Request - I don’t make these often. It would really help me if you took a moment to rate my books on Amazon (go ahead and give me some 5-star luvin’ while you’re at it). I'm going to try and keep it simple and provide links for the first-in-series for my two sets of books. Not even asking for you to review... just click to add your rating. Thank you! (If you feel inspired, go rate the other books of mine you’ve read).

The Guardian of The Palace

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Mother of Trees

USA - Rate Mother of Trees

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My job hunt definitely slowed in December. But that was expected--the big semiconductor companies often tighten their purse strings at the end of the year, and with people disappearing over holidays, it's harder to do interviews (I've been on the other side of that often enough to know it is true). I also think the market will be a little flooded with folks who have left or are still leaving Intel in the new year, so that's a bit grim. I do have one job at ARM I'm pursuing, but I don't really think it's a great fit.

I was looking through photos from the last couple of weeks and found a nice video of my oldest turning her ankle at a basketball game--proud to have caught the moment on tape. 😉 I have a video of me and the dogs hunting a mouse or rat on our back porch. I decided not to share either of those. I had to jump back to Thanksgiving to find a shareable photo. 🙃

Secrets of Deara is sitting at about 70k words right now. It has one major track that is barely off the ground, and another that needs serious rewriting, but I think that'll put the word count at 80-90k and be about right. At that point, the first pass will be done, but it will be quite a mess. I've said this before, but I think of writing like a deck of cards. That first pass, I play a game of 52 pickup (with myself I suppose). But I play it outside during a high wind, and I have to spend some time counting them all afterward. At some point, I get to just shuffling and tapping cards to line them up, but that first pass I'm just trying to find them all, get them facing the right way, remove the jokers...

On the bright side, because of my early retirement, I'm getting more time to write, so this is going much faster than the last book.

The cover of Book 3 of Guardian League is almost done. I really like the original, which mimics the cover of the children's book, We're Going on a Bear Hunt, but apparently my sense of humor doesn't sell books. So, fine, you get your non-sensibly-dressed tough girl on the front. Anyone who wants an original cover, better grab it soon. "Collector's Edition". The new cover will definitely look "more professional."

All books by Steven J. Morris