Gallery Page for 'Voices in the Briars' is Now Up

Yay, me. I'm off today (another one of those unexpected days off given by the company because, well, my team's too good at what we do, and now we're too far ahead of schedule on our workload), so I took the time to put together the gallery page for Voices in the Briars as well as finalize the print book for release on Nov. 1.

So to check out the page, go here for some this, that, and the other. The book will be out on November 1 in both print and e-book formats.  

I'll try to haul as much ass as I can with the postcards to swing states today since I don't have any writing planned to do. A couple of light chores around the house, and I'm free for the rest of the day. Mind you, I'll be poorer in my next paycheck since I'm not applying any PTOs to today. Gotta take the bitter with the sweet, I guess. 

Oh, and since I spent much of my time earlier scouring the 'net for images to use in my moodboard, I stumbled across this amazing art showing the protagonists of Dracula. It's by Deimus-Remus over at DeviantArt, and I love its classic illustration look. The artist has a website as well, and his real name is Nathan J. Anderson, and you can check out his other work here.

click the image for a closer look

I'm so in love with this art style, and knowing it was the artist's attempt at interpreting vaguely described characters in the book makes this even more special. Love, love, love.

I'm champing at the bit over The Great British Baking Show since it's being released on Nettflix to mirror the UK release, which follows the weekly episode format. We've been so spoiled by entire seasons being dropped all at once that we often forget that this is actually an abnormal method of entertainment. At least I see it that way, anyway, especially when the survival of a show depends on metrics that are stupid at best and don't account for nuances in viewers' habits. But this is the present and likely the future of home entertainment, alas. 

Anyway, I'm going to put myself out there with this. 

There are only two episodes so far of The Great British Baking Show, but I'm starting to play around with possibilities of who might be in the final, and I'm basing my choices largely on flavor combinations and how gutsy the bakers are in tackling the unusual and making it work. So in this instance, if these bakers not only stick to their guns but improve over time, they're the ones to beat.

Dylan, Christiaan, and Sumayah. They're still hit or miss in one way or another, but episode two gave us a nice peek into their strengths and what they're capable of, and that's why I'm marking them as the ones to watch. Coming not far behind are John, Mike, and Andy. Those three are the "Steady Eddie" types who aren't as experimental in their flavors, but they do produce something special in the end. The rest of the bakers can still pull a rabbit out of a hat along the way and surprise me, and that'll be great if they do. This is one group that's neck-and-neck with the previous batch of bakers from 2023 in vying for the top spot of my favorite, so losing any one of them will be a real drag. 

Now I'm really excited about Bread Week.