Books, goals, newsletter, publishing, school, writing

Too Much to Do, Never Enough Time

Whew. I’m remembering, now that the fall semester has started, the main reason why I wanted to keep the Magic Most Deadly Rewrite simple and have it finished by the time September hit. It wasn’t just because of the fun of having the re-release happen the same month as the original release!

Nope, it’s because wow, it is so much harder to focus on writing (or even rewriting) a book while taking three classes (even online classes).

This is undoubtedly made more complicated by my job, which has been struck by lightning TWICE in the last month-and-a-half (there goes that old saying about lightning never striking in the same place twice) and has required a lot of scrambling to both replace our damaged equipment and keep things flowing relatively smoothly while we wait for said equipment to be replaced.

It’s been a wild ride.

All this to say that I am way behind deadline with the new edition of MMD, but it is coming–or will be. I haven’t given up on it!

In the meantime, if you haven’t already signed up for my newsletter, you can go to my contact page and do so there, and you will receive a copy of a short story I wrote a while back that is EXCLUSIVE to subscribers.

I will let you know when there is more to report on the progress front!

Life Talk, seasons

Christmas Trees, Allergies, Thyme, and Patient Husbands

I discovered after moving to Maine two and a half years ago that I am allergic to pine pollen (the irony of living in the Pine Tree State and being allergic to our state symbol is not lost on me). When I had some difficulties breathing around our Christmas tree last year, even though it was a balsam, I assumed it was related. It was a mild nuisance, but nothing too terrible, and so I figured I could live with a month of a Christmas tree again this year.

Well. What seemed like a good idea at the end of last month quickly deteriorated, as within two weeks of having it set up I couldn’t even be in the same room before my chest tightened and I started wheezing. This was likely exacerbated by my allergies to the dust our pellet stove in the dining room puts out, but between the two, I was having to spend 90% of my time upstairs in the sitting corner I created in the master bedroom (which was very cozy, I will admit, though not enough to make up for having to sequester myself away from everyone).

When my brain started to fog and I was struggling to complete various school and editing projects I had on hand, we knew we had to do something. I started doing some deeper research, and learned that the issue with the Christmas tree was most likely due to mold spores in the wood, as pollen is of course not an issue this time of year and with a cut tree. One of my friends had been dealing with mold in her living space (which she just moved out of because of how bad the mold was!), and thanks to her, I knew what to do. We mixed up a batch of thyme oil (thymol), rubbing alcohol, and water, and my wonderfully caring and patient husband took all the ornaments off the tree (with the help of our elder daughter, who kept saying it felt really really weird to be taking ornaments OFF the tree less than a week after they were put on) and sprayed down the tree thoroughly with the mixture.

I hadn’t realized before this that thymol is the equivalent to bleach, or even better, when it comes to disinfecting and killing bacteria, but wow, it really does work. Our house reeked of concentrated thyme overnight (luckily it was a warm enough night we could keep the bedroom windows all open a crack), but by this morning it had dissipated enough that we could bear going into the living room again. And guess what? I can breathe in there now! I haven’t tried sitting near the tree for any length of time yet, but that will be the next step. Still, the fact that I can be in there at all is reassuring. Now, if only the pellet stove issues had such an easy solution …

As a bonus, even though the thyme concentrate scent has dissipated considerably, our house still smells somewhat like an Italian restaurant. Pizza for supper, anyone?

Maybe for next Christmas I should write a story of Maia and Len attempting to solve the mystery of the Christmas tree allergies … slightly anachronistic, but hey, it would amuse me, if nothing else. For this year, we’ll continue to make do with While Shepherds Watch as our Christmas story! It may not have allergies, but it does have a rumored ghost, Christmas lambs, and a cad who needs a lesson in manners taught to him!

Let me know some of your wacky holiday stories in the comments! Have any of you ever had to dismantle and then redecorate your tree for any reason? Ever have a balsam tree that smells like thyme? Any tips on getting rid of dust from a pellet stove? (Yes, we do dust the house regularly, but it just isn’t enough. Every time my husband fills the hopper I start to wheeze again.)

Merry two-and-a-half weeks before Christmas, everyone!

goals, publishing, seasons

Back Here Again

The change has been made, and everything looks good on my end. If you are a subscriber, would you mind leaving a brief comment to let me know this post showed up in your feed? I would like to make sure that it works for my followers as well as for me.

If everything is sorted on your end as well as mine, then you may stay tuned for some more exciting posts/news coming soon! I have a book review to share, as well as info on how to subscribe to the coming-soon newsletter, and maybe even some book news to share by the end of the summer.

I hope your summer is going well! If you don’t want to simply leave a boring “it works” comment here, feel free to let me know of any interesting things you’ve been doing this last month-and-a-half (“summer is halfway over,” folks around here keep reminding each other, with doom or relief depending on how one feels about hot weather and tourist traffic). Mine so far has been full of traveling and projects–sounds about right for this time of year!

favorites, Life Talk, seasons

Worm Moon

Tonight is March’s full moon, known as the worm moon, and in its honor I am posting the poem of that same name by Mary Oliver.

Worm Moon – Mary Oliver

1

In March the earth remembers its own name.

Everywhere the plates of snow are cracking.

The rivers begin to sing. In the sky

the winter stars are sliding away; new stars

appear as, later, small blades of grain

will shine in the dark fields.

And the name of every place

is joyful.

2

The season of curiosity is everlasting

and the hour for adventure never ends,

but tonight

even the men who walked upon the moon

are lying content

by open windows

where the winds are sweeping over the fields,

over water,

over the naked earth,

into villages, and lonely country houses, and the vast cities

3

because it is spring;

because once more the moon and the earth are eloping –

a love match that will bring forth fantastic children

who will learn to stand, walk, and finally run

    over the surface of earth;

who will believe, for years,

that everything is possible.

4

Born of clay,

how shall a man be holy;

born of water,

how shall a man visit the stars;

born of the seasons,

how shall a man live forever?

5

Soon

the child of the red-spotted newt, the eft,

will enter his life from the tiny egg.

On his delicate legs

he will run through the valleys of moss

down to the leaf mold by the streams,

where lately white snow lay upon the earth

like a deep and lustrous blanket

of moon-fire,

6

and probably

everything

is possible.

Mary Oliver

The name of every place is joyful. Spring is coming, my friends.

Life Talk, seasons

January

I love January. I know it’s considered a bleak month by many, but I enjoy the slower pace after the holidays, the feel of a fresh start, the cold and the quiet of winter.

There’s a peace to January, one that is balm to my soul.

(come February and March, though, I start yearning for spring as much as the next person.)

influences, Life Talk, stories, writing

Community

In my most recent blog post, I spoke about the defaults I revert to when writing characters. Today I’ve been thinking about one of my other storytelling defaults, which is the importance of community.

Fountains Abbey, in Yorkshire. The monks who built this place knew more than a little about the importance of community.

I was going to say that this theme shows itself most strongly in From the Shadows, but then I thought, No, actually it comes out most strongly in the Pauline Gray series, and then I dithered about it for a while before realizing hey, it doesn’t have to be a competition. So let’s simply look at the three different worlds I’ve built and see the way community plays out in each, without holding one against another, shall we?

First up, From the Shadows. On the surface, it looks like the main problem of the book for our protagonist, Riss, is that she’s stuck on a spaceship in the future with no way to get home. But actually, as the story develops, we see–and Riss learns along with us–that her real problem is her deep, unsatisfied need to be part of a community where she is valued both for her own self and for her gifts. The community aboard the Caledonia is a close, tight-knit, self-contained group, and Riss’s struggle to figure out if she could belong there is really what makes up the heart of the story.

Then there’s Pauline Gray. The need to find and/or build community doesn’t play as active a role in Pauline’s stories, but the community of a small, rural town in the midst of the Depression is the firm backbone of the series. This is a place where the people look out for each other, and even if they don’t like each other very much, they come together in difficult times to do what needs to be done. That’s why murder is such a shattering thing each time it happens in Pauline’s world–because it tears apart the fabric of the community, and it breaks the unspoken trust that people have in their neighbors. Pauline is less aware than Riss of her need for community, but she feels the tearing of it even if she is not aware that’s what the problem is.

Well, what about Whitney and Davies? I will admit the theme of community isn’t quite so strong in these books as it is in the others I’ve already mentioned–but it is there. In Magic Most Deadly, Maia’s discovery of magic allows her to enter into the community of magicians, and in Glamours & Gunshots she starts to figure out what she wants her role in that community to be. Len, meanwhile, is moving out of the community he’s always been part of and searching for a new one, one where he doesn’t always have to hide who he is and what he does. Together, they are forming their own microcosm of a community and seeking ways to serve the larger community at the same time.

When I was younger, I was pretty oblivious to the human need to exist within a community, but the older I get, the more I value it. I’ve lived in places without any sort of community–was a young mother in some of them, which I 100% do not recommend–lived in others where there ought to have been community and wasn’t, and hardest of all to endure, lived in some places where they was a community and I was on the outside of it. Those experiences have all shaped my own deep desire to be an active and valued member of a community. Not a selfish wish to be part of some hidden “inner circle”–like Mark in C.S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength–that’s when community turns into a clique, and is one of the ugliest things in the world. But a genuine community, where people look out for each other and take care of each other and help each other out when needed, and everyone has something to give and everyone’s lives are woven together.

I don’t talk about politics on this blog, but it isn’t political to say this country is experiencing a deep division right now, a tearing apart of what we value and how we view the world and our place in it. There is a limit on how much each ordinary person can do to change that on a grand scale. But here’s what we can do: we can look out for our neighbors. We can take care of the vulnerable in our towns, villages, and counties. We can cut down that limb from the tree in our yard that is threatening to fall on the next-door neighbor’s house. We can thank our town officials for their hard work during this election season. We can buy a coffee for the guy (6 feet) behind us in line at the local bakery, just because. We can make a meal for the new parents down the street. We can encourage our kids to talk to the outsider at school, the one shy kid who always stands in the corner and can’t seem to believe that anyone would want to be their friend.

Community doesn’t exist simply by a group of people living in close proximity to each other or being part of the same activities. It comes about when people commit to caring for one another, to seeing each other, to not living as though others don’t matter.

That’s a message I keep needing to tell my heart, which is probably why it keeps cropping up in my stories. Maybe you need the encouragement as well? Covid-19 has created a lot of loneliness for a lot of us, and made community something out of reach in many cases. I hear you–moving to a new place in the midst of a pandemic means it’s been awfully hard for our family to do anything toward finding a community. But it’s worth it to keep trying.

And if you can’t find it in real life right now, I hope you can find enough of a community in books to tide you over until you can.

Our seminary family–or part of it, at least. I didn’t think those years were that long ago, but boy do we all look young.
Life Talk

Hiking Date

The air was fresh and sweet as we started down the dirt path, our steps oddly out of synch without the kids there to balance us. We realized after only a few paces that this was our first time hiking without them since the eldest was born. Family hikes have become part of our regular rhythm, one of the things we do to define us as a family, and we love them. I hadn’t realized how much I was missing Carl-and-Louise hikes, though, until we started this one.

After we crossed the narrow bridge and started on the trail proper, winding beside the river and through the woods, our feet found their pace and we were able to keep step with each other. Carl was mostly in front, yet somehow managed to miss all the cobwebs that continually wrapped themselves around my face. Why do they always end up in one’s mouth?

The sounds of the river accompanied our hike, rushing, chuckling, gurgling, occasionally roaring where the rocks lay such as to produce a small waterfall. It’s a sound so familiar to me I hadn’t realized how much I missed it until I heard it again. I will never complain about living near the ocean, but rivers and lakes are part of what formed me in my younger days, and I feel a peace by freshwater that doesn’t come anywhere else. The River Cam was a bit too placid to fill that need, even when it wasn’t choked with students and tourists, lining the banks as well as on the water itself. It was better than nothing, but this river, hurling itself over rocks and bordered by trees, felt like home.

Carl and I talked about everything from politics (ugh) to the next things we need to do to continue making our new house feel like a home. The nice thing about a week away is that it gives you perspective, as well as a break from the regular routine that can feel so wearying after a while. I even felt more ready to paint the mudroom and the china closet, and I have been hating the very word “paint” since about our first month.

We found a likely-looking island in the middle of the river about the time we were getting hungry, and I took off my shoes and socks to wade across while Carl stretched his longer legs to go dry-shod from rock to rock. I had planned ahead and was wearing my bathing suit under my hiking clothes, and before eating I slipped into the river and let the water lap over me. It was too shallow to swim, but that was enough. The water was cool but not cold, refreshing and gentle, chuckling to itself as it diverted its way around and over me.

I could have sat there all afternoon, but my awareness of Carl’s work needs pressed in on me, so I hauled myself back onto the rocks of our little island and we ate our lunch side-by-side in companionable silence, our arms just brushing the other’s as we reached for the occasional grape or chip from the backpack. After we finished, I rested my head on his shoulder for a few minutes, and then we sighed and made our way back to the trail.

We didn’t have time to do the entire 7.5 mile loop, though we would have liked to, so we turned and retraced our steps to head back to the car. We ventured out across the rocks sticking out of the water only once more, trying to reach the island we thought we remembered hanging out on when we would hike this trail in college. The bugs as well as the height of the water defeated us, though–clearly the water had been lower the last time (seventeen years ago!) we had come through, and the bugs had been fewer, or else we’d been young and adaptable enough to ignore them.

Still, it was fun peering back at our younger selves for a short time, and Carl joked as we dashed back to the trail away from the bugs that we ought to see if Josie’s was open so we could get pizza bites and Lambrusco for supper–a combination we found thoroughly sophisticated when we were 21, 22 years old. (We returned to the house and enjoyed roast beef, potatoes, and asparagus with my parents and our kids instead, and I suspect our digestions were happier for it.)

Right before reaching the car, we found the red raspberry bushes that we had forgotten were always there, and plucked a few to sustain us the last few yards to the vehicle. Summer sweetness, bursting in one’s mouth! Black raspberries are my favorite, but wild red raspberries have a magic of their own. Far sweeter and juicier than any cultivated strain, they taste of woods and sunshine and dreams of youth.

Back home in time to greet the intrepid fisherladies from their first-ever fishing trip with Grandpa, to hear all about how they didn’t catch anything but they did accidentally-on-purpose slip in the river with their clothes on and then decided to swim a bit while they were there, and how much fun they had, and how they would all three like to do it again sometime. They had just as good of a time in their own way as Carl and I had had in ours. Mother, meanwhile, had enjoyed her time alone in her own way by pulling the weeds that were encroaching on the driveway. To each their own.

A splendid outing, a chance for peace to seep into my soul in a way I haven’t experienced in years, and a reminder that as fun as coffee shop dates are, maybe Carl and I should take more hiking dates in the future as well. Come to think of it, the occasional solo hike might not be a bad idea for me, either. Especially if I can make my way along a river or brook–or sometimes in it.

Life Talk, publishing, writing

Welcome, June

It is splendid to live so close to the ocean again, and to have our state opened up enough that we are able to cautiously enjoy it, so long as we follow the common sense guidelines. We escaped painting, cleaning, and all other house-related duties on Sunday and fled to the ocean, where we walked along the shore, clambered over rocks, hunted for sea glass, only saw a few other people and kept our distance from them all, and came home smelling of salt and sun. It was so very much needed.

Updates since my last post: we have a couch! And flatware. Still short one dresser. Many books are still in boxes, but the girls’ rooms both have bookcases now so their shelves are slowly filling up as their boxes empty. We are done with Round 1 of painting (finished that AFTER our shore excursion on Sunday): girls’ bedrooms, living room, dining room/kitchen, entryway/stairs/upstairs hall. Round 2 will be the mudroom and the downstairs bathroom, neither of which are crucial for comfortable living right now. Round 3 will only happen after we’ve done some other big projects, like turn the wall of closets in the library into built-in bookcases, and strip and refinish the floors in my study.

We are hoping to update our drivers licenses to reflect our new address this week, likewise change our license plates on the car so people stop glaring at us when we drive through town or park at the beach. It’s okay, we quarantined, we live here now, we’re not just out-of-staters coming in to spread disease! I can understand people’s suspicion of us, but it will be nice to no longer have it be an issue. The Town Hall and BMV have both just barely re-opened, so fingers crossed we can get an appointment SOON.

We’ve discovered lots more flowers on the property, including a honeysuckle bush tucked away in a back corner by an old apple tree. Hurrah for both! We’ve also made plans to have all the pines on the property removed (hopefully next year, maybe two years from now), and replace the ones that line the watery ditch with a couple spruce trees and a row of elderberry and highbush cranberry bushes. We have lots of landscaping plans, none of which we have time or energy to tackle this year. That’s ok, as we keep reminding ourselves–for once we’re not on a time limit in a place. We don’t have to do things within one, two, or even three years, because we are staying put for the indefinite future. That idea still takes some getting used to.

Oh yes, lots and lots of violets. I love the white ones best–Anne of Green Gables friends will know why

Writing-wise, what are my updates? Well, I will very soon have a cover reveal for you for Diamonds to Dust, the next Pauline Gray novella, to be soon followed by the novella itself. I’ve taken a bit of a break from that these last few weeks to work on the first draft of the (unexpected) sequel to From the Shadows, but I’m starting to get back into proofreading mode instead of drafting mode, so D2D will benefit from that switch. I am also tentatively attempting some sort of writing schedule, so I am either writing, researching, or doing important writing-related things like updating this blog, every day Mon-Fri. We’ll see how it goes.

Speaking of the cover to the new novella … how does everyone feel about cover reveals? Love them, hate them, find them a waste of time? Would you prefer the cover just show up on my blog, or do you like a countdown and a big splash made of revealing it? I never know how I feel about them, so I thought I’d leave it up to my readers.

In fact, here, let me see if I can set up a poll about it:

I hope June turns out to be more peaceful and joyful than the rest of this year so far–in all our lives and around the world. Keep carrying the light, friends! That’s all any of us can do, each in our own way.

Books, Sci-fi, seasons, writing

Sparks of Light

There’s a lot of heaviness in the world right now. The holiday season can be rough–while there is a great deal of joy that comes with Christmas, it can also be a time of sorrow and/or weariness to many. Even in my own family, we’re struggling to maintain a Christmas spirit against 3+ weeks of illness and some unexpected travelling for Carl to be with his family in their time of need, as his aunt is in the hospital with pancreatic cancer.

Here in the UK, there’s been a lot of stress and tension over the recent general election, and a great deal of fear on all sides about what comes next. The US political scene isn’t much better, frankly.

Sometimes it can feel like the darkness presses in too closely, and looking around, there’s very little hope to be seen.

So on an impulse this weekend, I chose my most hope-filled book (aka the only one without any murders) and made it free until 1 January. No gimmicks, no strings, just my way of lighting a candle against the dark.

Kind of appropriate, when you think about it, that this book should be titled From the Shadows. Here’s to stepping out of the shadows and into the light.

Whisked from her troubled, solitary life to a spaceship centuries in the future, the young widow and musician Riss Waldon must first figure out how she got there, and then if it’s possible to get home. Before long, she is visiting strange and deadly planets and meeting new alien races, and forming friendships with the crew. Even as they strive to discover a way for her to return, she wonders if it possible to step out of the shadows of her past life and stay here. But when the well-being of the entire crew rests on her shoulders, she isn’t sure she’s up to the task. What if she fails them? All she can do is try …

Available at:

Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Kobo, Smashwords, and Amazon (Amazon will only let me drop the price to $0.99, but if enough people report it as free elsewhere they just might lower it all the way there as well–it’s worth a shot).

May this be a season of hope for you, friends, whatever your circumstances. That is my earnest prayer for all of us.