Hi all.  Sorry I’ve gone quiet again.  I was just getting back in the swing of things when life went and turned stuff all around again.

First the good news:

I have a short story “Auto” in the anthology The A.I. Chronicles, which has been out for a few months now.  Yesterday, it had a great push.  It was ranked #31 on All of Amazon, and #1 in a whole lot of categories.  Thanks to that, my author ranking went up, and I can now say that I am an “Amazon Best Selling Author.”  I got to #16 in SciFi, for certain top 100 in ebooks, and I honestly believe top 100 on Amazon.  The way the metrics are reported, and the way they are delayed, if you’re not constantly pressing refresh, you might miss a big jump.  I went from somewhere around 5,000 to #136 in a day.  From what other people are reporting, I know my rank was higher sometime before it was 136.  How much higher?  I guess I’ll never know.  If nothing else, I am a Kindle Best Selling Author, and a Top 20 SciFi Author on Amazon.  It feels pretty great.

The A.I. Chronicles is currently on sale for .99.  I’ve also got most of my books on sale or free right now, too.

I also found out that my little sister is going to have her first baby.  She’s very excited and I’m excited for her.

The bad news:

My future mother-in-law was recently diagnosed with metastasized lung cancer.  She was recently in the ICU, but is doing a little better and is still in care, but out of the ICU.  Things are still very uncertain, and it’ll be a few days until we get a clear idea of the future.  One thing that is certain, is that her life, my fella’s life, my life, a lot of people’s lives, are about to change.  There are other family members that were dependent on her that are now going to be dependent on me and my guy.  I won’t go into details, especially since some of them are still being worked out, but like I said, life is about to change in a fairly major way.

I’ve been stressed with worry for her, stressed about the coming changes, and I’ve been missing my guy who’s been back in St. Louis with his mom.  Add that to the fact that my day job has been getting busier (I finally have one that I like!  I can walk to work, no more bus blogging lol), and hopefully you’ll understand why I’ve been a bit absent.

It’s still my intention to get this blog back up and running with some regularity.  It’ll probably just take longer than I expected.  Be assured that I am actively, albeit slowly, still working on New Worlders (the Otherworlders book 2), and I had a major breakthrough about Lost Worlders (the Otherworlders book 3) recently.  I’m so excited for it.  It has a twist that completely fits, but that I hadn’t expected.  Thankfully I thought of it while working on New Worlders so I can work it into that book, too.  I’m also still planning out my Serial Sunday – Otherworlders: the Chase Chronicles.

I’m always an optimist, to the point that it annoys some people.  I believe that everything will wind up working out, I believe that anything is possible, and even in the hardest of times, I always look for even the smallest hints of positive.

Thanks for reading and being patient.  I appreciate all of you.