Danielle de Valera

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always found it strange celebrating a winter solstice festival in the middle of summer. As Christmas approaches and we swelter here in Australia, praying for rain on Christmas Day so we won’t be bathed in sweat while eating the Christmas dinner, we find ourselves looking longingly at pictures like this.

Oh, how we wish …

All’s fine with me, up here on the Far North Coast of New South Wales. To anyone who bought Dropping Out, the collection of linked short stories I put out in early October at https://www.amazon.com/Dropping-Out-change-novel-stories-ebook/dp/B01LXF9QEB I’d like to say thank you.

And so I currently have a little cat fairy tale called “Perversity” going free at: http://www.catsstories.com/perversity.html If you’re in the mood for a cat fairy tale, this 700 word story could be for you. The story’s zany illustration (below) was done by my daughter Tara Sariban.

While all’s well with me, my old cat seems to be failing.

He’s fourteen, and for some months now, he’s been losing weight. I know animals tend to lose weight as they grow older; a device nature has to lessen the load on the heart, but his weight loss came on suddenly (since the end of August), so it’s a cause for concern. I’ve had various tests done on him, and he’s due for a blood test for FIV (feline HIV) and feline leukemia on 3 January. He’s seems well and happy, and he’s eating well, so at this point, it’s a bit of an unknown.

I plan to spend the first six months of next year putting the scenes for the sequel to MagnifiCat (https://www.amazon.com/MagnifiCat-Animal-Fantasy-Danielle-Valera-ebook/dp/B00H0ORWQY) into the right order.

After that, I’d like to spend some time finding a title and cover for the Brisbane novel I hope to put out in 2018. Because it’s a long work (108,000 words, at present), I’ll start content editing it in the second half of ’17. That way I’ll have plenty of time to pull the whole thing together, line edited, copy-edited and proofed by September ’18. I’m a tortoise at everything I do, I need all that time just to get all the various processes right.

For the rest of this year, though, I’m not planning to do much at all, except catch up with a lot of things I’ve been avoiding doing on the internet. If you’ve been working hard all year, I hope you too find time to kick back and take it easy.

Merry Christmas, everyone! And a safe and happy New Year.

Dani

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