Odds and Ends, October 2014 Edition

Today’s post is mostly one of odds and ends, with a bunch of minor updates and some other stuff that may be of interest only to me . . . so let’s get to it!

First, Dora Machado (author of the epic fantasy romance The Curse Giver) has now posted her blog post for the Sisters in Crime Blog Hop, and it’s available here. So please do go to her blog to see her answers for three questions, as they’re quite enlightening.

Second, in my blog post for the Sisters in Crime Blog Hop, I inadvertently left off another male writer who writes female characters extremely well. That author is Jeffrey Getzin, and my favorite novella of his is Shara and the Haunted Village. But his work in A Lesson for the Cyclops and the full-length, action-filled novel Prince of Bryanae (starring the very female Willow the Elf, no one’s plaything) is tremendous, and his newest novel, King of Bryanae, also stars Willow (read an excerpt from Jeff’s latest novel here).

Third, congratulations to the San Francisco Giants and the Kansas City Royals, winners of the National League and American League Wild Card games, respectively. Best of luck to them throughout the playoffs!

(Before I forget, my end-of-the-season wrap-up post regarding my favorite baseball team, the Milwaukee Brewers, will be up on Sunday.)

Fourth, I’ve been writing and editing a great deal this week, as much as I can considering my ongoing surgical recovery. (It supposedly takes six weeks to be back to normal. We’ll see.) And I sent another story to the Writers of the Future Contest; may it do well!

Fifth, my car is at the local Hyundai dealership and the diagnosis of transmission failure due to a cracked transmission casing has been confirmed. Now it’s up to Hyundai as to whether or not they will cover the cost of the repair, considering the fact that I did try hard to get it taken care of when it was still under warranty (it’s just that the previous dealership didn’t want to be bothered, that’s all).

Let us hope I will get my car back, fully repaired, and soon!

Sixth and last, I hope to get a review up over at Shiny Book Review this weekend. It still may not be Michael Z. Williamson’s FREEHOLD, as I have a lot to say about that book and want to make sure everything is set in my head before I begin. (Mind, I would be astonished if any fans of “Mad Mike” or his novel will be upset by what I have to say. But I want to make sure I am well enough to make sense when I say it.)

So that’s about it. (Any questions?)