Got sick. It sucked. Still alive.

Sorry I was out of it for a little while everyone.  I got covid while I was at DragonCon, and it laid me out hard.  I was in and out of the hospital for a bit, since my lungs don't work the greatest.  They only have about eighty percent capacity on a good day, and things that a normal person could shrug off really knock me out for a bit.  I'm still not back to one hundred percent yet, and dealing with low energy levels and brain fog, but at least the weight loss is appreciated.  I was at 240 lbs in January of this year, and after the pneumonia over the summer and covid over the past few weeks, I'm down to 200 lbs.  Don't get me wrong, I work out some, but not a ton considering the large amount of titanium, pins, rods, and screws holding my body together.  And I swear I can feel the shrapnel grinding in my body every time I pick up something more than twenty pounds, so lifting weights is low-weight/high-rep for me.  I go in tomorrow to see my VA doctor for them to run a bunch of tests to see if there is something else going on, and to try and see if there is anything they can do about my brain fog and energy levels.  Even getting out of bed and taking a shower wears me out, and I have to take a break for a few minutes to catch my breath.  For someone who is in relatively good shape under forty years old, that isn't natural or good.

Otherwise, things are rolling along nicely.  I had a bunch of good meetings while I was at DragonCon.  I talked with Michael Chatfield (Ten Realms author) about some exciting ideas for the future, a Kickstarter representative who is super nice and has great ideas, Podium audio bought me entirely too many drinks, Daniel Schinhofen stole my bill at a restaurant, Shadow Alley snuck me into the vendor hall so James Hunter could yell at me in public (we're friends, don't worry), Brian Nordon, Lars Machmuller, and Kevin Sinclair took turns trying to kidnap me because "I'm *actually* funny in person" (Kev and Brian are freaking huge humans, and it's a good thing I'm feisty), and Matt Dinniman gave me an insane number of things because he likes my books.  He didn't say he actually read them, but he definitely said he liked the covers, so that's something.  (Seriously though, he's always fun to hang out with, and he rocks at karaoke.)  If anyone gets the chance to come to DragonCon next year, I highly recommend it.  All the LitRPG/Cultivation authors hang out at the Westin bar between panels, and we will talk and hang out with literally anyone who comes up and talks with us.  It's a lot of fun, minus the whole getting sick thing.  There's also going to be a special event just for authors next year that doesn't require a DragonCon pass, where readers can meet tons of us all at once in one location and get free books, autographs, swag, and hear speeches if you want.  I just signed a bunch of books this time, and told bad jokes to the few people who made the mistake of standing close to me for too long near the open bar. 

As for more concrete information, I also had meetings with both Legion and Mountaindale about my future contracts with them.  Legion is open for literally anything, and will take whatever I am willing to push their direction.  I'm certainly excited about that, and the potential is great.  Mountaindale is definitely more discerning with what they are willing to accept, and a lot of our discussion centered around the future of Threads.  I'm definitely good for books five and six in the series, so that's great news.  They aren't as excited about the side series, so that will probably be going through Legion once I get the time to polish it to acceptable levels.  Once Mountaindale can gauge the sales numbers for books five and six on Threads, we will be able to see if they are willing to take another contract for books seven through nine.  I genuinely think they will, since that will close out the first story arc for Jim and friends, and they want the complete story under one roof.  After that, I'll have to present each story idea to them as an independent entity for approval, which is entirely fair.  The bottom line is, I have two great options going forward for whatever story I want to write without having to self-publish.  That's something I could certainly always do, but I just don't know if I want to wrestle the headache that marketing presents itself to be, especially when there are already companies that exist who have it mastered. 

Now that I've vomited my thoughts on this overly long update, I'm going to get back to work.  Jury is due to Tantor audio very soon, and I'm so far behind it's ridiculous.  I'll get it done with some sleepless nights and insane amounts of coffee, so it's time to embrace the suck and get it done.  After I see the doctor and hope I don't get tossed in the hospital again, of course.

Anyway, thank you all for being awesome and supporting me like you do.  I love your face.

Michael.