Soar editing is still carrying on, and we’re keeping calm. 🙂 I’ve been surprised at how much blood there is to be squeezed out of that stone. But we all want it to be exactly right on the first try. So the current estimate has been updated to Fall 2011.

On a recent trip, I also worked on some new writing for the short story compilation. My current writing tool of choice, the Lean Mean Writing Machine, or Nadia, is an old 13″ Powerbook. Sadly, she’s mostly good for web browsing and text editing now; but that turns every travel moment into an opportunity to do some writing undistracted by daily worries. One of the new stories is a short but sweet fairy tale of sorts; the other may end up being a Soar pre-history or far-future, though I haven’t really started on it enough to know for sure, yet. These will join a short story and a novella about an alien world where shapeshifters fight for their freedom; a depressed Irishman caught up with the fae; and an online romance that takes a strange turn. These stories were all written over the last ten years or so, but in the end, they’ve all ended up with an alchemy theme. It’s sort of neat how that worked out. So the title and the theme of the book will probably be alchemy-related, as well.

No more spoilers! 🙂 I may try to post some teaser text from Soar soon, though.