Heather Masterson

I know, I know. I’ve been terribly negligent lately. Between editing, rereading, writing, and fielding my mother’s uncomfortably acute insights, I’m just exhausted.

Lack of sleep might also have something to do with it, but that comes with the territory.

Good news: We’re close. Book two is so so so soooo close. Expect a publication date soon… and perhaps that cover reveal I keep mentioning?

Interesting news: We received the officially-official copyright certificate for There’s No Such Thing as Vampires in the mail yesterday. This is good news, really, but holy cow, does that take a long time or what? I mean, we knew that it would take a while when we submitted it a billion years ago, but it never occurred to me that it wouldn’t show up until we were about to publish the second book.

Bad news: My mother wrecked everything.

Ok, she didn’t actually wreck anything, and it’s not really bad news – it was just shocking and uncomfortable for a day or two. In the way of mothers everywhere, she gazed directly into my brain and teased out a connection between two characters that literally no one else saw. It’s a small point, really, at least for this series – it’s the theoretical spinoff series where this information would really start to matter – and while I did drop what I thought were a few light hints, I didn’t think anyone would pick up on that connection this early on. As usual, I was dead wrong.

If you learn anything as a writer, it’s that readers will always surprise you. And sure, this is my mother we’re talking about, so she may have a bit of an advantage over everyone else. She did raise me, after all, so if she isn’t familiar with the way my brain works, then no one is. (Least of all me.) It still floored me. Mostly in a good way. I mean, if someone can make that connection, then at least things are making sense on some level. But it’s never comfortable to have your assumptions torn apart and tossed out the window like that. Thanks, Mom.

The third book does not have an official title yet. It does have an absolutely terrible (and wonderful) working title that makes me want to laugh, cry, and slap myself around a bit for even considering making it official. It’s that bad. And that good. We’ll see if it still makes sense tens of thousands of words from now…