State of the Library #14
Giving thanks, space walking, and being actually productive
As I write this, it is still November. Next week, my husband and I will drop our cat off at a kennel and make the long drive to New Jersey to celebrate Thanksgiving with family. By the time you read this, we will have long since returned but I will probably still have not unpacked yet.
This year, Thanksgiving runs right up against the beginning of Advent, which is December 1. We will go from giving thanks straight into the dark watchfulness preceding Christmas. In the Linton household, our Christmas tree does not go up until Christmas Eve day and will often stay up until February 2nd, the Feast of Candlemas.
Can gratitude dovetail into waiting and preparation? I think so. We can be grateful for the steps that brought us to where we are, and grateful for where we have yet to go. We can be grateful for what has been given to us, and grateful for what has been promised to us. Hope, after all, isn’t wishful thinking. Rather, it is the steady certainty that a promise will be fulfilled.
Writing Update
I am in the throes of editing Sardis and the Battle for the Library. I am not ready, yet, to pin down a publication date. February 2025 feels likely, but who knows what could happen between now and then.
I have not touched the novelization of Under the Roses in some time, and I don’t know when I will again. Hopefully, I can get back to it once Sardis is in the hands of a beta reader.
I’m really happy I kept with the deadline I had set myself for the December short story. In my last newsletter, I said I planned to have it written, edited, and ready in two weeks, and I met the deadline! As I write this, I am already thinking about January’s story, but inspiration has yet to strike.
Poll Results
For those who have not noticed, the poll for my new logo is over, and the results are in. My new logo, wordmark, and welcome page image were made by
! I am really grateful for her work. If you haven’t visited her Talebones Substack, I really encourage you to do so. Her Ferris Island stories are amazing. And she’s an editor!ICYMI: November 2024
December Story — “In the Gloaming”
While working on a spaceship, a strange knocking lures Tony out into darkness, where he encounters a being beyond his imagination.
Excerpt:
“I’ll talk to the captain.” Tony gently pushed the ship’s cat out of the last chair and pulled it over to join the circle. “What else?”
He sipped his coffee and listened to the usual litany of complaints and things-to-do. His mind, though, kept wandering to home. Glancing over at the little Santa, he wondered if the kids were already begging Angela to put out at least one Christmas decoration.
He dragged his focus back in time to hear that one of the trash catchers, a massive arm with articulated “fingers”, was malfunctioning. And the coffee machine in the officer’s galley was busted.
“Aw, hell,” Lans drawled. “We best put that one at the top of the list.”
They all chuckled. Tony turned to Pete, his mouth opening to ask him where they were on the maintenance schedule for the trash catcher hydraulics, when a knock sounded through the spaceship.
Everyone froze. Listened. The knock came through again, echoing over the engine’s melodic hum. After a pause came a third, hollow knock.
“Air in the lines?” said Jasper in a low voice.
“In the Gloaming” will be published on Friday, December 6, 2024 at 10 am Eastern.
Can't wait to see the final version of "In the Gloaming" :)