Tag Archives: fantasy

My So-Called Writing Process

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This is my writing process, right here.

I don’t usually write about my “writing process.” (In point of fact, I hardly ever write things for this blog, but I’m trying to change all that.)

I had someone ask me once if I lit a candle before writing, or had a favorite shirt or something that I wore only to write. As someone who used to get paid to sit in an office and write all day, I find that notion hysterical. I can see me now: sitting in an open workspace in a Cisco Systems building, surrounded by my co-workers, wearing my favorite schlumpfy nightgown and fuzzy slippers, surrounded by rose-scented candles as I feverishly pound the keyboard. If that is what it took to inspire me to write, I would never have had a writing job. At least, I never would have kept a writing job.

My writing process is basically sitting down and writing. However, I do have a process for researching before writing, and it is the most enjoyable part. Until recently, I don’t start out with a story in mind. I decide where I want the story to be and I go there. I let the location tell me the story.

You might say that is an elaborate and expensive process for a fantasy writer. Why not just make it up? 

There are a couple of reasons why not. First, I have placed most of my fantasy fiction in the real world (past or present). I have not (until my current WIP) made up an entire world and the way it works like Brian Sanderson, who is a master of world-building and magical systems. My first novel, “The Obsidian Mirror,” took place primarily in Northern California. This was convenient, as I have lived in Northern California for more than 40 years, so I didn’t have to do much location research. I did revisit a few locales to refresh my memory. I also researched Native American traditions and folklore, and also threw in Voudún and meso-American elements just because I find them interesting. 

This is a fantasy rendering of my villain in “The Obsidian Mirror, Necocyotl. He is not a nice god.

I didn’t have a storyline before I started writing “The Obsidian Mirror.” Actually, I didn’t set out to write a book. I have done that before and never gotten anywhere. This time, I started with the concept of fantasy based on New World traditions and mythologies, which I hadn’t seen much of at this point. The first draft clearly reflected that I had written it by the seat of my pants. (Authors call this “pantsing.” Some writers do it well. I learned that I do not.) I rewrote the entire book and discovered that creating a plot outline is just a swell idea. 

During the time I was writing “The Obsidian Mirror,” I also had a full-time writing job at Cisco Systems, and it was tough to write all day at work and come home and write for fun. I took a few “staycations” just to work on the novel. It took me seven years to write, but I did learn a lot about what to do/not to do when writing a novel, so it was hardly time wasted.

After ”The Obsidian Mirror” was published, I decided to locate the next novel in Hawai’i, using the same set of characters. Like a good researcher, I tried to make appointments with a few experts on Hawai’ian culture, but never received any replies to my emails. So I changed all my travel plans and went to Moloka’i. I had never been there, but I found ancient references to the island as “the island of sorcerers,” which sounded about right for my purposes. 

I have told this story elsewhere (https://wordpress.com/post/theobsidianmirror.net/381Z), but long story short, before going to Moloka’i, I had an encounter with Pele, goddess of fire, and she blessed my work. Everything from that point flowed like hot maple syrup, so easily, so effortlessly, that I really did not doubt that I had been blessed. I met with every person I had intended to meet, and they gave me information so generously that “Fire in the Ocean” practically wrote itself. (I know that sounds woo-woo, and my husband would be the first to agree with you. I am not normally a woo-woo person, but I stand firm on this point. We still don’t know everything about this world or this life.)

Pele, goddess of fire.

I did a lot of book research for “Fire in the Ocean.” I read as much as I could from older sources about the religion and culture of the ancient Hawai’ians, with an emphasis on Moloka’i. Each of the islands had their own, slightly different culture, and I wanted this novel to be firmly rooted in the traditions of Moloka’i. I also wrote a plot outline for “Fire in the Ocean.” This time, the novel took me about a year and a half to write—a big improvement!

For the third novel in the trilogy, “Lords of the Night,” I had some difficult choices to make that involved whether or not to kill off a particular character. And there were some characters that had been central to “The Obsidian Mirror” and somewhat less involved in “Fire in the Ocean” that I just didn’t want to deal with in a third novel—but I also didn’t want to kill them. They didn’t deserve that. (Yes, these characters became absolutely real to me during the process of writing about them.)

So for various reasons—including that I just wanted to do it—I set the third novel in the pre-Columbian Mayan empire of the Yucatán Peninsula. This meant that I got to go to the Yucatán and wander around ancient ruins, which was irresistible. The story began to come together for me in the ruins of Calakmul, a once-great city in the middle of dense jungle. Calakmul was a peak experience for me. It is so remote that few tourists make it that far. The trees growing throughout the ruins made the heat and humidity somewhat more bearable. I had all the time I needed to wander and think. Calakmul—or as it was originally known, Ox Té Tuun—generated one of the major characters in “Lords of the Night,” a teenaged Mayan girl who was a strong enough character that she nearly upstaged my original characters, Sierra and Chaco. Again, the story almost wrote itself once I had generated a plot outline. The novel took me about a year to write—getting better!

Again, I did an enormous amount of book research for “Lords of the Night.” I read one of the few Mayan codexes still in existence, the “Popol Vuh,” in addition to books and academic articles on Mayan religion, culture, crafts, religion, and folktales. 

This is a minor character in “Lords of the Night: a mosquito. It is rendered and colored from a Mayan painting. The Maya drew lovely little caricatures of animals, some, like this one, anthropormorphized.

Sadly, this is where I lost my publisher, which decided to publish only non-fiction going forward. My first two novels are still with them, but “Lords of the Night” is available only as a Kindle book. Talking to agents, editors, and publishers convinced me that no publisher was going to pick up the final book of a trilogy.

I wanted to move on from the characters and premises of the trilogy at this point. I decided the next book would be set in Iceland. I originally had some vague ideas about setting it in modern Iceland and making it a paranormal mystery, but that is not the story that Iceland told me. I went to Iceland and visited many areas associated with the supernatural and magic. In the Settlement days of Iceland a thousand years ago, magic was accepted as normal and necessary, and magicians served an accepted purpose. Even after Christianity came to the island, Christian priests were sometimes known to be magicians without any stigma attached. 

I was standing deep underground in a massive lava tube in western Iceland when the story came to me almost full-blown. From that point on, everything I did was aimed at filling out the characters and plot. The people I talked to in Iceland were generous with their time and information—and again, I did the book research and even learned how to read Icelandic runes. (I’m out of practice now, so don’t ask for a reading.) It took me nine months to write “The Spell Book of Thorfinn Bare-Butt.” It isn’t on Amazon because I have been looking for an agent. 

The lava tube where the story for “The Spell Book of Thorfinn Bare-Butt” came to me.
Iceland is a wild and beautiful place.

If there is a Hades, he makes deceased writers eternally look for an agent in Hell. It’s like Sisyphus rolling the boulder uphill, or Tantalus, who can never reach the water or fruit to quench his thirst and hunger. I have contacted seventy-two agents so far without more than a “thanks but no thanks,” if that. I will keep trying for a while, but it was easier by far to find two publishers than it has been to find an agent. 

In the meantime, I am trying my hand at a middle-grade fantasy. This is my first stab at world-building, and also my first serious attempt at writing for young people. My process? There is no location or culture to research, because they are entirely fictional and created by my own imagination. So my process is that I wrote a plot outline and now I sit at the computer and write. Works for me.

Voyage to Budapest

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Days 1 & 2: San Francisco to Amsterdam

We planned this trip for two years, believing that Covid might be over by then. It isn’t, of course, but we came anyway. I thought we would be traveling a lot after we retired but Covid put an end to that for a while. At my age, I don’t know how long we will be able to travel, and it is worth the risk. I, my husband Tom, and our friends Linda and Clod and Susan and David are doing a river cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest, something none of us have ever done. Apart from Amsterdam, this trip will be covering a huge swath of Europe Tom and I have never seen before. (The others in our group have seen some of the places we’re going, but not all.)

The Covid infection rate here in the Netherlands is 14 per 100,000, which is better than any place in the US. I believe this is because they are not encumbered with as many radical conservatives and conspiracy theorists, but that’s just a guess. Very few here are wearing masks, indoor or otherwise. I am not so trusting, and wear a mask indoors. If one of us gets Covid, they get kicked off the ship at the first opportunity to quarantine elsewhere, and who wants that?

We few over on United Polaris—Business Class. They have eliminated First Class. The seats fully reclined, but it didn’t help me. I have never been able to sleep on a plane. I took prescription medication in an effort to overcome this, with no success. I found it massively uncomfortable, but there were a lot of people who looked blissful tucked up in their reclining seats. Being tall does not help. The food sucked. Honestly. I can’t imagine what they served in Economy.

But it was my choice to watch “Cyrano,” with Peter Dinklage and Jennifer Lawrence. I love both of them. It was a massive waste of their considerable talent. Pretty much a hot mess with meh music and silly choreography. Cyrano is supposed to be a comedy. It opened with promise, but got less funny as time went on, with a tragic ending. Towards the finale, I found myself impatient for it to end. Don’t waste your time.

We are staying in a hotel in a park. You have to walk from the taxi drop-off to the hotel, not very far. The hotel is called “Conscious Hotel at Westerpark.” I thought that was amusing because when I am in a hotel, it is usually in an unconscious state. But the name refers to being ecology-conscious, green, etc. The front lobby looks like a snack shop, which threw us for a few minutes. The rooms are minimalist, but clean and extremely comfortable. The park is lovely. I fell asleep to the sound of happy, screaming children playing in the park. (I am only perturbed by unhappy, screaming children.)

Sitting in the middle of a pond in Westerpark. A statue of a court dress with no one in it. A statement?

The second couple, Susan and David, arrived not long after we did. We walked around looking for a restaurant with tables in the shade. The only one we could find was a vegetarian restaurant with the most wonderful veggie lasagna I have ever tasted. Then to bed again for about 10 hours of sleep. I woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, with no jet lag—a first. The bed here is seriously comfy.

The next day, we decided to walk to one of David’s fave breweries, located in an old windmill. While we were hoofing it, Linda and Clod checked in to the hotel and we arranged to meet them at a restaurant for lunch. I ordered a Caesar salad, but what arrived was basically a large quantity of fried meat on a meager bed of lettuce. It did have a lot of shaved Parmesan, but it was definitely not what I wanted on a hot afternoon. And I had developed a massive blister and went back to the hotel in a cab rather than walking another 3/4 mile on my abraded and bleeding toe. So I missed the beer. I imagine there will be other opportunities.

It was fun looking in the store windows and just soaking up the city. Head shops everywhere, which I don’t remember from my last visit here. I recall we had to go to a coffee shop to get weed. Not on my to-do list this time.

Tomorrow: the Reichsmuseum! I am so looking forward to that—but I will be wearing different shoes.

Where the Ideas Live

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People sometimes ask me how I get ideas for my books. The short answer is: I don’t. I think people sometimes envision authors sitting at their elaborately carved Renaissance desk, complete with quill pen, and an exclamation point appears with a brand-new, amazing idea for a story! Eureka!

Maybe that’s how it works for some authors, I don’t know. The way it works for me is that I decide what part of the world I want a story to take place in, and then I go to that place. I let the place tell me the story. If that sounds mystical or authorish, it isn’t. It’s just how it works for me.

The first book of my trilogy, “The Obsidian Mirror,” took place mostly in Silicon Valley because that’s where I was living and working at the time. I understood the high tech industries, so my protagonist, Sierra, was a high tech public relations person (as I had been, many moons ago). The idea for the basis of the story came from my familiarity with the semiconductor industry and the ubiquity of integrated circuits around the world.

The second novel, “Fire in the Ocean,” had its origins in a Hawai‘ian vacation on the island of Oahu. I decided I wanted to set a novel in Hawai’i. Once home, I began planning a research trip the way I thought an author ought to—I contacted the Bishop Museum, the leading museum of Polynesian culture in the world. I contacted the University of Hawaii Dept. of Hawaiian Studies (or some such). I made reservations to go to Oahu to meet with these knowledgeable people.

Crickets. No one ever responded to my requests. So I decided that the story would be set on Moloka‘i, because that is the island of sorcery, according to the ancient Hawai’ians, which made it extremely attractive to a fantasy writer (that would be me). I also wanted to visit my friend in Captain Cook on the Big Island, because I hoped he would introduce me to some local people who could tell me about myths and legends. I changed all the reservations, abandoning the idea of speaking to the academic experts in Oahu.

At this point in my journey, I didn’t have a story. I knew i would be using my protagonist Sierra, and probably her friend, Coyotl the Trickster, but there were several other characters involved, and I wasn’t sure how I would be using them: Clancy, Rose, Mama Labadie—and especially Fred.

So my husband Tom and I jetted off to the Big Island. My friend was not available to meet for a few days, so Tom and I found ways to entertain ourselves—snorkeling, sampling the local goods like honey and macadamia nuts and coffee. We tried the local Captain Cook grocery store for wine, but the selection was unappealing, so we made a trip to Costco in Kona. While standing in line, I noticed an enormous refrigerator nearby, full of leis. I have always wanted a maile leaf lei. They are made as garlands rather than necklaces, and they often use only the pleasantly vanilla-scented leaves, not flowers. Sure enough Costco had them, and I took my prize back to Captain Cook. 

I wore the lei the next day on a visit to Volcano National Park. Kilawea, Pele’s home volcano, was erupting, so I decided to sacrifice my lei to Pele, Goddess of Fire, and ask for her blessing on my work (which I hadn’t started because no story yet). To my disappointment, they wouldn’t let us anywhere near the actual flowing lava, but we were able to approach the rim of the caldera. It was clear this was the right place because there were other offering leis hanging in a tiny tree next to the railing, as well as on the railing itself. I held up my lei, asked for Pele’s blessing and whanged it right into the little tree, where it was securely caught in the branches. Then we turned around and started to walk away, but I wanted a photo of my lei hanging in the tree, so we went back after only a few steps. 

Flinging my maile lei into the tree at the rim of the Kilawea cauldera.

My lei had vanished. All the other leis were still there. It was absolutely still without a breath of wind. We looked all around the ground under the tree. No maile leaf lei to be seen. With that incident, the story began to take shape in my head, with Pele taking an important role. 

When I started thinking about “Lords of the Night” (I didn’t have a title at this point, by the way), I decided to write a historical fantasy—even though my characters were 21st century people. Why? I think it was the challenge. And I wanted to learn more about the ancient Maya. My mother helped to excavate several Mayan ruins in Yucatan and Guatemala, back when most of those great cities were still covered in jungle, and there were no roads to the excavation sites. So in addition to reading intensively about the Maya, their history, arts, mathematics, science, and culture, I set up a trip to the Yucatan Peninsula. (Actually, Tom does all the actual trip planning, based on what I want to see. He is wonderful that way!)

The ruins of a palace at Calakmul

I was blissfully untroubled by the problem of getting my 21st century characters back to the 5th century. This is fantasy! I can just make it up! As a writer, I adore that freedom. Why do you think I don’t write science fiction?

I also cleverly invited a couple to go along with us. Clod, the male half of the couple, was born and lived as a young person in Mexico City, with vacations in the Yucatan, which is where his father was raised. Linda studied Spanish in school. I speak Spanish like a first-year student with a strangely good accent (thanks to my Spanish-speaking mother). Tom has never studied Spanish. See how I did that?

The story began to take shape for me when we visited the ruins of Calakmul, which lie within the borders of a large biological reserve on the Guatemalan border. Calakmul had been my primary destination, though we did visit Tulum, Uxmal, and a few other archeological sites. I don’t know why Calakmul drew me so strongly. My mother didn’t excavate there, and I had never heard of it before beginning research for this trip. I had seen photos, and the city has a temple that rivals Egypt’s Great Pyramid for size. Plus, it is located in the middle of a jungle, far from the well-trod tourist trails. Intriguing, no?

There is only one hotel within the borders of the biological reserve. If you want to visit Calakmul, you more or less have to stay at Hotel Puerta Calakmul, because the hotel, deep in the jungle, is still 60 kilometers or so from the ruins, along an unpaved road. When you get to the drop-off place for the ruins, you still have to walk a kilometer to arrive at the actual city. 

At the base of one of the temples in Calakmul.

All of which made my visit to Calakmul everything I could have hoped for. As we walked along, I picked our guide’s brain about Mayan folk tales and we saw peacock-gorgeous oscillated turkeys, and monkeys, and javelinas. The ruins themselves were pleasantly shaded, with very few other people around. It was nothing like the wait-in-line-in-the-tropical-sun-with-a-million-other-tourists experience of the more popular sites. The temples, all of which have not yet been excavated, are impressive. In its time, Calakmul was one of the most powerful cities of the ancient Mayan world, and its name was Ox Té Tuun. Ox Té Tuun is central to “Lords of the Night,” and as I strolled along its broad avenues I developed the character of Ix Mol, a young Mayan girl from Ox Té Tuun with a very big problem who enlivens the pages of “Lords of the Night.”

More Calakmul.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying that place is central to my process as a writer. I have no idea why, but there’s nothing like a good trip to someplace far, far away to stimulate my creative juices.

That’s what I tell my husband, anyway.

I Finally Climaxed

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Sorry—that may have been a bit misleading. I mean that I finished the third book in my “Gods of the New World” trilogy. And it took a long time to get here. But you don’t want to hear all that—you want to know all about “Lords of the Night,” the final book? Right?

In “Lords of the Night,” Sierra and Chaco travel back in time to rescue Clancy from 6th Century Yucatan. (Spoiler Alert: Clancy didn’t die in the boiling ocean in “Fire in the Ocean” after all. Okay, I did consider letting him die in Moloka‘i. But Clancy was there at the beginning of this adventure in “The Obsidian Mirror.” After all this time, I really wanted him to be there at the end.)

 Sierra and Chaco discover that Clancy was saved from death by boiling, but is now lost in the distant past, somewhere in the huge expanse of the ancient Yucatan jungle. 

In the process of trying to locate Clancy, they encounter a young Mayan girl, Ix Mol, who has an agenda of her own. Ix Mol knows how to find Clancy, but it involves walking the White Road all the way to the great city of Ox Té Tuun, hundreds of miles away.

They arrive just in time to see Clancy sacrificed at the Temple of Chaak. 

Well, being dead didn’t stop Clancy before. But the real excitement is where Sierra and Chaco wind up. Clancy and Ix Mol also have surprise endings to their sagas.

And Fred? Well, if you want to know the role that Fred plays in this story, you’ll just have to read it.

I can say no more. But I can guarantee a satisfying climax to Sierra’s story. To read the first chapter:

Sorry—that may have been a bit misleading. I mean that I finished the third book in my “Gods of the New World” trilogy. And it took a long time to get here. But you don’t want to hear all that—you want to know all about “Lords of the Night,” the final book? Right?

In “Lords of the Night,” Sierra and Chaco travel back in time to rescue Clancy from 6th Century Yucatan. (Spoiler Alert: Clancy didn’t die in the boiling ocean in “Fire in the Ocean” after all. Okay, I did consider letting him die in Moloka‘i. But Clancy was there at the beginning of this adventure in “The Obsidian Mirror.” After all this time, I really wanted him to be there at the end.)

 Sierra and Chaco discover that Clancy was saved from death by boiling, but is now lost in the distant past, somewhere in the huge expanse of the ancient Yucatan jungle. 

In the process of trying to locate Clancy, they encounter a young Mayan girl, Ix Mol, who has an agenda of her own. Ix Mol knows how to find Clancy, but it involves walking the White Road all the way to the great city of Ox Té Tuun, hundreds of miles away.

They arrive just in time to see Clancy sacrificed at the Temple of Chaak. 

Well, being dead didn’t stop Clancy before. But the real excitement is where Sierra and Chaco wind up. Clancy and Ix Mol also have surprise endings to their sagas.

And Fred? Well, if you want to know the role that Fred plays in this story, you’ll just have to read it.

I can say no more. But I can guarantee a satisfying climax to Sierra’s story.

To read the first chapter of “Lords of the Night”: https://wordpress.com/page/theobsidianmirror.net/39

To purchase “Lords of the Night” on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3sZtqkY

For Once, You’re Right. I DO Want to Cancel Your Culture.

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The Republicans are whingeing and whining about “cancel culture,” which they seem to regard as a fiendish new invention of the Left. Somehow, it just isn’t fair that those lousy libruls are expressing their disgust with what the Republican Party has become by speaking their minds and taking positive action against people, businesses, and institutions they regard as antithetical to a free democracy.

Couple of points here. First of all, “cancel culture” is probably older than written history. There are other names for it:  boycott, voting with my wallet, voting with my feet, shunning—people have been doing it forever. The only thing new about cancel culture is the name.

Shunning has always played a major role in how people control their societies. The threat of shunning is sufficient to keep people in some societies in line. Boycott utilizes economic power to send a message. Importantly, these social tools are not the tools of the powerful leaders in a culture—they are the tools of the everyday person. 

We have the power of voting—once every few years, and the impact of that individual vote is sometimes difficult to experience, especially when your candidate loses. But shunning and boycotting—you, Mr. or Ms. Everyperson, can decide to do it, execute it yourself, and feel satisfied that you have DONE SOMETHING to express your opinions, values, or ethics. It’s a level of satisfaction that cannot be provided by voting—as important as voting is.

And you would be following an ancient and honorable tradition in doing so. No one can force you to spend time with people who hold values that oppose your own. No one can force you to spend money with a business that supports things with which you disagree. These are YOUR powers, to use as you see fit.

Which is why Republicans are screaming about cancel culture. They are watching in horror as their nasty, bigoted, win-at-all-costs, misogynistic, homophobic, paranoid, entitled white culture swirls slowly down the drain.

They KNOW you want to cancel them, and they are terrified. 

I do not spend money with any business that donates to Republicans—especially to the last incumbent of the White House. I do not spend time with people who do not share my values. I do not spend money in or visit states that allow open-carry, criminalize abortion, pass voter suppression laws, or acted like giant babies during the pandemic. I try to spread the word about people or businesses that are violating the norms of our democracy.

Because, yes, Republicans, I DO want to cancel your culture. I want to obliterate it and you from the face of the earth. I want to bury your barren, mean, selfish “ideas” so deep that no one will ever utter the phrase “trickle-down economics” again.

I want the Confederate flag (which was not the Confederate flag, but the battle flag of the Confederate Army of the Potomac, and thus a sham in and of itself) to become a symbol of such profound shame that when people fly it in front of their houses or off the backs of those stupid oversized pickup trucks, citizens run to destroy it in outrage.

I want every monument to the Confederacy to be torn down and repurposed to help black communities. 

I want anti-abortion proponents to be forced to work (under strict supervision) with pregnant women who have medical counter-indications for pregnancy, or whose fetus has been diagnosed as non-viable, or who is single and is trying to feed four kids on the salary of a fast-food worker because her husband deserted her.

I want states that have passed anti-abortion laws to pass equally draconian laws that control men’s bodies—there never was an abortion that didn’t start in a man’s balls, after all. Mandatory reversible vasectomies for all males at puberty. Death sentence for any man impregnating a women against her will. Death sentence for rape. All rape, even when a married man rapes his wife.

I want the other members of the Supreme Court to rise up in disgust and eject the religious nut and the drunk rapist.

Yes, I want to cancel your culture. Every last bit of it. You are damn right I do.

Cover Reveal: Lords of the Night

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I couldn’t have done this without the help of several people who took the time and trouble to offer me advice. I was also smart enough to ask my artistic daughter, Kerry Gil, who has formal training in graphic arts, for feedback.

I am super pleased with the resulting cover. I probably went through eight different iterations before getting to this one. I didn’t post all of them, but I got wonderful feedback from my friends online as well as family. I suppose I have had more difficult creative challenges, but mimicking someone else’s style in a field in which my competence is minimal is one of the tougher goals I have set myself.

In particular, I am pleased that everything fits the ancient Mayan theme of the book–ocean, snakes, temple, palm fronds, Spirit Snake amulet, coyote (Chaco!). The birds flying around the temple refer to a climactic scene in the book (although it’s not the only climax, I assure you).

I hope you like the cover. I will be back soon to announce the publication of “Lords of the Night,” the final (and climactic) ending to “The Gods of the New World” trilogy.

Finally, the Climax! But It Needs a Cover.

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It has been about three years since I submitted the third and final book of my “Gods of the New World” trilogy to my publisher. If you have followed this blog, you know that my publisher, Diversion Books, decided to publish only non-fiction going forward. My fantasy, no matter how climactic, did not qualify. Diversion’s first offering in non-fiction was a memoire by Corey Lewandowski, a man so vile that even Michael Cohen despises him. I felt that perhaps Diversion and I were never going to be really close. They are still making my first two books available, so I don’t want to make them mad.

But this did leave me in the middle of a trilogy without a climax. I felt bad for the few people who had read “The Obsidian Mirror” and “Fire in the Ocean,” who rightly expected a satisfying ending to Sierra and Chaco’s adventures—and relationship.

About a year and a half ago, I attended the World Fantasy Convention, held in Los Angeles that year. I went there with a short list of people I wanted to have a discussion with—an editor for a large publishing company, a publisher, and an agent. I told each of them the quandary I was in—third book in a trilogy, no publisher—and their answers were fairly uniform: I, a fairly obscure fantasy author, was not going to find a publisher to pick up the trilogy, much less the third book of a trilogy. My best bet was to publish on Kindle and move on.

Okay. Not the optimal solution, but I am not Neil Gaiman, either. I asked a dear friend, a graphic designer, to create a book cover for the third and final, climactic novel, “Lords of the Night.” Then I went to Iceland and started writing a completely unrelated fantasy about a slightly defective magician in ancient Iceland. That tale is in the throes of final polishing.

But my designer friend had a very tough year—tougher than for most of us, as horrible as 2020 was. She was unable to complete the artwork. I needed to move forward—I had a delayed climax on my hands, after all! I gave it some thought and then learned a new art program for the iPad called Procreate. I loved it so much that I decided to tackle the cover art myself.

This wasn’t an easy decision. I knew my friend’s graphic talents would result in an entirely gorgeous cover, perfectly in tune with the covers of the other books. I am an artist, but I have no design training, so I realized that the final product would not be as wonderful as the first two covers.

But all we do what we must. So I have produced two covers. I would very much like to hear your opinions on which version is closest in style to the first two covers. First, pleaze take a look at the covers for “The Obsidian Mirror” and “Fire in the Ocean”:

The first two covers for comparison. Now please take a gander at the next two and tell me what you think.
COVER 1
Cover 2

So which do you vote for? Cover 1 or Cover 2? Or are they both terrible? I can take the criticism—I’m a writer. Please leave a comment–much appreciated!

It’s Been a While, Hasn’t It?

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I admit it—I have not been a consistent blogger. My last post went online Feb. 23. In my defense, it was Feb 23 of this year.

In fact, my last posting was right before the pandemic started—or at least right before we realized there was a pandemic going on, because it had reached our shores already.

It has been a very eventful time, but I had trouble coming up with a blog topic. I was consumed with politics (still am) but I wanted to keep my blog politics-free. I’m not, as I have heard other authors say, worried about offending conservative people, who might then never buy my books. Everything I stand for offends conservative people, so they won’t be reading my stuff anyway. I just wanted one place where I did NOT write about politics.

I could have blogged about the quarantine and its many adjustments to a new reality, but all of you went through that too—you’ve been there, done that. I’m sure I have little to add other than my frustration with the people who refuse to practice social distancing and wearing masks—and the politicians who encourage them not to. My only consolation has been the realization that many of them will get sick.

I could have blogged about writing my new novel, but I was hard-pressed to imagine why you would care until I had something to announce—and maybe not even then.

I could have blogged about having the third book of my trilogy go unpublished for two years after I finished it, but I already blogged about that. My publisher decided to publish only non-fiction going forward, which leaves a fantasy writer more or less up the creek without a paddle, especially with a third book in a trilogy. I will be publishing it on Kindle—but I need a cover first.

I could have blogged about my sister’s death, shortly after the beginning of the pandemic—of a heart attack. That certainly provided me with a great deal of blog-able fodder. I just didn’t want to write about it.

I could have blogged about getting a new dog after the death of my beloved Gigi. Poppy is a cutie with a lot of personality. But I didn’t want to.

I could have blogged about the horrific fires consuming California. We nearly had to evacuate, but today it looks like we won’t.

I could have blogged about inheriting my sister’s jewelry—hundreds of pieces of jewelry—and setting up an Etsy store to sell it because I couldn’t wear that much jewelry in several lifetimes. Building the Etsy store was actually one of the most enjoyable things I have done during the pandemic. In case you’re looking for jewelry. I have everything from Victorian antiques to Native American to hand-crafted silver to high-end costume jewelry and everything in between. Come on down: https://www.etsy.com/shop/SilverboughJewelry?ref=search_shop_redirect

I did finish the first draft of my current novel. It is entitled, “The Spell Book of Thorfinn Bare-Butt,” and it is set in Iceland’s Viking Settlement Age, 9th Century CE. The kernel of the story came to me while I was touring a lava cave in the Hauksdalur region of Iceland. The guide told us that archeologists had found signs of habitation in the cave that dated back to the settlement age. He explained that after the eruption, the rock would have stayed warm for a very long time, making it an ideal human habitation. (I can tell you by the time we visited, it was FREEZING.)

I had a vision of a young magician setting out to make a reputation for himself. He occupies the cave because it is both comfy and free, and attempts to summon a spirit to help him become more powerful. Unfortunately, our hero, Odd, is under a curse. This caused some—but not all—of his spells to go awry. Instead of a powerful spirit, Odd conjures up a 21st Century female kickboxer named Hekla. Now both Odd and Hekla have real problems, and the story goes on from there.

I hope to have a final draft in another few months. After that, I will try to find an agent because I am tired of publishers slithering out from under me. I’m hoping a good agent can find me a solid publisher with reasonable terms that specializes in fantasy or fantasy and science fiction. That will give me some confidence that they aren’t suddenly going to switch to the many tell-all books on the way from the Trump administration. Please wish me well!

Let Me Tell You About Gigi (written three years ago in preparation for this day)

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Inca cuddled up with Gigi today, knowing her friend wasn’t feeling well.

I had a bit of a scare recently. My dog Gigi developed a fever, lost her appetite and began to act lethargic. She’s 12 years old, so I wasted no time taking her to her vet. Dr. Good, who rolls around in a mobile clinic, did a thorough exam, took blood and urine and an X-ray—and found nothing wrong other than the obvious presence of an infection. So Gigi went on antibiotics.

I’m happy to say Gigi recovered. But while she was sick, I began to dread the possibility of losing this amazing creature with whom I share my life and my home. I thought I would write an obituary about her now. Because when she dies—because she will die—I won’t be in any shape to write. At this stage, who knows how long she’s got? She’s a big dog, and the big ones don’t tend to live as long.

So I decided to write about Gigi now, while she’s still with me and I can discuss her unique characteristics without breaking down in floods of tears.

On the surface, Gigi is just a very doggy dog. She’s half Labrador and half German Shepherd, with maybe a dash of Doberman. She’s black-and-tan and shorthaired, with floppy ears. As much as I love her, I do not share my bed with her because she’s 75 pounds of elbows and she farts and groans all night.

I wasn’t looking for a dog when Gigi came to my attention. I had lost my dog, Ringo, a year previously and was still in mourning. My daughter Kerry saw an ad on Craig’s List that said, “Sweetest dog in the world needs a home.” I looked at the picture. This dog was much larger than I wanted. She was black-and-tan, which is not a color scheme I admire. And she lived about 65 miles away.

I called her owner. Apparently, they rescued her when she was about six months old, and loved her dearly. But the landlord of the house they had just moved into said the dog had to go. I asked question after question, because living with Ringo taught me the right questions to ask. (Loved that dog, but he was a hot mess when we first got him.) The answers seemed good, so my husband and I drove 65 miles to meet the dog.

The dog’s name was Gertie, a name I knew I couldn’t live with. She greeted us with kisses and a wildly wagging tail that slapped against our legs like a baseball bat. I observed her with a baby and with cats—completely calm. I did everything I could to elicit a dominant or aggressive response—grab her collar, squeeze her paws, roll her over, and so forth—all of which she responded to with kisses and wags.

I decided I wanted her, but we had five houseguests with a sixth on the way and I felt it was unfair to plop an adopted animal down in the midst of all this chaos, so I said I’d come get her when the house had cleared out. Her owner agreed, but later told me that the landlord had threatened to evict them if the dog wasn’t gone by a certain date. On that day, I drove back to collect her.

Gigi in her salad days. She almost always walked around with a stuffy toy in her mouth. I selected stuffies on the basis of how much they amused me.

In the interim, we had a lively family discussion about what to call the dog, as Gertie just wasn’t going to cut it. I thought we should pick a name that was similar to Gertie so she would adapt to it quickly. I suggested Gigi. My daughter said it sounded like a stripper. After a two-hour discussion, Gigi it was, though still over my daughter’s objections.

When I picked her up, her owner burst into tears and rushed us out the door, handing me a ceramic jar for dog treats. It was clearly a painful parting. I put Gigi in the back of my car and headed home. Gigi rested her chin on my shoulder for the entire trip home, which I thought was a good sign.

It turns out I needn’t have worried about the abundance of guests or about the name. Gigi walked into the house and acted as though she had lived with us her entire life. She also responded to her new name instantly. As a matter of fact, as the houseguests began to go back to their own lives, Gigi seemed to miss the party atmosphere of an overcrowded house. She still loves a good party.

Then we began to get to know her. First of all, Gigi is an extremely obedient dog— except when she isn’t. For example, if she needs to go outside to go to the bathroom or check out the gophers, she will go outside. If she doesn’t, she will wag her tail and refuse to move. I have learned to trust her on things like this and will only insist if there is some compelling reason. She has a stentorian bark that wakes the eldest grandchild from her nap, so I put Gigi out when Jessamyn is napping so if the doorbell rings or there is a package delivery, she won’t sound the alarm. Gigi goes reluctantly, but she goes if I really insist.

She can make friends with just about any other animal. I have seen her buddy up to:
At least two coyotes
A bunny (kisses were exchanged)
A feral cat
A cat that was so terrified of her that it refused to come into the house until Gigi performed her ambassadorial work
Innumerable other cats and dogs and humans

The feral cat is my rescue kitty, Inca. When I first acquired Inca from a rescue organization, they told me she was one of a litter of feral kittens. They were considered too old to domesticate, but they seemed to be adapting to humans, so the rescue decided to place them with families. Inca was okay with me as long as I kept her confined to a bathroom, but she was horrified by Gigi. When I let her out of the bathroom, Inca disappeared for two weeks, flitting about in our peripheral vision like a bat.

One day, I saw Inca and called to her. To my astonishment, she strolled over and climbed into my lap. After a bit, Gigi came into the room and lay down. Inca trotted down the length of the couch, mewing at Gigi. I had no idea what would happen, as I hadn’t had either of them for very long, but Gigi came over as though Inca had been calling her and proceeded to kiss her. Inca adores Gigi. It’s pretty funny to watch her try to give this enormous dog a bath with her tiny pink tongue.

I give Gigi a lot of credit for the rapidity to which Inca adjusted to domestic life and became an affectionate pet. She never used to let me pet her tummy, which I longed to do (best part of a cat). One day, I gave Gigi an extensive belly rub. Inca watched intently nearby as Gigi groaned with happiness. When I finished with Gigi, I turned to pet the cat. Inca flopped down and presented her own belly for a rub, and she has enjoyed it ever since.

Inca and Gigi have seldom been parted, but there was one weekend when I had to use a pet-sitting service. Gigi went to the sitter’s home, but the service had a large enclosed cat area for feline borders, so they were separated for about four days. When I went to pick them up, Inca was there, but the sitter had not returned Gigi. I told them to have the sitter bring Gigi directly to my house as soon as possible, and left with Inca.

When we got home, Inca shot out of her carrier and began searching the house. She went from room to room, mewing loudly, but of course, Gigi was nowhere to be found. When the sitter showed up with the dog about two hours later, Gigi made for her water dish immediately because it was a sizzling day. She put on the brakes when she saw her kitty friend, and the two of them checked each other out carefully, kissed, and then Gigi got her drink.

You might be wondering about the coyotes I mentioned earlier. I am familiar with the coyote trick of sending a fertile female to lure a male dog to its doom (the original femme fatale). That wasn’t what was happening here. The first time, I noticed Gigi making play bows along the fence enclosing our yard. Something was moving around vigorously in the tall grass and weeds on the other side of the fence. When I got closer, I saw it was a small, young coyote. The two animals were playing, each on one side of the fence, play-bowing and running, then bowing again. They seemed to be having a lot of fun.

In the second instance, my son-in-law Mike came home and saw Gigi in the back yard with what he thought was a fox, just hanging out together. He videoed it, calling Gigi in, so we were able to see it was a young female coyote that had found a way under the fence. Apparently, Gigi and the coyote had been chilling together in the back yard for quite a while. We don’t really want her socializing with coyotes, so we fixed the fence.

There is an exception to Gigi’s long list of friends. My daughter’s dog, Hendrix, is a Japanese Chin. He’s one of those fluffy, goggle-eyed little dogs. He annoyed Gigi at first acquaintance by biting her ankles. Gigi responded by squashing Hendrix flat with one big paw, but unfortunately, this triggered Hendrix’s bad back, requiring expensive meds. Although he has lived with Gigi now for four years, Hendrix has not improved his behavior and sometimes still bites her ankles. Gigi has learned to ignore/not squash him, but she cannot overlook it when he steals her chew toys.

Gigi loves to carry toys around in her mouth, usually a stuffed animal, but sometimes a chew toy. Hendrix isn’t allowed bones or chews because of major, life-threatening allergies, and he steals her toys out of jealousy. One night, Kerry took a bone away from Hendrix and returned it to Gigi. Gigi took it with her customary gentleness, but never stopped staring at Hendrix. Finally, she turned her back, walked away a few paces, turned around, and THREW the bone at Hendrix with a snort worthy of a teenaged girl.

Gigi has been wonderful with the grandkids, gentle and protective. She permitted all kinds of indignities, though we tried to spare her and teach the children to be gentle with animals—which they are. When Tom and I aren’t at home, Gigi sleeps in Lilah’s room, squeezing completely under the bed. She’s so big I’m not sure how she gets out again. Both the grandkids learned early to dodge Gigi’s lethal tail. It smarts when her tail connects with human flesh.

The kids loved Gigi. Gigi loved the kids.

While I don’t doubt that if anyone threatened us, Gigi would rip his throat out, I trust her 100% with children, guests and pets. She is one of the most utterly trustworthy personalities I have ever encountered. It’s not like having a dog around so much as having an odd-looking grandmother. A grandmother who might attack burglars.

Whenever I have had to treat Gigi for an ailment, she is the soul of cooperation. She will do anything the vet asks, patiently enduring indignities such as rectal thermometers and intrusive examinations. Once both her ears became infected. I had a bottle of liquid that I had to flood both ears with twice a day—something most dogs would strenuously resist. When Gigi saw me coming with the bottle, she would lie down on one side and present an ear. When I was done treating that ear, she would roll over and present the other one. She’s that way with every medical treatment—including acupuncture, which helps with her arthritis when it get bad—apparently understanding that we are trying to help her even if she doesn’t understand what we are doing. (Although I wouldn’t take any bets on her lack of comprehension.)

We live in a beach town. It’s also a dog town, and many people bring their dogs to play at the beach. I took Gigi frequently when we first moved here, but after a couple of years she started coming back limping and sore. Age, alas, is catching up with her, and her once-black muzzle and face are now frosty. She has arthritis and some old joint injuries that cause her problems. Unfortunately, she just doesn’t understand moderation. If I take her to the beach, she runs around and greets and plays with every other dog present, and most of the humans, too. We have had to curtail her beach visits, which is sad, because she used to have a blast.

It’s hard to express this without sounding kind of woo-woo, but this animal is enormously spiritual—more than most humans I know. She’s kind, gentle, intuitive and loving. I respect her as much as I would respect another human because she is her own creature. She knows who she is. She has a presence. Don’t get me wrong—she’s still a dog. She begs at the table. Sometimes she pees in the wrong place (but only if desperate). She barks at nothing and she barks at everything. But looking in her eyes, I see a kindred being who communicates clearly without words, who respects and loves me.

And when she goes (may it be many moons from today), I will be as grief-stricken as I would be for any family member. That’s why I’m telling you now, while I can, that I have in my keeping a great and beautiful soul. It’s a beautiful soul that farts and groans all night, that’s all.
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Gigi died today (November 26, 2019) at the age of approximately 15. So I had three excellent years with her after I wrote this piece. She was going downhill fast, and I wanted to say goodbye before her life became a complete misery to her. She died at home with her family around her.

Blogging, Publishing, Disappointments, Runes, Dried Cod Slathered in Butter

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Okay. I admit I am not the world’s most dedicated blogger. I haven’t posted since the end of my Iceland trip, sometime in July—and I was cheating, because after we left Iceland, we went to Copenhagen, then Stockholm, and had a wonderful time. Except for the heat. It was 85 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit the whole time we were there, and of course, Scandinavia doesn’t know from air conditioning. My husband, who walks six to eight miles EVERY FUCKING DAY wanted to walk everywhere. I vividly recall standing in a jeweler’s shop looking for gifts and raining sweat on the display so hard I didn’t even contemplate looking for better prices because I was so embarrassed.

The only place I recall being air conditioned was the Vasa Museum in Stockholm. It is a museum that was built around an entire 17th century ship called the Vasa that sailed for 1500 yards on her maiden voyage, then keeled over and sank. It turns out she was top-heavy and there wasn’t sufficient ballast. A great pity for the king of Sweden, who had commissioned the ship and assured she was as gaudy and painted and stuffed full of guns as a wild west whorehouse. A greater pity for the thirty people who drowned when the Vasa sank. But a benison for the rest of us, because the ship was raised nearly intact and restored so that we can marvel at her and the astounding objects and decorations that she flaunted so briefly. And the entire building was positively freezing. I loved it.

But back to blogging. Why do I blog? I blog because I hope it will help sell my novels, although I don’t talk about my novels that much. I guess I am hoping that you’ll adore my prose style and want MORE! MORE! MORE!

But I have a problem, and I suppose I’d better discuss it. I have two novels of a trilogy in paperback, ebook, audiobook, etc.: “The Obsidian Mirror” and “Fire in the Ocean.” I also have a children’s book that was self-published, but let’s leave that aside for now. Last January, I sent my publisher, Diversion Books, the draft of the third, final, and (in my opinion anyway) best book of the trilogy, “Lords of the Night.”

My publisher basically said, “Oh, did we forget to tell you? We’re focusing on non-fiction now.” Long story short, they are still making the first two books available, but nothing further, and they won’t be bringing out “Lords of the Night.”

I believe that’s called “trilogus interruptus.”

Fast forward to last week, and I attended the World Fantasy Conference In Los Angeles. I wish I could say that a publisher stepped forward and rescued my entire trilogy, all the while warbling promises of AWESOME book promotion, but that didn’t happen. I did talk to an editor at Daw, and editor at Tor, and an agent that handles fantasy, and they all said the same thing, more or less: you are so screwed.

It seems that publishers don’t like picking up series in the middle, even if they can (my publisher will give me back my publishing rights). The advice was to take “Lords of the Night” to Kindle—maybe all three books—and do my own promotion. The agent suggested that a smaller publisher might pick up the trilogy; it would be worth trying. And then I can write my next book—unrelated to the trilogy—and find an agent and a new publisher.

Interestingly, I met at least three other writers who said the same thing had happened to them. Being a novelist is so glamorous.

But I did come back newly energized. I plan to pitch a few publishers and see what happens. And I have started on a new book. It will be set in settlement-era Iceland, as the Vikings began to turn into farmers and build a new society. 


But there will be magic, and it will be Icelandic magic, which is different from other magical systems I am familiar with. As a consequence I am studying the Elder Futhark, which is the set of Icelandic runes used in fortune-telling in the Icelandic tradition. In this tradition, the runes themselves are magical, not just another alphabet. Each does have its own sound, which means the runes can be formed into words—but each also has its own meaning, both symbolic and literal.

For example, berkana:

As you might suspect, the sound associated with it is “B.” It means “birch.” Its more mystical meaning is “purification, fertility and birth.” This can be interpreted a number of ways, depending on where it falls in the casting, whether or not it is reversed, and its relationship to the other runes in the casting. It’s almost as complicated to learn as tarot, except that a standard tarot deck has 55 cards, while the Elder Futhark has only 24 runes. Which I guess makes it about half as complicated as tarot.

I am the rankest of amateurs and I don’t actually believe in magic, but I have been a bit awed by the runes and how accurate they tend to be. I’m looking forward to the role they will play in my new book.

For now, I will leave you with this random observation. In old Iceland, food was always an issue, and many times life depended on finding something dead washed up on the beach. One standby food was dried fish. Here’s what dried cod looks like (this one has a tag on it from the supermarket):

I suppose this could be rehydrated and cooked in a stew, though I haven’t gotten that far in my culinary research yet. But the preferred way of eating it was to break off a piece, cover it with salted butter and eat it. Icelanders still enjoy this as a snack, kind of like we eat potato chips.

I admit I did not know this when we were in Iceland, or I would have tried it. Next time.