I’m so excited to be included in this fantasy bundle. Six novels for 99c, including Solomon’s Seal by me. Of the other contributions, I’ve read A Magical Inheritance and Desires, Known, and I’ve got Pirates & Privateers on my TBR. I’m excited to check out the others!

Secrets mixed with magic can be deadly.

Secrets have the power to protect or destroy. Forgotten lore, mysterious weapons, and magical libraries can be dangerous in the wrong hands. Covert missions, secret societies, and lost memories can provide salvation. Prepare for adventure and unlock the many secrets in MAGIC & MYSTERY!

This is a limited time boxset, so grab it now!

Kindle | Kobo | iBooks | Nook

If you’ve read and enjoyed Solomon’s Seal, or any of the books, please consider leaving a short review at the retailer of your choice!

We’re a year into the pandemic here.

I’ve been having an increasing number of health issues and I’ve had to finally really face that. Chronic pain for about eighteen months, but in my head it was like “Oh, it’s maybe two or three times a day?” (That’s how it was in the beginning.) I started charting it, however, and found that was more like nine to ten times a day–just sudden acute pain (that occurs chronically, hence me referring to it as “chronic pain”) I can’t predict and can’t treat other than waiting out it while it interrupts my day. So the question was whether this is problems with existing damage my body suffered several years ago when I first got sick, or if it’s new damage and I’m no longer in remission.

It’s not exactly a great time to go through all the bullshit of doctors and multiple appointments, so I spent some time researching and charting symptoms. I’m pretty sure it’s the former–existing damage being exasperated by various things. With sufficient changes, in just a few days I’ve cut the pain down about 40%-50% what it’s been recently. Long term, though?

Stress. It’s always stress.

It’s been converging on all fronts pretty much–personal and professional (counting writing as professional). I even hit a point last week where all I wanted to do was just close up shop here because I’m so goddamn tired. Tired of having to hustle constantly, tired of feeling like I’m just treading water, tired of daily having to combat theft (especially when I’m unwell). Tired, even, of having faith that anything will ever improve.

Rationally, I know that as much as a slog as it’s been, I am in a better position. As of writing this, I am one patron away from fifty–50!–which is staggering to me. That is a tremendous achievement and is directly responsible for me being able to continue writing when sales are so hit and miss. I realize there is a very slow but consistent increase in writing income overall as the years have passed, even though none of it comes close to covering even a fraction of the time spent on it. But even then, the work I do also consistently has become something I feel like I do for other people. My books are bigger, more complex, and take more time, and every step of the way I feel like I owe them to others rather than myself (because that’s been all I have time for).

Writing requires closing a door to everything else while you work, and that’s something I think every writer has to relearn how to do again and again. It’s been a long time since I’ve had that door closed; right now it feels like it’s constantly open, a sea of voices drowning out everything else.

So I’ve spent the last few days trying to regain that silence. Seems a weird thing, entering year two of isolation due to a pandemic–and I have been truly isolated, no physical contact, nothing but essential visits out–to be looking for even more isolation. But I’ve always done best when things are…quiet. That’s how I grew up, how I first created stories. Experimenting with silence over the past few days has been successful.

It definitely helps.

I’d been hoping to take a full week off of freelance work at some point this month–and still might, when I get enough projects sent off–but maybe giving myself some silence this month will help as well. Limited social activity–I’ve been on a Twitter break for a few days. Limited email–just talking to clients and delivering projects. I still have a DnD game once a week to catch up with people, but that’s about all the humanning I’ve got energy for.

I’ve also got a small, inexpensive treadmill–a year too late, considering the pandemic, but this was when I could afford it–to make up for some of the physical activity I’ve lacked in the past year. That lack of movement also contributes to these health issues, and I’m starting small with just a mile in the morning and a mile in the evening, but that’s making a difference to.

So that’s where I am, why I’m quiet–it’s not a depressive episode, I’m fine, I’m just under a lot of stress and trying to pare back the voices in my head to focus on the fictional ones again.

As always, reader support is greatly appreciated. Yampellec’s Idol is off for copyedits and that’s still set for June 1. The Silent Places is on sale for $2.99 at Kobo for International Women’s Day, as is Solomon’s Seal (for 99c). More is on the way! And I will be back to full form in a short while.

Guess who turns two years old today!

On February 15 2019, while I’d been under the weather for some weeks, I headed out in the cold that evening to see a pair of two-day-old kittens.

Their mother, a barn cat, had been killed by a predator the day before. A third kitten had died of hypothermia when some kind people can to rescue them. They got them through that first day of being orphaned, but feeding every two hours was a lot for a high school student. It was a Friday night and I’d intended to get them through the weekend and then contact a local shelter on Monday in case they had a nursing mother.

I didn’t think they’d last the weekend, they were so tiny–very low birthweight with some characteristics to suggest they could’ve been a few days premature. And little Gus very nearly didn’t get through those first twenty-four hours–while I fought to get him to feed, I did not know that whole time he had a congenital heart defect that would not let him live past eight weeks.

But he turned a corner. And they both survived. And once we got in a rhythm with both feeding well, I knew trying to move them again to another foster situation, even with a mother cat, would put their progress at risk.

So I kept them.

They were always my boys. Something in my gut told me that before I even saw them–the moment I heard there were these kittens, I had to see them, had to help them. They were mine. Even entertaining adoption possibilities while they were young, I couldn’t bear the thought of giving them up. When we lost Gus, there was no question Shawn couldn’t go anywhere.

We’re here, two years later. Shawn is accident prone and constantly in trouble. He’s simultaneously elegant and a total goof. I am never not in sight of him, as much as he tries to be an independent cat. He’s the little prince who rules over everything but still hides behind me when there’s a loud noise or a stranger at the door.

I am so grateful to have this little ball of chaos in my life.

He got several presents from me and from his auntie in Alabama, and has been enthralled with the toys all morning. Soon the cats will get some KMR as a treat, and he’s got new beds and climbers to rest on.

Every day I sing him “Future Days”–sometimes just a few lines or the chorus, but other times the whole of the song. To get the kittens to settle after mealtimes, even when they were just two days old, I’d hold them against my chest and sing–every damn time–as the vibrations likely seemed like purring to them. He likes songs and usually won’t settle at night until he gets one. Now he even recognizes it as “his” song–last year when I was playing The Last of Us Part II, there’s a point where Ellie (at the theatre) sings the first line. When Shawn heard it, his head bopped up and he went straight to the TV to watch in fascination.

So I leave you with the Joel version of Shawnie’s song, and the hope that we have many more future days to come.