Mothers and Sons, and Episode 17: How I Met Your Mother are now live on Kindle Vella. Yeah, yeah, I know, but there are Reasons™ why I’m just posting about this now.

Namely, I am on a working vacation, so to speak. My sister was kind enough to invite us up to stay with her in beautiful mid-central Illinois for a week. Since all we’d have to do is rent a vehicle that both Ramón and I could drive (he drives a pickup truck and prefers vehicles that are higher off the ground), we jumped at the chance. And yes, the usual cat sitter is at the house taking care of the J Crew so don’t worry about them—they still have a human staff member watching over their every move, as they expect.

But this change in scenery has been very welcome. I got to see both of my sibs, say hello to my lake, indulge in a bag of White Castles, have dinner with my BFF and his husband, and just generally enjoy not dealing with Texas heat. I mean, it’s been anywhere between 69-80°F here during the day. AND we had rain. I ask you.

As for working, the BIL has his own small office building so Ramón is set up in an office here (he’s a contractor so no PTO, but he works remotely anyway so he’s working from Illinois this week) while I’m in the receptionist area with my sister writing and doing various authorly tasks. It’s been incredibly nice being here—there’s a great diner across the street and a McDonald’s a block down the street, and we’re staying in a lovely room at my sister’s house that looks out over a lake. I feel a lot more relaxed and recharged, and so does Ramón.

Which is good because I need to start hauling ass on High Tide since we’ll be on the road Saturday which knocks out one writing day, and I have an unavoidable event next week that will knock out at least one other writing day as well, boo. But I’m past the 1/3 point and on my way to the halfway point, so we’ll just have to see what we can see. And yeah, ignore that deadline—it was set before I knew we’d be coming on this trip. I’m aiming to finish the first draft by 10/20/23 or so, with a release on 11/21/23.

So mark your calendar, Susan—you’re gonna be getting High Tide soon!