The Marshmallow Ranch Gazette (Patreon)

Volume 2, Issue 17 - Tuesday, August 22nd, 2017

Howdy, patrons!

I'm still playing catch-up here at the Marshmallow Ranch -- the short story that I had hoped to be finished within the first two weeks of this year's Write-A-Thon is almost past the finish line but not quite; I still haven't even begun pre-writing for "Boundaries", the next serial I've got planned; and poor Brighton Dingo is still waiting for his tarot reading! Well, that last part is true but not as bad as I made it out to be -- the reading is done and ready to be sent, but I was hoping to make it a little bit prettier before putting it out.

I could blame all of this on the still-chaotic family situation, or the demands of work, and to be sure those are both factors! But to be honest, I'm still so frazzled and disorganized that every little interruption sends me reeling. It's hard to settle into a groove these days because there's always an emergency, always multiple things that need my immediate attention. I'm recovering from the latest series of shocks, but that work is slow -- and there's another big one on the horizon.

Of course I'm talking about the work trip to Belgium! On Saturday I'll be heading off for my first-ever international flight to Germany, then Brussels -- where I assume we'll be catching the train to our company's headquarters. I'll be training on the brand-new product for two weeks over there, then coming back to spend a week in Dallas. I have never been to the Dallas office and roughly half of our team is there, so it should be a lot of fun! Then, on September 16th(?) I fly back to the burrow and the loving arms of my husband.

I won't lie -- it's exceptionally exciting to be going to Europe for the first time. But the enormity of it is also hitting me. I'll be away from home for a really long time, and I'm sure I'll hit all of the usual pitfalls of international travel -- jet lag, culture shock, and the like. I'd love to say that I'll still be productive while I'm there, but that's no guarantee. It would be a lot more realistic to assume that I won't get much, if any, writing done for the three weeks I'm there. 

I'm hoping to cinch up a few long-lingering projects before that happens, though. "Demolition," the short story that I've been working on forever, will at least be draft-complete before the end of the week; Brighton's tarot reading will be in his inbox shortly thereafter. After that, I'll do my best to clear my workload as I'm able, but I can't make any promises. 

At the very least, the plane trip will give me a long stretch of uninterrupted time to catch up on my reading! I'm planning to take a few furry anthologies with me so I can get a better feel of the state of the market, or to fall in love with authors who have escaped my radar up to now. On top of that, I'll have to see about downloading a few comics so I can catch up there as well! 

Sometime this week I will approach another Lucky Charmer about their tarot reading and/or character cameo, and then get to work on putting together the next issue of an anthology I've let lapse for far too long and do some pre-writing on "Boundaries" and a few other things. There's no rest for the wicked, it seems, but that's just fine. 

I hope all of you are doing well during the last little bit of summer, and I'll be sure to check in from Belgium next week!

Your buckaroo,

Jakebe