I hope this missive finds you healthy and happy in the holiday season. Celebrating the different feast days of Christmas has led to a deeper, more personal time of rejoicing for my family. However, sadness and stress has marked our Christmas season, too.

Our beloved cat, Lady Guinevere, is struggling through kidney failure and probably won’t be with us much longer. Her care now involves medications, fluid injections, and a weekly shot from the vet. We’re hoping to improve her quality of life, but of course all this detracts from the very thing we are trying to protect.

For the most part, she and I are both adjusting. She’s still greatly enjoying her permanent station on top of the cat heating device (also known as the heating vent), and she still has enough sass in her to grumble at the vet or turn her head at just the right moment to send the contents of a syringe flying. She’s eating less but can still beg for roast beef when she smells it or spurn her fancy veterinarian diet and creep downstairs to sneak the other cat’s dry cat food. Not bad for a 20-year-old. According to this cool cat calculator I found online, Guinevere is 97 in human years, so it makes sense that a few meds would be in order for her. She has only ever had one owner, and I’m satisfied to have given her a good life.

The cat’s difficulties meant vet visits and pharmacy runs, so I was already feeling time-pressed when a cold knocked me flat. After four days for recovery, I pushed myself to go Christmas shopping today. When I returned home, I discovered the downstairs freezer, the one we just filled with a quarter of beef and a side of pork, with its door ajar. Almost everything in the door’s shelves had thawed. Fortunately, it was mostly packets of liver to cook for the cats. I did end up throwing out one steak and cooking another for the cats, but we seem to have escaped a total loss. I have seen freezers chained shut with padlocks. Now I know why.

I’ve learned that my publisher, Pelican Book Group, plans to sell WayFarer, book two of my Tales of Faeraven epic fantasy trilogy, for half price on its January 3rd release date only. I had meant to lay low and not tell a lot of people about my book’s availability until February 1st, but this is too good a deal not to support. So, besides crash-landing into Christmas, I’m now on the hook to write a number of guest posts for some of my fantasy launch team members. Not that I’m complaining. It’s nice to be well loved. Dealing with such things does make balancing life as a writer challenging and at times madcap. I love both Christmas and writing, which is a good thing since the next week will be full of both.

I’d love to know how your Christmas season is shaping up.