This past few weeks has been… well… a nightmare.  Almost three weeks ago, I finished writing Endgame.  The following morning, I received a call with news that my dad was incredibly ill.  They thought he was going to die.  Needless to say, we dropped everything to be with him.  And so began the long stretch of sitting at the bedside, trying to be brave, and putting everything else on the back burner.

We are incredibly lucky in that, so far, my dad has pulled through.  The last span of days has been a roller-coaster ride of good days and bad days, with never any certainty or ending point on the horizon.  It looks like we’re in for a long battle, and I’m OK with that, considering the alternative.

There are very few things in the world that can make me so casually set aside my writing and not even look at it.  This is one of them.  I’ve always been Daddy’s girl, and, though we’ve been dealing with health issues for years and I’ve been trying to prepare myself for losing him for years, I am simply not prepared, and I never will be.  Since I got that call, I have literally gotten nothing done.  At one point, several days in, sitting there while he slept, I attempted to do some read-through and revising on my phone.  I just kept reading and reading the same thing and I’m not sure that any of it made it through to my brain.  It was pointless.

Now, with things looking a bit better– he’s “stable”, but frail– I’m trying to get back to normal life.  At least somewhat.  We’ve managed to do some normal things like buy groceries (major victory) and get some sleep.  I’m sure many of you have been through these kinds of family crises and know how it goes.  I’m still devoting a lot of time and energy to Dad, which means that there’s not a lot left for editing and revising.  And honestly, the revision phase of writing is always difficult and energy-draining for me, unlike the writing phase, which usually recharges me.  I’m already exhausted, mentally and physically.  So this last haul will be difficult, and it will likely take longer than it would have otherwise.  And then subtract the three weeks that was just sucked into the vacuum of life.  So what this all adds up to, as I’m sure you could have guessed after reading the title of this post, is that Endgame will be arriving later than expected.

I’ve had emails and blog comments (that I still need to reply to) asking me when Endgame would be released, and generally sharing excitement and enthusiasm over the coming release.  I love receiving those and they really help motivate me.  It makes me so sad to have to announce a delay because I know you’ve all been waiting for this book.  And I’m as excited as you are about finishing the series.  Also, I don’t feel like I can give you an exact answer at this point.  I am planning on putting everything I can muster into finishing this book.  I’m a driven person, so usually I would go on that alone and have a decent amount of confidence about a time frame.  Only, in this case, I’m still living in anything-can-happen-land.  The only honest answer is that I don’t know, but I’m going to try like crazy to keep the delay from being longer than necessary.  Most likely, I think we’re looking at a matter of weeks, rather than months.  And yeah, typing that, it sounds like a long time.  All I can say is… I’m sorry.  🙁  I’ll do my best to post updates on Facebook, etc.

Thank you all for understanding, as I know you do.  A special thanks to the ladies on my street team, for their love, support, and encouragement.  🙂

I am going to send this out in a newsletter as well, so if you’re subscribed to both blog and mailing list, please forgive the duplicate post.