Temporarily. She'll be back in November, anyway, and maybe earlier. We've been working on setting up the next story in the Mercenaries universe, now I've got the ugly first draft (and second, and in a few places third and fourth drafts) of Freedom No More complete.
It came out 110Kwords, and knowing someone besides me needs to see it to tell me what I've done wrong, I've sent it off to my beta readers. The feedback has already been swift and through!
It's to be expected. Still, I wish I wasn't putting at least the first one through so much pain. We have been discussing it, and I think I've finally realized what he means by "find your story!" Focus. Make sure I'm telling the story instead of wandering about in the weeds.
Easier said than done ( I love the weeds), but the second half (which he has yet to get to) may point to the root cause. I'll wait to see if the second half (after I changed horses in mid stream, in a manner of speaking) has the same level of problem as the part he's completed so far.
My other reader has been awesome busy, and just got started; I can't wait to see how that goes!
Do you plan to do NaNoWriMo? I think the muse and I will try to get the first half of that next book through the keyboard. Tentative working title: Background Check.
More later.