So, I can admit that the beginning of the year was a lot busier than I expected (A LOT busier).  I pubbed my middle grade noir mystery, Harper Madigan: Junior High Private Eye.  I expanded from doing commissions on DeviantArt to an actual Etsy business.  I was taking grad school classes.  I spent my spring break working a (stressful) temp job.  And I finished up another temp job earlier this month.

If I never work another 9-5 job, I will not be shedding any tears.  I am seriously not cut out for it.  Probably most of us aren’t.  I keep reading about how more and more of us are turning to freelance work, so I know it’s not just me.

But anyway!  Some of you have been asking about The Trials of Renegade X and how it’s coming along.  And now that my workload has mellowed out and the nervous breakdown meter is no longer on orange alert, I’ve finally been able to sit down with this book again and make some progress.  (For those of you not reading this directly from my site, the word count bar is up to 5,700, about 8% of the expected total.)

And this isn’t really a surprise, but I LOVE this story.  Even though I’ve had it planned out for months, it’s hard to get back into writing when I haven’t done it in a while, and especially when I haven’t been writing regularly.  But the more time I spend working on this, the more I love it and the more into it I am.  I’ve crossed the threshold of “Juggling all this stuff is hard! *WHINE*” to “OMG, I can’t wait to put in this and this and this, and THIS cool thing goes here, and wait, there was a better way to phrase that sentence I wrote five pages ago…”  It’s like the difference between pushing a piano upstairs and sliding down the banister.  (Not that I can slide down banisters.  But, you know, if I *could,* then I’m sure that’s what it would be like.  For the record, I’m pretty sure I can’t push a piano upstairs either.  In fact, I’m more likely to pull off a really awesome banister slide than I am to move a piano at all.)

And The Trials of Renegade X now has a Facebook page.  It’s where I’m posting my daily word count.  Go there, press like, and you can watch the book grow (and shrink and then grow again, as books are wont to do…) and show your support and tell your friends and all that.  I mean, you do have friends, don’t you?  And you wouldn’t want to be accused of depriving them of something awesome, right?  RIGHT? *makes squinty accusing eyes*

Ahem.

Anyway, you might be wondering when this book will be done, and, more importantly, when can you have it???  Well, according to my estimations–*types random numbers in giant calculator with one of those paper rolls coming out the back*–I should be done with the first draft in 2 – 3 months.  But you never know when I might get crazy obsessed and not be able to stop myself from doing anything besides writing.  But you also never know when life will get completely overwhelming and get in the way.  So, yeah, 2 – 3 months.  Then there’s editing and revising to do.  And then–THEN–you can have it.  And by my calculations, that means it will be out some time this fall, late November at the latest.  Which means it’ll be out in time for the holidays and you can surprise all your friends you “forgot” to link to the FB page with copies and you will be crowned the best gift giver ever.  (Or at least until next year.)

So that’s the scoop on the sequel.  I’ll know more about the release date as I get closer to finishing the book.  In the mean time, go read Harper Madigan.  It’s awesome and it made this Top Ten Underappreciated Books List.