(Not really.)

But I spent far too long working on a sensible way to share a preview of A Precarious Magic, the long-awaited sequel to A Lonely Magic this afternoon. It was probably not a good use of my time.

That said, I’d already hit my word count for the day, so I could have been playing some silly iPad game. (My latest is Homescapes.) What I truly should have been doing was kayaking, but the tide was very low so I would have needed to wade out through quite a bit of mud to get the kayak into the water and that did not seem very appealing.

So, yeah, anyway: Chapter One of A Precarious Magic

I hope you enjoy it and it makes you want to read more! It hasn’t actually been edited yet — well, except by me — so if you spot any mistakes, feel free to let me know. Don’t feel obligated, though. I will probably catch them in one of my innumerable editing passes, starting in October. Or maybe November.

You will note that there is absolutely no description on the link. I’m going to guess that writing the book blurb on this one will take me days of hair-pulling misery. Book descriptions are hard to write and this one — well, I’ll figure it out when I get there. Fortunately, I’m not there yet so that’s a problem for another day.

In the meantime, I’m having a delightful time with the actual writing. I said to a neighbor here back at the beginning of September that the end game is always like finishing a jigsaw puzzle when you have room for twenty pieces but there are fifty pieces left. Well, my fifty pieces are all slotting themselves into place quite nicely. I would honestly think I’d planned it instead of just discovering it as I wrote.

I am also loving Maine. It is crazily beautiful where I am. The night sky is so gorgeous — lots of stars to see, not hidden behind light pollution. I even saw a shooting star Saturday night, which always feels magical. The leaves are all falling now and when the wind blows, they skitter across the pavement like some musical instrument you’ve never heard of. The trees across the river that were a block of green three weeks ago are now scattered with color — still mostly green but with bursts of deep red and yellow, and on my walks, I spot other leaves in scarlet and bright orange. The air feels clean, the water tastes clean… it’s lovely here. And this weekend was toasty warm, which was nice for me — I was starting to get a little worried last week that it would get cold before I finished writing. I don’t think that’s going to happen now, but I’m definitely starting to plan my trip south.

I keep trying to take a good picture, but none of them reflect what I’m seeing. Maybe it’s just impossible to capture the light, the air, the sound of the leaves, the colors. But here’s a panorama from the door of the van.