Two Irish polkas on tin whistle and guitar... 10 years later!

A Crocheted Bouquet From Cindy

So Cindy, who makes the BryonySeries Ribbit-Ribbits (her name for them), surprised me on Mother's Day with a bouquet of flowers, all crocheted, just like her Ribbits, just like Bertrand the Mouse.

She  brought them into the house as Timothy was setting out the Mother's Day brunch he made (just as I was coming downstairs to make breakfast).

I can't even begin to imagine the time she put into creating this lovely gift (did you noticed the purple rose and the blue vase?) that will become a cherished keepsake for a very long time.

Aren't they lovely?

James Onohan 2018- Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas (Piano Cover)

A Simple Solution

Good morning!

A long month crammed with work, events, and not feeling well for one reason or another is ebbing (I hope) with waking up this morning feeling more discomfort than pain.

The details are for another blog post (quite a few half-started over the last couple of weeks). But last Monday's episode left me with some mild head pain that became significant head and neck pain by Thursday.

Tests from the first ER trip were normal - and so were tests from the second. Either way, I still need follow-up tests. But it's easier to think and get things done when one is not in pain.

Last Monday night was an al-nighter in the ER (and then I went to work). Last Saturday was an a---nighter in the ER - and then the pain didn't let me sleep on Sunday night.

So, three all-nighters in the last week.

During Monday night's violent storm, I found relief leaning against the wall in the basement and fell asleep.

So Rebekah suggested a heating pad. 

She brought hers downstairs for me to use while we watched a bit of "Sanditon" to distract me. The heat really felt good.

I woke up yesterday after a decent rest with much of the head pain gone and feeling very tight in my neck and shoulders. That was a very hopeful sign. 

I used the heating pad after work last night and the pain was much reduced over the evening. So I used it again before bedtime.

I expect the pain to flare up as I use my head and neck today. But I'm hopeful that the intensity will be reduced.

Who'd have thought the solution could be so simple?

Recap of My First At-Home Writing Retreat of 2024

Last week, I took my first at-home writing retreat of 2024, which I will pick back up on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday when it's my turn for a three day weekend (I worked Memorial Day).

The book I'm currently writing is called "House on Top of the Hill." It's the third book in the BryonySeries Limbo trilogy and the trilogy's tagline is this: What happens when time stops in a fishing village in Northern Michigan? The supernatural reigns.

The entire book was loosely drafted when I began my retreat and ready for editing through chapter eight. So my goals for this retreat was to complete one chapter a day with the larger of goal of having the book ready for final editing by the end of summer. 

Some of these chapters from the retreat will need heavy editing. But others are nearly ready to go. Overall, I wrote approximately 2,500 to 3,000 words a day on the retreat, in addition to re-reading some of that work and getting some good editing done on those words.

Read this post to see what these retreats typically look like. You will see why I am always happy to return to work.

Below is a synopsis, chapter titles, and cover concept. The chapters in italics are the ones ready for editing. I made it through chapter sixteen on the retreat and plan to get through chapter nineteen (chapter twenty if the last three days go better than I planned).

Wish me luck for this long weekend!

Change comes slowly to Munsonville, and for Steve Barnes, who spends his entire life in the village, that's just fine. From boyhood to manhood, he savors the slow pace and friendly smiles, even while working by his parents' side from sunup to sundown to run the family diner.

The only blight is this fishing village's preoccupation with an empty mansion in the woods, whose tales of former glory and catastrophe fueled a rampage of ghost stories. Steve doesn't believe them, but some do – and no no one can deny the power the crumbling old building holds over them.

Especially when it changes everyone, including Steve, forever.

Prologue

Chapter 1: The Traveling Salesman

Chapter 2: Roundtable

Chapter 3: Bottle of the Red Stuff

Chapter 4: Cracking Open the Nest Egg

Chapter 5: Scrawls on the Wall

Chapter 6: Whispers of the Heart

Chapter 7: I Run at Night

Chapter 8: Laid to Rest:

Chapter 9: Necking

Chapter 10: Spider and Fly

Chapter 11: Death Heard Round the World

Chapter 12: Mine

Chapter 13: Second Sight

Chapter 14: Chop, Sizzle, Broil, and Bake for it and some against it.

Chapter 15: The Rage

Chapter 16: Hard Choice to Make

Chapter 17: Through the Camera’s Eye

Chapter 18: Words Enough For Me

Chapter 19: The All-Hallowed Albatross

Chapter 20: Dancing in the Past

Chapter 21: The New Professor

Chapter 22: Enigma in Residence

Chapter 23: Rain

Chapter 24: From Fry Pan to Factotum

Chapter 25: Nutty Tina Swanson and Kellen

Chapter 26: Preternatural Guest

Chapter 27: The News That Changed Everything

Chapter 28: A New Lease on a Very Old Dream

Chapter 29: Journey of a Thousand Heartaches

Chapter 30: Severed Links

Epilogue

Cover art concept for "House on Top of the Hill " created by Timothy Baran

For Writers - Or Anyone Struggling to Believe in Their Abilities

I had reserved Thanksgiving weekend to do a hard edit on Ed Calkins' Ruthless. The novel is part of the BryonySeries world and harkens back mostly to the original "drop of blood" trilogy.

As outrageously entertaining Ed's novel is (a mixture of the real Ed's back story, the back story of his fictional Ed, the fictional Ed I further fictionalized for the BryonySeries, and the further fictionalization of all that in Ruthless), are some real gems.

I'm sharing just four short paragraphs of it. I had hoped to share it with WriteOn Joliet Thursday, but we ran out of time, which s just as well because now I can share it with more people. Our topic was "And the winner is..." and as I'm listening to the pieces WriteOn Joliet members shared, I suddenly remembered this excerpt I'm sharing today.

To put this in context, the main protagonists in Ruthless are Ed and a woman named Trudy - a bipolar alcoholic police officer and former best friend, and "once or twice" lover of Ed Calkins who is convinced she shot Ed. She's brilliantly crafted, and I think readers will like her.

But at other times, the real/somewhat real/completely fictional vampire Ed breaks the fourth wall and talks in first person. This is what's happening in the excerpt I'm sharing. It sounds like the end of the novel, but it isn't. It's simply the last time Ed speaks in first person.

BTW, Ed really is terribly dyslexic and only wrote this novel with a great deal of prodding. It wasn't my idea either; one of my super fans really wanted me to write it, and I felt only Ed could and should.

And he did.

May you be encouraged today.

             

My dear spy…er literary genius, we must now talk of endings. This well have to be my last chapter writing to you directly in first person. I’ve done everything the future requires of me except meeting my best friend in a field of battle. It’s not the combat I fear any more than the result. It’s you, I fear. I fear you will think badly of me for something terrible that I did while I was still alive with my own damaged soul.

              The day I won the lottery…I behaved badly. Maybe you should skip the next few chapters and just read the ending. If you did that, you’d think better of me.

              Whether or not you do, I must thank you. I know I was a jerk when you first started reading, but I didn’t really believe that I could write anything worth reading. But you kept on reading, and I started believing. It’s believing in you that helped me believe in me. Isn’t it strange that a novel that asks both writer and reader to believe in wood sprites, leprechauns, and brownies and all sorts of other myths sound find the hardest belief of all is ourselves? I find myself at the end of a story I thought I would never tell. I find myself finishing a story that is actually worth reading…expect of the next part. Thank you for believing in me when I could not believe in you. Now, with your skills as a reader, a world of brownies, rainbows, clovers, lovers, and leprechauns are just one good dream away and maybe if you so grant it…one good laugh.

              Fare thee well, reader. May you live as long as you want and never want as long as you live.

Setting Down the Pen

My first thought at realizing we have an extra hour tonight was, "Yes! I can stay up late and write!"

Such has been my thought since 2008 when I began writing Bryony in earnest.

Never did I dream that my dream of writing one novel would span a trilogy, a five-book prequel, a chapter book series, a children's series, and one cookbook.

Fifteen books so far with more chapter books and children's books outlined.

And a werewolf story that's scarcely more than a good idea. But I told Rebekah tonight I'd like to release it by Halloween.

Today I had this romantic notion of sitting at my computer, coffee by my side, desk light providing my only illumination, and starting the werewolf story. Because I love being lost in creativity and a good story.

Except I really am worded out. And putting out another novel in 2019 when I'll be editing and publishing five other ones, along with (hopefully) a couple more each of Cornell and Bertrand just sounds, well, hard.

Especially since the story is, at this point, only a premise, a few details, a title, and random ideas and phrases.

Granted, the werewolf story is a shorter standalone. And maybe Halloween is plausible.

And maybe it it not. At least, for 2019.

For most of my life, I've steeped myself in the words and thoughts of other writers. As a child. As a student. And especially as a homeschool parent, which provided the richest and most abundant years of reading.

For the last ten years, I've drawn on those wells to craft my own stories. I've read less, written more.

That well is tapped.

I literally wrung out the last word droplets with the fifth and final book of Before the Blood.

What's a writer to do?

Dig a new well, of course. And my tools are the same tools of the past. Everyone else's words.

So tonight, as soon as I post this blog, I'll be sitting on my bed, coffee by my side, desk light providing my only illumination, and reading one of the novels from the stacked up piles.

What's in those piles? Mostly books written by writer friends that I've never read or started to read, and, indeed, want to read. Others are books my kids have, for years, urged me to read.

So now is the time.

Because I have an extra hour tonight.

Illustration by Kathleen Rose Van Pelt for "Bryony."

Plainfield Indie Author Fair Recap

First of all, kudos to the Plainfield Public Library District for running a terrific event!

I've done a number of these since I first published Bryony in 2011, the approach worked well: one hour for an author panel, one hour for the fair, and done.

No standing around for hours with other authors waiting for people to come. I shared information writing and publishing information; sold five books; and gave gave away fifteen copies of Snowbell, Halloween stickers, promo cards Timothy made for me regarding the first books in the Adventure of Cornell Dyer and Bertrand the Mouse series; and fielded interest about WriteOn Joliet.

All in two amazing hours, giving me enough time to stop by the Book Market in Joliet (where four of us WriterOnes are having a signing on Oct. 22) to give the owner some copies of my books for her display.

Best of all, I still have time to write today. Have a fantastic weekend!

So Rebekah creates a beautiful display and then ducks out of the photo, sheesh. :(

Rebekah's display up close - which shows the art of Christopher Gleason (Snowbell) and Sue Midlock (Cornell Dyer), as well  the Bertrand and Cornell cards Timothy created for me.