Signing Event: Virtual Showcase for Beach Bound Hounds!

I have been invited to join the virtual vendor showcase that Greyhound Crossroads is hosting this year since their signature event, Beach Bound Hounds, was cancelled due to COVID-19. I invite you not only to grab a signed copy of the books in my back catalog, but to find unique and wonderful merchandise for you or other dog lovers in your life, while supporting the work that this group does to place retired racing greyhounds in homes in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. This opens to the public on September 4th - search FB for BBH Vendor Virtual Showcase. See y'all there!

Books available for signed paperback purchase:

Proud Racer: An American Greyhound in Yorkshire

Clobberpaws and Clobberpaws, Too!

The Nature Walker Trilogy: Wanderer, Tempest, and Guardian

Tales of the Forest Wars: Ignite and Scorch

Rift: An Arcstone Novel

Music Mondays: Sathlir and Ginolwenye

[Slightly spoilerly - read at your own risk...]

Yeah, I couldn't sit on this one any longer. Anyone who knows me or has seen me talk about Gin and Sath and the Orana Chronicles knows how much I love these two characters. When I first heard this song I was captivated. It seems like it was written for them, documenting the path they take in the Nature Walker Trilogy. Please find the lyrics below and enjoy the music of this band from Dublin as they talk about my superheroes, Gin and Sath.

Superheroes

The Script

All the life she has seen

All the meaner side of me

They took away the prophet's dream

For a profit on the street

Now she's stronger than you know

A heart of steel starts to grow

All his life he's been told

He'll be nothing when he's old

All the kicks and all the blows

He won't ever let it show

'Cause he's stronger than you know

A heart of steel starts to grow

When you've been fighting for it all your life

You've been struggling to make things right

That's how a superhero learns to fly

Every day, every hour, turn the pain into power

When you've fighting for it all your life

You've been working every day and night

That's how a superhero learns to fly

Every day, every hour, turn the pain into power

Oh-oh, oh, oh

Oh-oh, oh, oh

All the hurt, all the lies

All the tears that they cry

When the moment is just right

You see fire in their eyes

'Cause he's stronger than you know

A heart of steel starts to grow

When you've been fighting for it all your life

You've been struggling to make things right

That's how a superhero learns to fly

Every day, every hour, turn the pain into power

When you've fighting for it all your life

You've been working every day and night

That's how a superhero learns to fly

Every day, every hour, turn the pain into power (power, power, power, power, power)

Every day, every hour turn the pain into power

(Power, power, power, power)

Every day, every hour turn the pain into power

She's got lions in her heart

A fire in her soul he's a got a beast

In his belly that's so hard to control

'Cause they've taken too much hits, taking blow by blow

Now light a match, stand back, watch them explode

She's got lions in her heart

A fire in her soul he's a got a beast

In his belly that's so hard to control

'Cause they've taken too much hits, taking blow by blow

Now light a match, stand back, watch them explode

When you've been fighting for it all your life

You've been struggling to make things right

That's a how a superhero learns to fly

Every day, every hour, turn the pain into power

When you've fighting for it all your life

You've been working every day and night

That's a how a superhero learns to fly

Every day, every hour, turn the pain into power (power, power, power, power, power)

Oh, yes (power, power, power, power)

Every day, every hour, turn the pain into power

(Power, power, power, power) Ooh, yeah

Whoa (power, power, power, power)

Every day, every hour, turn the pain into power

When you've been fighting for it all your life

You've been struggling to make things right

That's how a superhero learns to fly

Notes from Exile: Stargate SG1 in the time of COVID-19

So, Hubs and I have been working our way through all ten seasons of Stargate: SG1 over the summer. I somehow never watched it when it was on television, so in order to avoid having to turn in my nerd card, I started watching it. Unlike Babylon 5, I didn't hate the first season (I watched the movie first, so that could have something to do with it), and I did watch all the way to the end. I did not switch over to Stargate: Atlantis or Stargate: Universe, and I haven't watched any of the movies yet.

So we were watching the series finale last night and I was really not enjoying it. At some point, I decided to talk about it, and got Hubs so wound up (because that was one of his favorite episodes) that he requested that I just shut up and watch. What I was not liking about the episode was - spoilers if you haven't seen it, but seriously it's been at least 10 years so, #sorrynotsorry - all of them being trapped in the spaceship with no real timeline for how long they would be there.

I was spewing ideas about how it was too drawn out and how most of season ten had been almost slapstick in its levity so this level of emotion was jarring. But I think it was the parallel to how at least some of us have spent the time since mid-March that was more than jarring, it was downright unsettling. It came to me during the scene where Col. Mitchell was running through the ship, and then ends up in his quarters, throwing things around and destroying everything he could get his hands on.

At first, on Stargate, they all tried to work with Lt. Col. Carter to find out how to escape from the time bubble without the ship getting exploded by a shot from a hostile vessel. But after a few weeks and then months, they started getting on with whatever they could on board the ship. In the end, they were trapped there for 50 years, as barely a minute passed outside the bubble.

I have chosen to stay at home almost exclusively since mid-March. I go out on the weekends to get our grocery shopping done. I have spent one evening, recently, at the home of one of my beta readers, going over feedback for an upcoming novel. I drove to Georgia for the completely outdoor and socially distanced funeral for my Aunt Mary back in April. Other than that, these four walls and occasionally our yard and street (to get the post) have been the extent of my world. For five and a half months, I have been here.

The first parallel is that I have watched eagerly - in the beginning, until it became begrudgingly - as each Coronavirus Task Force Report played out on television, hoping that the day would come SOON that a vaccine had been developed and life would return to normal while we could still remember what normal was. We would be back on campus in the fall. There would be football Saturdays and renaissance festivals to look forward to - but none of that happened. Every "cure" and treatment and suggestion by anyone in charge would be the next best thing, and then it would fail. Finally we all were advised to wear masks, and while that seems to slow things down, it was not widely enough adopted to be really effective.

The second parallel is how my life adapted easily, it seemed, to getting on with things here. I am one of the lucky ones that could do my work from home, so I filled those endless days with transcription and planning for the summer semester, still certain we would be back on campus in the fall. But, just as it did on board the Prometheus in the time bubble, that started to wear thin too - didn't take 50 years, thankfully, but it happened. It comes with the moving of the goalposts, I think, from "This will be just until the beginning of April," to "I'm sure we will be back on campus in June," to the current "I am remote working until January."

The final parallel, or where everything fell into place for me last night, was the scene I mentioned above, where Cameron is shown running through the ship, then sparring with Teal'c and taking things more than a bit too far, and then finally losing it in his quarters and destroying things. I can completely understand the feelings there. I ran through the ship for exercise while I was buying a desk and setting up an office in the spare room in our house. I sparred without caution as I let myself have free reign to eat what I liked, hang out on the couch all day during the summer, and generally did nothing in terms of self care because WHAT WAS THE POINT, ANYWAY? And finally, on the inside anyway, I am raging, I am destroying, I am screaming - but not out loud, not in front of people, and certainly not when I'm taking my scheduled exercise at the grocery store and Costco.

And the grand moral at the end of this tale, the moment you've been waiting for if you've made it this far reading is that there isn't one. It's me, and Hubs, and the dogs, here in the house, and likely to be that way through that mystical far off time called January. Three months ago I would have said that in January we will all step out of our isolation and fall back into the swing of things as they were before. After all, on Stargate last night, they managed to reverse time and stop themselves from going into the time bubble in the first place. They were reset - the past 50 years didn't happen (in true Bobby Ewing style, if you ask me) and they were ready to go on another adventure through another wormhole.

We can't reset anything. We are here, for better or worse, six chevrons are encoded and we're just waiting for the seventh to be locked in. (Thanks, Walter.)

Notes from Exile: Week Two in the DayJob

Old Main Building, Clemson

I know that I have titled this "Week Two" but it really doesn't feel that way. The first week was only three days of classes and two days of absolute soul-crushing stress, so I'm not sure that makes a week. Instead, I am fairly sure that it has been about six months since I was celebrating my last week of the weirdest summer break I've ever had.

In retrospect, that's pretty normal for the first week of a semester, so I guess I should be glad that it didn't seem like a year. Interpreting into a camera has been very different from sitting in the front of a classroom and interpreting, and has made me very aware of the fact that I am not suited for Virtual Remote Interpreting (VRI) that is taking over the market these days. I spend most of my time playing dispatch - chasing down zoom links and Canvas sections, which is not that different from what I would be doing in the office on campus.

I do miss having my office mate across the desk. I miss catching up with people from the other offices in our building while waiting on my lunch to heat. And believe it or not, I miss the two hours a day on the bus from here down to campus.

When I envisioned my semester working from home, I have to say this was not what I thought it would be. I was looking forward to a bit of DayJob work, interpreting my class three times a week, getting some novel work/marketing done, and maybe having time to run out for some interpreting gigs here and there. Last week felt more like someone put me in a runaway roller coaster car and pushed me onto the track, swinging me just close enough but not quite to be able to feel like I've gotten anything done successfully. I would just feel like I was catching my breath going up one of those Scream Machine-esque hills before plunging back down into Zoom rooms that weren't allowing the caption writer to enter and videos to transcribe that were due to disappear from Canvas long before I could get the work done. I did not touch anything I've written the entire week.

I finally broke down and got int touch with my beta reader for an upcoming stand-alone novel in a new universe to suggest that we get together to go over her feedback. I'm putting this manuscript up for #pitmad in September, so there isn't much time left before that (if I don't get any requests, I will just put it in the pipeline for self-publishing). We got together at the weekend and went over the novel with a fine-toothed comb and a couple of glasses of wine and I felt the most like myself that I have since March.

Surprising? Yeah, me too. I've been basically with my partner ONLY since March, and I thought that I was introverted enough to be okay with that. I was wrong. It was a good time, socially distanced, and I basically bathed in hand sanitizer when I got home. This does not signal a rapid return to weekly girls nights out, retail therapy, or any of the social outlets I had in what my partner and I lovingly are calling "The Before Times." I'm still far too concerned about falling ill with COVID to return to my old life. I was becoming legitimately concerned for my own mental health, and this jolt may have recharged my ability to wait for safety to return so that we can stand in each other's kitchens, cooking, laughing, and relaxing into our friendships and letting go of the DayJob stress.

For now, though, it's back to my desk, in the office I share with our dogs and the house that has been my world, more or less, since March. I'm just a little better able to handle it.

Music Mondays: D'Ayna Turlach

 [SPOILERS AHEAD IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE TALES OF THE FOREST WARS.]

When I first started working on the Tales of the Forest War, I had plans for one book. Just one. Simple characters. Focus on the conflict and the aftermath. Easy, right? 

Yeah, not so much. Once I got in there and started really thinking about what would cause this kind of conflict and how anyone other than the supremely powerful dragons (and the gods, of course) could come out the other side of it at all intact, it became clear that the personalities had to be as powerful as the overall story. This story was about more than just a war. 

There are always names. There are always places. War spawns heroes and villains, winners, and losers. This war could be no different. This war would forge a bond between two very different family lines that lasts for many generations to come. And so, knowing that meant that I knew that one of my characters would be the Nature Walker. But what of the other?

D'Ayna (named thusly because the first time I said it out loud it sounded like Diana and I was smitten) Turlach is an Ikedrian. She is a lieutenant. She is military-minded. She possesses magic that her family will not accept. She is every one of us that has tried to suppress who we are to fit in, and finally comes to the turning point where that isn't working anymore. She follows her heart. She loves her family. And all she has, in the end, is her battle cry: a mighty roar combining anger and fear.

Don't tell Gin or Tairn, but Ayna might be one of my favorite characters I've ever written. Maybe. So this song spoke to me in that gruff yet soft way that Ayna did while I was writing these novels. She was afraid - OF COURSE SHE WAS - but she knew what had to be done. This song is like an imagined conversation between Ayna and Draoch after the war. And that's as spoilery as I'm going to be. 

Also, when the Orana Chronicles become movies I am FOR SURE involving Imagine Dragons - you are going to see a lot of them on Music Mondays. Enjoy.

 

Battle Cry

Imagine Dragons

Just one more time before I go

I'll let you know

That all this time I've been afraid

Wouldn't let it show

Nobody can save me now, no

Nobody can save me now

Stars are only visible in darkness

Fear is ever-changing and evolving

And I, I feel poison inside

And I, I feel so alive

Nobody can save you now

King is crown, it's do or die

Nobody can save you now

The only sound

It's the battle cry

It's the battle cry

It's the battle cry

Nobody can save you now

It's do or die

Nobody can save you now

King is crown, it's do or die

Nobody can save you now

The only sound

It's the battle cry

It's the battle cry

It's the battle cry

Nobody can save you now

It's do or die

Just one more time before I go

I'll let you know

That all this time I've been afraid

Wouldn't let it show

Nobody can save me now, no

Nobody can save me now

The end of one exile, beginning of another...

So, we are still at home, still in the midst of a pandemic, and to be honest, I don't know exactly how my state is doing, because the numbers have to be taken with so much context - so I'm pretty much still here at home until there is a vaccine.

I'm working from home until January, at this point, in the hopes that things will look better next year. Our university is starting classes today, online until mid-September because we still have some pretty alarming trends in terms of COVID cases in this part of the state. In a way, it feels the same as it has since the first week of May when I officially "went on summer break" from my job in academia. But really the only difference is that I'm spending more time at this desk than I did over the summer.

In March, we watched the students leave for Spring Break and not come back. We had about a month of scrambling and pivoting to online study only. The summer was the beginning of the true exile: no renaissance faire, no girls night, no nothing except weekly trips to the shops for food. The anniversary of my mother's death. The death of one of my favorite aunts. Cancellation of the trip to Scotland to be with my partner's family to celebrate his father's birthday. Just me and the dogs and these four walls. Lots of time to write and barely any motivation to do so.

So this begins a new kind of exile. Daily communication with my office colleagues. I had a video call with my office mate last week that nearly left me in tears because I miss her. I miss the office. I miss the dynamic. But I'm determined to stick this one out and do my part not to spread this horrible virus. And so, my officemates now are Daddy's Jeany-greyhound, the duckling, the bluebird (inexplicably in the pond but there you are), the YHC lion reading his books, the odd Celtic-ish warrior and the no-longer roaring triceratops wearing Yoda as a hat. We have Julius Caesar as a guide to inter-office politics and Profee watching over all of us. And we are all fine, really.

Well, until I find the batteries for the triceratops, that is...

Music Monday: Lairceach

 She's a minor character in the Nature Walker Trilogy, really, but she is so very important. Gin's younger sister who grew up without parents and learned at an early age to take care of herself so that no one else had to do. But this song is very Lairky to me when I think about her relationship with Kam. He's an Ikedrian - serious, dark, broody, methodical. Lairky is none of those things. She grew up swinging from the bridges connecting Aynamaede, playing in the dappled sun, and driving her older sister and brother mad. 

I just heard this song recently, but it jumped out at me as so very Lairky. One little wild girl that grew up to take action that would change the fate not only of her sister but all of Orana. Not so minor after all, huh?

Leave Her Wild

Tyler Rich

If you find a girl, hands up, hangin' halfway out on the highway

You find a girl who likes whiskey mixed in her hangover coffee

Find a girl that scares you half to death

You'd kill to be the train she wrecks

And don't tell her I never met someone like you

Then try and turn her into every girl you ever knew

If you're gonna love her, if you're gonna love her

If you're gonna love her, leave her wild

If you're gonna make her, if you're gonna make her

Make her smile, smile

If you're gonna let her, if you're gonna let her

Let her dance, let her sing, let her be whatever she wanna be

Leave her wild

Don't tame her, try to chain her

The second you do you'll break her

Don't dull that shine that caught your eye

'Cause you're afraid somebody will take her

She ain't a dial you just turn on and off

She ain't all found, but she ain't all that lost

If you're gonna love her, if you're gonna love her

If you're gonna love her, leave her wild

If you're gonna make her, if you're gonna make her

Make her smile, smile

If you're gonna let her, if you're gonna let her

Let her dance, let her sing, let her be whatever she wanna be

Leave her wild

Oh, leave her wild, yeah

Leave her wild, leave her wild

Leave her wild

If you're gonna kiss her, if you're gonna kiss her

Kiss her slow

If you wanna change her, if you wanna change her

Let her go

If you're gonna let her, if you're gonna let her

Let her dance, let her sing, let her be whatever she wanna be

If you're gonna love her, if you're gonna love her

Leave her wild

If you're gonna make her, if you're gonna make her

Make her smile, smile

If you're gonna let her, if you're gonna let her

Let her dance, let her sing, let her be whatever she wanna be

Leave her wild

Leave her wild, wild

Yeah, leave her wild, leave her wild

Let her dance, let her sing, let her be whatever she wanna be

If you're gonna love her, if you're gonna love her

Leave her wild

Leave her wild

Music Mondays: Taeben

So as promised, today's Music Monday consists of music that inspired everyone's favorite villain from the Nature Walker Trilogy, Taeben. I know that there is a hashtag out there among my readers referring to Ben: #benisadick, but he is really a product of his environment more than anything. His story will come one day, but I'm not quite ready to tell it. 

Until then, though, when I sat down to think about a song that always makes me think of Ben, this one kept coming to mind. It's an older song, from when I was younger than I am now, and it is what I think of when I think of Ben's motives, specifically his feelings for and actions toward Gin. Lyrics to follow after the embedded video.

Fortress Around Your Heart

Sting

Under the ruins of a walled city

Crumbling towers in beams of yellow light.

No flags of truce, no cries of pity;

The siege guns had been pounding through the night.

It took a day to build the city.

We walked through its streets in the afternoon.

As I returned across the fields I'd known,

I recognized the walls that I once made.

Had to stop in my tracks for fear of walking on the mines I'd laid.

And if I've built this fortress around your heart,

Encircled you in trenches and barbed wire,

Then let me build a bridge, for I cannot fill the chasm,

And let me set the battlements on fire.

Then I went off the fight some battle that I'd invented inside my head.

Away so long for years and years,

You probably thought or even wished that I was dead.

While the armies are all sleeping beneath the tattered flag we'd made.

I had to stop in my tracks for fear of walking on the mines I'd laid.

And if I've built this fortress around your heart,

Encircled you in trenches and barbed wire,

Then let me build a bridge, for I cannot fill the chasm,

And let me set the battlements on fire.

This prison has now become your home,

A sentence you seem prepared to pay.

It took a day to build the city.

We walked through its streets in the afternoon.

As I returned across the fields I'd known,

I recognized the walls that I once made.

Had to stop in my tracks for fear of walking on the mines I'd laid.

And if I've built this fortress around your heart,

Encircled you in trenches and barbed wire,

Then let me build a bridge, for I cannot fill the chasm,

And let me set the battlements on fire.

Notes from Exile, Week Eleventy-Seven, with extra Lenny Kravitz

Y'all, what day is it?

Please, while I try to figure it out, enjoy this shot I sent my friend Brina of the mask her daughter made for me back at the beginning of all this.

Seriously, I know what day it is. But I was surprised yesterday by how shocked I was that this is August. I have always had trouble with estimating the passage of time and am a chronic watch looker as a result (even when I didn't have a watch, how sad is that?). So this pandemic has made that little character flaw even more vivid.

How is it August? It was just mid-March a few days ago, wasn't it? Is Christmas tomorrow?

Side note: It had better not be tomorrow because that means we skipped my birthday but in the grand scheme of things that's probably okay as it is the last one before I turn 50 so...what was I talking about?

Right. Notes from Exile. Writerly stuff. Author life. Got it. Rift continues to do fairly well and I had plans to work on the next book in that series over the summer/possibly as the November Nano, but I haven't heard from Em and Alex in a while, so they may just get put back on their shelf in my hard drive for a bit longer. What I have fallen back in love with is Gin and Sath's story - but let's be honest, I never stopped loving them. 

I'm in the middle of the second draft of Guardians of Darkness, which is the next chapter for Gin and Sath, and while the story has plot holes you could drive a BUS through I'm enchanted all over again. So, I thought that I would start a new thing here at the Lettuce called Music Monday, while I'm shoveling mad amounts of literary tarmac into those chasms. 

The first one is a new one for me in terms of immediately making me think of the Rajah and the Nature Walker: Ride, by Lenny Kravitz. Enjoy. (Lyrics follow the embedded video.) Next Monday, a song that reminds me of everyone's favorite villain from the Nature Walker Trilogy. Let me know in the comments here or on social media if you have a favorite character from any of my work and I will look at my playlists for that character's inspiration.

Ride

Lenny Kravitz

When I look into your spirit

And the spirit never lies

There's a feeling that I can't explain

Deep inside, deep inside

Feels like I've known you forever

Since the origin of time

I've been with you in eternity

In my mind, in my mind

I have loved you since the dawn, my love

Through the storm, my love, we will ride

I have loved you since the dawn, my love

Through the storm, my love, we will ride

You and I on Earth together

Can't you see it's no surprise

I know it from the first second, babe

As I looked in your eyes

I could only dream of heaven

When I gaze into the sky

But I know I found my angel here

In this life, in this life

I have loved you since the dawn, my love

Through the storm, my love, we will ride

I have loved you since the dawn, my love

Through the storm, my love, we will ride

I have loved you since the dawn, my love

Through the storm, my love, we will ride

I have loved you since the dawn, my love

Through the storm, my love, we will ride

We will ride

ride, ride, ride, ride, ride

I have loved you since the dawn, my love

Through the storm, my love, we will ride

I have loved you since the dawn, my love

Through the storm, my love, we will ride

Different Tears

Young John Lewis, on Bloody Sunday, March 1965

[Upon watching John Lewis's body crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama.]

I'm sitting here on my sofa in Greenville, South Carolina with tears on my face. Why? I wasn't there on that horrible day in Selma - I wouldn't be born for another six years. I was born in Atlanta, but I didn't live there during the time that Mr. Lewis represented a district in the metro area. 

I am just a white girl, born and raised in the "Deep South" of America. I am of the generation raised on those sweltering streets just after the Civil Rights movement shook the foundations of my country. And as I watched that flag-draped casket cross that bridge in Alabama, that bridge named for someone that believed some are more worthy than others - that some are more human than others - the tears came.

Tears for the man whose body is in the casket. Tears of gratitude. Tears of humility in the face of courage. Tears for a country that did not deserve him, yet he loved with all that he was for the whole of his life. Tears of shame, that people who looked like me met him on the other side of that bridge and beat him. Tears that we have lost yet another voice reminding us that it is all worth it and that we are all worthy. 

Tears over the sheer tragic beauty of that image - the caisson pausing at the apex of the bridge, its driver standing with his hat over his heart, on a hazy July Sunday in Alabama, as rose petals flutter to remind us of the blood spilled there in March of 1965. 

Pausing, as though to hear the congressman urge us one last time to good and necessary trouble. Will we take up the call?

Notes from Exile: Week Ten

I am departing from my normal format here at the Lettuce today to tell you that people I love are hurting and this is the only way I know how to help. Please start with the link below and see how you can help. Be light in the darkness, speak truth to power, and if you are a white person like me, sit down and be quiet and listen. Don't ask what's wrong - we know what's wrong. Don't ask why - we know why.

The Guide to Allyship

If you feel compelled to say something about all lives mattering, here's my response. Maybe it will help. As I posted this week on FB, there is a story in Luke, chapter 15, about how a shepherd left his flock of 99 sheep to look for the one that had gone missing. That action in no way diminishes the lives of those 99 sheep that are where they are supposed to be and safe - because it is the one that is missing that is in danger. 

Notes from Exile: Her-storically Speaking: Meet the Women of War!

So, at one point during Week Nine, I did a thing...please enjoy me bringing the awkward with a panel of fabulous female authors! (Premiered on the ConCarolinas channel, powered by ConTinual.)

Notes from Exile: Week Nine

Carrot as Pandemic Metaphor

Well, it's been a minute.

Or has it been? I'm not even sure. What I do know is that this humble carrot that grew too close to another carrot in our garden is a perfect metaphor right now for where I am in this pandemic. We took it out of the ground and pulled the other carrot from its grip, and it still looks like it is pointing at me, accusingly, for ruining its cozy life in our garden.

My choices over the past nine weeks been called paranoid. Nervous. Extreme. Excessive. And yet, I don't have symptoms and as far as I know, no one that has been in contact with me does either - that is why I'm doing what I'm doing. That is why, on the COVID Risk Tolerance scale that has made the rounds on social media, I'm about a 1.5: 

• Leaves the house only to go for groceries and other essentials
• Works 90% from home
• Orders non-essentials online
• Eats takeaways only, no restaurants for dine-in or outside seating
• Fairly strict etiquette including hand washing, masks, and social distancing used 80-99% of the time when outside of the home
• No socializing outside of the home

And yet, in spite of my numerous introverted tendencies, I am that carrot, wishing for the closeness from what Hubs and I are now officially calling The Before Times. I'm holding space for my Girls Night Ladies, my family, my beautiful and brilliant niece, and everyone else with whom I wish I could still share hugs. But I am just not willing to change course yet - I am trusting in the science and data that tell me that this virus is much more dangerous than any flu we have seen. I'm trusting in those with more knowledge and ability that I have to tell me when it is safe to move back toward what was normal before.

I've been thinking more about that this week - what will normal look like in a month or six months, or a year? When can we get back to Girls Nights and Renn Faires and all the things that have been pulled from our grip, like that poor carrot up there? I don't have answers, but I think we are seeing things opening up faster than they should, and we are headed to a time when we see The Before Times disappear for good.

Notes from Exile: Week Eight

Mary Louise McDonald,
September 11, 1929 ~ April 15, 2020

So we are into the eighth week of whatever this is - lockdown is incorrect if you compare it to what other countries are doing. Quarantine is incorrect unless you are sick and forced to isolate to prevent infecting others. Shelter in place doesn't even seem right because to me, that response is more apt for an ACTIVE threat like a tornado or a shooter. We are staying at home and working from home, but it will not necessarily injure us if we walk outside our doors. We are staying at home because we care about others in our neighborhoods, our towns, cities, states - our country.

This kind of selflessness does not come easily to a great number of Americans. We are taught from birth to depend on ourselves. Work hard and you will be rewarded. Sharing is good, but saving is better. There isn't an adage about helping your neighbor pull up his bootstraps. The American Way often feels like The Everyman For Themselves Way. So this self-isolation is hard on us. We are a people who value hard work but also are interested in instant gratification. After six weeks of mixed messages from all levels of government, a distrust of the media that comes from the highest levels, and a frankly terrifying resistance to trusting proven science in favor of unproven talking points, we the people began to become restless. There were armed protests at statehouses and armed, inflammatory discourse on social media. We had overshot the mark for caution and were treading on civil liberties.

Everyone seemed quick to forget that, thanks to those very overblown measures, they were still alive to make their irrational and selfish arguments. Anyway.

Why have I attached a picture of my aunt, my mother's older sister who died last month, to this rant about the overbearing vocal majority intent on disbelief until they actually are infected? That sweet woman, Mary Louise McDonald, died after an intraparenchymal hemorrhage. She was 90 years old. Her birthday was Sept. 11, 1929 - and she was a typical McDonald, just like my mother and all of her siblings. We joked that Mom would apologize for breathing too much air if someone else was in the room - and she clearly came by that honestly because Aunt Mary was the same way.

I hope that this is where I learned how to survive the isolation, the restlessness, the loneliness that this Exile has brought. Their example taught me to value the lives and health of others as highly - and sometimes more highly - than my own. Their example taught me that there are things we do that we do because it is the right thing to do. Their example taught me that doing for others shows your love for them.

Aunt Mary was encouraging. She was loving and gentle and quiet - to us. My uncles said that she was bossy and could be stubborn and sassy. I witnessed the passive-aggressive way that she and my mother would argue over kitchen duties at Thanksgiving and the way she always knew the exact gift to give you at the exact time you needed it. She and Hubs bonded over her fudge which was a staple at family gatherings. The last time I spoke to her on the phone was so quiet, only the sound of the ventilator on the other end in response to my weepy promises to look after Hubs and my sister and to learn to make her fudge for all of us.

So when we were under a mandatory stay at home order in South Carolina and we lost Aunt Mary, and the funeral home and my sister and brother in law prepared for a quiet burial, socially distanced and only attended by family - I thought about what she would have done for me, and Hubs and I went to Georgia. We drove by and saw the house in Pendergrass where my Aunt Mary lived with my grandfather until his death, and I thought about her life and how much she sacrificed because it was the right thing to do - and I hope that she forgave me my hesitation and that she was proud of who her niece has become.

And I hope that I can learn to make that fudge - goodness knows I have the time now.

Notes from Exile: Week Seven

Coming 31 May 2020

The big news for week seven is that finally, at long last, and after much editing and refining of cover art, most of which happened LAST WEEK, Rift is in pre-order now and will launch on the 31st of May. Initially, I had the release date set to coincide with ConCarolinas because I am an author guest this year. But with the pandemic, some of that had to change and I went ahead and opened pre-orders on May 15th.

I'm so excited about this novel! This is such a departure from my Orana Chronicles - for one thing, it isn't set in a fantasy world, at least not initially, anyway. From the blurb:

A gamer, desperate to escape her real life, discovers that nothing in her beloved online world is as it seems. Madelyne Laurent is a bookseller in a chain bookshop in Yorkshire by day, but by night she is Em, an elven warrior in the massively multiplayer online roleplaying game, Arcstone. Her closest friend is someone she has never met in person – Alex – and she spends her days anxiously ready to log into the game with him.

A mission goes awry and Madelyne finds herself in the body of her online persona, Em. Can she find out how she ended up in Arcstone in time to get herself back out, or will she end up stuck in the game world she wanted so desperately to inhabit? And is Alex trying to help her or hurt her? When a tyrant running the show inside and outside of Arcstone sets his sights on Madelyne, she must find a way to save her life and get back to the real world, if she can.

I've been told that this book is like Tron meets Ready Player One, and I will admit that there is a bit of an attempt at romance as well. But if you know me, you know that didn't go well either. In fact, I had a conversation with one of my beta readers that you might find funny:

Me: OMG you're at the...sexy times. Eeeek! (loads of blushing emojis)
Beta Reader: I...am? What are you worried about? How bad can it be?
Me: (wonders how to spell the urgh noise that I made thinking about that question)
Beta Reader: Oh, you mean (mentions parts of the book that were making me very nervous)? Oh, honey I beta lots of stuff - this is tame. Don't worry.

So, there you are. Romance with a side of puritanical I SHOULD BE WRITING YA OR YOUNGER. I tried, at least. If you are looking for a quick diversion during this trying time, give Rift a read, if you would? Em and Alex have a fascinating story to tell, and I just know you will fall for them like I did.

And if you do, I'd love to know what you think! The link leads to the Kindle version, and the paperback will be available for purchase at the same link on the 31st.

Welcome to Arcstone – Game loading, please wait…