Sparks and Diplomacy

First up, I hope everyone had a great 4rth. Mine was... annoying since we had so much fireworks. Don't get me wrong, I love fireworks, or at least, I used to. Now that I'm older (and hopefully wiser) and I see it's effect on my pets, I get annoyed.
Having them go off from April until well, now, July 10th is... exasperating. As early as 8am until 3am. A guy down the street would come out of his garage, toss an M-80 into the street, set off every car alarm in the area, then drink a beer and go back inside. he did this like clockwork from April until July 4rth at 8:30. Poor Lil Red would scurry and dive under the bed.

Anyway, I'm sorry, I'm also a bit grumpy at the heat. 100F here, which sucks to do anything. I finished the rough draft of Sparks last week so this is my week off. Cover is here...

   Yes, that is the latest version of my Stargate. I combined 2 gates, 1 from Renderosity, another from CGtrader.
The ships are from Renderosity. I also got a fighter to play with for the cover to Inferno. You may or may not see the Xenos on the cover of the next book. I've already picked out what I'm going to do. 😀

   I have already started outlining the next book, Inferno since I can't do my usual time off stuff like work on models, etc. GRR. I have 3D printed a cool Starcraft II Terran Battle Cruiser and I'm trying to get the lighting done in it, but again, heat. It is almost done!
   And I also bought a cool dragon figure, and 3D printed Jaxom to turn them into an approximation of Ruth and Jaxom from Anne McCaffrey's White Dragon cover. I used my dremel to grind down the scales so he's roughly smooth. I went to use some heat from my stove top to bend the tail a moment ago... and accidentally chared the wing. Oops? Guess I'm not doing that!
  I plan to use my 3D pen to add the straps and bulk up the muscles and add ridges, add the heart to the tail, then putty, prime, and paint...
  But, I can't work on either of those except for a narrow window in the morning or in the evening... depending on if something is going on or if the workbench is in use by someone else. Don't get me started on my R2. Or the Reindeer, or other projects... sooo frustrating!

  And no, playing MarioKart Double Dash (thanks for getting me back into it Dev) is not helping pass the time much. (mainly because I have a furry blond wanting attention every dang time she hears it turn on! If I have to have a blond demand attention and do a lap dance on me, why can't it be the 2 legged kind? Seriously!)

   Oh, and I can't do the model work inside, if someone sees me with a pen (Loki) he goes bandannas to get his cheeks rubbed. Kinda hard to do with a hot 3D pen or soldering iron bub! Not unless he wants his whiskers curled or scorched...

Okay, hopefully I got the rant out of my system... maybe... hopefully... ugh.

  Diplomacy:  I got the book back from Rea on the 7th. I'm sitting on it through the weekend to give any last minute Betas time to get their last 2 cents worth in. We should see it published at the end of this month. That means I'll be posting snippets um... tomorrow... (weak) maybe?

That's about it for now.