After seventeen chapters and 90,000+ words, I’ve come to the end of my Egyptian novel. I still haven’t the foggiest idea what I’m going to call the damn thing though. The working title was The Arrows of Sakhmet, but I never really fell in love with it.
Thankfully, that’s a decision for another day. Now, it’s time to relax and enjoy some family time. 🙂
Just wanted to take a moment to wish all my dear readers a very merry Christmas. While I was disappointed that Santa Claus didn’t leave Diablo III under the tree, I’ve been having a wonderful time visiting family and friends. I also received some cool new books to read, including Affairs and Scandals in Ancient Egypt and His Majesty’s Dragon.
I’ve also been writing the last chapters of my Egyptian novel. I’m currently working on the penultimate chapter, so I should be done with the first draft within the next few days. Because my writers’ group has already commented on the earlier chapters, I can start making preliminary revisions right away. We’ll be discussing the last chunk of my novel on January 25 and, with a little bit of luck, I’ll have the older material well polished by that point.
Amtrak has once again demonstrated its unsurpassed skill at being irritating. I have an unused ticket that’s still good for travel, so I thought I’d apply it to the cost of my Christmas trip home. Everything went along swimmingly until customer service said that, because I was applying the balance from an unused ticket, I would have to surrender the old ticket before they would confirm the new reservation, and they would only hold the reservation for three days. I pointed out that I live three hours away from the train station, but they were unmoved. I even offered to mail them the ticket. That won’t work either, apparently. They suggested I wait until three days prior to my intended departure before making my reservation, but that’s a disaster waiting to happen. Not only will the ticket be much more expensive, but there’s no guarantee I’d even be able to get a seat.
After I hung up, I muttered some choice epithets and then set about booking my tickets. Although my departing ticket is outrageously expensive, I was relieved to see that the return ticket was reasonably priced. So reasonably priced, in fact, that I decided to upgrade to business class since it’s only $12 extra. But, when I got my ticket confirmation, my eyes almost popped out of my skull and plopped onto the keyboard. A ticket that should have been $43 was now $85 because of a change in the base fare. There was no way I was going to pay $85 for an Amtrak business class ticket, so I had to go back and downgrade to coach. Happily, the base fare didn’t increase for the coach ticket. That would’ve caused me to mutter yet more choice epithets.
Sometimes I wonder why I bother with Amtrak when I go home. The trains are always late, the coaches are slightly seedy, and it takes forever and a day to get anywhere. Then I remember that it would cost me $500 (at least) to fly, and I shut up.
When I was browsing Amazon the other day, I discovered that Jonathan Stroud has a new book out entitled The Ring of Solomon. Even though I don’t usually buy hardcover books, I bought this one right away. Throughout the original trilogy there were a number of tantalizing hints about Bartimaeus’ backstory and I’m glad that Stroud has decided to flesh things out.
Here’s hoping that this prequel is better than the Star Wars prequels! 😀
Codex Lochianus 