Normal late-night backstage frazzle here - I'm in a production of By the Bog of Cats and opening night is tomorrow, so consider this a communique lobbed over the prison walls of exhaustion, Irish accents, and stage blood.

By the Bog of Cats - Publicity Shot - Town & Gown Players - Athens, GA - Matt Hardy -photographer

I finished PHASE I edits tonight and am ready to record my scratch audio book this weekend so I can make my deep dive and get the manuscript ready to submit to Inkshares and beta readers -- fingers crossed so hard that my knuckles crack, I'm hoping I'll be finished with Phase II edits by the time this show closes on August 16th. I have a tiny part in the show, which leaves me a couple of hours every night unspoken for sitting backstage -- I mean tomorrow night doesn't count because it's opening night and I have to focus on the fancy cake and libations that await, but YOU GET THE IDEA.

For my snippet du jour, here's the invocation that will appear at the beginning of the book. All of my other books begin with my invoking the Muse - as is only right and proper. If you are disinterested in Homeric poetry or the Greek pantheon, you can just think of it as a weird bit of poetry to set the mood before the golem fights and psychic dragon hi-jinks begin.

Sing in me, O Muse

of the moment when

of the moment then

her gray fingers

wrapped

and coiled

around my heart,

a circle.

Help me sing of the circle

the circle that cannot break

the center that should not hold

but does.

For now.