Batchin’ it, part 2.

It’s good to come up for air. Figuratively, as well as literally.

The last several weeks have been jam-packed with activity, most of it recently involving my new novel, Quest for Redemption. The manuscript is now in the hands of my Croatia-based formatter, and the print and ebook versions should be done soon. I’m on course for my planned book launch on October 7 at Northwind Book & Fiber in downtown Spooner, a very nice town about 30 miles from my front door. Carol runs one of the finest bookstores in this part of the state, and I’m excited to be doing my first-ever launch at her store.

North to Alaska!

I took a week off from writing to join the family on a trip to Alaska. We flew from Minneapolis to Seattle on Saturday, July 22, and the next day set sail on the NCL Encore. Joining me and Sue were our daughter and son-in-law, Kim and Mike Marolda, with their precocious five-year-old, Pasquale (“Pax,” for short), along with our son Jim and his girlfriend, Jessica. We cruised up the Inside Passage with ports of call in Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan, along with a morning spent bobbing around Glacier Bay. We closed the cruise with a quick stop in Victoria, B.C., before returning to Seattle on July 30 and flying home that day.

Another football season kicks off.

Shortly after our return, I got ready for the start of high school football season, which begins on the third weekend of August here in Wisconsin. This would be my 26th season of radio play-by-play coverage, and there’s always a thrill as the season kicks off. Once again, I am the on-air voice of the Rice Lake Warriors, who will be gunning for their third consecutive trip to the state playoffs this year and, hopefully, their first state title since 2017. They’ll have to work their way up to that level; the opener on August 17 was a tough 21-12 loss at Menomonie.

I’ll be back on the air tomorrow night, August 25, with Rice Lake’s home opener against Superior. After that, seven more Friday nights as the Warriors go after the Middle Border Conference title that eluded them by a total of two plays last season.

Deadline time.

Amidst all the work in preparing for the football opener, I had a self-imposed deadline to meet for my new novel. The cover art is done, and I’ll be revealing that on my post of September 7, one month before the launch. For this book, the third in the Quest series, I take my protagonists, husband-and-wife martial artists Jim and Gina Hayes, way out of their southern Wisconsin, cabin-on-a-lake comfort zone: they have to confront a crisis in their marriage, and then the challenge of the Salkantay Trek, a five-day, 50-mile climb through the Peruvian Andes to the ancient lost Inca city of Machu Picchu. Making things even more challenging on the trek will be a threat posed by Shining Path guerillas, who aim to make Jim and Gina, along with their ten fellow trekkers, their next kidnap victims.

Sue and I hiked the Salkantay back in 2017, and it was one of the best vacations we’ve had, which is saying something. I knew I’d have to set a novel there someday, and some stories our guide told us about his encounters with the Marxist revolutionaries convinced me that it would make for a great story. Certainly the scenery lends itself to adventure.

The photos should give you some idea of what Jim and Gina encounter on the trek, although theirs winds up being a lot more dangerous than ours was.

Back to batchin’.

This week, Sue and her best friend, Mary Beth Scow, are in western Massachusetts, enjoying a week at Canyon Ranch. I’m here holding down the fort with Maisie the Morkie and Jezabel the Siamese. So far, things are going well. I’ve found that when Sue’s gone, I have to be even more organized than usual, because there will always be household chores to do that are added to my regular weekly routine, such as watering her numerous flowers. In addition to preparing for Friday night’s game, I’m getting ready for a trip to Red Wing, Minn., on Saturday for a book-signing at Fair Trade Books, one of the best independent bookstores I’ve been to, anywhere. This event will kick off a busy 7-week schedule of author appearances, which will include Town & Country Days in Shell Lake on Sept. 2; Dragon Tale Books in Menomonie on Sept. 16; Fall Fest in Hayward on Sept. 23; and finally, the Quest for Redemption launch on October 7.

It’s pretty busy, but at the least, it keeps me out of trouble. Hope to see you at one of the events coming up!