T.K. Perry's Blog

I, being of little planning skill and profound procrastination, finally present Delia White: Book Three of The Winged only three years after I published Book Two (insert uber face palm). But in my defense, there was this pandemic thingy…maybe you heard about it? I know, I know…all that staying home should have been great for a hobby writer like me, and it sorta was. My writing just had to compete with momming, serial news-watching, excessive cooking, and addiction-fueled gaming. Despite all that, it’s finally here! I am SO doing my giddy dance…in a chair…okay, I’m mostly just typing and thinking about dancing. I’m going to count it.

One moment of seriousness, though: This book is different. Yes, it has many of the same characters and it overlaps with Lexi Monarch: Book Two of The Winged. But Delia White is suffering from a mental illness, similar to PMDD (premenstrual dysphoric disorder) but continuous. I wanted to write about that because it’s what I know. And because it’s too easy to feel like a bad person when you can’t behave the way you want to. For those of you who know what I’m talking about, this book is for you. For those of you who don’t, there’s still lots of romance and humor to enjoy. Happy reading

It’s done! It’s done! Drum roll please: I present the cover for Delia White: Book Three of The Winged! Once again, Angela Bruggeman has given me beautiful paintings that I blended together for this finished product:

Considering the past year we’ve had, I’m too paranoid to set a release date yet, but I’m hoping for August. Did I just doom myself by saying that much? Hopefully not!

Though it may appear that I am flaking my way through this pandemic, I have actually been a good girl! Er, woman. In addition to mastering Chipotle recipes to increase my waistline, I have finished writing Delia White: Book Three of The Winged! Now begins the editing process, so I don’t even want to speculate on a release date yet, but here is a picture of my most delightful beta reader (also my kid) at work on the manuscript:

She loved it, but since she may also be biased, I’ll filter the manuscript through the remainder of my faithful beta readers and my editor, Melody Shellman. Get ready, ladies and James; it’s coming!

If you’re not familiar with Operation Underground Railroad, I hope you’ll take two minutes to watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10P7kYbHa2Q

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Just thinking about children being sold as sex slaves brings me to tears. I know 2020 is a hard year for everyone, but these kids need our help. My friend and fellow author, Shannon Symonds, came up with the fundraising idea Authors For Freedom. Participating authors will be donating the proceeds of their book sales on July 31, 2020. Since I’m not a big author and a single day’s proceeds would be infinitesimal, I’m going to donate my book sale proceeds for all of July to this cause. If you’ve already read my books Elissa Blue and Lexi Monarch, please peruse the books from the other participating authors or consider making a direct donation to Operation Underground Railroad. Thank you for taking the time to read this and for wanting the world to be a better place.

My introversion is showing; I admit that I’ve been looking at the three-week quarantine for covid-19 with delight. My daughter and I have happily made new recipes each day while I futilely haunt Amazon for paper towels less expensive than gold. What I really should be doing is completing Book Three of The Winged series, but that’s difficult to do with family at home and my daughter matching my insane late-night hours. I must admit that a large chunk of my time is being gobbled by my current addiction: GAMING.[image error] Specifically, Guild Wars 2. I LOVE this game. I can play and nothing stressful is happening in the world. Because despite my initial delight, the growing number of fatalities, the dwindling toilet paper, and the reality of so many people I love being in danger is really setting in. I’d like to say I’m handling that underlying panic in healthy ways, but the chips are gone and Guild Wars has become my crutch. I even delight in drawing others into my addiction and triumph when I succeed; evil, right? So if this post has inspired anyone to play (it’s free, btw), let me know in the comments; I promise to derive wicked joy from it. >:)

Last weekend I lunched at the Hawthorne Fish House (yum!) with a handful of Oregon writers from Storymakers Ink. After initial awkwardness (are you the stranger I’ve [image error]been messaging? should we hug?), we started chatting about our writing projects, allergies, work, abuse, families, and faith. In a two-hour span, we went from Facebook acquaintances to fast friends with each conversation eagerly bleeding into the next. Though I’ve had that happen before with a single person, never with a group that size. I found a whole cluster of kindred!

A couple of months ago, I cleverly locked myself out of the house…while frying hash browns and not fully dressed (yep, I’m awesome). For the sake of modesty, I donned a filthy jacket my husband had left in the garage, and made a panic run to my neighbor (who wasn’t home). I was hurrying home again before I realized I could just flip the breakers in the garage, the stove would lose power, and my house and dogs wouldn’t go up in smoke. That done, I pestered another neighbor, who generously let me use her phone, a shirt, and even drove me around trying to find the neighbor who has my spare key. It was a full three hours before I got back into my house, during which time I rediscovered the joys of outdoor lavatories and drinking straight from the hose (only one of those is a joke).

Please tell me someone else out there has been embarrassed in front of your contractor. Today my shame was hoarding of the under-the-sink variety. Apparently, I have acquired sufficient hair gel, lotion, and Proactiv for the end of time. I know this because I just filled 2[image error] black garbage bags with my hoarding and even as they threatened to burst, there was still a fourth of the under-the-sink contents to go! I hadn’t realized I would need to empty it out in order to get new countertops, so I was unraveling my hoard at panic pace while the contractor kindly removed the under-the-sink contents from my other bathroom. And I know there’s no orderly way to put my hoard back once the contractor’s done (there’s a reason dragons keep their hoards in an untidy pile!), but what other option do I have? Move? Yeah, okay, guess I’ll do that.

Now that we’ve embarked on our eighth month of things going badly, I realize I have to change my focus. I need to ferret out the blessings in each day and see the good in my life so the misfortunes don’t overwhelm me. For instance, the sun was shining today, my husband bought us tickets to see Wicked, and olives taste good (even when you accidentally open a can of black beans first).

My exuberance over the end of 2018 may have been premature. It seems troubles from last year have simply combined with new sorrows. It was silly to expect otherwise. Perhaps I’ve been reading too many happily-ever-after stories where gnarly problems are crowned with an aw-worthy end. Or maybe my HEA is just a little slow in coming. Either way, it’s time for some high-quality escapism to dry my tears: it’s time to write! I’m currently working on Book 3 of The Winged and hope to publish it before the end of the year. In the meantime, I’ve decided to make Elissa Blue free for a while on Kindle, Nook, and Kobo. So if you need some escapism, too, now you can get it for free!