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Light and Love

elouisebates

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. -John 1:5, ESV

I will be angry without hatred.

I will weep without despair.

I will proclaim truth without being cowed by lies.

I will fight evil with love.

I will practice mercy instead of vengeance.

I will sing when I am afraid.

I will leave a legacy of beauty instead of misery.

I will seek justice for the oppressed.

I will be a voice for those who are overlooked.

I will be a light that the darkness cannot overcome.

My heart and my head are full right now. Too full for many words. I want to spit venom at those who seek to turn tragedy to further their own particular hobby-horse or agenda. I want to punch a society that allows children to be brutalized. I want to scream at a media that further victimizes these wounded innocents. I want to fall to my knees and weep in abject despair over the brokenness of this world.

But I will not do any of those things. Because we do not fight darkness, wickedness, and brokenness with darkness, wickedness, and brokenness. We fight darkness with light, wickedness with love, brokenness with healing.

And so I write these words to remind myself of the path I have chosen.

Love will overcome. Love has overcome. 2000 years ago, Love broke himself open and poured out hope and healing on this shattered world. It was no magic spell, it was the ultimate sacrifice. We might not see a world completely healed yet – in some ways, this world seems to be getting more broken every day. That doesn’t do away with our hope. Our faith that one day, all pain and hurt and sorrow will be washed away, this world made perfect and made new, and Love’s children safe in his arms at last.

Until that day comes, I will keep my feet on the path of Love.

I choose beauty. I choose hope. I choose faith.

I choose light.

And I choose Love.

Books, fantasy, stories, writing

New Book!

elouisebates

Just in time for the holidays!

My cover designer finished the cover for my short story collection (can I call it a collection if it’s just two stories? And if not, what SHOULD I be calling it? Seriously, this has been driving me nuts. A duology? But they aren’t connected to each other, just similarly-themed) a couple months sooner than I was expecting. The stories themselves have been ready to go for ages, so all I had to do was fix up a little bit of formatting, and voila! Just in time to add to your Christmas wish list:

If This Be Magic & The Traitor and the Spy, available now at Smashwords and Amazon, and soon to be available in print.
Here’s the blurb for If This Be Magic:
As if being the worst student at Miss Cranston’s Select Seminary for the Study of Sorcery weren’t bad enough, now sixteen-year-old Sophie Abbott suspects her uncle, the most respected magician in Boston, of secretly working for the Kaiser. The year is 1915, and though America isn’t in the war yet, Sophie can’t sit by and do nothing. Before long, she and Uncle Edward’s apprentice Owen are deep in danger and treachery, and Sophie’s unique ability to see magic as a spiderweb of spells might be the only thing that can save them. Time is running short and Owen’s life is in her hands. Every spell she has ever attempted has failed spectacularly – can Sophie trust her magic now?

And for The Traitor and the Spy:

Philomena Stirling-Vane is fourteen years old in Victorian England, and in the unhappy position of having accidentally inherited the family magic. Her father is outraged, and her mother nearly prostrate with grief over the unhappy prospect of a lady magician in the family. When Jonathan Kempson, Mr Stirling-Vane’s former apprentice, requires another magician’s assistance to track down a traitor to the Council of Magicians, Phil sees her chance. Disguised as her brother, she accompanies Mr Kempson to London, where they must overcome their mutual dislike and learn to work together to unweave the tapestry of deception laid around them.

I was immensely proud of Justice’s Mask, and still am, but these two are even closer to my heart. They are fantasy, for one, which is my first and best love. They also both have a great deal more humor than Justice’s Mask, and while the more serious tone fits JM, I really do prefer to keep a more light-hearted tone when I can.

They are also set in the same world, though different eras, as my forthcoming novel Magic & Mayhem (I am aiming for a summer publication – we’ll see). This is my first attempt at playing with different stories and different characters in the same fantasy world, and it’s been so much fun.

Also, the cover. Isn’t that just gorgeous? I am so in love with it. It was created by Kathryn Jonell, and I highly recommend her work for anyone looking for a cover designer.

I have two more short stories and a novella from my summertime non-novel writing. I’m not sure when or how I’ll publish those, but for right now, I am so, so pleased with the three I’ve already published.

I hope you all enjoy them as much as I do!
philosophy, research, stories, writing

The Joy of the Library

elouisebates

Thank you all for your encouragement on my last post! I did get out my journal (and my fancy pens that I bought for art and then never used because I haven’t started the art book yet) the other day, but I haven’t written in it yet. Mainly because I started a new writing project (I am calling it Jane Austen meets Alias meets Diana Wynne Jones, which gives you a glimpse into how my brain works) and am having too much fun with that to try anything else.

Carl and the kids dropped me off at the library Friday late afternoon, and after wandering around for twenty minutes in a blissful daze about being able to pick out books without distraction, I meandered to the back, sat at a table, pulled out my laptop, and wrote.

Aside from the one tutor who breezed through the DESIGNATED QUIET AREA (seriously, there are signs!) talking at the top of his voice to his clearly not-hearing-impaired student, it was bliss. Forty minutes of quiet writing time, no one needing me, no guilt over the household chores staring at me, no need to hop right up and get supper started, nothing.

So I wrote, and I plotted, and I looked up the differences in address as regards a contessa vs a countess, and I wrote some more, and finally I got up with a happy sigh, checked my books out, went into the foyer, called Carl, and talked him through the last few steps of supper prep (basically: “Stir, turn the oven off, leave the dish covered.”). Then he and the littles came back for me, we went home, and ate the dinner that I’d started before I left and Carl finished. It was delicious, by the way. Lentils and rice!

We are definitely attempting to make this a weekly thing. Coffee shops are fun, but a quiet (or MOSTLY QUIET yes I’m talking to you obnoxious tutor who was supposed to be in the teen room anyway) library with all sorts of wonderful resources (not just the internet!) at my fingertips is far better for me. And it gets me out of the house, and even one hour of not having to be “mommy” is wonderful.

I love libraries, always have, ever since I was very young and enthralled by the one row of picture books at our local library (it was teensy-tiny, for a teensy-tiny town, but far better stocked than you might think). Library nights were the highlight of the week for our family for years: Dad would get home from work, we’d all pile in the car and drive to the library (the one night it was open late), browse for a while, check out an enormous stack of books apiece, stop at the gas station on the way home for soda (or Clearly Canadian – Mountain Blackberry was the BEST) and chocolate bars, then go home, Dad would make popcorn, and we’d all sit in the living room with our books and snacks, and read until bedtime.

The first thing I do in every new town we move to is find the local library. Sometimes the local library sucks and we have to go further afield to find the best one for us. We’ve been lucky these last two moves – we’ve ended up only five minutes away from a wonderful library each time.

The big excitement for Joy when she turned five was that she could finally get her own library card. Both the girls love going to the library, admittedly for the toys as well as the books, but also for the thrill of SO MANY books in one place, and all for the reading of anyone who wants. It really is a wonderful thing, when you think about it.

So it makes sense, for me, that the library would bring a sense of peace to my soul when I go there to write, that it would feel just right, comfortable and natural in a way that no other place can quite match. I’m already eagerly anticipating my next writing visit there.

Maybe this week I’ll get around to attempting some poetry.

Where is your favorite out-of-the-house place to write?

Joy signing her name for the library card

Enthralled in a book that she checked out all by her very own self!


philosophy, writing

Poetry of Life

elouisebates

I am not a poet. I shouldn’t really have to say that on here, should I? If you’ve read even a few of my posts, you’d know that I have a very conversational style in my writing; I write as I talk, and I am not a poet in my conversations, either.

Most of the time that doesn’t bother me. I’m not much on reading poetry, either. I memorized the first few stanzas of Sir Walter Scott’s “The Lady of the Lake” when I was a kid, and I gained some appreciation for Emily Dickinson in my freshman creative writing class in college, and I struggle to appreciate John Donne because of my abiding love for Lord Peter Wimsey, but really? Poetry is a closed book to me. I can scratch together a few lines for a Christmas present for a family member, or put together a little poem to hang next to a baby picture on my littles’ bedroom wall, but using poetry to express my innermost feelings? Not gonna happen.

And then I read people who write prose so beautifully that it reads like poetry, those blog posts that dig into my heart, those words accompanying a recipe in a cookbook that make me want to bury my hands in flour and build a legacy, those lines in a book that shine a light on feelings that have been obscure even to me. And I wish (oh how I wish) that I could write the same way. That even if I can’t write poetry, that my prose could be deep and rich and beautiful and speak out of the chambers of my heart, right into others’ hearts.

But I sit with my fingers poised over the keyboard, or twirling a pen above a blank page, and what comes out is my usual light chatter instead. Even when I am writing for myself, that doesn’t change, so it isn’t that I’m afraid to expose my inner self to others. Or is it that, is it that I have hidden myself away from others for so long that it’s become an ingrained habit, something I can’t break even for myself?

This post here is more stream-of-consciousness than I usually write. It’s about as close to poetry as I get. I do have a poetry blog that I started several years ago in an attempt to develop a more poetic side, but it’s been gathering dust for many months. Maybe I should start working on that again?

I don’t want to stay in the shallows, with my writing or with my life. I’m not afraid to dive into the unknown deeps when it comes to my life. I shouldn’t be afraid of stretching out with my writing, either. Light entertainment is fine, and even good, at times, but I don’t want that to be all I ever write. I want to make people think, and feel, with my writing. I want to use my writing to convey at least a part of the beauty and wonder I find in this world, this life.

Maybe I just need to take a deep breath, and dive right in. No fear.

I wrote this over a period of a couple days, but I have not edited anything (well, aside from a few spelling errors). An attempt to stay raw and not polish the truth away from my words.

Uncategorized

Winners!

elouisebates

Time’s up! The winners have been chosen!

(drum roll, please)

The winner of the Etsy gift card is Eva.

The winner of Justice’s Mask is bn100.

Congratulations! And thanks to the rest of you for entering.

Eva, send me your email address (you can reach me at elouise.bates@gmail.com). Our internet is down until Wednesday morning, so I will try to get both prizes emailed out Wednesday afternoon.

I loved doing this giveaway; thank you to The Indelibles for hosting such a wonderful blogfest! I hope this becomes an annual tradition.

I also hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and that you are looking forward to December with bright-eyed anticipation. We certainly are; “Did it snow last night?” is the first question we hear every morning. So far the answer is always “no,” but we live in hope.

Cheers!

figure skating, writing

Happy INDIE-giving!

elouisebates

Funny, when I signed up to join this Blogfest, I didn’t think that I would have already joined the ranks of independent published authors! I expected to still be a “wanna-be.” Just goes to show you can still surprise yourself sometimes.

I surprised myself yesterday, too, when I had my first ice dance lesson in twelve years. Oh, I was sore when I got off the ice, but overall? I felt AWESOME. I expected it to be so much more difficult than it turned out to be. I remembered so much more than I thought I would, and following the pattern, keeping my center, all that – challenging, but nowhere near as impossible as I was expecting. The moral of the story (to imitate the White Queen)? Never hold back from doing something just because you think it’s going to be hard! If you really want it, go for it, and don’t give up, and you might just be amazed at how much you are able to accomplish!

I am so thankful for this opportunity to get back to something I have loved so well for my entire life. Thankful, too, for the opportunity to publish my stories – writing is something else I have loved my entire life. I have dreamed for almost that long about being published, and to be able to achieve the first step of that dream – publishing a short story – is amazing. It is nothing I take for granted.

And neither are any of you! I am truly grateful for all the friends I have made in this little corner of the web. Writing would not be anywhere near so much fun without the community and support we all give each other.

And to show that thankfulness in a little more tangible manner, I’m offering TWO giveaways. One, my short story, naturally!

Justice’s Mask: Cassandra James finds the line between right and wrong blurs when a Loyalist spy is unmasked at her eighteenth birthday party.

This story was a major departure from my usual writing genre, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I would love to share it with one of you, too! Edited to add: Alex asked if this was an e-book. Yes, it is! Thanks to Smashwords, it is available in Kindle, Epub (which works for iBooks, Kobo, Nook, Sony, and more), PDF, or even just as online viewing. Thanks for bringing that point to my attention, Alex!

My other offering is a $10. Etsy gift card. I love Etsy, the global marketplace for independent artisans. This is my second year of ordering personalized ornaments for the littles through Etsy, and I think it’s going to become a family tradition! Etsy is now offering gift cards for many shops, which I think makes for a fantastic gift or giveaway.

No hoops to jump through or forms to fill out for these two giveaways – just leave a comment letting me know which one you’re interested in, and next Monday I’ll draw one name out of a hat for each!

Thank you all for being you. You’re all fantastic people, every one of you! And for more wonderful giveaways, check out the Indelibles blog!

figure skating, goals

Sometimes I Dance on Ice …

elouisebates

Last week after the littles finished up their skating lessons, I had a lovely chat with one of the coaches about starting private ice dance lessons the next week. We came to a mutual agreement, and I walked out of the rink with a mixture of elation and sheer terror.

I love ice dance. It’s been a passion since I was a teenager and took my first test (Dutch Waltz, in a shimmery blue dress with lace insets that I still have and wore for about half my tests, just kept changing the embellishments). From Marina Klimova & Sergei Ponomarenko to Shae-Lynn Bourne & Victor Kraatz to Tanith Belbin & Ben Agosto to Meryl Davis & Charlie White and Maia & Alex Shibutani, ice dancers have been capturing my heart and firing my imagination since the early ’90s. I even took up step dancing in college for no other reason than that I adored Bourne & Kraatz’s “Riverdance” routine so much!

Watched this live at the ’98 Worlds. Still blows my mind.

So there’s the elation. The terror?

My last ice dance lesson was in 1999. I was seventeen years old. (It was the Fiesta Tango, in case you’re curious, and one of the few I did not wear the blue dress for: I wore a black-and-red crushed velvet dress that I shared with three other girls that same day – we just kept spraying Febreeze into the armpits and handing it off to the next girl as soon as we were finished. Ah, the glamorous life of figure skaters!)

I’ve skated off and on for fun ever since then, of course. For about a year before Joy was born I was on the ice almost once a week, just public skating, but enough to remember some of my old skills – and to recognize how much I’d lost. Even that, though, was six years ago. And the difference between 24 and 30 is huge. The last time I decided to show my littles how to do a spiral, I propped my leg up on the boards as usual to stretch – and wasn’t sure I’d be able to get it back down. I could barely walk the next day.

So I’m really not sure how on earth I’m going to do this. But I’m going to try anyway. I promised myself a few years ago that I would do everything in my power to take up ice dance again by the time I turned 30. Well, here I am, and here it goes.

This is my year (and week, apparently), for fulfilling promises to myself. First I published a story, and now I’m starting up skating again!

If I miss my usual Monday post, you’ll know it’s because I’m in too much pain from Sunday’s lesson to even type.

Wish me luck!

Six years ago – the last time I was able to do a spiral without pain!

Posing
On the ice with baby Joy – you can see she was tremendously impressed (HA!). I’m expecting something of that same expression when the littles watch me this Sunday!

Bonus points to anyone who recognizes the song I borrowed this post’s title from.

goals, publishing, stories, writing

Published!

elouisebates

Wednesday afternoon. Feeling frustrated with everything. Election over, but people still being completely illogical, ungracious, and unkind. Stories needing editing, but nothing moving forward with already-edited stories to encourage me to keep up with the rest. Children, as always and forever, needing me constantly, no matter how much I’ve already done.

Nothing earth-shattering, nothing that ought to bother me, just lots of little gnat bites adding up to ferocious annoyance.

Something snapped. I put a movie on for the kids, went into Carl’s study with the door open so I could still hear them if (when) they needed me. Brought up a basic photo-editing program, and turned one of my photographs into a book cover. Went onto Smashwords and read their book on basic formatting. Went to Amazon and read their directions. Implemented their suggestions.

In the middle of all this, talked to my husband, who was also having a frustrating day. We commiserated with each other, I went back to my formatting. Movie ended, kids ended up in the study with me, playing while I worked, me trying to answer their questions and respond to their comments while still getting accomplished what I needed.

Called Carl on his way home from work. Told him he was no longer allowed to be in a bad mood. “Why?” he asked.

“Because,” I said. “I am officially a published author. And that’s huge.”

And it is.

It may be “just” a short story; it may be “just” self-published, it may be offered “only” in ebook form right now, it may not have a “professional” cover …

but it’s mine. And it’s published. And I am over the moon. I’ve dreamed of this moment almost my entire life, and I finally made that dream a reality.

Justice’s Mask, by Louise Ayers. Available at Amazon and at Smashwords.

Apparently I should snap more often!
Huge thanks to Laura, my fantastic editor, as well as Rockinlibrarian and Amo Vitam, who gave me wonderful and enormously helpful critiques. Thank are also due to all of you, who have encouraged me and walked along this road with me. This is just the beginning!

families, heroines, influences, Life Talk

Grandma

elouisebates

Breaking my post-once-a-week pattern for a particular reason …

One year ago today, my grandmother ended her battle with Alzheimer’s after twelve years. She had spent almost the entire previous week in the hospital with pneumonia, and all her family was told form the beginning that this was it; she wasn’t going to be leaving. After many days spent by her bedside, in laughter and tears, she died surrounded by her children and grandchildren, gone but never forgotten, though her own memory went so many years ago.

I’ve been thinking this week about Grandma’s legacy, about how her love, her faith, her hope, and her humor have passed down now to three generations, with who knows how many more to come. Whenever I am tempted to think that my sphere of influence is too small to make a difference, that my presence in this world doesn’t really matter, I remember this wonderful women who lived in a tiny corner of the world, raising her children and planting her gardens, and whose life touched so many and continues to do so even now. No person is too small or too insignificant to make a difference. We never know how far the ripples of our life may travel.

I’m including here in this post the tribute I wrote to Grandma last year, the day after her death. And at some point today, I will sit down with my girls, show them some pictures on their uncle’s Facebook wall of their grandmother, and tell them some of the stories I remember best.

She is gone, but her love and her humor live on.

She went out accompanied by a blaze of northern lights, some of the most brilliant seen around here in ages. Heaven welcoming a gallant soul home with fanfare.

Even after her breathing had slowed drastically, her heart remained strong until the end. We always knew her heart was bigger and stronger than most.

Her humor was one of the last things to go when the Alzheimer’s took over. Even when she was in the nursing home and couldn’t even recognize Grandpa, she would try to tease the nurses and aids. They all loved her.

They were married for sixty years. Two days before she finally died, I sat and watched him hold her hand as he told us the only reason he underwent chemo and fought so hard for life through the blood clots last year was so that he could take care of her, make sure her ending was peaceful and dignified, so that he could take care of her to the end. None of his kids could speak at that point, so I managed to choke out that he had done a wonderful job of it. They were an example to us all.

Of eight kids, six managed to make it home to say goodbye, only the one in Australia and the one in Arizona not able to get back. Fully half of the grandkids were able to come. No one fought, no one argued, no one tried to make things difficult for anyone else. Everyone acted as selflessly as human beings can act. Another testimony to the love and respect everyone had for her.

The hospital nurses teared up when their weekend shift ended, knowing they wouldn’t see her again alive.

There was as much laughter as tears around her bedside, as stories were shared and memories were dredged up and old jokes revived. Her fifteen-year-old grandson played his guitar, everyone sang, and her last days were filled with the music and laughter she loved so well.

She has been gone for a long time. Twelve years ago was when she was finally diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, at that point too far advanced to do anything but watch and pray as it slowly disintegrated the woman we all knew. The pneumonia that took her tonight was a release from that living death (twelve years is phenomenally long for Alzheimer’s sufferers – most don’t live more than five years), and our tears were as much joy for her as sorrow.

She is whole again now. She is free. She is rejoicing and laughing with her Lord.

It hurts, still, but this is a clean hurt, one that will heal. The pain of the Alzheimer’s never went away; it would lie dormant for a time, but it was always there lurking in the background. This – already there is a peace growing from the sorrow.

We will miss her. We have missed her for years. But her legacy – the love, the laughter, the strength and faith and joy – she passed that on, not only to her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, but to all who knew her. I am proud to call myself her granddaughter, and you can be sure my girls will grow up knowing about what an amazing woman their great-grandmother was.

Rest in Peace? Maybe. Personally, I suspect she is singing and dancing right now.

And laughing.

Grandma as a girl                                                                        Senior portrait

Grandma and Grandpa’s wedding day
Books, favorites

Autumn Favorites

elouisebates

What are your favorite autumn reads?

There’s something about this time of year that just makes me want to curl up with a blanket, cup of tea, and a classic. This is my time of year to tackle a new Dickens (new to me, obviously – it’s not like he’s coming out with a new serial every year anymore), or delve back into Anna Karenina for the fifth time (maybe THIS time I’ll actually finish it), or revisit some old favorites such as Austen or Gaskell.

Fantasy tends to take a back shelf in autumn. Even “newer” classics – the LM Montgomery books, the Betsy-Tacy series, those sort – don’t hold quite as much appeal at this time of year.

Certain mysteries are still a good choice for me, though: anything atmospheric. Charles Todd’s Inspector Rutledge books, for example, or anything by Josephine Tey.

I’m currently reading through a couple fantasy books that my uncle brought me this weekend, books that were his all-time favorites when he was younger that he’s wanted to share with me for ages. After that …?

Well, I still have my non-fiction research books I’m working through. To be perfectly honest, though, I am SO SLOW when it comes to nonfiction; I’ll probably be working through those books for the next two months or more. So, my fiction reads when it comes time to take a break from learning about the history of the CIA?

Emma or Persuasion (or both), definitely. North and South, absolutely (MR THORNTON > MR DARCY). Take another whack at Anna Karenina, or give War and Peace a try. Maybe pull A Tale of Two Cities off my shelves. Who knows?

Do you all have any recommendations for me? What’s your favorite fall read?