At the end of last week I received word that someone about two hours away needed a ride here by midweek, and it was agreed that I would pick him up on Monday, that is, today, after taking care of my mother-in-law’s shopping trip.  To some degree I scrambled my day, so that I could make sure people were fed and get a fair amount of the work done before making what was to be a six hour errand.  It did not all work exactly according to plan, but I had finished the first half of it and was about to make the last jump when I got word that there had been a change at his end, that complications had arisen and he was not certain he could make it and would make other arrangements.

I’ll confess that I was disappointed but also relieved.  He is a big help when he is here, but I was already tired and knew I had much to do still–particularly since the final front cover for the Faith and Gaming book had arrived in the e-mail, and I was going to have to deal with formatting and uploading files to finish that book.

That book is now available.  It is in a sort of pre-release form–only because the next formal step is to set up a distribution package, which means adding an ISBN, which means editing that onto the title page of the book and uploading the edited text and losing a few days of availability while everything is put in place–a few days I cannot afford if I am to have copies for Ubercon.  So I am ordering my copies for that (not too many, but enough to have available), and when I get a chance to clear my head I’ll take the next step.

That means copies ordered now will be different from those ordered in a couple weeks, as they won’t have the International Standard Book Number or barcode on them.  I know some people like having those unusual copies.  Of course, it also means I’ve not seen them and don’t know how they actually look, but that’s part of the charm.

Much to do.  Let me get to it.

–M. J. Young