hrj

The whole problem with this "estimate completion based on a chapter a week" thing is that it falls down if I can't actually manage a chapter a week. I'd like to be able to say that the last three weeks have been due to travel and conventions and whatnot distracting me, but there's also the matter that I've gotten out of the chapters where I had big chunks of text already written. And I hit a chapter where I'm going to be nervous about getting some of the sociological underpinnings right. But there's also been a certain amount of sitting down in front of the keyboard and giving in to any passing distraction. Such is life.

So what am I up to? I'm moving Luzie closer to tackling her opera and shoving Serafina into a state of emotional neediness that will trigger a closer connection between the two of them. Oh, and giving the reader a closer glimpse of yet another "background character who will be relevant but not significant in future books" who provides yet another example of the ways in which magic can be channeled. This time it's an artist who can use her talents to create "true portraits" that look into the soul of her subject. (Fortunately for her career as a society portraitist, it's under conscious control!)

I'm sometimes reminded that not all of my readers are going to track these minor characters across the whole series. It makes me feel a little less guilty about the ones who drop off the radar to some extent, although I suspect that every reader will have some favorite minor character who will never be explored to their proper satisfaction.

But speaking of favorite characters and artists, this week I've been blessed with not one but two pieces of Alpennian fan art! My very first. *glow* I can't speak for all authors, but it means a great deal to me that people like my world enough to invest their own talent in it.