Or, I’m getting too old for this shit. I have been unhappy about my blog theme (lime! tiny text! narrow column! LIME!) and casually poking around at alternatives when I can get my internet connection to cope with all those preview images. (Here I am compelled to add a whiny note about the four hours spent unable to connect to any website with any browser today.) And I have come to the following conclusion: WordPress themes were designed by ten-year-olds with the vision of gods and mighty eagles. I cannot buy text big enough for my eyes, it seems. I should be due for my annual eye exam in a couple of months and I’m curious, as the doctor may tell me that my eyes were secretly replaced with shiny, shiny marbles in the past year. But after much trial and error–mostly error–Small Wonders has a new theme, some new links, and other random housekeeping bits.
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Figurehead is officially being moved to the back burner, to simmer for an unspecified amount of time until I can get it to work right. The more I think about it, the more miserable it makes me. It needs to go sit while I figure out, among other things, how to make a FTL drive I like and how to incorporate more animals.
In its place, I’m developing a new novel idea to be written over October and November. (Too many projects, you say? You’re not wrong…) The new novel is called The Jackrabbit House and it’s higher fantasy than I usually write. I am, I think, excited about it. And it, unlike just about everything else I’ve thought up lately, has the requisite high dose of talking animals. I hate to restrict my writing to little boxes of genre or topic, but, uh, I’m really shaping up to be “that talking animal author.” (There is also an emerging theme of “houses” in my work. Overcompensating for my own tiny abode?)
I’ve also still got a bunch of short stories floating around, more or less ready to be written. The top priority on that front is the Oct/Nov SS*BB. I am also–fingers crossed–planning a short story to submit to Holly Lisle’s Rebel Tales (background here) when it starts taking submissions. It is a Jackrabbit House prequel and even if JH ends up being too long to go into Rebel Tales (limit is 90k), it would still be a great way to generate attention for it.