Updates: Books, Board Games, Babies

1. Drift is still on schedule to come out next year. I've been getting to see the cover concepts; it's very exciting! Also, reading/writing my bio is still weird.

2. You may have noticed a recent dearth of board game reviews/match-ups. After moving, I'm mostly playing games I already know with friends who live nearby, instead of lots of new games at a board game shop. So I hope to have more of these, but I expect them to be slow in coming.

3. But, I have been working on formatting a free, print-and-play board game that's played in Drift. It's abstract -- think Checkers or Go -- but I think this will be fun for readers who also play board games. I'm planning on putting this up when the release date for the book is closer. Maybe on release day to celebrate. :)

4. You've probably also noticed a slowing of blog posts here. It's been a busy few months, moving out-of-state and settling into a new apartment while keeping up on writing, edits, and everything else. "Everything else" includes getting ready for a new baby in our lives, who is finally due this month! So, I expect blog posts to be slow through the holidays, too. Next year, it looks like I'll be part of a new blogging project...but I'll give more details when everything's in place.

5. The Kickstarter for Not A Villain: Book 2 ends in five days. The project has already funded (hurrah!). The artist/writer, Aneeka, is someone I know in real life, and she tells an amazing web comic story. If you're not familiar with it and want to check it out, the comic is here.

6. Gem State Writers, where I contributed until leaving the fabulous state of Idaho, has just closed its doors. If you've enjoyed it, and want to say good-bye, click here for the final post.

A Macro for Line-Editing in Microsoft Word

Today at Gem State Writers, I'm talking about the What, Why, and How of Line Edits.

But here, I wanted to share (with permission) the excellent tool my husband programmed to assist with line edits.  He watched me spending hour after hour using CTRL+F to go through my list of potentially problematic line edit word list...and then programmed a button into Word that instantly highlights every one of these.

Line edits went much, much faster.  Here's the technical bits:

The list of words is easily customized.  It is a Visual Basic Applications script so it should work with all versions of Word, though how to set it up will be different for newer versions of Word. On the new version the Visual Basic Editor is in Developer tab.

GSW & Review

My newest post, "Rockets and Leaf-Mould" is up over at Gem State Writers, here.

I was also happy to read this great review of my novelette, "The Temple's Posthole" up at Tanget.  This is, I think, my best story to date.  It's always nice to see people enjoy something I wrote, but I especially enjoyed this review because they enjoyed something I did on purpose.  You can read the whole review, but here's the excerpt that made me smile:

But what I love the most is that the story still centers around the characters and the mother-son relationship. I see precious few speculative fiction stories where characters younger than preteen play an important role, so it is delightful to see a narrative that not only has a strong supporting child character, but also pegs his age perfectly with age-appropriate dialogue and action....Even if you are not a parent, you will still find plenty to appreciate in Hutchin's dramatic first person narrative.

The Unexpected Outline

Over at Gem State Writers today, I have a post up, "The Unexpected Outline," about how writing processes change over time.

Through the Window: POV

My January post is up at Gem State Writers (here) -- this time on POV and seeing it through a child's camera.

Steunenberg Trial and the Idea File

My post for December is up at Gem State Writers (click here).  Enjoy!

Writing Fast & Baby Dragons

My latest post is up over at Gem State Writers: Writing Fast & Baby Dragons.

Guest Posts x2

Yesterday, I joined Matt Mikalatos' week-long celebration of Tolkien with a post called All the Villains Gets a Second Chance.

And I'm up today on Gem State Writers, with some nostalgia about the first time I met and connected with other writers (click here).  I guess this technically isn't a guest post as I'm now a once-a-month regular, but "Guest Post and Another Post that Isn't Quite That" seemed an unwieldy title.