My next book . . .

After the death of her brother, teenage Marlo flees an abusive home and comes to work for an enigmatic mortician.

And that's where the fun begins. Well, not fun, exactly. It's kind of bleak. But sometimes I like bleak.

This is turning out to be a really hard book to write. Maybe because it hasn't been with me for years and years like some of my other stories, so I haven't had as much time to work through problems. I never realized how hard world-building is without info-dumping. That's the most challenging thing, actually—the world-building.

The book is set in the indeterminate future blighted by drought. Recycling is a necessity. Various environmental problems interfere with people having enough food and water, of which there's already a scarcity. But Marlo isn't out to solve these problems. She's got enough to deal with without taking on the government.

Anyway, now that I've thrown that out there . . . back to writing!