A Taste of Freedom

Finally free from the shackles of the day job, so I've been walking and writing and catching up on my reading.
Here's one I came across in the current edition of Abyss and Apex. It's called A Demon of Almansol by Alter S. Reiss and is worth a look. It's a solid piece of fantasy about a sorceress who is drawn into a life and death battle against a powerful demon. Good stuff.
The day job is a real bummer at this time time of the year. Fourteen or fifteen hour days, seven days a week. No time to read or write or even think. Each year I go through the same thought processes along the lines of, I have to get out of this. And each year we pull off a miracle and I decide I might stay after all.
But it's nice to get out of the office and into the sunshine at last. Sarah and I celebrated by tackling one of our favourite walks, from Conway to Llandudno. It's about eight miles. It has a terrific little coffee shop along the way, and we talk all day about writing and art and the places we want to see in the coming year. We always wrap it up in the coffee shop above Waterstones in Llandudno, and inevitably end up buying a pile more books.
Then today we ended up at a lecture about the Arnold Arboretum in Boston. Why? Because it was free. And because it was warm after a chilly few hours in Ness Gardens. And because I get story ideas from lectures. And also because one day, who knows, we might go to Boston, and it's always good to know where the parks are.