An Album in the Mountains and a Monster in the Hollows

I'm writing this from a hotel in Seattle. About nine days ago I flew here with my musical compadrés the Captains Courageous (along with Gabe Scott and engineer Todd Robbins), to record The Last Frontier, my newest album.Our days started at about 10AM and ended at about 1:30AM for eight days straight, and we somehow managed to record fourteen songs. If you're not familiar with the recording process, you may not realize that fourteen songs in eight days is what we like to call break-neck speed. And it's a ton of work--less so for me than for Ben and Andy, the producers, whose brains had to be engaged at the soundboard throughout the process. If you want to see a few Very Serious Videos of us making the album, head over to the Rabbit Room.I decided to post tonight because I just found out that there's a Christian Science Fiction & Fantasy blog tour happening right now, and the book they're talking about is North! Or Be Eaten. I'm so thankful that almost six months after it was released they're still spreading the word. This week I'll try to include links to the various reviews in case you want to check them out.I'm not totally clear on how it all works, but I think it's like this: Waterbrook, my publisher, gives review copies of the book to a bunch of bloggers who love to read. In return the bloggers write reviews. They may be a little biased because they got the book for free, but they're mostly folks who are unfamiliar with me and are judging the book on its own merits. The only problem I've seen is that many times they're not reading On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness first, which is making the book harder to get into. Why you'd review a second book in a series without reading the first is a mystery to me (especially when in your review you complain about not understanding what's happening), but in the end I'm just grateful that they've read the book and are willing to tell others about it.The second reason I'm writing (sorry this is so long!) is to inform you of my intentions.And here they are.I intend to wrap up this album in two weeks. Sometime in mid-February, I hope. Then I intend to take a deep breath, dive into Aerwiar, and not come up for air until I've written The Monster in the Hollows (which is still a working title). Not only am I excited to tell you about what happens to the Igibys, I'm excited to find out for myself. I know in a general sense where the story is going, but each book has been full of surprises.Thank you for reading, and giving me a chance to tell stories with music and words. I truly love this work.