Happy Monday afternoon, everybody!

So far, the trend of warmer days and melting snow is still holding here in WI, bringing the semi-legendary days of spring back to life :). In celebration of this--and several great/long-overdue developments closer to home--I share with you a somewhat obscure yet personally important song for this week: Not Quite Paradise, by the now-defunct band Bliss 66, for the soundtrack to the (slightly flawed, although still well done) scifi movie Titan A.E. (Usual copyrights apply; I own nothing!)

I first heard this song when I saw the movie in theaters at around age 12, and while the latter has stuck with me in some way ever since--mostly due to the outstanding visuals and fair number of both goofy and deeply reflective scenes--it wasn't until almost a decade later that I actively sought out my favorite tunes from it. After some digging, I finally unearthed the CD, and gave it a place of pride on my Soundtracks playlist. Over time, this song has come to stand well apart from the rest, for its simple, rousing lyrics, which have not only boosted me over this or that writing block ("Somewhere from the edge of time / When the poets, die the words / Don't rhyme / I'll call you up and say / We made it okay."), but has helped to pull me out of deep malaise, anxiety or ennui, when everything in the world--from the disgusting/dangerous antics of the current clique in D.C. down to harder-than-expected class or work assignments--seems to come together to drag me down ("Somewhere in the back of your mind / When you see your demons come to life / And the world just fades away / You'll know it's okay."). Thankfully, the work front is soon to improve (in the form of a long-sought library job!), and the class and writing issues are finally being knocked down into the range of "manageable" to "exhilarating"--with this song along for the ride as constant support.

Speaking of writing, the FINAL final final round of edits on All The Troubles of Home is set to begin this weekend, once the last of the beta-reads come in. I'll also be starting the cover design and general editing work for this draft at that time; no set date yet for the publication, but I'm still aiming at before the end of March, latest! Meanwhile, since it turns out that the fiction writing course I'm taking this year requires TWO short works, with different plots, I've decided to bump the Civil War historical fiction piece mentioned on my Wordpress to a later date, and set to work on another draft, set in a notably different Reconstruction Era; working title for this is Sic Semper Tyrannis. Since this is one of many short-story and novella-length Civil War works I have in mind, a plan is taking shape to--eventually--merge them all into a compilation-type draft, with each chapter a separate story. Once this draft is done--by no later than this weekend, at my currrent pace!--and ATTOH is on its way to ebook form, I'll be restarting work on Bloody Relations, another Civil War What-if; as you've probably guessed by now, I'm semi-obsessed with this period :). I'll be posting updates on all of these, as ever, along with the Discarded pitches; meantime, just keep up the shares, reviews and comments!