Today was spent talking to lawyer--on the upside, this was the first lengthy lawyer conversation that did not involve metaphorical rat abatement and dangerous tree removal but rather the planning of a metaphorical dream garden, one that I can envision being a pleasure (and not too big a hassle) to take care of.

This is all very good, but the issue remains: No matter how efficient and productive my metaphorical yard becomes, I have taken on a new job. It's not a full-time job, but it is a definite time commitment.

The flip side of this is that I am really, really excited about Trials--quite possibly the most excited I have ever been since I began writing it. When I read over what was written earlier, it was the first time in memory that I really enjoyed reading it and felt like I really wanted to finish it--because it's going to be such a great book when it's done!

(Which makes me grateful I didn't decide to force myself to write it when I was miserable and depressed. Again, Accordion Crimes stands as a warning, and one that I am glad I heeded. I personally believe that you can tell if an author is engaged by a work or if they're just trudging through because they feel they have to finish it, and I really didn't want to do that to the Trang series.)

So I am thinking about ways of making production more efficient when that comes around. I think this will be the book where I pay for real layout software (renting Adobe's, methinks, rather than coughing up $850 for QuarkXPress)--that should make that process less of a drag. (I could pay someone to lay it out for me, but honestly, I think I'm too much of a control freak for that.)

You may have noticed that I abandoned working on the audiobook--it was really dull work, and I just didn't have the stomach for it. I kind of figured that I wouldn't ever finish, but now that I'm feeling more upbeat . . . I don't think I'd do all the books, but maybe just finish the first one? Sometime? I looked at Lindsay Buroker's blog, which I haven't done in a while, and I noticed that she didn't do any audiobooks after her first three--but she still gets readers from Podiobooks. So maybe that's the way to go--just make it another free edition.

When I get around to it, anyway--that's definitely way down the list. . . .