Under a Black Rainbow

  JULY  (3 books | 663 pgs) 25.) Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix (Novel, 248 pgs) | 3/5 26.) Strange Pictures by Uketsu (Novel, 236 pgs) | 3/5 27.) A Path Through the Forest by Alisha Galvan (Stories, 179 pgs) | 2.5/5 * Pretty slim reading for the month of July. You'd think that, since I quit my job at the start of the month, I would've read more. Honestly, I've been neck deep in work on the next two books.  I've been keeping my "wake up at 5am, eat breakfast, be working by 7am" routine since my last day. It's been especially liberating to grab a nap around 5pm, know it won't jack up my entire next day, and then wake up around 7pm to get more writing done until about midnight. The fluidity of progress is really helping with the ideation, which is really helping with the creation once a piece is ready to have its story told.  I spent most of today putting final touches on more cover art, but mostly in trying to create my own specific "decorative letter...

A few months ago, I noticed a new woman in the neighborhood. It's possible she's not new and that she only started appearing out in the street within the last several months.  Regardless, I live on a dead end street and I started seeing her on a daily basis. She plods down the middle of the road carrying this child like a giant, limp starfish. Based on the size of the child, I'm guessing they're anywhere from 8 to 10 years old, which seems a little older than should be carried by most parents.  Plus I've seen her out there in 100+ degree heat, stalking up and down the hot blacktop with the dead weight of this child strapped to her chest. She walks to the end of my street and then takes a right, heading down the longest street bisecting my neighborhood. Her walk is not a short one and it occurs multiple times a day.  The child is rarely ever moving much, if at all. My writing partner believes there is some kind of neglect at play, having seen the child in little othe...