Aurora Dimitre's Books and Rambling

 I haven't published anything yet this year. I realize it is only March, but I'm just saying, if I want to keep up my six books a year thing--I've gotta get cracking. And I know why I haven't published anything this year. It's because I went back to working on more than one project at once.  Last year, I did one project at a time and it worked very well, but then after I finished Hit or Miss , the project that came up was the third Tinon book and so when February came around, I added a new one. And then March, and I added another one. In five days when April starts... well, you know the drill. But! This is how each of the projects are going.  Bandit Born , the third Tinon book , is currently sitting at about 39,000 words. My rough goal is 75,000, but the real important thing to note is that I am on chapter 33 and have 50 + epilogue planned. So I am over halfway done. We will see if I go over 75k, or under... the first two Tinon books were 47k and 43k, respectively. ...

 So this March has been rough.  Blizzards, wind, Steven's defrost broke a couple of weeks ago and we were like, hey, it's March, there can't be THAT MUCH MORE WINTER WEATHER, RIGHT???, and that was dumb, of course we can have that much more winter weather, it's still March. Last week we had two in-person days. Two, out of five. Because. Of. Winter weather.  I just want it to be summer outside. At this point my threshold for summer mostly means "not actively snowing and maybe like forty-five degrees out", so like, I'm not asking for eighty here. I'm asking for spring, but in my heart I say summer because I mostly really want it to be summer so I can go walk around a bunch. We're supposed to get another five inches of snow this coming week. Please, for the love of everything that's holy, let it miss us like this last batch. Last week we were supposed to get three or so inches and we ended up just getting wind. The wind did drift in all the roads ...

 This is my last year teaching. We turned in our resignation letters before last week's school board meeting, so it is common knowledge now, especially as, you know, children of school board members walk into class like, "So you're dipping next year, huh?"  I never intended to be a teacher. I mean, I didn't get a degree, or anything, and this is making it so I don't have to actually get a real teaching license, which is nice. I have gotten a huge fucking ego boost over the past week or so, though, as it spreads. One of my freshmen wrote a writing day about how much she doesn't want me to leave. The eighth graders fucking rioted when they learned that their English and Math teachers are leaving.  I don't know what I'll do next. Maybe I'll get into remote stuff. Maybe I'll do something basic and low-paying so I can focus on reading and writing--not like that has, uh, taken a backseat with teaching, because I have read like, 129 books so far t...

 A little over a year ago, Steven and I decided to make a "bet." It's not really a bet; it's more of an agreement. Essentially, unless the other gives consent, he can't buy pop, and I can't buy books. When we started this bet, I was somewhere over 2100 unread books. Every book buying ban/book wall shrinkage attempt had ended in me just going and buying up dozens of lots of books on eBay.  I am now sitting at a neat 2017 for the book wall. My low this year has been 2013. I will be dipping back under 2000 unread books soon, and then--well, the sky's the limit. Imagine, if I keep reading 500 books a year; I'll be done in just a few years and then I can start buying up as many books as I want again! This really does come with my desire to win, I think, as well as just the sheer amount of books I've been reading recently. Because I have read almost 100 books so far this year, and it is only March. I've made up my own book spreadsheet, so let's l...

 For those of you that have read One More Sad Song (the number of which grew quite a bit in February, when I experimented with Amazon ads using OMSS), and those of you that have read books following OMSS, you know Matt. Matt is, at least for the published part of the Aughts Boys universe, the only consistent thread running through them. He's in OMSS as the new kid who is a douche, he's in The Horror at Camp New Woods as the big guy that survives, and without Matt the main plot of Right or Wrong would not have happened. And, of course, Hit or Miss being a direct sequel to OMSS, and following Ashton, so having a lot to do with hockey, involves Matt.  Book five in the Aughts Boys series is the Matt book. I wrote the opener to it last night. Pasted below--spoilers for the first four Aughts Boys books, most particularly Hit or Miss . CHAPTER ONE             Matt Klein stood on the sidewalk, looking up at the school. He loo...