Work on Mother's Child is proceeding slowly, unfortunately. I had surgery on my hand last week to stop progressive degeneration of the median nerve. This problem has for some months caused a near total loss of sensation in that hand and (contradictorily) excruciating pain in the thumb and forefinger. It has been getting progressively worse, and the orthopedic surgeon opined that I risked near total loss of use of this hand without the surgery, but this surgery has left me as a one-handed hunt-and-pick typist at best for the time being. I know from similar surgery I had many years ago on the other hand, that recovery to full use will not be quick, probably several weeks at best.

Needless to say this has deleteriously impacted my ability to write quickly. This combined with writer's block about every other day and you can understand when I say, "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." I also am very picky about what I publish. This led to me trashing about 1/2 of what I had written for this chapter because it just didn't meet my own standards. I have rewritten the trashed sections of the chapter, and had I not developed this problem in my hand, I think the chapter would have been out by now.

That said, the next chapter is approximately 80% complete in first draft form. With the help of my wife, I hope to get it out to my editors by the end of next week. Posting to follow in a week to 10 days after that following rewrites to address their comments and corrections. I believe this to be a realistic schedule, which I will try very hard to meet.

I apologize for the delays. Between my health problems at the end of last year (which are much improved), and the subsequent problems with my hand, it has dragged out the process seemingly interminibly.

Waterdog