MATTHEW KEITH

4th of July for this guy was pretty tame. In fact, I didn't even watch any fireworks. I drove home from Michigan yesterday, so by the time I put my bags down in Kentucky I was pretty tired and didn't feel like doing anything except stare at the inside of my eyelids.

Tonight, though--I have a house full of company coming over. We have a little over an acre and it's perfect for lighting off fireworks, a bonfire, and entertaining friends. Everyone is supposed to bring a dish to pass, and I LOVE that because my friends all make really good food. We'll have cornhole (for all my European fans, you might want to look that up... it probably isn't what it sounds like to you!) cards, two pools, a pool table, and we may even fire up the guitars if we're feeling like we need to make some noise.

I still haven't gotten the edited manuscript for Dreampire, but I am anxiously awaiting its arrival. In the meantime, I've really begun to get in deep with the characters in Shimmer. A couple weeks ago, I started writing it at turbo-speed simply because I had such a clear idea of the story itself, and it got roughed in quick. But now I'm looping back and -wow- I really like the characters in this one. This book is at the stage where it gets really exciting for me, because it's when I become emotionally invested with the people in it. A story is just a story until that happens... I just love it when it moves to this next level.

I hope everyone had a much more exciting 4th than I did, and I hope the rest of your weekend is amazing!