The year has started

Jan 11, 2026 5:56 pm

How many lists do you have?

I work really well off of lists. I have the list I write on my planner each morning, I have my reminders list I add to as I go about my day, I have my Trello lists of all the things I need to do to make BAP a success, the list of yard work/chores on my house board, and I have a shopping list I try to add to as I run out of things. Yeah, that is a lot of lists. But I switch to different lists at different times and somedays I get to cross things off. It's always nice to see them disappear, though it seems like I add more things to it every time I turn around. At least with Trello I file everything I accomplished, the yard I see the difference when I walk outside, and my planner contains all the things I've check off. I just wish I could get more done, but most days my energy level bails about 3pm, earlier on Fridays. So I work with what I've got. It gives me a sense that I'm getting things done.

But for me my most important is my word count list. I record how many words I write a day and that is what I judge myself on. Part of the reason I resist editing so much, it take time away from writing (or reading to be honest) but it also means you get stories with fewer typo's and no sentences like this - It is just to borrow it for a short time. <- what the heck? This is why I have editors. But hopefully by the next newsletter I'll have the pre-orders up for book one and have book 3 completed. 15k a week is my goal this year and so far (1 week, lol) I've done it.

I hope everyone enjoyed the short stories. They are both up on Amazon - though I don't have the preorder up, I jumped the gun a bit. Oh well, I'll update it as soon as I get the pre-order up.

I will be at Mysticon Jan 23-25 in Roanoake, VA, so I encourage you to go. I'll have books!

Book Recommendations!

If you love audiobooks as much as I do, then I know you have most of K. Cross's books. She does her own audio book narration and the third book in her romantasy series is out now on Amazon and in Audible. When the Siren Queens rise, Henrik, Britt, and their friends are racing against time to defeat a curse and stop the destruction of everything they love. Check out The Fury and the Glory! Or Audible!

If you love your Sci-Fi with a touch of love, check out this 2024 Silver Medal Winner in Science Fiction Romance - Saga of Bazor: The Hunt. Can a young Earth woman survive when she finds herself caught between two agents from an alien race, each determined to stop the other. One wants to save their city, the other destroy it.

Weekly Micro Story

Flood

Enough.

The word filtered through his mind one syllable at a time. Turning the sounds over and over until it registered it was a word. One with meaning for him. As if shaking the stiffness of centuries off of him, the opened his eyes, blinking at the light shining around him. The stones he had knelt between, one shiny and fresh, were covered with leaves and vines, decaying, growing.

He licked lips so dry they cracked and bled as he moved them. Eyes ached with dryness so he blinked a few more times. Looking down his robes were anchored to the ground with roots and vines, and his staff had vines wreathing out and entwining him. The sun had gone from morn to evening by the time he moved.

Body aching as if he'd not moved in days. He inspected the growth of what had been a barren, if holy, place.

"How long?" His own voice sounded strange, weak, corroded. Another hard swallow and spit, and he tried again. "How long?" It sounded nothing like the voice in his memories, but at least no longer sounded like stones grinding.

A long time. But you achieved your goal.

The words were around him, in him, vibrating through his bones.

"I did?"

Yes. You kept this part of the world outside of time as the rocks fell from the sky. You kept the people and the animals safe from the flood of stones. Your people have flourished and now are ready to explore the world.

He blinked. Memories filtered in, of people, of fear, seeing the lights in the sky, watching a mountain disappear and their homes knocked down with the blast from so far away. The arguments, the last effort, and his choice. He gazed at his hands, wrinkled and weathered, not like the firm supple hands he remembered.

"How long?"

The voice was silent for so long he thought it wouldn't answer.

Longer than you have words for. Your siblings children have five more layers of children. It has been a long time.

He nodded, the muscles in his body protesting but becoming more supple. Then he asked the most important question.

"Who am I?" Of everything he remembered, his name slipped through his hands like the ashes of a loved one.

Gilgamesh or Manu or Noah, you are all of them. Who you will be is up to you.

~*~

That did not go the way I expected it to, but I never know.

My up coming appearances - come see me!!!

Mysticon - Roanoke, VA Jan 23-25

Conpossible - Duluth, GA Feb 6-8

JordanCon - Atlanta, GA April 17-19