September | 2013 | Liz Jasper

I’m using this interlude while Underdead with a Vengeance is off being critiqued to deal with something that has been a pressing on my mind for a very long time:

I don’t have a lair.

A few months back, fellow writer Mike Schulenberg (his funny blog is here) and I were doing a little twitter brainstorming to try to solve the problem. It went basically like this:

Liz: You have a lair?

Mike: Of course I do. Where else would I hatch my diabolical schemes?

Liz: I need a lair! Volcano?

Mike: Don’t overlook the timeless appeal of a moon base

Liz: Too cold. Maybe volcanic moon of Jupiter, but that’s too far from Swenson’s Sticky Chewy ice cream.*

* The best chocolate ice cream. I don’t know why other manufacturers bother trying.

The truth is, I’ve had my eye on the perfect lair since I was twelve, or however old I was when I saw A Man With a Golden Gun.

(Imagine picture here. I took it down. Because I was getting visitors.)

Lairspot: Ko Tapu Island in Thailand. AKA James Bond Island. AKA Liz Jasper’s sweet new Lair.

Keep.
Off.

It has everything I need. It’s warm, it’s gorgeous, it’s in the middle of nowhere, and it comes with minions. Minions who can swirl me up a soft serve and keep the tourists off the beach.

Opportunity for world domination–bonus!

I think I’ll move in this weekend. It’s been deserted for decades. James Bond fully ousted that lame squatter who drew attention to himself by trying to takeover the world. (That is NO way to treat a secret lair. He deserved what he got.)

If you have a lair, please do tell me about it. Perhaps I’ll send one of the minions over with a nice bowl of soft serve.

I feel like I have to start this post with,”No, I haven’t died,” which I do realize is how my last posting started. Nevertheless… No, I haven’t died. I HAVE been working on the third book in the Underdead series. And I’m here because yesterday I finished a rewrite pass. Hooray!
Now, some writers would have used “the” re-write pass. (Jealous moment.) I’ll be doing another one before I send it off to my editor.

But, that’s all fine tuning, and as a former Life Science teacher who used to spend quality time with microscopes, I can attest that fine tuning means the end is in sight. (Note: nylons and fresh lettuce leaves (chloroplast streaming makes you wonder at the definition of what is alive) are very cool under a microscope. Never get tired of them.) (Or parenthetical phrasing!)

So, third book coming soon. There will be a fourth for certain. And possibly many more.

I need a wee bit of space before I look at the book again, and I won’t know what to do with myself if I don’t spend my commute time and lunch hours writing so I might actually post blogs. I know, you’ll all faint from the shock if that happens.

Happy Labor Day everyone! I’m going to put the computer away, get off the couch and go for a hike.