It’s been a wild time lately. Book five dropped. Things were a bit touch and go with ROUNDHOUSE. I sent it off to my ARC readers a little early, knowing a few small details were out of place, but not knowing where. They set me straight, quick.
The results of their feedback helped shape the final draft into the bone-breaking strike I intended it to be. I think you’ll be happy with how it turned out.
I’d love to say I do all this alone. And I do most of it alone. Today, I’m stuck with an admin day. Reviewing ads and posting marketing stuff, blah, blah, blah. Time and money and all the risk associated with publishing in this crazy post-print landscape are mine.
But I’ve been fortunate over my career to find people willing to offer their time to give invaluable and insightful feedback on my work. For that, I am forever grateful.
I’m also grateful modern technology allows me to keep in touch with my crew while on the road. Since 2018, my wife and I have visited thirty-eight states in the U.S., been to dozens of national parks, and explored countless miles of wilderness.
Lately, we’ve been slowing down.
The desire to go full nomad was born out of restlessness. Oklahoma, Texas, that’s where we’d been the majority of our lives. We’d traveled plenty, but never lived elsewhere. We had an itch to see what that was like.
Lots of other factors helped push us too. Getting closer to retirement. Our once quaint college town becoming just another suburb of an ever-expanding metropolis. And our son striking out on his own.
It’s been a wild ride. While my wife worked hard at her remote job, I was out volunteering or working at parks around the country to keep us moving. Make sure we had a place to park the rig. All that time, I was writing, too.
Truth be told, I was writing on the trails. On riding lawnmowers. Commuting back and forth to stunning locations. But until lately, nearly all of that magic came together in the off hours in our roughly four hundred square foot ride (with the slides out…) named Discovery.
We’ve seen so much and, more importantly, learned a lot about ourselves. The way we prefer to live and the creature comforts we’re ready to give up to do it.
When we left on that nomad maiden voyage, we had no intention of placing an end date on our travels. We still don’t. But when the world got weird in 2020, it drove home the need to have a home base.
We felt a bit too old to make a habit of living in our parents’ driveways. And when we got trapped in Three Rivers, California during COVID, we seriously started looking at property.
The habit stuck with us. Checking prices and communities out every time we dropped anchor. We’d always been on a search for a place to retire one day. Then, well, we found it.
A small piece of land and an old, creaky house surrounded by forests and flowers. We’re not exactly isolated, which is good because we’ve got great neighbors. But compared to about anywhere else, it’s pretty remote.
And after working in all those beautiful National Parks, I can see one out the window.
For the foreseeable future, we’ll likely be at what we’re calling the homestead a few months out of the year. Fixing up this 1840s house and letting the motorhome have some downtime so I can address maintenance issues that have come to light over the last six years.
Definitely not retirement or completely leaving the nomad life behind, but we’re preparing for the day we do both.
The office in the photo, like the rest, is a work in progress. We’ve had a cold snap this week and temperatures in the twenties overnight. On days the sun isn’t out, you’d be hard-pressed to call this “spring”. But having lived in a land of two seasons (summer and not summer) for so many years, we’re loving the variety.
When I’m not hammering at the keys and bringing you Kade’s latest adventure, I’ll be out splitting wood, cursing at squirrels who want to eat our house, trying to get shingles to stick to hundred-fifty-year-old decking planks, and working on the other house, the one with wheels, so we can depart this fall on the next leg of our journey.
Hard work? Yeah. I think that’s one thing we decided about how we want to live. Because that magic doesn’t happen when you snap your fingers. I’m okay with that.
Currently at 17,000 words on book six, RUSSIAN HILL. I’ve got a pre-order page going up. The release date is posted as 8-31 but I have every intention of delivering well before then.
Stay tuned.
Also, Amazon has selected DEVIL’S CHURN for a Kindle Daily Deal TOMORROW. If you know anybody who might like to get started with the Fort Black Thrillers, for that one day the US and Canadian Amazon store will feature the eBook for only $1.49!
Thanks again for coming along on the journey,
Russ
Categories: Journeys
RUSS LINTON 
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