July is always a weird month for me. I have the great good fortune of my parents being willing to host my kids for the entire month, something we started doing to save on daycare fees but that has become a cherished tradition for everyone. In theory it's exciting to have a month off from parenting duties, but in practice it always makes me realize how many of my routines are actually anchored around providing stability to these young people. If I snap and decide to, for example, spend an entire day off making litres upon litres of jam, no one is there to interrupt me by asking for food or outings or to play games with them - not until my partner comes home, and July is peak crunch time at their work every year so they're on feral hours regardless. 

My jam example is not hypothetical. I am the proud owner of a wild raspberry thicket, a sour cherry tree, and two apple trees; I hate wasting food; and I only have so much space in my freezer. This year I have done exceptionally well so far at harvesting fruit at its peak (even if that peak is small and weird and, shall we say, Organique, in the case of the apples) and putting it away as shelf-stable sandwich fixings, pastry fillings, and hell I don't know, bases for barbecue sauces and salad dressings? And Christmas gifts, I certainly won't be forgetting that use. Someday soon my niblings will be old enough to appreciate apple butter more than Lego, too. Does apple butter count as jam? It's even more work, but so tasty. 

Writing-wise, I did finally shake off my odd paralysis in the last couple of weeks and finally regained forward momentum on book 5. It's so cool to see sequences I've carried in my head for months finally taking shape on the page!

I need to remind myself not to look at the total word-count until the whole thing is done, THEN see what could use a little padding if it still feels a bit sparse. This is supposed to be a first draft. There are so many goalposts left to hit it could still easily be a honker by the time it's done. 

As for my books that are already out: there are two days left in the Smashwords Summer & Winter Sale, where you can get Low Dawn FREE and all other individual titles at 50% off! Meanwhile, the omnibus of books 1-3 is 69% off (nice) at Kobo (and everywhere else, but the sale was instigated by Kobo) until the end of August.