I did not move to Omaha. Although I did seriously consider moving to Sidney, Nebraska for a week or so there. I could’ve bought a house. But I think long-term I have an interest in moving out of the country so I didn’t really want to leap back into property ownership. Also, it’s not that far away, but it would be a different state and at this point that actually matters living in the United States.

I mean, I guess it always mattered before, but it really feels like it matters these days.

Probably not a good financial decision, but it seems I have an absurdly high tolerance for risk. (Or I realize that even as much as I’m not where I want to be right now I’m still in a lot better place than I was at the age of 18.)

I’ve been experimenting with recording audiobooks myself, including six of my M.H. Lee short stories. You can find links here. I also narrated two of my non-fiction books on writing written as M.L. Humphrey and two of my non-writing non-fiction books.

It was really fun, actually. Hard to get all the pieces in place (audio requires much more than just writing a book does), but once I’d done that, I really did enjoy adding emotion to the words I’d written. For the fiction it’s basically acting without having to worry about what your body and face are doing at the same time.

Part of me would like to do the rest of the stories in the short story collection, but part of me thinks that some of those stories will not be a good fit for me as the audio narrator. So we’ll see. I also want to do the cozies in audio.

But sales have slipped so I find myself turning back to non-fiction right now. The nice thing about non-fiction is it can sell steadily year-on-year so it makes sense to front load those titles and get them going before turning back to fiction. Theoretically, if I get it right those titles will sell in 2023 while I take some time to finally write some more fantasy and maybe release it well.

I’m either going to do a standalone title or I will write an entire trilogy before releasing. No spacing the next trilogy over three years.

Or, knowing me, I’ll write that psychological thriller or non-fiction series of essays I’ve been thinking about under a new pen name instead. Haha. Sigh.

Life. It’s this constant juggling act of finding enjoyment while also managing to survive and those two do no always go hand in hand.

(Although I do actually enjoy writing the non-fiction. And one of the titles I’m publishing next month is the one I really should’ve written two years ago. Early beta reader feedback on it is good, so yay, I hadn’t forgotten everything I once knew in my area of expertise.)