Life really is what happens to you when you’re busy making sensible plans.

I had hoped that by now I would have a deal in place to bring at least six of my novels not currently available in digital editions back into “print,” as well to bring together my favorite short fiction in a first-ever collection.

Though I did resolve the rights issues, otherwise those goals are still a work in progress.

Beyond that, I knew that the first eight months of the year were going to be full of sound and motion, between my two youngest graduating from high school and my oldest earning a Ph.D., with a German exchange student here for three weeks and a son in Germany for four, with a college search, a senior recital and an open house to be mounted on a Social Security budget.

September was going to be when I’d finally have a chance to sit down and start working in earnest on something new.

But I didn’t anticipate that the mothers of two family members would go to the emergency room within days of each other in July, let alone that one would go from there to weeks of rehab, and the other to hospice.

I feel secure in saying September is not going to be anything like what I was planning on. And that when it ends–especially if my September drags on into November, or February–I’m going to need the boost that your support provides that much more.

All of you. And more of you. It would mean a great deal to me to come out on the other side of this gantlet and find that a thousand people were on board with my attempted reboot, saying with as little as a Facebook Page Like, “Go for it–we want to read that next book you haven’t written yet.” An emotional kickstarter.

A thousand people is about 1% of my reader base for past solo works. A thousand people to rebuild my rocketship and relight its engines. I don’t know how to find them–but collectively, you do. I’d be grateful for your help.