I’ve mentioned before that eggs are liquid gold in Hawaii. My husband and I have never been big egg eaters, but several months ago when they hit $7 a dozen in the health food store (I’m not even sure they were organic) I put my foot down, or at least put my credit card away. No more! Earlier this month we were on the verge of breaking our boycott when one of our neighbors saw us on the street and gave us a dozen eggs fresh from her chickens. (We were having friends over and wanted to make ebelskivers; see the final Resolution in Resolving to be Resolute for photographic evidence of the pastries.) Then this past weekend (before we’d even finished the previous eggs), another neighbor driving by handed us a dozen and a half eggs from his chickens! The morale of the story: if you want eggs, walk your dogs often and have awesome neighbors with lots of hens.

We’ve been on a cereal streak this week, but this morning I actually got it together to make some of our new eggs for breakfast. They were small and beautiful and almost all yolk. I like eggs, but I have an iffy relationship with them. They have to be completely done or they give me the heebie-jeebies (except over-easy, which have to have runny yolks or I can’t eat them). Even when eggs are perfectly done, my smell-sensitive brain can turn on me at any moment and hit the nausea switch. That’s especially true if I’m the one cooking them. The omelet my husband made for dinner after our recent windfall was yummy; the scrambled eggs I made this morning… well, I got them down, but then couldn’t finish the rest of the food on my plate. (Vegetarian sausages, so I don’t even have sausage-making heebie-jeebies as an excuse.)

Today, I was going to share a bit about my experiences so far writing the Book Five, but I’ve decided to hold off for a bit for a couple of reasons. First, writing (or reading someone else’s writing) might be like making scrambled eggs, or sausage of the non-vegetarian variety. It goes down a lot easier—is a lot more enjoyable—if you know as little about the process as possible. Second, yesterday I had an energizing conversation with my developmental editor, and to be honest, I’m finding it difficult to sit here and write anything but the awesome new scenes that are buzzing around in my head. Still, I suspect there is some curiosity about Book Five’s progress.

Braving the Boneyard has a cover now, and for those of you on my Newsletter list, later today you’ll be getting an email with the sneak peek cover reveal. I’ll be sharing it here on the blog in February. No release date today—I don’t want to spend the brain power figuring it out (or make promises I can’t keep) before I start rewrites. The upshot is, I want to give you the best experience I can, and, at the risk of sounding like a weirdo writer who hears characters’ voices in her head, I owe Sydney that, too. There are some scenes in Boneyard that make me bounce on my yoga ball chair with a goofy kid smile, but the manuscript still needs work. I’m pretty clear on what has to happen, but until I sit down and dig in to rewrites, I’m less clear on how quickly I can get it done. Soon. 😉

In the meantime, please check out my Reader Survey and vote for the Sydney Brennan Short Story you’d like to read next, or suggest your own. I’ve only had a few responses (hint, hint!) but so far an ill-fated weekend with J.D. is in the lead. The survey closes on February 15, 2016, so vote now!

[Eggs by Patryk Dziejma from stocksnap.io]