I made the deadline, y'all! Hayle Hart is officially living his best life.

This writing on a schedule thing is stressful-- but not as stressful as being in the direct path of a Mormon cricket migration. I will not post pictures. Just take my word for it.

The thing is, I wasn't expecting them. I went outside in the late afternoon a couple of days ago to close up the big barn doors at the back of my trailer (I live in a cargo trailer camper conversion, for those who don't already know. The back wall has a screen on it--thankfully-- and it is awesome to be able to open the back doors in nice weather, vanlife style.) and I saw...one.

Now, last summer, I was in eastern Nevada when the Mormon cricket migration went through the town of Elko, a couple of hours north of where I was camped. You can look those pictures up on the web if you're brave enough. It was really bad, and I noped right out my plans to head up that way.

So I knew what the giant, ugly bug was that was crawling across the grass a few feet from the trailer when I saw it. And I was pretty sure if I saw one-- more were going to show up.

I just didn't expect more to show up within the time it took me to walk six feet from the back of the rig to the front door! And I SURE AS HECKFIRE did not expect a MILLION more to show up before I could get the front door closed!

Now-- the weather up here in the Uinta Mountains of Utah has been delightful, and even a little chilly, while all my friends are melting away in heatwaves around the country.

I have an RV door on my trailer, with a screen door (thank God!) but the door itself stays open by a latch that locks the door to the body of the trailer. I cannot reach that latch without going outside. Standing on the ground.

So I stood at the screen door-- checking it obsessively to make sure it was as closed as it could possibly get-- and watched literally millions of these enormous insects crawl across the meadow I'm set up in, until they literally covered the entire ground. Everywhere.

Fortunately, they don't fly and they didn't show any interest in crawling onto the trailer. They also "shelter" at night. Sure enough, as the sun went down, the creatures clumped together on rocks and tree trunks, leaving the ground bug-free so I could jump out and close the front door.

I guess it was a good thing-- no way was I leaving my writing cave till those things were nothing but a nightmarish memory! And that meant I had nothing to do but write.

That was two days ago, and today? It's like they were never here. I haven't seen a single one of the things. And that's fine with me.

And that's my long-winded story about making my deadline for Hayle and January's book.

It's up on pre-order now, and the release date has been updated to July 17. Now, if Amazon will just updated the cover image-- that'd be nice. But hey, the important thing is that there's a book behind the cover now!

I'm going to spend some time crying about finishing the series, then I'm going to finish a couple of bonus scenes I've been working on, then-- I'll fall in love with a new series. (Hint...Slow River Valley is full of ranchers.)

~Rocklyn