Insect adventures, part 2

I had another creepy encounter.  This time, it was a house centipede.  The thing was on the ceiling in the bathroom over the tub.  I was about to get a shower, but I wasn't about to do it with that little monster lurking above my head.  Remember in the movie Arachnophobia when the woman is in the shower and the spider takes a ride down between her breasts?  Yeah, that was on my mind.  I'm not a woman, nor do I have breasts, but I still didn't want some many-legged creepazoid using my body as a slip-n-slide.  I grabbed a tissue and prepared my attack plan.

The centipede must have sensed his peril, though, because he started moving.  Alas for him, he moved too hurriedly, and he lost his grip and fell.  That was a lucky break for me, because it meant I got to squash him on the bathtub floor instead of the ceiling.  You always want to smash these things on non-staining surfaces when possible.  I dispatched him post haste.

I think the spell of hot dry weather over the past few weeks is what's driving the critters inside.  That's usually the case.  Either too little rain or too much, and the creepy-crawlies go roaming in search of better conditions.  That's life in the Deep South.  It's a humid subtropical climate, and that means life in abundance, and that includes insect life.

There's no rain on the horizon, and highs are going to climb back into the low 90s, so I expect more buggers to invade my territory.  But that's all right.  I'm ready for battle.

It's so freaky...

...when you're sitting in your chair with your laptop on your lap, reading something on the internet, and then a spider descends on a filament of web right in front of the screen.  This isn't the first time it's happened, either.  Maybe they're attracted to the backlit screen or something.

This spider was a tiny one, so no big deal.  I didn't even kill him.  I just snagged the web filament and dragged him over to the carpet.  Maybe he'll eat a silverfish or something, though I doubt it.  Nothing seems to control the silverfish.

In other news, it's supposed to cool off this week.  Highs only in the low eighties.  Looking forward to it.

Started my read-through

I'm re-reading books 1-3 of Wheel of Fire for the purpose of taking notes about things that I think will be important later.  Once that's done, I expect I'll start the second draft of book 4.

It's coming together, folks.  It's slow, but it's coming together.

Semper Paratus

Nicely done, Coast Guard.  :D

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Progress report

I think I've finished my outline for book 5.  I'm working on the outlines for books 6 and 7.

I'm going to have to go back and re-read books 1-3 to make sure I'm not missing anything or screwing something up.

I'm also still uncertain about titles.  The book 4 title is set, and so is the book 6 title, but the other two are still in flux.  The working title I have for book 5 would be better as the title for book 7, so I think I'll make that switch and then come up with a new title for book 5.

I purchased some audiobook covers for the Free Space trilogy.  I'm still not sure what to do about audio, but I wanted to have the covers on hand anyway.  That way, when/if I do decide, I'll be ready to go without delay.

I sketched out a little bit of a synopsis for a trilogy I'd like to do after Wheel of Fire.

Books 6 and 7 need covers, so I'll need to see to that at some point.  It takes me many iterations to come up with a cover that doesn't suck, so I have to start way in advance.  Perhaps someday I can afford to hire Jeff Brown to do my covers, but today is not that day.

I was thinking recently about how good it feels to have a completed series under my belt.  Lots of authors write book 1 and then get discouraged when it doesn't sell like hot cakes.  They then abandon the series they had planned.  Amazon's Kindle store is littered with unfinished series.  I think simply completing your series is a good way to stand out from the crowd as an author.

That's all for now.  I've got an incoming hurricane to fend off.  ;)