Guest Blog up at Penny’s Tales about “An Elfy on the Loose”

Folks, I’m pleased to report that my latest guest blog about my novel, AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE, is up over at Penny Estelle’s website, Penny’s Tales.

Note that this particular blog was originally published over at Stephanie Osborn’s Comet Tales back in April. I am very pleased to have the ability to spread my message far and wide.

Here’s a bit from this particular blog, which is called “On the Writing of AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE,” discussing just what I found so interesting about my main character, Bruno the Elfy, and why I found his journey so compelling:

…why should anyone care about Bruno just because he’s an Elfy and from a magical society? You’d think that someone who has magic, and a lot of it, would be too hard to root for, right?

Not in Bruno’s case. He’s an orphan, a ward of the state, and because of a past traumatic brain injury, he doesn’t remember everything he should. Further, most of what he’s been told about himself is wrong. Worse yet, the Elfy High Council is so afraid of Bruno’s potential magical power that they’ve intentionally mistrained him before sending him off to the Human Realm (our Earth), intending to maroon him there forever.

Despite all this, Bruno never completely loses his sense of humor, which appealed to me. He refuses to give up – it’s just not in him – and that, too, appealed to me. So I kept writing…and my husband (Michael) kept editing.

As I wrote, I learned that Bruno had landed in a house that was haunted. And where he mostly couldn’t do magic. And where he only had one friend: the strange Human girl Sarah, with whom he had to make common cause due to her loathsome parents (as one of my friends put it, “Sarah’s parents are straight out of reality TV”). They’re in a bad situation, but it quickly gets worse when Bruno’s mentor Roberto tries to rescue them, but instead ends up getting captured himself by Sarah’s terrible parents. Who are themselves in thrall to a Dark Elf, who’s up to no good…and then, of course, they fall in love, and everything gets better in a weird way because that’s what love does, despite everything else going to the Hells in a handbasket.

With all of that going on, Bruno and Sarah realize they have to gather allies. But how can they? Bruno’s new to the whole Human Realm (our Earth), while Sarah’s been told her whole life that she’s unimportant and way too young to be bothered with. And they need both Elfy and Human allies, which isn’t going to be easy…

There’s much more to the blog, as it discusses just what my late husband Michael did to help me write AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE, and just why his input was so very, very important. So I do hope you’ll check it out.

And as always, if you want to read the first five chapters of AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE, please go here to the Twilight Times Books site and check it out. (Or, if you’d rather go straight to Barnes and Noble.com to get a copy, go here.)

Depression and Robin Williams — A Remembrance

Folks, over the past day or so, I’ve seen many, many tributes to the late comedian/actor Robin Williams (1951-2014). Some were funny; some were touching; some were things that should’ve been said to Williams before he died.

One thing that’s been said, over and over, is that Williams suffered from severe and unremitting depression. This is alleged to be the main reason as to why he’d turned to substance abuse in the past (he was a recovering alcoholic and cocaine addict), but it’s also possible that the depression got much worse due to the heart issues Williams suffered in recent years (he had an aortic valve transplant in 2009).

The mind and the body are linked. We all know this. So when your body is not doing well, that feeling of illness can be reflected in your mind also.

And it’s just that much worse if you’re someone who fights depression and anxiety . . . I know this due to the struggles of my family and friends, past and present.

I’ve written about depression before (see this post about the late Mike Flanagan if you don’t believe me). It’s a difficult subject to discuss, because so many of us don’t want to talk about it. There is a stigma attached to depression, as if the person who’s feeling depressed actually wants to feel so bad . . . and treating a depressed person is so difficult, so challenging, that even if a patient fully cooperates in trying to get better, some of them just don’t.

Thus Robin Williams.

Ultimately, Williams will be remembered for his comedy, for his acting, and for his personal generosity. He was a brilliant, caring, kind-hearted, and generous soul who brought happiness to many despite his own struggles against depression and addiction.

But what I will remember most about Williams is how open he was about everything. His struggles. His joys. His failures. Williams was an American original, yes, and a genius, too. But he mostly was himself, and he owned up to his failures as easily as he talked about the much more fun stuff — his numerous successes.

Williams’ wife and family have asked that people do their best to remember Williams as the creative, funny and brilliant man he truly was. But I can’t do that — mostly because I think that leaves far too much of who Williams was on the table, unaddressed.

Instead, I’ll remember him as a complex, interesting, mercurial, honest, and compassionate creative artist, who lost his long battle with a pernicious disease — chronic, severe depression — after a valiant fight.

I hope that now that Williams is in the Afterlife, he’s getting caught up with his great friends, Christopher and Dana Reeve, and so many others who preceded him in death . . . and that he has found the peace he’d sought all his life at long last.