Music Monday: Life in (Semi) Lockdown

I'm going to make a slight departure from my normal Music Monday post to tell you about a song that you just need to hear. If you aren't familiar with British artists, this may go over your head without the video to watch (it does for me when I just listen to it) because like the ever famous We are the World and Band-Aid compilations, there are almost more artists here than you can follow. But this should be the official lockdown/pandemic theme song, and it is just good stuff. Like those hugs that we all still look forward to getting. Enjoy.

Times Like These 

(BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge All-Stars/Foo Fighters)

One, two, three, four

I, I'm a one way motorway

I'm the one that drives away

Then follows you back home

And I, I'm a street light shining

I'm a wild light blinding bright

Burning off alone

It's times like these you learn to live again

It's times like these we give and give again

It's times like these you learn to love again

It's times like these, time and time again

I, I'm a new day rising

I'm a brand new sky

To hang the stars upon tonight

I, I'm a little divided

Do I stay or run away

And leave it all behind?

It's times like these you learn to live again

It's times like these you give and give again

It's times like these you learn to love again

It's times like these, time and time again

Let's go

It's times like these that we activate

Do something to improve, don't procrastinate

I've been cooking now make a wicked pasta bake

Stream games at 11 but I clap at 8

And I'll do a facetime if you tempt me

Time to pay back with all the health docs lent me

And for me west ten's elementary

But right now I wanna see ladbroke grove empty

You get me?

We make it better together we'll make a better life

Because the pressure is ever upon us every night

And everyday so we pray and we will forever fight

We'll make it better together, we'll make a better life

I, I'm a one way motorway

I'm the one that drives away

Then follows you back home

I, I'm a street light shining

I'm a wild light blinding bright

Burning off alone

It's times like these you learn to live again

It's times like these you give and give again

It's times like these you learn to love again

It's times like these, time and time again

It's times like these you learn to live again

It's times like these you learn to love again

Music Monday: Wishing Well

I'm going in a slightly different direction this Music Monday and introducing you to a band that I first discovered on TikTok (I'm one of those old ladies now, it seems) and have since found matches a lot of what I look for in writing music. The first song I found by The Dead South was In Hell I'll Be in Good Company, but then I found this little gem and it speaks to me in reference to the Appalachian project I'm working on - and not just because these fellas are amazing on traditional instruments like banjos. Now, which of the Wraiths are speaking to me through this song?

"Wishing Well"
by The Dead South

So sweet so genuine.
I bet you taste like sweet cherry pie.
So gorgeous every man's jaw drops.
When will you choose my straw.

So I find you put flowers to shame.
You've got all the guys playing your game.
In the moonlight I will ask you to dance.
Will you let me taste sweet romance.

I throw my penny into the wishing well.
What that wish was I will never tell.
Can I be by your side at night?
Can I be your everlasting light.

I will be your warrior.
I'll be the one who takes care of you.
Just let me know when shit get tight.
Oh baby please just let me ignite.

I'll be the one to control disease.
I'll change the weather anytime you please.
Everyone will know your name if you please just be my queen.

I throw my faith into the wishing well.
What that wish was I will never tell.
Can I be by your side at night?
Can I be your everlasting light.

I throw my fate into that wishing well.
I pray to god that I don't go to hell.
No no no...

I throw my fate into that wishing well.
I pray to god that I don't go to hell.
No no no...

I throw my fate into that wishing well.
I pray to god that I don't go to hell.
No no no...

I throw my penny into the wishing well.
What that wish was I will never tell.
Can I be by your side at night?
Can I be your everlasting light.
Can I be your everlasting light.

In which I get fancy and then throw Gin off something...

 The length of the aptly titled Very Short Story catches me out every time. I had a whole post in my head with lengthy and, if I do say so myself, literary comparisons between a sunrise and Sath's fur, and then suddenly I didn't have enough characters left and...well, this happened:

Gin closed her eyes and thought of another morning long ago, when the sunrise bathing the land in pinks and purples reflected in the mirror surface of the #river running under the stone guard tower - the same stones now under her feet.

She opened her eyes and jumped.#vss365 pic.twitter.com/qLamnTiuWV

— NancyD_writes📚 (@nancyd_writes) February 10, 2021

Music Monday: Yep, I'm THAT Supernatural Fan...

 So...2021 feels a bit like a repeat of 2020 so far, right? At least we didn't wake up to THIS on January 1st.  #IYKYK

Heat of the Moment

by Asia

I never meant to be so bad to you
One thing I said that I would never do
A look from you and I would fall from grace
And that would wipe the smile right from my face

Do you remember when we used to dance
And incidents arose from circumstance
One thing led to another we were young
And we would scream together songs unsung

It was the heat of the moment
Telling me what my heart meant
The heat of the moment showed in your eyes

And now you find yourself in '82
The disco hot spots hold no charm for you
You can concern yourself with bigger things
You catch a pearl and ride the dragon's wings

'Cause it's the heat of the moment
The heat of the moment
The heat of the moment
The heat of the moment showed in your eyes

And when your looks are gone and you're alone
How many nights you sit beside the phone
What were the things you wanted for yourself
Teenage ambitions you remember well

It was the heat of the moment
Telling me what your heart meant
The heat of the moment showed in your eyes

It was the heat of the moment
The heat of the moment
The heat of the moment showed in your eyes

Heat of the moment
Heat of the moment
Heat of the moment
Heat of the moment...

Sometimes I fancy myself a writer of space operas...

 And when I do, this happens over on Twitter for #vsspic: 

Translator crept down the sandy path to where the little one stood. I knew to let him approach first-some young ones had never seen humans before, despite their outward appearance.

Her balloons...that looked like our planets?

"From First Earth," he said, noticing my stare. pic.twitter.com/JQTmMyvnB8

— NancyD_writes📚 (@nancyd_writes) February 2, 2021

Music Monday: Welcome Home, Scarlet.

Back in November, I was working on a piece that was supposed to be a ghost story based on my experiences at a small college in the mountains of North Georgia. As predicted, though, by anyone that knows me, it turned into a weird paranormal mythology-influenced story...with a wolfhound. There are bits of my original idea still there: a girl grows up steeped in her family's legacy and duty, taking care of the old gods of the mountains to keep them from swarming down into the human population and causing havoc. So I'm going to let that biz ruminate for a while. 

I worked on a cover for the book because apparently, I have flipped the normal process for writing and need to have the cover ready for a manuscript that may or may not be written. As I was getting it ready to put on Tiktok (because I'm one of those middle-aged women authors that discovered the app during the pandemic) I found a song that I thought was perfect for the little 60-second cover reveal: Welcome Home, Son by Radical Face. It is very much like my main character, Scarlet: sweet-sounding and cozy on the outside but a hot mess on the inside. Enjoy.

Welcome Home, Son

by Radical Face

Sleep don't visit, so I choke on sun
And the days blur into one
And the backs of my eyes hum with things I've never done

Sheets are swaying from an old clothesline
Like a row of captured ghosts, over old dead grass
Was never much, but we made the most
Welcome home

Ships are launching from my chest
Some have names, but most do not
If you find one, please
Let me know what piece I've lost

Peel the scars from off my back
I don't need them anymore
You can throw them out
Or keep them in your mason jars
I've come home

All my nightmares escaped my head
Bar the door, please don't let them in
You were never supposed to leave
Now my head's splitting at the seams
And I don't know if I can...

Here beneath my lungs
I feel your thumbs press into my skin again

Music Monday: Of Poetry and Prose...It's a Trap!

This song is what it's like to be a writer. Those of you that know me in real life have NO IDEA how many times I have used your voices, your gestures, your attitudes, and sometimes your words to bring my characters to life. And instead of thinking of that as creepy, think of the gift of immortality I've given you! "I have written you down/Now you will live forever."
There have only been a few that I have written down in the way that Bastille describes in the song. I promise. No? Still creepy? It's a cool song, anyway...

 

Obsession, it takes control
Obsession, it eats me whole
I can't say the words out loud
So in a rhyme I wrote you down
Now you'll live through the ages
I can feel your pulse in the pages

I have written you down
Now you will live forever
And all the world will read you
And you will live forever

In eyes not yet created
On tongues that are not born
I have written you down
Now you will live forever

Your body lies upon the sheets
Of paper in words so sweet
I can't say the words
So I wrote you into my verse
Now you'll live through the ages
I can feel your pulse in the pages

I have written you down
Now you will live forever
And all the world will read you
And you will live forever

In eyes not yet created
On tongues that are not born
I have written you down
Now you will live forever

I have read her with these eyes
I've read her with these eyes
I have held her in these hands

I have written you down
Now you will live forever
The virtue's in the verse
And you will live forever

I have written you down
Now you will live forever
And all the world will read you
And you will live forever

In eyes not yet created
On tongues that are not born
I have written you down
Now you will live forever

Music Monday: Sometimes I...Think about Tairneanach

 One part of being a writer that I hate is when I get a whole bunch of words put down on a page, put them away for a bit, and then get them back out to find out that they are not at all what I meant for them to be. I have said before that I identify more with Tairn, a character in the Nature Walker Trilogy than I do with Gin these days which has surprised me. Gin is so good and fair, and she is who I think I would like to be...but I am not. Gin comes out of an incredibly painful and difficult time with her compassion not only intact, but still worn on her sleeve. That is amazing - but not me.

I've pulled out the manuscript for Tairn's book in the upcoming Guardians of Orana series and whooo. I know that I'm my own worst critic but after a certain point that is a steaming pile of disjointed garbage. Ah, the revision stage! But I admit that this time I was not sure how to fix it. It has been so long that I wasn't hearing Tairn's voice like I was before.

And then I heard this song, from a recommendation by a dear friend on social media, and there she was, that sideways grin that means WE ARE IN FOR AN ADVENTURE plastered across her face, pale blue eyes gleaming. I've missed you, Red. Let's get to work.

Sometimes I

by Raising Appalachia

Sometimes I
I feel far
Far away
From my home
And sometimes I
I am lonely but sometimes
I like the way i roam
Sometimes I
I pace forward
I pace back, yeah
Bending, breaking
Tall grass shaking
Beneath my weight yeah yeah

Sometimes I
I get stuck inbetween
Between my love for the jester
Or my love for the queen
Sometimes I
I see your eyes
Across the roof, yeah
Fading, narrow
Bonesharp arrow
Harbouring, yeah

Sometimes I
I am tired of being alone
And I know sometimes I'll be mighty baby
And I'll sit upon your thrown
Knocked me over
Freightrain lover
Chew me up and spin me out
Tiny spout and muddy river
Whisper softer softer

Sometimes I
I need my skin to touch the breeze
And Sometimes I
I found beauty brings me down
Down to my knees
And sometimes I don't know where I am going
And I don't care
And sometimes I need my roots
And sometimes i need my essence
Sometimes I am far away...

Music Monday: Inspiration

Behind each of my novels is a spark of inspiration. The dogs, of course, are the inspiration for Proud Racer and Clobberpaws. My time gaming and the friends I made there inspired the Nature Walker Trilogy. 

Rift is no different. Around the same time that I knew I wanted to take a break from the Orana Chronicles and my other projects that had stalled out, a very good friend of mine sent me a link to the video below. Before that, I had a vague idea about getting stuck in the world of the MMORPG that I play, I watched this video, and BAM there was Lex, standing in front of me and encouraging me to write how he felt about Em. 

So thank you, Angel, for inspiring one of the most difficult and interesting novels I've ever written. Also, y'all...this is one of the most beautiful pieces of animation I've seen. Go to YouTube and watch the rest of the chapters in this story, and be prepared for your feels to be hit hard.

Church

by Fall Out Boy

If you were church, I'd get on my knees
Confess my love, I'd know where to be
My sanctuary, you're holy to me
If you were church, I'd get on my knees
I'd get on my knees
I'd get on my knees
I'd get on my knees

And take the pain
Make it billboard big then swallow it for me
Time-capsule for the future
Trust me, that's what I will be
Oh, the things that you do in the name of what you love
You were doomed but just enough
You were doomed but just enough

If you were church, whoo
I'd get on my knees, yeah
Confess my love, I'd know where to be
My sanctuary, you're holy to me
If you were church, yeah, I'd get on my knees
I'd get on my knees, whoo
I'd get on my knees
I'd get on my knees

I love the world but I just don't love the way it makes me feel
Got a few more fake friends
And it's getting hard to know what's real
And if death is the last appointment
Then we're all just sitting in the waiting room
I am just a human trying to avoid my certain doom

If you were church, yeah
I'd get on my knees
Confess my love, I'd know where to be
My sanctuary, you're holy to me
If you were church, yeah, I'd get on my knees
I'd get on my knees, yeah, oh
I'd get on my knees, ah ah ah
I'd get on my knees, yeah
I'd get on my knees
If you were church
I'd get on my knees

Confess my love, I'd know where to be
My sanctuary, you're, you're holy to me, you're holy to me
If you were church, yeah, I'd get on my knees, yeah

Notes from Exile: Hey, remember 2020?

Photo credit: Phil Roeder

Wow. So, how is everyone doing this morning?

Yesterday was a rough day, by any stretch, for me. It was the first day of a new semester and that always comes with loads of horrifying delightful surprises as my students realize that forty-eleven thousand things are not right with their accommodations and they need to be fixed NOW. 

It was the first day that I actually had to GET UP ON TIME and be presentable, whatever that means in the current Zoom classroom environment. I wrangled the background in and out of a terribly messy incredibly organized guest room and brought it into the office for my interpreting work. The canine chorus sang the song of their people a few times and blocked out my audio. But it all got done, leaving my brain and body a bit battered but overall glad to be back doing what I know how to do.

And then after all of that, I went to the sitting room with my laptop and phone to stretch out on the sofa for a bit and watch something utterly boring but soothing in its routine and standard practice: the certification of the votes from the Presidential election by the joint Houses of Congress. I admit to bit of anxiety over the contentious mood in our nation's capitol concerning the upcoming transfer of power, but ultimately, my PollyAnna soul was certain that it would roll along smoothly as it has done for over two hundred years.

Because we are Americans. We are loud. We are bossy. We are our own worst enemy. But at our very core - I believed, anyway - we are still Americans and sometimes we just need a bit of reminding what that means. We need to remember our history and build on it for our future, and other such platitudes.

Wow. PollyAnna was WRONG. While I am still finding it hard to believe that the people I saw yesterday are at all representative of the majority of people in my country, that was a terrifying display of what can happen when lies and misinformation are allowed to propagate. 

It was also a reminder of how far we have yet to go in terms of law enforcement reform. I stand by my statement yesterday that if any of those on that front line that broke into the building and quickly overwhelmed the Capitol police had been people of color, that would have been over before it started. We all saw the policeman taking selfies with one of the terrorists inside the building. We watched as the terrorist mob was pushed back, finally, out of the building, and then just left, for the most part, to disperse. Left to disperse, after curfew. Left to disperse after curfew on the same streets where unarmed protesters over the summer, hands in the air, were tear-gassed so that the president could walk over to a beloved church and use it for a photo op.

I certainly hope we are not starting as we mean to go on, but make no mistake, when we see something, say something. This can get better. Yesterday saw horrible violence by some gullible puppets of a tyrant, but it also saw an African-American man elected via run-off in a state that created that very run-off requirement as a part of the Jim Crow scourge. We can stand together and against this kind of insurrection and still do the things we need to do to stop the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. Your voice will count just as much from six feet away and behind a mask, stopping the spread of yet another kind of virus - the so-called MAGA virus that is turning our country inside out.

Now, off to edit. Poor Tairn. That manuscript is expecting PollyAnna. That is not who I am anymore.

Music Monday: Well, here we are...

This is going to be a rather personal Music Monday, mainly because I can...but I just needed to talk about this for a second. My uncle died this morning. He had an incredibly long life - he was 93 - and it was full of grace and faithfulness that is sadly lacking in our world today. He was my mom's older brother, and the last of her siblings to die. That's a weird thought in and of itself - I've felt a bit unmoored (thanks to my friend Katy for that term, it is spot on) since 2018 when we lost Dad and this cycle of death, as it has seemed, began. It is worse now because we can't be with loved ones when their time comes. We can't gather afterward to share memories and be sad together. So while I'm sure I've posted this song before, I'm doing it again because I heard it before my uncle passed and thought of him - his strength and his resolve. Hug those you can and talk to those you can't. Life is short.

Little Hercules

Craig Carothers

So you cannot lift a spirit that has turned to lead
Or shine a light in shadow when the batteries are dead
Or fly like a bird over all the works of man
Or always think of the perfect words
But you do the best you can

Nothing seems as easy as it did when you were young
Myths may be invincible, but we are only strong
Strong like a memory, strong like a willow in the wind
Strong as you'll ever be, you will always need to bend

And if you feel the weight of the world
Put your mind at ease
Little Hercules

There are times when being a grown-up gets to be too much
And your sense of humor seems to vanish in the crush
Of the daily 9 to 9 that keeps your family alive
You're just putting in your time
Does anyone really go home at 5?

You've made a life where no one ever tells you what to do
Now the only tyrant that you're working for is you
It's never easy to keep all the promises you make
But no one's gonna get you fired
If you'd just give yourself a brake

And if you feel the weight of the world
Put your mind at ease
Little Hercules
'Cause there's so much on your shoulders
But you know it's a breeze
Little Hercules
Little Hercules

Music Monday: Start as you mean to go on, right?

Well, Happy New Year! I'm just going to leave this video here, for now, because as I was sitting here pretending to be a writer the other morning, I heard this line from the below song by Elbow and was...struck? Shook? Anyway, it is a yes from me.

"We protect our little fictions/Like it's all we are..."

Start as we mean to go on is much better than a ridiculous list of resolutions that will be left behind before you can hit submit on the post. Let's try that this year, and if they are little fictions or hard truths, we can take them as they come. Who's with me?

Little Fictions
Elbow

A muffled battle cry across the kitchen table
A baffling contretemps that shakes the day unstable
Confessions from the cab, a habit that I got from dad
The flurry of departure in a cyclone of cologne
Would often devastate the gate and hedge
And set our tiny teeth on edge
I see it in me now and pledge
To knock it on the head, that's what I'll do

A muffled battle cry across the kitchen table
Bridges up, portcullis down and round the Tower of Babel
I'm babbling in my dreams of blue berserkers coming at me
Eyes and tongues and rusty knives
And God almighty laughing at me
From a fat boy fishing chair
I wake to find you laughing there
It's nice to know how much you care
Decided I should spend my life with you

We protect our little fictions
Like it's all we are
Little wilderness mementos
But there's only you and me here

Fire breathing

Hold tight
Waiting for the original miracle

I'm trying to focus on the issues of the day please
Your paper's upside down, the radio's in Chinese
These little tremors that are ripping through our rituals
That friction up the interaction
Emanate from quite the greatest
Thing that ever happened to
A pair of boozy bowerbirds like me and you
In other words
The alligator pear inside of you

We protect our little fictions
When we bow to fear
Little wilderness mementos
But there's only you and me here
Fire breathing
Hold tight
Waiting for the original miracle

Fire breathing
Hold tight
Life is the original miracle

Let's get old
Dare you now
Mix blood with me
All in
Love is the original miracle

Let's get old
Dare you now
Mix blood with me
All in
Life is the original miracle

Love is the original miracle

Notes from Exile: Of Crooked Christmas Trees and other Leaning Towers

The Dunne Family Christmas Tree

Well, normally I would say it's almost that time, almost Christmas Day, etc. But not this year. This year, it feels like Thursday. I'm not planning how to get food two hours down the road to Atlanta for Christmas Lunch with my sister and her family. I'm not anticipating spending time with my American niece. We aren't waking up in Northumberland with Simon's parents. We just are.

I admire others that have been able to find ways around the general malaise that 2020 has spread. Especially those of you with children who have gone the extra mile to keep the magic in this holiday season when we have ditched the sugar plums in favor of vaccines and masks dancing through our visions.

Our Christmas tree has a permanent lean, as you can see in the photo. We don't have normal ceilings in this house, so we have to get a smaller tree than I'd like - but it is still too far from the outlet for me to feel comfortable plugging in the star at the top. It leans, as though it is trying to reach that outlet, and I'm reminded how we are all leaning this year. Leaning forward into the future with a vaccine and a return to in-person life. Leaning back into those moments we wish could have lasted, with family and friends that for whatever reason aren't here. Leaning into the "new normal," or leaning back into "the before time." 

We are all like leaning towers, and the key is not to lean so far that you fall. I remember a Christmas evening spent with one of my favorite people and his family, where the tree was crooked and we spent a great deal of time tying it into place with twine. There was a lot of clapping of hands and slapping of backs as the tree stood straight and tall...until something that I did to loosen the twine caused it to fall...on my friend's dad. He caught it, and while I don't remember what he said, I remember his booming laugh as he straightened it up and tied it again - and told me not to touch it.

That laugh is braided into the twine that holds me up this Christmas, along with my dad's decorations and my brother in law inexplicably under the Christmas tree at my parents' house in north Georgia. I'm remembering the ding that the MARTA train makes at every stop, and how my college friends and I raised our hands every time we heard it on the way to see the big tree in Atlanta - the start of the  Christmas season when I was younger. I think of my Daisy Mei Mei wearing the tree skirt like a 1950s salon cape and how every dog that is new to the Dunne family at Christmas has a picture in that same skirt.

I remember the Leeds German Market at Christmas and the sparkling lights in The Vue where we would grab a cheeky Nandos before seeing a movie. I remember Christmas Eve Mass at the church my inlaws attend in Seahouses. I can hear my mom saying, "Well, Merry Christmas!" on the phone when we lived 5,000 miles away. All of these memories and more hold me up this Pandemic Christmas as well as hold the promise of next year and our triumphant return to parades and late nights out, to massive meals with family and opening presents, to us. To normal. 

But for now, I will hang on to my crooked tree and my little family here in my house, safe and warm and healthy, and I will be thankful. Merry Christmas.

New Year, New Novel Series

Coming next year: A new series set in the world of Orana: Guardians of Orana. The origin stories of the characters from the Nature Walker Trilogy and the Tales of the Forest War intertwined with the ongoing story of Orana, due out in the autumn of 2021. 

Watch this space, and visit nancyedunne.com for preordering information.

Notes from Exile: End of a Weird Nano/Semester/Year/etc.

Well, that's that.

Well, that happened.

It happened a week ago, and I don't really have anything to say about it other than I am clearly NOT a horror writer and should stick to what I know, which is character-driven, has paranormal elements, and possibly includes some romance. 

I don't know what Legacy is going to become, but I haven't completely thrown it in the dumpster fire that has been 2020.

So here we are, in the last month of one of the weirdest years on record. I'm sure that the survivors of the Spanish Flu felt a similar sense of relief/trauma/fear mixed with a healthy dose of What the Hell was THAT? I'm also battling a lot of apathy, if I'm honest, about everything in my life, and I know I'm not alone in that.

My semester at the DayJob™ ended this past Friday and the students are in exam week now. They all went home at Thanksgiving and everything was online afterward, a decision that I think was very well reasoned. I mean, until we have a vaccine for this thing for a few months, I think that online everything is the way to go, but no one asked me. 

The end of the semester also signals the end of the calendar year, and as it always seems now that I work in academia, suddenly there is a flurry of things to do for Christmas/New Year. Only there isn't. I had so hoped that we would be going to the UK for Christmas this year. We were supposed to go in August for my father-in-law's 80th birthday but that didn't happen either.

Christmas hasn't been the same, if I'm honest, since we lost my father in April of 2018. Thanksgiving is hard now, without my mother, but Christmas was always my dad's holiday. The man was not cheap in his decoration of their house - garlands hung from every low hanging light fixture and there were wreaths with big red bows on every window. They had stockings on the mantel with a tangle of garland and plastic reindeer/Santa above it. Candles were in the windows that burned all night every night. Once he was no longer able to do these things, some of the sparkle went out of Christmas for me. 

I haven't found it since. Being unable to travel, unable to even go out for a long, loud, boozy meal with my friends here has made me just want to get this season over with and move on to 2021. I mean, I tried - I put up our tree and got hives from "Artificial Christmas Tree Syndrome." 

And this time next week I will be on Winter Break from Clemson - maybe then I can find my mojo. Or maybe I can get some editing done, or at least write a better, more uplifting blog post. Thanks for spending this year in exile with me. I hope you're well, and that your holiday season is as magical and bright as you can make it this year.