Discussing Other, Alternate Timelines

Folks, the last several weeks have been extremely challenging. I am unable to say why, as what’s going on mostly does not pertain to me…let’s just say it’s a family health crisis and be done with it.

Anyway, I knew I should write a blog, but about what?

I could write about sports — the Milwaukee Bucks made a coaching change, mid-season, which is quite unusual — but that didn’t seem right.

I could write about politics — some of what I’m seeing from people like Rep. Elise Stefanik of NY (R) is extremely disquieting. (Rep. Stefanik seems to have the attitude of “Vice President or Bust” and is doing her best to ingratiate herself with former POTUS Donald Trump despite her past voting record, which shows at one point she was a moderate.) But again, that didn’t seem right…though I do admire Nikki Haley’s pluck in refusing to get out of the Republican primary, mind you. (She’s right that only two states have spoken. There are 48 states and a number of US territories, plus the US emigres abroad, that have yet to vote and thus indicate a preference.) While Haley is almost certainly not going to win the Republican nomination, any more than Bernie Sanders was going to win the Democratic nomination in 2016, Haley can highlight important issues to voters and ultimately make a positive policy difference (if nothing else).

And while that was a long digression about politics, that’s not what I want to talk about today. I am a SF&F writer, no matter how little-known, and thus I think about a lot of stuff most other folks don’t. I’ve done this for a long time, mind you; my Elfy books, which feature alternate universes (where the Elfs lived — don’t call ’em “Elves” as that’s a swear word to them– and the Elfys were created, among other races), were not the first time I’ve ever thought about alternate universes. I may have thought about them even sooner than age fourteen, which is when I read Philip K. Dick’s classic MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, which features an alternate universe where the Nazis and the Japanese won World War II.

I’m not the only one to think about this, of course. There are other writers who’ve discussed this in various ways, such as Doris Lessing and the more recent book THE FUTURE OF ANOTHER TIMELINE by Annalee Newitz. But my own ruminations lead me to how my own, personal timeline could’ve been changed by the following events:

2004: Instead of dying after four heart attacks, Michael has one heart attack and survives with brain and body intact. He does cardiac rehab, which I fully support him doing, and we get another ten-twenty years together rather than two. More books of different types result, and at least some of Michael’s artwork survives. (In this timeline, I have one piece of Michael’s artwork. That’s it. It was a brief drawing of what the uniforms looked like in his Atlantean Union universe.)

But even if Michael had still died in 2004, I had another possible better timeline with which to work, as follows:

2011: Instead of dying of a massive stroke, my good friend Jeff Wilson lives despite the heart virus that nearly killed him. He does cardiac rehab and anything else they suggest; after six or eight months of treatment, he’s allowed to leave the rehab hospital (really a nursing home). During this time, we start to date, long-distance…maybe I even manage to visit him in Fort Collins while he’s in the hospital, as it’s under the threshold of altitude that I can tolerate. (Jeff knew I get high-altitude sickness at about 7000 feet and it gets worse the higher up I go.) Books and stories follow, and whether we ever progressed beyond a very solid friendship or not, things would’ve been much better all the way around for both of us.

And even if Jeff had still died in 2011, I had yet another possible, better timeline to work with, as follows:

2014: A good friend, someone I had no idea that was interested in me, makes a play and I respond. (This happened in real life, though not in 2014.) Things progress. Books and stories follow. The relationship is serious enough to perhaps lead to marriage, and despite some major difficulties, we manage to overcome them and forge a life together.

Of course, that timeline didn’t happen either. So how about this one?

2020: Covid-19 does not happen. Millions of people do not die. (If this was lab-grown in China or anywhere else, it does not escape the lab.) People are not shut in for weeks, months, or years; there is no such thing as public-shaming over mask-wearing (I believe masks can help, especially if you, yourself, are ill and don’t know it; you won’t give it to someone else that way. But shaming people is wrong.) There’s no such thing as kicking people off public trails because of fears that they might get Covid…one of the dumbest things I ever heard, yet it happened to a good friend of mine in 2020. (I wish that hadn’t happened to him, too. As we found out later, Covid is not likely to spread outside with the same frequency as it’s going to spread inside with the greater density of people to work with.)

And as we all know, unfortunately that timeline didn’t happen either.

I’ve avoided some of the obvious ones, mind you. (Some folks may be asking, “Why not go back to 2000 and have Gore win instead of W.? Why not go back to 2016 and have your choice, Hillary Clinton, win instead of Trump?” Or even this: “Why didn’t you eliminate the war in Ukraine?”) I think many others have gone over those possibilities, and I wanted to make you think more about smaller, more personal decisions rather than stuff like that. (Well, with the exception of Covid, of course, though Covid caused more small-scale upheaval than just about anything in the past fifty years in my own not-so-humble opinion.)

So, what other timelines could you have had? What other timelines do you wish you would’ve had? (I know I wish Michael would’ve lived. Everyone who’s ever read this blog or known me in any way whatsoever should know that’s been my most fervent wish.) And is it still possible to create a better timeline in the future than the one we fear may happen? (I hope so, otherwise I’d not do anything, much less write this blog.)

Saying Goodbye to Dad

Folks, I know I didn’t blog last week at all. Mostly I was trying to save up my energy for what proved to be a two-part effort: Dad’s funeral/memorial service on Saturday, and Dad’s burial on Monday. I figured I’d talk about that, along with the difficulties of saying goodbye when you weren’t ready at all to do so, today.

My father was almost 87 when he passed away. (Had he made it through another month, that is.) As he told everyone (including grocery store cashiers), Dad lived a good life. He was satisfied because he had three good kids, he’d been a successful letter carrier, he’d bought a house (and died in his house, something he’d told me and my sibs often was his wish), he’d enjoyed outings with his own sibs (when they were healthy enough), he’d done some traveling (mostly to and from other family members’ homes), and he’d enjoyed watching and listening to the Milwaukee Brewers, Green Bay Packers, and Milwaukee Bucks games over the course of his lifetime. He’d also played in what was then the Racine Municipal Band for twenty years in the percussion section. (Dad did not consider himself to be a percussionist, because he didn’t read notes; he only read rhythms. That said, he played the snare drum, the field drum, the bass drum, the castanets, the cymbals, the maracas, and anything else that didn’t require note-reading.) Dad also enjoyed watching old movies, as I said before, and played lots of cards (mostly cribbage and smear — smear is kind of like sheepshead, I guess; I don’t know how to explain it any better).

In short, Dad had the life he’d hoped to have.

The thing is, even though I know all that, it’s still hard to say goodbye. My relationship with my father wasn’t always an easy one. I wasn’t what he’d expected, at all. I’d been expected to make a big noise as a classically trained musician, but my hands failed; then, after I finally found the love of my life in my mid-30s, I lost him due to four heart attacks (as I’ve discussed multitudinously at this blog) and ended up back with my family again.

See, I’d hoped my entire life to make it as a musician. My whole life was oriented toward that. I used to practice up to eight hours a day, then wrote music for another hour or two (I can still do that, at least, when motivated and my mind isn’t all over the place as it is now), often while working a part-time or full-time job on the side.

But as I said, my hands failed. I have something akin to carpal tunnel syndrome, though it isn’t that; it’s bilateral tendinitis in both hands and wrists. I can have spasms in my wrists or hands at any time, and there’s no apparent reason for this. (The tendinitis could happen to anyone; I could’ve worked around that. The spasms were much harder to work around, and it’s why I’d stopped playing except in the Racine Concert Band and the UW-Parkside Community Band.)

When I met Michael, I was only reluctantly ready to concede that I would not be a professional musician. But I’d discovered I was good at writing; really good. With Michael’s help — as he was an excellent editor and a good writer, too — I finished up my novel, Elfy (later split into two parts as An Elfy on the Loose and A Little Elfy in Big Trouble), and was working on a prequel called Keisha’s Vow (I’ve mentioned this before, here at my blog) when the unthinkable happened: Michael died.

So, I was bereft, incredibly upset, grieving, very unhappy, and though I didn’t know it at the time, also very depressed when I came back to live with my father. (I did spend a good amount of time with my mother, too, and still do.) I wasn’t at all what I’d been. I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror, I was so very upset.

At first, my parents (neither one) knew what to say to me. As I’d been previously married, their thoughts were probably along the lines of, “Well, she won’t be here long. She’ll find someone else.”

Um, no.

Anyway, Dad is the subject of this blog, so I’d better explain what he did. Mostly, he pointed out there are seasons to life, just as there are to baseball, basketball, etc. There may still be another season in my life that could be good, even though I couldn’t see it…I had to have hope, and faith, that someday I’d understand why Michael had died young and why my hands had given me so much trouble.

Over time, I slowly got better. I went through physical and occupational therapy for my hands in 2010 and again in early 2011; this brought back quite a bit of movement and flexibility to my hands and wrists, so I was able to play my saxophone and clarinet again. (If I had someone to make reeds for me, I could’ve played my oboe as well. But my hands will never be good enough for me to make reeds ever again. That’s just a fact.) I rejoined the Parkside Community Band not long before my friend Jeff Wilson died in 2011, and if I recall correctly, most of my family was there for the first concert I’d played in over ten years. (Dad wasn’t. But my sister was, my Mom was, I think my niece was…and my Aunt Laurice, who lived in Racine also, was there, too.) I played a solo in a piece called “Roma,” and thought about Michael and Jeff as if they were in the front row, just invisible to everyone else except me.

Note that my Mom also believed I would play again. I don’t mean to slight her in this. But fortunately for me, she is still here now, and I can continue to do whatever I can to help her whenever I am able to do it…while Dad, who never wanted anyone to do anything for him except talk to him now and again, is on the Other Side.

So, Dad and I continued to talk about sports. We sometimes talked about politics; he was disgusted by many of the goings-on, and one of his final thoughts was that it was disgraceful that there was no Speaker in the U.S. House of Representatives. (I agreed with him, too. That was a big mess.) He often pointed out that if the able refused to serve, or were unable to serve, we only ended up with idiots. (He didn’t use that term. He was far kinder in some ways than I am.) He pointed out that Samuel Gompers had said, in essence, that it’s better to be party to a principle than a principal to a party, and that anyone who let dogma rule them when there were practical problems that needed solutions and compromise wasn’t worthy of his or her seat in Washington, DC.

At any rate, Dad was a person who believed talk was cheap and results were what mattered. He also believed that kindness was essential — though harder to do than to say — and if you remember the blog I wrote years ago about how people treat cashiers says a lot about them? Well, Dad was almost unfailingly kind to cashiers, even if they made mistakes in his order. (He’d just go up to the service desk and straighten it out, that’s all.)

Was Dad a saint? No. Not at all. But he meant to be a good man, and in his way, I think he was. But he wasn’t always easy to live with (neither am I); some days he could be downright ornery, and he also took pride in being cantankerous. (He figured once you got over eighty, they’d call you that anyway, so why not live up to it?)

Anyway, on Saturday I gave some sort of eulogy, as did my siblings and my niece, Jenni. (I think they did better jobs than I did. I don’t really remember much of what I said, to be honest.) Then my Mom and I and everyone else went to a local restaurant, and we did our best to celebrate life and remember my father.

This past Monday, Dad was buried out in Union Grove at the vets’ cemetery. My sibs, my niece, and one of my cousins was there. (A good friend of mine tried to come, too, but she got lost. It’s OK. I got lost, too, and only barely made it to the cemetery in time even though I started out almost an hour beforehand. It’s only a fifteen-minute drive, if that, to Union Grove from where I started…ah, well.) They gave Dad the military honors he deserved, as he’d been a member of the U.S. Navy in his youth (he loved to say “I was a member of the man’s navy”), and that was that.

Except it’s not.

I wish I could explain it better than that, but I can’t. I do know I’m glad Dad didn’t suffer. (I found him, so I know he didn’t.) I also hope that he’s with his mother (who died when he was only eleven), father, stepmother Gertie, my Aunt Laurice and Uncle Carl, and everyone else who predeceased him. (Maybe Michael’s up there and is talking sports with Dad right now. I like to think so.)

Here, though, on Earth, I struggle. And I think it’s going to be like this for a while…that said, I will keep doing whatever I can to be of use and service to others, and hope that, creativity, and whatever shreds of faith I have left will be enough to sustain me.

State of the Writer, February 2023 Edition

Folks, I figured as it’s been a little over a week since I last blogged, I’d better give y’all an update.

(BTW, someone asked me a while back why I, as a Midwesterner born-and-bred, use “y’all” so much. It’s because of my German teacher in high school. He said English needs this word. I agreed with him then and I still do. Moving on…)

My health is a little better. My face is again my own; the swelling has gone, most of the redness has gone, and I look like I never had that nasty bacterial infection at all.

So, you may be asking why it’s only a little better. The main reason is that I’ve been exhausted for a long time. This is partly because I have fibromyalgia and osteoarthritis, among other ailments, and having both means I get tired more quickly and need more rest periods. (This is the best way I have to explain it, especially when I’m in what’s known as a “fibro flare.”) Both of these things cause pain, and dealing with pain is tiring enough. Then add in some sleep disturbances (nothing like having a swollen, messed-up face to help you sleep, hey? Sarcasm is a wonderful thing…), and voila!

The secondary reason is because the infection was so bad, and took so much out of me, that here’s how I’ve lately had to do things:

1. Rest
2. Small Errand (milk/eggs/butter/bread)
3. Rest
4. Drive
5. Rest
6. Get food inside and repeat as needed.

Is this normal for me? No. It’s not.

But the last few days, I’ve been able to cut out some of those rest periods. I still have to move slowly and cautiously. I know my energy is not right, and won’t be probably for several more weeks, and I’m still ramping up my editing and writing again accordingly. Yet I have been able to do a bit more without becoming quite as exhausted, so I’ll take it.

(As if I could do anything else, right?)

My hope is that if I am cautious enough, I can finally get a few pending edits out the door, or at least back to the client if changes need to be made (and if they wish me to review them). That way, I can resume my life as best I can without getting laid low by something else.

Also, I am still talking about cover art with a good friend for my post-apocalyptic romantic military suspense novella. (Say that five times fast.) It’s done, at least in the novella form. (I want to write a sequel to it and eventually hope to have enough for a conventional sized novel.) I want to get it out there, because I haven’t released anything by myself since early 2017.

Yes. Six years ago.

That’s too long.

Yes, I have short stories in several recent anthologies (most recently in Fantastic Schools: Hols). Yes, I’m still a working writer as well as a working editor.

Still. Something needs to go out under my own name, by myself, so folks maybe can find me and appreciate what I do. (Even if they don’t, I have to do it for me.)

Oh, I almost forgot: I have a YA story (novella length) set in Michael’s Atlantean Union universe that’s almost ready to go, too. That may be out by the end of the year if all goes well.

And, finally, I still plan to get an Elfyverse short story collection out but need at least two more finished Elfyverse stories to make it happen. (For those of you who’ve read the Elfy duology, what stories would you most like to see? Maybe I can make it happen…)

Will Be on Dellani Oakes’ BlogTalkRadio Show This Monday (November 14)

As the title says, I’ll be on writer Dellani Oakes’ BlogTalkRadio show this upcoming Monday, November 14, 2022, between 3 and 5 Central Standard Time.

You might be wondering what I’m going to talk about. I figured I’d discuss writing the two Elfyverse short stories that have been sold to the Fantastic Schools anthologies; one is in Fantastic Schools 3, while the other is in Fantastic Schools Hols. Both feature Bruno the Elfy (my main character from the two Elfy novels), but before he knew he was an Adept. (Actually, the second story features him both before and after he found out, because of my own sense of whimsy.)

I plan to read from the second story, mind you. It’s called “Jon and Leftwich have a Holiday Adventure.” I do hope you’ll join me and the others, because I think you’ll enjoy yourselves if you do.

At any rate, talking about that isn’t long enough for a blog, so I figured I’d discuss a few other things.

While I still love writing Elfyverse stories, and plan to get out a collection of Elfyverse stories soon (it may not be the end of the year as I was hoping, as I’m battling significant flu issues right now), I wonder sometimes if I’ll ever hit my market squarely. I know it’s there. The folks who loved Robert Asprin’s comic novels or love Jody Lynn Nye’s funny stories or Esther Friesner’s work should enjoy what I’m doing. (If I were truly lucky, I might even tap into some of the folks who clamored for Douglas Adams’ work, but I doubt I’m that lucky. Plus, I’m not British, and lack that sort of edge to my humor. Still, my daydreams sometimes work that way…and if it keeps me writing, why not?)

The state of the Elfyverse is better than it was, mind you. I do have those two stories in the FS anthos, I’m working on two other new ones (for the upcoming collection), and I have restarted the long-delayed novel KEISHA’S VOW and have figured out at least in part what had been stopping me cold.

Thing is, I must get over this flu. (It’s not Covid. Tested negative.)

I rarely have fevers. So when I have them, I don’t really know what to do. When I get a few good hours, I need to use that to finish up the edits in progress, which of course is sensible. But it’s knocked me out of a band I was hoping to play in (I may still be able to play in another one soon, but I must get better fast), it’s delayed my writing more than it was already (and that’s been considerable), and because I have to push all the time, it seems to stop my creativity cold.

Music lives in me. But when I’m ill, the notes escape before I can write them down. (Playing is not an option today. Maybe it will be soon.) And my stories live in me, too. But it’s hard to write down music or words when I can’t concentrate worth a hill of beans.

The stories I have in progress are various. One’s about an Amazon who’d settled down and was teaching young warriors (men and women) how to fight…but while she was away, her whole family (including her beloved husband) was killed. She goes to his family to let them know, and before she can tell them, finds out that most of them are dead also. Only her sister-in-law is alive, and she’s like a mental vegetable. So what’s gone wrong there?

I have an inkling, but I also think somehow I lost my way. Still, this remains one of several stories that are vexing me.

The second is a good friend’s favorite story. It’s called “All the News That’s Fit,” and is about the US post-apocalypse of some sort. There’s now a bunch of divided states rather than a United States, and while one part of it still calls itself the US, it’s now centered around St. Louis, Missouri. (The South split off by itself. Texas, I think, is alone. The West Coast is now The Republic of the West.)

But the reason my good friend loves it is due to the romance between a newsreader (technology has backslid, to a degree, so the Army shepherds newsreaders around to various hamlets to tell ’em whatever the official story is) and an Army NCO. Newsreaders go into doing this to save their families, mostly…to get good medical care now is even more expensive than it is now in the US, and if you aren’t affiliated with some sort of public service, you can’t get it. But if you do an important job like newsreading, you can get your family the treatment they need…and that’s important for my heroine, Chloris, whose sister has cancer.

The guy in the tale is Sergeant James Carter. I didn’t consciously name him for the former POTUS, if you’re wondering; instead, I named him because I knew a very good, female Sergeant Carter years ago. She was competent, tough as nails, and yet very kind to me as I tried to work my way through becoming a military wife. She was a Reservist, and as I said, I truly appreciated her.

My Sergeant Carter is close to retirement age. He’s in his late thirties. He’s been through a lot. And because of his training, skills, and service, by the time he meets Chloris, he’s pretty much off women and off the idea of getting married someday. (That newsreaders rarely marry doesn’t help, because the duty is grueling, and newsreaders have to be hypnotized after a while to remember what to say and how to say it. As I said, it’s a messed-up world they live in.) But there’s just something about her that appeals to him, and the better he knows her — away from her job, and he’s thrown together with her due to his own — the better he likes her.

Then her sister goes missing…and all Hell breaks loose.

The third one is a YA story featuring a young version of Commander Ryann Creston, who features briefly in my story “To Survive the Maelstrom.” Here, she’s been taken captive at 14 along with a whole bunch of would-be cadets — stolen on the way to the military academy — and is put to work by a cult at some sort of out-of-the-way space station. She finds one person who’s willing to help — the doctor, who’d also been shanghaied years earlier — but in the meantime, she’s forced to endure many indignities…including the gropings of a young man named Derrick. There’s no actual sex here, and there’s more the threat of violence than anything…still, Ryann’s in a bad spot and needs to get the Hell out of there.

Now, why am I stalled? It’s very simple. I can’t figure out where the Hell the ships would dock on this station. It’s an old one, so it might actually have to use some sort of manual locks or shuttles or something to deal with how to get on and off. Ryann can’t move about the station unless there’s a power outage, because she’s watched nearly every minute of every day. (This station is old, so it does have some power outages, thank goodness.) And if Ryann can’t figure out where to go, how can she lead everyone else off that station and get back to the Academy where she belongs?

Those aren’t all the stories I have in progress, but those are the three that vex me the most. Somehow, I have to get them done…and while in some ways “All the News” is closer to it than the others, the best ending I’ve found relies on a cliffhanger and I don’t want to do that to readers (hoping they find me in the first place, I don’t want them then to throw down their e-readers in disgust).

So, that’s what’s going on.

What’s going on with you? (The comments, as always, are open.)

Fantastic Schools Hols Just Released — Look for my Newest Elfyverse Story There!

As the overly long title to this blog says, Fantastic Schools Hols has just been released.

Now, as to why I explicitly put “look for my newest Elfyverse story there” into the headline…there lies a (brief) tale.

See, as I’m not well-known, I’m not among the named authors on the front of the book. (I’m instead part of the “many more.”) Amazon has something weird going on where only nine authors in addition to Chris Nuttall (the biggest name here, and by far the draw as well) were able to be listed…I don’t understand this. Maybe it was just a quirk in the system.

The upshot of that is, if you don’t know my story is in there, you won’t find it very easily. Not unless you go to my Amazon Author Page, which does have it included. (Amazon’s customer service there was outstanding; the customer service rep fixed it within two hours, I think, and got it on my page.)

So, you might be wondering what the story is about. (Ha! It’s time to tell you…insert not-so-evil Halloween crackling voice.)

It’s called “Jon and Leftwich Have a Holiday Adventure.” As every story had to deal with a holiday from magical school, mine dealt with Bruno (then named Jon) and his best pal, Iarlait Leftwich, who goes only by his last name as Iarlait is just too silly of a name to be borne (so Leftwich has told me, and I’m not messing around with that…ahem.) It’s Ba’altinne there, or Beltane as we’d have it; they have an important religious ceremony there called Blessing of the Beasts. Every single animal has to be blessed by someone…the high muckety-mucks get Lady Keisha Madhrogan (the equivalent of our Pope), who is an important character in the two Elfy novels. But Joe Schmoes like Bruno and Leftwich are at this point in their lives get postulants, not full priests.

The adventure starts when Leftwich’s dog, Annbess, decides she doesn’t particularly want to be blessed today. She takes exception (or at least is fascinated by) the necklace the postulant, Karenna, is wearing; it looks like a map of the stars, and as such, it means the owner plans on committing a great deed that’s worthy of such an important gift.

Well, Annbess somehow gets the necklace off the postulant and runs off. The two boys have to somehow find Annbess, hope she has the necklace still (or at least get some idea as to where else it might be), and they only have their wits plus their magic (mostly Bruno’s magic, as Leftwich is too scattered by all of this to help much) to get the necklace back before Karenna’s Reverend Mother gets involved.

At any rate, I hope this little blurb (or synopsis, or call it what you will) has whet your appetite for downloading Fantastic Schools Hols and reading all the stories there (not just mine). If you have Kindle Unlimited, it is free to read…and I don’t know about you, but “free” in this economy is one of my favorite words, ever.

Before I go, I’ll explain where the chronology of this story is. It would be the first story about Bruno (again, then named Jon) doing anything of a magical nature, but it’s told as a frame story from after the rousing events of the two Elfy novels. (“Hey, do you remember when Annbess ran off…?”) So it’s both first and last, chronologically…which suits me fine, as I tend to be silly like that.

I do hope you will read the story, you’ll get a few chuckles out of it, and that you’ll start reminding me of my promise to finish up an Elfyverse collection and get it out by the end of the year. (Still working on it, honest!)

Come back and let me know if you’ve read it, hey?

Neither Fish Nor Fowl

I don’t know about you, but I sometimes don’t feel much like anyone else.

In general, this is a good thing. I have no doubts about my individuality or individualism. I know who I am; I am self-aware; I work on being my best self, especially as I know full well what my worst self is (and want no part of it, thank you).

Mind, I don’t want my worst self to dominate. And I’m not the only one who has ever thought of this, as we shall see.

In a classic Star Trek episode, Captain Jim Kirk was split into his two biggest “parts.” One half was good but weak. The other half was evil but strong. The good half waffled and could not make a decision as his compassion was so strong, every decision felt like the wrong answer. The bad half made snap decisions, tried to pretend he was something he wasn’t (that is, the full Jim Kirk, when he was only half), and had no remorse even after making the wrong judgment calls. Obviously, both halves of Jim Kirk were necessary for the full Jim Kirk to be able to be decisive–yet moral–at the same time.

So, the worst self I have, that can be ruthless and even cruel at times, has to be taken into account as part of who I am. Suppressing it isn’t the right answer, either, as too much suppression of part of ourselves has difficult and sometimes unwieldy consequences.

That’s why I often feel like I’m neither fish nor fowl.

Of course, the conception of an author’s blog usually is to explain more about why the person writes what they write than explain the person themselves. My answers are huge, sometimes elliptical, yet they boil down to one thing: This is who I am.

So, when I write a romance like Bruno’s and Sarah’s in the two Elfy books, it’s because I believe that romance is–or at least can be–vital to people’s well-being. When I write a romance like Allen’s and Elaine’s in CHANGING FACES, it’s because I believe love can indeed conquer all, even though there will be unforeseen difficulties, and even if the people in question have lots of work to do on themselves to be good partners.

Even in the short stories I’ve written, there usually is a romantic component. In “Baseball, Werewolves, and Me,” psychic Arletta James is a huge baseball fan, married to a werewolf, and has been brought in to consult for a major league baseball team due to unforeseen events. Her husband Fergus is her perfect foil, smart, dedicated, and not willing to take any crap from anyone. The two of them make an excellent team. (I also have a second story about them in the works, for those who’ve asked.)

The two stories about Marja and Tomas, the first a shapeshifter and the second a telepathic Troll, are also in the same vein. They found romance where it was least expected. They both feel like outcasts. (For that matter, so do all the others I’ve mentioned already, particularly Bruno and Sarah of the Elfy books and Elaine of CHANGING FACES.) But together, they thrive, and they use their talents to their best advantage.

I have other short stories that have no romance, mind. And I have a few others that do have at least the glimmering of a romance. But I think you get my point, which is that life should be shared with those you love.

If you’re fortunate enough to have a romantic partner who understands you, celebrate that every single day.

If you’re not, but you have friends who understand and love you for who you are, celebrate that.

And if you’re the most fortunate of all in that you not only have a living romantic partner to stand beside you but have good, caring and decent friends as well, recognize that you live in a bounty of riches. Do not take that for granted, ever. And do what you can for everyone you know, because life is fleeting.

So, while I continue to feel as if I’m neither fish nor fowl, I recognize that my skills and talents can still be effective.

I do hope this blog will give someone the hope they need, or at least some points to ponder. (Let me know that you’re reading, will you? I’m still smarting over that “comment” from Malwarebytes about how “lightly trafficked blog sites often carry viruses and malware.”)

What Makes a Good Story?

Recently, I wrote about Milwaukee Brewers relief pitcher John Axford, and I said that the way his story ended was not the way his story was supposed to go.

This begs the question: What makes for a good story, anyway?

By contemporary standards, what would’ve made Axford’s story much better would’ve been him coming into the game, striking out the side (or at least getting three outs), getting the save, and having the stadium rain cheers upon his head. (The crowd did cheer him when he came in — I think he may have even received a standing ovation — and cheered him on the way out, too, which is not usual when a pitcher is unable to get out of the inning. This last happened because we Brewers fans knew Axford well from his previous service with us, and knew he was deserving of such approbation due to how well he’d done before.)

In previous eras, though, they had stories such as MADAME BOVARY that sold a ton. Those stories would have characters put through the wringer and they’d never be able to come up for air; instead, even their children would be put through the wringer for no purpose, and would never be able to get ahead.

Why audiences appreciated such stories is beyond me, but that was the fashion at that time. The would-be heroine (or hero) had a tragic flaw (or two, or five), and because of that flaw would taint herself and everyone around her beyond any hope of redemption.

The fashion now tends more to happy endings, but well-deserved happy endings. Characters still get put through the wringer (see Lois McMaster Bujold’s MIRROR DANCE, or Katharine Eliska Kimbriel’s NIGHT CALLS, or any of Robert Jordan’s novels in the Wheel of Time series, among others), but they live to fight another day. They learn from their mistakes, too. And they continue on, having learned much more about themselves in the process.

Of course, the Harry Potter novels also exemplify this sort of story. Harry grows up to be a powerful magician, but he’s put through the wringer and must fight the big, bad, nasty, evil, and disgusting Lord Voldemort (and yes, I meant all those descriptions, as Voldemort is just that bad) in order to become the magician he needs to be. He and his friends Hermione and Ron are put through all sorts of awful things, but they eventually prevail.

My friend Chris Nuttall’s novels about Emily, starting with SCHOOLED IN MAGIC and continuing through to FACE OF THE ENEMY (with CHILD OF DESTINY coming soon), also have a plot that shows Emily being thrown into awful situation after awful situation, but she finds a way to prevail every time through hard work, effort, and a talent to get along with people even if they’ve crossed her (or she’s crossed them). Emily scans as a real person, and we care about her because she faces things most of us face even though we’re not magicians.

What are those things, you ask? Well, she has to learn from her own mistakes. She has to realize that she can’t fix everything and everyone. She has to find out that her snap judgments are not always correct. And she has to reevaluate people and situations, even when she doesn’t want to.

Of course, my own stories about Bruno and Sarah (AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE and A LITTLE ELFY IN BIG TROUBLE) have many of the same lessons. There are things Bruno can do, and does, once he realizes he’s been lied to about nearly everything. Sarah is in much the same boat, except she has different talents — complementary ones, in most cases — and the two of them have to find that they’re stronger together than they could ever be alone. But there are still things they can’t do, and they must make their peace with that (as every adult does), while continuing to work on the things they can.

In other words, they can control what is in their power to control. But they can’t control other people. (It would be wrong to do so, anyway. They have to make their own lives meaningful in whatever way they can, too. And make their own mistakes, as we all do…but I digress.)

Anyway, the stories I love best are those with happy endings. People sometimes start out with situations they don’t deserve (such as my friend Kayelle Allen’s character Izzorah, who went through a childhood illness that damaged his heart and nearly blinded him), but they get into better positions and find the people who can help them — maybe even love them the way they deserve. (Izzorah, for example, finds a treatment for his heart — it’s not a standard one, by any means, but it works in the context of the story — and finds love along the way in SURRENDER LOVE.)

So, to go back to the beginning of this blog, as we love happy endings and we want to see deserving people find good luck and happiness, the true ending we wanted for John Axford was to get the outs, get the cheers, bask in the glow of achieving his dreams once again at the baseball-advanced age of thirty-eight, and stay with the Brewers the rest of the season as they continue to make their run at postseason play.

That Axford was unable to achieve this happy ending was distressing. But all the hard work and effort he put into his return to the big leagues should still be celebrated. And my hope, overall, is that he will still be with the Brewers in one way or another after this season ends.

What makes for a good story? Do you agree or disagree with me, and if so, why? Tell me about it in the comments!

A Writing Snippet from KEISHA’S VOW (Elfy prequel set in 1954)

Folks, I didn’t forget my promise. So without further ado, here’s chapter 1 from KEISHA’S VOW, the work-in-progress prequel to the Elfy novels that’s set in 1954.

Here we go:

Chapter 1 from Keisha’s Vow, a work-in-progress from Barb Caffrey (yours truly):

The Master waited, exultant. Soon they’ll be here, he thought. He had prepared for this day, dreamed of it, shaped his will toward it, and now…wait, was that a car in the distance?

No, not them, he thought as he made one last pass around the campsite. The runes were all inscribed, but blended into the rock as to be well-nigh invisible; his followers, innocents all, shouldn’t suspect a thing. He had already paced out the boundaries of his chosen ground, and he’d — well, he couldn’t really call it a blessing, could he? But by whatever name anyone cared to call it, he had imposed his will upon the land underfoot. It lay, quiescent, its power dormant as was proper for this time of the year; only thus was he able to command it. If this had been high summer he wouldn’t have been able to do anything on an unprepared field, even on a night like this, when the moon was at its darkest.

That was why he’d had to start laying the preparation now for what he planned to do later, because in the summer, he knew he would have to make his stand. How or why he knew this, he wasn’t sure, but only a fool refused to listen when the Dark Mother whispered into his ear.

And the Master was no fool.

But there was no more time for preparation: his followers were beginning to arrive. They came from far and near, from both directions on the small, rutted dirt road, in cars, estate wagons, and even a conveyance that looked like it had only recently been released from service as an Army ambulance. Anyone spotting them would not see anything other than a bunch of unusually late picnickers; his people looked no different from anyone else. And this was California; didn’t people always do strange things here? The Master knew that if any of them had been stopped, they’d have had a tight tale for the authorities.

Before they got close enough to him to see his face, he donned his hood and mask. They would expect that: their leaders had always gone cloaked (no one with any real power — political, social, economic — came openly to a meeting in this company). Despite the wards on his dusky robe, the power radiating from him, nobody took the slightest alarm. He wasn’t sure if they couldn’t feel the power, or if they misunderstood it; he smiled, knowing they could not see him, and waited for his prey as calmly as he possibly could.

He was satisfied; he’d told them to come here, a rural place nearly untouched by mankind, and they had obeyed him. Even though this place wasn’t close to anything, and some of them had to be fearful at dusk, they’d still come.

Ah, the poor, brave, deluded fools, he thought contemptuously. Still, they were his, and that’s all that really mattered.

He didn’t worry too much about anyone happening along; there were no farms or houses within a mile of where he stood, and the nearest town, a very small place called Knightsville, lay about five miles to the east by road. He lit his beacon fire with confidence and waited for his flock, even though time seemed to crawl…surely, he wasn’t that difficult to spot?

Men, women, and even a few children straggled from their cars. At least twenty, thought the Master. A good harvest. And the children — especially the children… They took out their robes and hid under them, as he had, partly to emulate him, partly because they knew it was required. Then they gathered together around the small fire he’d made, and lit their candles. Black, of course; what other candles were there?

It was February, and nothing stirred. The land was his to command, more dormant than he’d ever known it to be; perhaps it had really died this time. The Master did not know or care; the fact was that Dark of the Moon was nigh, and it was as close to Imbolc as they were going to get…the timing was right for their ritual.

He reached out with his mind and felt their commitment; only the youngest wondered what they were doing here, as was to be expected. He touched their young, small minds as lightly as possible, telling them without words that what they were doing was necessary and right. Their reservations dulled, faded.

Only then did the Master call out: “My children, hear me.” He spoke in a near-whisper, trying to make his words sound sacred rather than profane. These others didn’t have the will to understand the truth of what they did. But he did, and he was the leader.

He went on in his lowest tones, “We must work our Will upon the land this night, that its powers awaken to aid our betters afar.” He grimaced inwardly; he hated having to sound like such a simpleton. But it was required — his followers were almost childlike in their naïveté, and needed child-simple ideas to satisfy them — and it did work: his “disciples” nodded, the hoods of their robes flapping like so many bobbing ravens’ heads.

One of his followers — he knew and cared not which — produced a cage in which a plump, white rabbit lay amidst the remains of a bunny banquet: a few well-chewed stalks of celery, scraps of lettuce, and what was left of a carrot. That, too, had been his plan from the start: treat the creature well, until…

He focused his will upon the rabbit, and it slept. Such a small thing didn’t need to be aware of what they did; its innocence, even unto how it went out of its life, was enough. Silently, he pulled the rabbit out of its cage; it was gravid, as he’d hoped, meaning other, smaller lives would go unborn. Surely the Dark Mistress would be pleased; surely the death of innocents, more than one, would help Her cause… he laid the rabbit on a small, dark rock he’d prepared earlier. The runes, written in charcoal around the rock, blended into its natural coloration; only he could see them, wreathed in a dark, reddish fire visible only to astral sight. None of these had any astral sight to worry about; their mage gifts were marginal to nonexistent.

They would not understand what they were doing, and that, too, was part of his plan.

He took out his athame, black-hilted as was proper, with the blade looking just as black in the light of the fire, but actually encrusted with the remains of many a bloody sacrifice before this. He held it up so the light from his followers’ candles would reach it, then silently motioned them to their places. Without a word, they formed a semi-circle around the rock, facing toward him in the place of honor — naturally — on the other side of what was now their altar. Then he took the knife and did what was necessary, neatly severing the rabbit’s head and holding it up for all to see.

“Touch it; it’s dead, it’ll never harm you,” he said warmly, now in more normal, conversational tones. A few of the more daring souls indeed did this, but most shrank back.

Ah, yes. Time for the sermon.

“It is our will that we will have dominion over all the beasts of the field, from the last to the littlest, to the greatest and most able. We must show our dominance; we must not be afraid. Fear is a weapon in the hand of those who oppose us, those who would impose their ways on us.” His eyes caressed his followers; so pure, so noble-seeming did he make it sound. Some were afraid; he drank in their fear. But most were nodding again, willing tools to do his bidding.

He put down the head, then skinned the rabbit, saving for last the delicate and difficult task of scraping out the unborn pups. They’d nearly made it to life, poor things, he thought as he went about his work.

But these would not be the last sacrifices, he told his audience. They would meet again at the next dark-of-the-moon, and the one after, and on into the summer if necessary, until further notice. They had made a good beginning, he told them, but it was only a beginning, and they had to expand upon it and continue on in this way in order to do their betters’ work in the world. He tried to make it sound noble, but even he couldn’t make blood sacrifice sound all that much better than it was, so he concentrated instead upon necessity, and how all of this would eventually help them all.

His flock acquiesced, as he’d known they would; these were sheep, not really people, but in these times, even sheep like these were better than no one at all.

This place was now sealed to him, to do his bidding, even as he did the will of the Dark Mother…he bade his flock to dip their fingers in the blood he had spilled atop the makeshift stone altar; this they did, then put that blood to their lips.

Thus were innocents consecrated to the Dark.

The gathering dispersed, all but the Master returning to their vehicles and driving off the way they had come. The Master faded into the darkness and waited until everyone else was gone.

Only then did he take off his robes and mask, donning in their place a set of ordinary working man’s clothes and putting the symbols of his mastery away in an old surplus rucksack. There would be a reckoning, he knew; soon, somehow, there would be a reckoning. Soon he wouldn’t have to go veiled to the world; everyone would know that he, Victor Mundy, was the Master!

Then, rucksack on his back, he set off across the fields toward his small home on the outskirts of Knightsville, whistling in the dark.

Let the powers of Light try to stop me. If they dare.

*****

Do you want more? Tell me in the comments!

Facing the Pressure of Illness

Folks, I’ve been under the weather for quite a while now. But I think I’m recovering, albeit slowly.

Now, as to what this is? I don’t know. But I have to treat it as an ongoing illness, and work around it.

I am tired of being sick, but apparently sick isn’t tired of me; because of that, I have to do whatever I can to get past the illness.

Mind, I put a lot of pressure on myself when I’m sick. I want to be well, so badly, and yet it takes time to get better. I go back to work just as soon as I possibly can, and I almost certainly do too much too soon because I worry about all the stuff I wasn’t able to do while at my most ill.

In that way, I try to make strides forward. It can be difficult. And the additional pressure probably doesn’t do me any favors.

Today, I’ve managed to write 700 words of fiction, done a little editing (as I just finished up a major project, I have to take it slowly for a few days to gear up for the next major project’s completion as I have more than one in train), talked with the doctor’s office, talked with the medical supply company, and have gotten all my laundry together. After that, my plan is to do some food shopping, then my laundry, and perhaps edit more tonight providing I have any energy left after that.

In other words, I tend to have two speeds. Full throttle, or all-in. (And the last is not good, because if I’m “all-in,” that means I’m tired out of my mind and have nothing left to give, in case you’re not familiar with that Midwestern idiom.)

Still, I’m working at things, slowly. I’m doing what I can.

Now, onto other things, very briefly:

This ongoing pandemic is not fun by any means. I am worried about my friends, far and near. I am especially worried about estranged friends, people who won’t talk to me but I still care about; I can do nothing for any of them, but I still worry, and I still want to help. (It is a particular quirk of mine, I guess.)

I hope you will all stay as safe as you can.

And I’d wanted to write something bracing about the Nova Scotia shootings, but I still have no words. Everything seems hollow to say, and yet, those folks have to feel like no one cares about them whatsoever due to the ongoing coverage of Covid-19 and almost nothing else.

If you have a spare moment today, say a prayer, think good thoughts, send positive energy, or do whatever your particular spirituality or religion advises when trying to comfort distant friends and allies. And aim that squarely at Nova Scotia, if you can, or at least at the broader target of Canada. Those folks are hurting, scared, and need to know they haven’t been forgotten.

Finally, I hope we’ll all remember that we’re human. We have good in us, even though it doesn’t always show; we can help others, even when it doesn’t seem like it.

Try to do something to help someone else today, even if they don’t know it. The universe will thank you.

 

 

A Post About Hope for #MFRWHooks

Hope. It’s in short supply right now, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet we need it, or we’re going to have an even harder time digging our way out of the mess we’re now collectively in.

I’ve said before, here at my blog, that I wonder how Bruno and Sarah, my characters in the Elfy duology (comprised of AN ELFY ON THE LOOSE and A LITTLE ELFY IN BIG TROUBLE), would do in this situation. And I’m writing a story now about exactly that, so eventually I hope I’ll know.

But what came to me, tonight, is that I actually do have a bit of an answer already.

In A LITTLE ELFY IN BIG TROUBLE, my hero Bruno and my heroine Sarah are trying to save Bruno’s teacher and mentor, Roberto the Wise. Roberto’s been taken and tortured by a Dark Elf, Dennis; worse yet, he’s being tortured in public as a sort of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 exercise as most of the people in the crowd are under the influence of psychedelic incense, poisoned ground, or worse.

So, Dennis is doing what he is — an evil act, or even worse, a series of evil acts — in plain sight.

Sarah is a strong empath. Eventually, she hopes to be a doctor (in Bruno’s parlance, a Healer), like her grandmother was years ago. She can’t help but feel what’s going on with Roberto; Roberto is dying, and may not even live to be sacrificed, as far as she knows. And while Bruno knows this, and can feel some of it, too, it doesn’t hit him directly as hard. Not anywhere as hard as it’s hit Sarah, anyway.

But watching Sarah suffer hurts him.

So, without further ado, here’s that scene from A LITTLE ELFY IN BIG TROUBLE:

He turned to Sarah and took her wrist, feeling her pulse bounding against his too-cool hand. “Are you all right, my love?” he asked softly. “Are you sure you don’t want to get out of here? Someone could be spared to take you away from all this…”

“No, Bruno,” Sarah said. She looked like she wanted to say more, but instead started coughing as if her throat was as dry as any of Bruno’s old textbooks. She continued to look pale, waxen, and ill; only her dark eyes showed any trace of her usual force of spirit. “I have to stay here. I’m Roberto’s only hope.”

“Well, he has other hopes, dear,” Bruno replied, contradicting her last statement almost as a reflex, “but yes, you’re his best hope.”

See, Sarah, despite being gravely ill now (an illness of a spiritual nature), is there because she is needed. Just as our doctors, our nurses, our pharmacists, our grocery workers, our police/fire/EMT emergency responders, and our postal workers — among others — are there now despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sarah believes in hope. So does Bruno. Because at this point, neither of them knows how they’re going to rescue Roberto. The situation is bad. While they do have allies, their allies can’t do all that much to help…or worse, their allies can only help in certain ways. And every one of their allies is also at risk from the Dark Elf, who’s as evil a creature as has ever lived in the multiverse. (At least, as far as Bruno and Sarah understand.)

I think we all need to believe in hope right now, too.

We don’t know the end of the story, right now, with COVID-19. We don’t know much, except that it can be deadly and that we don’t have any cure for it. We don’t have a vaccine, either. And all we can do is our best to stay home; when we’re not at home, or doing essential things like getting food (rarely) or medicine or exercising, we must be careful and cautious if at all possible. (Don’t get me started about what the Supreme Court of the United States did yesterday in saying that people who didn’t get their absentee ballots for today’s Wisconsin election in time to get them in the mail today must go to vote in person despite this pandemic, or I will be so furious I can’t even type.)

Anyway. We have to hope. We have to believe we will come out the other side of this and recognize ourselves. We have to hope against all odds that we will get past the COVID-19 pandemic; we have to hope that we’ll be able to live through it, and somehow find a way to make better public policy in the future so other pandemics don’t catch the United States flat-footed as we were this time.

Just as Bruno and Sarah somehow found hope in a horrible situation, we must, too.

That’s why I wrote this BookHooks post, on behalf of my fellow Marketing for Romance Writers authors and anyone else who needed to read it. And I do hope it helps you.

1. Tell it to my Heart ** NEW RELEASE **	2. Daryl Devore – Two Truths and a Lie
3. Wednesday Temple of Fyre	4. Mystic Maples
5. Paranormal Lives Here	6. A particularly male grin
7. Lyndi Alexander and her worlds of fancy	8. #MFRWHooks – “Cinderella’s Enchanted Night”
9. Do you believe? #MFRWHooks	10. Lily and the Gambler – Linda McLaughli
11. The Toy Planet Media Darling	12. A Post About Hope for #MFRWHooks

ULFBEHRT’S LEGACY By #HollyBargo	14. The Game, Virtus Saga #2 – Laura Tolomei
15. G is for Golem – Helen Henderson	16. Sin-Eater #LynnChantale