Author: LKH

Praying in Time


 

 

I went to a Christian college because it was the only college close enough to home for me to stay at home and take care of my grandmother.  Dr. Martin was head of the history and political science program and he was a man of strong faith.  I no longer remember what tragedy had happened, there were a lot of them when I was younger, but it was over and done with and I was in his office crying.  He said, “Let’s pray.”  I said, “But its over, you can’t pray for help when its over.”

His reply was this, that God and the angels are not trapped in time the same way that people are.  God does not live time in a linear fashion like a straight line.  God is everywhere all at once, so we could bow our heads and pray for help about something that had already happened.  
I am no longer Christian, I have been happily Wiccan for twenty years, but that moment of comfort, that thought that God, Goddess, Allah, Buddha, whatever name you use for your Deity is not trapped in time, but can move back and forth in a way that we cannot, I still believe that.  So let us pray.  Let us pray for the people, animals and land impacted by hurricane Harvey. Let us pray for all the people and animals suffering through the wild fires in the Western United States.  Let us pray for all those effected by the earthquake in Mexico.  Let us pray for those injured in the bombing in London.  Let us pray for all the countries and islands devastated by hurricane Irma.  Let us pray that help comes to those in need, not just for the electricity, the medical care, the food, clean water, clean clothing, sanitation, and all the rest that the survivors need to be well, but that our prayers reach them before each disaster, and during.  That the angels protect and keep them, that hope and comfort are there for everyone in that moment of fear.  That God and Goddess reach out to all that have been effected, even those that are not directly impacted, but lost in the overwhelming confusion of how to help.  Let us ask for guidance on where best to spend our time, our money, our goodwill to do the most good.  Let us send back in time prayers of hope and comfort, and let us pray forward that our world grows wise and better prepared.  Let us pray for the now, and find ways to give hope and comfort, and real aid to those who have been touched by all the horrible things that have happened recently.  If you can give money, then find a charity and donate.  If you don’t have extra cash wait until they have places that are needing donations of old clothes, and household items that will get to the survivors, or help those closer to home with donations of things that you no longer need or want.  If you can’t help those impacted by the hurricanes and the earthquake directly, then please find other people in need to help.  I believe if we all do what we can, even if it is simply to be kinder to the people we meet every day that we can take care of each other.  God doesn’t always come with angels and a heavenly light show, sometimes He comes in the shape of another person who offers a helping hand when we need it most.  Let us pray and then let us do something good.

Fallen Heroes

I got a text from my best friend the other day. We joke that our friendship is old enough to get its own drinks now. He’s a non-practicing Marine, and a former police officer. His text was simple, “Had two friends in law enforcement die today.” It came through when my phone was silenced for Kali sword practice, so I didn’t see it until I was home, then I called him.  
A lot of people wonder, what do you say when something like this happens? You say the usual, I’m sorry for your loss, is there anything I can do to help or make this day any less awful? Sometimes there will be specific things they need, or you can take errands off their plate, anything to help ease the moment, but usually the only thing you can do is listen. Let them talk, let them rail and rant, or be calm, very calm. Police and military people are often incredibly calm outwardly, because they’re trained not to let their emotions get the better of them. Most men are conditioned from childhood to not show too much emotion, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t hurting, but don’t poke at that; okay? This is mainly to the women in the lives of such men, do not poke at the wounds, let them talk, listen to what they have to say, but allow them to show you as much, or as little pain as they are comfortable with, the best thing you can do for them is to listen, just let them talk, if they will. If they want silence and solitude give it to them, but if they talk to you take it as the gift that it is, because men like this don’t talk to just anyone. My BFF and I bonded over a lot of things, but one of the most important was that when something seemed wrong, or off, I asked, and I was ready for the answer. I was able to hear about his day at work as a police officer, whatever it was, and listen with no judgement and no horror and no extra emotion from me got added to his story. That’s really one of the reasons most cops don’t talk to the women in their lives, we have tendency to react too much, show too much emotion on our faces and they see it and are worried that they are burdening us, making us feel the pain and difficulty of their jobs. My BFF and I have been doing this long enough that I can give him more emotion, because he trusts me with it and with his own, and I never forget what a gift that trust is, which is why he and I are each other’s three AM phone call. We have seen each other through divorce and loss, and remarriage and gain, and . . . So much. We are each other’s person in a way that is rare for someone with his background and a civilian like me. That I am a civilian woman and have his trust and friendship is even more rare, but I did know him before he went into the Marines, and he knew me before I sold a single short story. We’ve been in each other’s lives a long time, through a lot of changes. We have earned each other’s trust. 
All this to explain that I’m putting up a link to a Go-Fund-Me campaign in this blog. The Go-Fund-Me is for a man I never met, but my BFF did. Aaron Allan was a Lieutenant with the Southport Police Department, he was previously a school police officer for the Indiana School for the Deaf, and was one of the two friends that died. Lieutenant saw a car speed by and crash, rolling so that anyone would be worried for the safety of the people inside of it, but he was a police officer. It was his job, his duty, the kind of person he was to run for the crash and to check on the driver first, because you know there was a driver, you don’t always know if there are passengers in a crash, so police are taught/trained to check on the driver first. Lieutenant went to help the driver, make sure he was still alive, and the driver shot him. Why? We don’t know yet. The driver is still alive, so maybe he’ll be able to tell us why. Its likely that he and the other person in the car were fleeing from some criminal activity, or something they thought they shouldn’t be doing, and instead of seeing Lieutenant as someone that was there to help, they saw him as an officer, and as a threat and they killed him. My BFF and I talked about the fact that he would have done the same thing if he’d been the officer responding.  
The other friend and officer that was killed was Deputy Chief James Waters, Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. He was off duty at the time, and had simply stopped to aid a motorist with a flat tire. He was doing something that a lot of us have done, just helping out someone that seems to need it. Sadly, a semi-truck struck him and he would later die of his injuries. Deputy Chief was from a larger department with greater resources which is why there is no Go-Fund-Me account for him. Southport will do all it can, but its a small town on the edge of a big one and it simply doesn’t have the resources to help the Lieutenant’s family the way the much larger Metro Department would be able to help the Deputy Chief’s family. That’s why the Go-Fund-Me exists for one fallen officer and not the other. My husband and I have personally contributed already, and I’m putting this up here for those of you who might want to help out. No pressure, but I wanted to explain that through my BFF I had a more personal connection to this campaign and that’s why I’m putting the link up. If you feel like helping out, thank you. I understand that for most of you police officers are just someone you see as you drive by their cars, or they give tickets, or they come into your house on the worst possible days and nights, but at their best police officers are the people who run towards the car crashes, the explosions, the screams of pain. They run towards the bad things and try to help the rest of us survive them. I’ve always felt that should be honored and the more men and women in uniform that I am privileged to know, the more I believe that.  

Today is the Emotional Day


This morning I woke up anxious and unsettled and couldn’t figure out why, then I realized, “Oh, this is the emotional day after I finish a book.” I was so mentally and creatively done when I finished the last book recently that I actually had two days of energy and DOING things before the adrenaline drop happened. Usually it’s instantaneous, or within a few hours. So this cycle of predictable post-book-isms has been a little off schedule, but when each day, or mood hits, I’ll ask my husband, Jonathon, or our domestic partners is this normal? Do I always do this after I finish a book? They will all nod and assure me this is the pattern. Jonathon and I have been together for seventeen years and will soon count our sixteenth wedding anniversary, so he knows the drill. Our domestic partners, Genevieve and Spike, have only seen me through three books, but even they know the pattern now. Apparently I am that predictable to everyone else, but to me it remains more mysterious.  
I couldn’t think why I was lying in a nice warm bed, cuddled with my sweetie and anxious, until I realized what part of my pattern was happening. Today I will be anxious, sometimes overly emotional, so I know to ride through the anxiety and not let the emotional issues get out of hand. This will pass, I just need to hunker down, hold tight, and allow it to happen. Fighting it, or beating myself up because I’m allowing myself to get all weepy, or angry, or scared, or whatever emotion is happening is not helpful. It just makes me feel worse, so today I need to be gentle with myself and with those around me, and just keep moving. Its a good day to do exercise I enjoy, a very good day for stretching and gentle yoga, or playing with the dogs and cat, or just sitting quietly with them.  
I wrote the above a few days ago, and today I’m reminded that if I don’t go straight back into writing something new that the emotional roller coaster isn’t just one day. It continues sporadically over several days. No wonder I’m a workaholic, this feels awful, but I’m still not ready to sit down and write. I will be brave and let my writing process have its way with me, until I am sure what comes next. 

Creative Emptiness


I’ve been running on empty so long, I don’t know how to refill my tank.  Usually when I don’t write for even a few days my dreams turn to violent nightmares and my inner demons and ghosts drive me back to my computer to put it on the page.  This time, my inner world is quiet.  I feel more peaceful and relaxed than I have in years.  I realize now that I never recovered creatively, mentally, emotionally, or even physically from researching and writing, Crimson Death which came out in 2016.  I tried to write a Merry Gentry book afterwards, but hundreds of pages in, it fell apart.  I thought, well maybe I’m not ready to write Merry yet, so I set it aside.  It was the most pages accumulated on any book I’d written where I abondoned it in place.  (I will get back to it, but with a different plot.  Trust me the darkness of what I’d written – no, just no.  Merry, Doyle, Frost, and the babies deserve better than that.) So, I turned to Anita, because she’s always written faster for me than Merry.  I had and have dozens of Anita ideas, but even there it was slower than normal.  I finally had to admit that I was drained, and that some books take longer recover periods than others, and Crimson Death was one of those.  I think it didn’t help that the last Merry book, A Shiver of Light, had left me, and my fans feeling pretty traumatized, too.  The Anita Blake novel, Dead Ice, was next written and published, but it, thankfully, wasn’t as hard on all of us.  Crimson Death wasn’t traumatic in the same way as A Shiver of Light, but it was almost three times as long as a typical novel.  That is a lot of pages to write in a deadline space meant for a book a third of its size.  And as my usual I didn’t allow myself time to rest between books, though honestly if I’m to do two books a year, there is no time to rest between, even if I’m doing one book a year if its the page count of two books or more, then again, there’s no time to rest if I’m to meet my deadlines.  Which leads me to why the book I just turned into New York will be out in 2018, so both my new editor and myself have more time.  Time, the one thing that we cannot create more of, and the thing that so many of us give away the most freely.  Its been so long since I had this kind of time to rest and regain myself between writing projects that I don’t know what to do.  I don’t remember what I used to do to refill my creative tank.  Right now my muse and I want to hibernate for awhile.  I feel like I could sleep for days, and yet I’m already restless and fighting not to grow anxious. 

I’m feel like a castaway that’s washed up on an island after fighting through a storm of waves and tides.  I’m wanting to sit under the shade of the palm trees, but currently feel like I’m still crawling my way out of the surf and skinning my hands and knees on the sand and seashells, as I try not to be swept back out to sea.  Eventually, I’ll have to swim back out and find my ship of words again.  I’ll need to find my star and use it to steer towards a new horizon, a new story, a new novel, a new world perhaps, but for now I just want to find a place to rest and let myself be happy that I made it to shore.  

The Book is Done!


The next Anita Blake novel is off to my editor in New York! I am exhausted, elated, and happy to put it into her hands for a few weeks, while catch back up with the rest of my life.  I found this picture and it seemed to encapsulate what I feel about writing in my office, currently. 

2017 GONE WRITING, BOOK 2018


First things first, there will not be a big book from me this year.  There probably won’t even be a little book from me in 2017, but my muse sometimes hits very suddenly so I don’t rule something smaller completely out.  The next major book from me will be in June of 2018.  Why am I taking this year off from publishing a book?  Because my new editor and I decided we’d like the extra time.
My editor that I had worked with for twenty years, give or take, retired.  Dead Ice was the last book that Susan and I worked on together.  I was very happy for her to be able to retire early to all the wonderful plans she and her husband had made.  I honestly didn’t think anything of it for my own writing process.  I mean, I’d had six or seven different editors with the Meredith (Merry) Gentry series in as many books at Random House, and I’d done all right.  One infamous Merry novel changed over three editors during the writing of it.  I didn’t think the fact that I’d had only two editors in over twenty years at Penguin Putnam with the Anita Blake series might have impacted my writing process; the consistency, I mean.  But it threw me more than I thought it would to lose an editor after that many years and that many books.  I am hopefully settled in with my new editor, Cindy, for another long run.
Crimson Death was our first novel together and it was a nightmare.  That wasn’t Cindy’s fault, at all.  It wasn’t anyone’s fault, except my over ambitious nature.  I should never, ever promise deadlines at the end of writing most novels, because at the end the muses are singing and writing usually spills forth like water from the proverbial cleft rock.  Since I’m usually doing ten to twenty pages a day at that point I think that’s what I always do.  I forget that at the beginning of a novel, sometimes I’m lucky to get four pages a day.  It takes time to build up steam for the end of a novel, and I always forget that.  Crimson Death was also the first Anita Blake novel set in a different country.  I set it in Ireland, I’d read all these books, and looked at pictures . . . I don’t know, I thought that being in a different country that spoke English wouldn’t be that big a difference to my writing process.  I was wrong.  I was really wrong.
And then just before we left for Ireland our pug, Sasquatch, passed away.  He was fourteen and we knew it was coming, but having to make that decision, holding him while he passed away in my arms – nothing prepares you for it.  It’s always upsetting to lose a beloved pet, but Crimson Death was the first novel I wrote without a pug at my side in about twenty years, maybe longer.  I know I had no pug when I wrote my first three novels, but other than that I’ve had at least one pug, or more, in the office with me.  I started out joking that I don’t write as well without one, even with my other wonderful dogs, but as I write forward on the third novel I’ve attempted since Sasquatch passed, it’s beginning to feel more plausible.
If I could do it over again, I’d have done another Anita novel set here in the States where I was more familiar with everything and I’d have done my research at leisure.  The trip to Ireland that suddenly became absolutely necessary was eye opening, exhilarating, and humbling.  Nothing I had read prepared me for the Emerald Isle.  I had researched the wrong questions.  I had to let go of my preconceptions and the book became a very different book than the one I’d planned.  Research, good research, will do that sometimes.  The other problem was that this was finally Damian’s book.  He’d been in the series since book six and this was book twenty-five.  I had hundreds of pages done when Damian got loud in my head and said, “This is what you do to me?  You make me a victim again?”  He wanted to be the hero, or at least strong and not the perpetual victim the first version showed him to be, and I couldn’t argue with him, though I tried.  

Ireland inspired me in a way that I didn’t anticipate.  I was doing twenty pages a day in Dublin.  I was hitting that end of book page count per day in the first third of the book.  I thought, great, this is one of those books that writes fast!  Um, no.  What had happened accidentally is my muse and I had found the place we wanted to write the book, but it would still take months to complete it.  I couldn’t stay in Ireland for months when I had planned on only staying for weeks.  My life wasn’t that flexible.  I had commitments in England both for my first ever European convention and for a research trip for a different novel.  We left Ireland after less than a month and the moment we got to London I couldn’t write.  I have no idea why, but I never write well in London and I’ve tried multiple times. The novel that had been going great guns in Ireland stopped dead once I left the country.  If I get to the twenty pages per day point with a novel, wherever I am, whatever I’m doing, that is how I write that book.  Change anything at that point from running out of the tea I’ve been drinking, the view, my chair, my desk, the computer I’m writing on or the software I’m using to write, my office pets, a lover having to travel – basically once the book is in the white, hot, heat phase, draw a circle of about fifty feet around me and everything within that circle has to remain the same or the book grinds to a halt.
I knew that about myself as a writer, but what I hadn’t anticipated was that a few days in Ireland would jump start the page count to that level of heat.  Then we left the country for very good reasons and for wonderful adventures, but the book didn’t recover its speed for months.  Then the other thing happened that couldn’t have been planned for, Crimson Death became the longest novel I’d ever written and I’ve written some long novels.  Up to that point, I believe that Obsidian Butterfly was my longest.  Interestingly it was set in a state that I’d never visited, New Mexico, so maybe its researching places I’ve never been that makes books super long for me?

The difference between the two books is that Obsidian Butterfly was pretty much the manuscript you got to read.  Crimson Death I cut by a third, before it went to New York for final edits.  I believe the rough draft was over 300,000 words which makes it well over a thousand pages.  I have never written a draft that long.  Again, maybe it’s the research, but whatever the cause, it meant that the first deadlines came and went, so we got new deadlines that could not be missed if the book was coming out on time. My first novel with my new editor became a series of emergencies.  I wrote more than one day round the clock, literally.  My husband, Jonathon, our girlfriend, Genevieve, and her husband Spike took turns bringing me endless cups of coffee, or just checking on me.  Anyone who thinks they want to marry a bestselling writer, or a famous artist of any kind, should see that artist through a serious creative work before they say, I do.  Artists, and I’m not any different, are moody bastards, and when the work isn’t going well it’s worse.  I’m usually a nice person, but when the writing is going badly I roar like a dragon at any interruption.  Genevieve and Spike hadn’t been living with us long, though we’d been dating them longer, so it was sort of a domestic trial by fire.  
By the time the book went to its final rounds in New York, my two newest domestic partners begged me to write something else next time.  They were full up listening to me talk about Anita and the gang.  None of us wanted to go through another book like that.  I think even my editor, Cindy, and all the wonderful people at Penguin Random House that helped make Crimson Death a reality were ready for a break.  Yes, my two main publishers for the Merry Gentry series and the Anita Blake series are now one publisher.  One of the largest mergers in publishing history.
I know that at the end of the process for that last novel I was drained.  I felt like a seashell washed up on the beach, empty like a pretty piece of bone, caressed by the sea.  So, in the end we all decided we needed more time for the next book to be written and edited.  We didn’t want to go balls to the wall again.  Cindy and I need time to understand each other as editor and writer.  I need to let myself mourn twenty years of editorial partnership. I need to let myself mourn the loss of Sasquatch, and think about whether with three dogs, a cat, and a lizard, we can really add a pug at this time.  I want to enjoy the first draft and not feel like every word has to be written in stone, because there isn’t time to revise without it becoming a publishing emergency.  I need time to spend with my family, friends, and to take care of my body, mind, and spirit.  My muse and I need to find our way back to a writing process that works smoothly.  So that’s why there will be no new novel from me this year.  See you in June 2018!

 

My Two Cents

I voted for Barack Obama twice. The first time because I believed that he would be a positive change in leadership. The second time because the Republicans had not only no one I wanted to vote for, but I was actively afraid of what they might do in office, so I voted for Obama as the lesser evil. I’d wanted to vote for Gary Johnson the Libertarian candidate, but let all the talk of throwing away my vote scare me into not voting my conscience, but my fears. I vowed to follow my beliefs in politics and never let my fears rule me again, because unlike the majority of my friends that voted for Obama a second time I wasn’t happy with my choice. I’ll give you one example of why.

One of the main reasons I voted for Obama the first time was his promise to close Guantanamo Bay[i]. Gitmo maybe absolutely necessary for safety and even survival, but it is still morally wrong. I believe that imprisoning a human being without legal representation starts us down a slippery slope towards the same type of tyranny that we fought a revolution against. But Obama didn’t close Gitmo, even though he had both congress and the house as democratic majority for the first two years of his presidency. I believe that he was shown top secret information that convinced him he could not close Gitmo without endangering too much, or too many. Whatever the reason something made him back off on it, but just last week he contacted a now Republican majority and asked that Gitmo be closed, after he was only hours away from no longer being president. He knew the answer would be, no. He had to know they would not cooperate with him. Obama is too intelligent a man to not understand that the answer would be negative. So, why did he do it? Because now he can say, I tried to close to Gitmo, but the big bad Republicans wouldn’t let me[ii]. Now, instead of it being his fault that he didn’t keep his promise its someone else’s fault. It was a good political move, but morally questionable. Its a way of avoiding responsibility for something he gave his word on, and that it is a pattern of behavior for him to place blame for any failures on others. He takes responsibility only for his victories, but never for his losses. Or so it seemed to me.

I also had an issue with him getting the Nobel Peace Prize when he was responsible for bombs being dropped on more countries than any of his immediate predecessor[iii][iv]. There was never a day of his presidency when we did not have soldiers in harm’s way on foreign soil[v]. How did he earn a Nobel Peace Prize? If you think I’m wrong about either of those statements look it up, but I’ve provided links to sources. Don’t believe the press, dig for the facts, please. We must stop accepting the surface information we are given, because it is always biased on either side.

I had hoped that President Obama would bring our country closer together. That we would come out of his term, his two terms, more united as a people, but the opposite has happened[vi]. We are more divided racially, religiously, sexually, etc . . . Pick something and I have never seen such vitriol spouted on both sides. The President that I thought would bring us together has managed to give us eight years that drove us apart. I’m not sure what happened and certainly one man doesn’t take full responsibility for it, but Obama lacked one thing that all great presidents have and that is an ability to work with both sides of an issue. He not only didn’t know how to reach across the aisle, but he didn’t try. It was all about us versus them over and over, until the entire country believed that. Most of the major news outlets and major cities believed Obama was great! They thought that it was a cinch for Hilary Clinton, Obama’s heir apparent to be the next president. Everyone was so happy with the democrats being in charge that, of course, she would win. Besides, the first woman president, just like the first black president – how could they lose?

I wanted a female president. I’ve wanted one for decades. I didn’t want Hilary Clinton, because I saw her as a continuation of the Obama presidency and the old school political power brokers doing business as usual. I agreed whole-heartedly with the Democrats and the major power brokers in the country, Hilary Clinton would have been a continuation of the last eight years. That was the problem. I, like so many Americans, didn’t want a continuation of the last eight years. We were unhappy with it, and no one in power seemed to be listening, or to even care. It was a very, “Yes, Socrates,” moment.

I voted Libertarian this time, and don’t tell me I threw my vote away. Its my vote, I get to decide how I use it. That’s the entire point of our system of government that we have a choice and a voice in an election, even if its just that one vote. I know people who voted for Trump. I know women, people of ethnic and every color we come in that voted for him. You can tell yourself its just racist bigots misogynists that voted for Donald J. Trump but that’s not the truth. A lot more liberals voted for him than you think, but they are literally afraid to admit it. They’re afraid of being attacked, they are afraid it will endanger their jobs, their families, because people have lost their minds that Trump won. (And yes, people are afraid that Trump being president will give rise to more violence from the far right, but that’s being covered in the media. What I haven’t seen being covered is the balancing side of those fears.)

I have intelligent, educated, sane friends who have literally looked me in the eye and called Trump the antichrist. I thought they were exaggerating, but they seem to mean it. He is not the antichrist. He is not Lucifer. He is not Hitler. (Remember before Hitler started shipping anyone off to death camps first he had to disarm them. Until someone comes to take the guns away from private citizens, they usually behave themselves better. If a president wants your guns, then worry about genocide and dictatorships. Sorry if the anti-gun crowd doesn’t like that statement. I wish we lived in a world where faith, good vibes, and safe spaces would actually keep us safe, but until that fantasy world becomes reality I’ll keep my ability to protect myself and my family.) Am I thrilled that Trump is our president? No, but I’m not sure anyone running would have thrilled me. I admit that when Donald J. Trump threw his hat in the ring I thought it was a publicity stunt for a future reality TV show. I don’t think even Trump thought he would win. I think he saw it as a chance to speak his mind and say things that the other politicians seemed afraid to say, so he said it, and weirdly he began to win. I think we were all shocked at first, even Trump.

If you want to know how Trump won there are great articles explaining it in mostly British media[vii] [viii]. Our own American media was almost completely blindsided. I hope that teaches our media to take the blinders off and see what’s really happening in our country, not what they want it to be, but the reality.

The president actually has much more limited powers than most people think. Yes, he signed an executive order that said that foreign aid or federal funding cannot be used to promote or provide abortions[ix]. It is something every republican since Reagan has signed into being. Just like there are things that every Democrat signs. Am I happy about it? No, but I’m not panicking either, and that’s my point. Take a deep breath, and let go of your fear. Work for what you believe, but please stop being terrified. If you are reacting to fear then you don’t think well, and reacting is not the same as acting. Act because you want to, not because you’re so scared you’re lashing out.

One thing I didn’t foresee is that so many people are terrified, enraged that Trump won – How did this happen? They keep asking themselves – that it seems to be bringing people together, even if it is a togetherness based on hating that Donald J. Trump is our new president. Obama was supposed to bring us closer together, but somehow his eight years divided us more. Wouldn’t it be weird if the Trump presidency brought us more together? Even if its just to make sure this doesn’t happen again.

[i] http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/177/close-the-guantanamo-bay-detention-center/
[ii] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/president-barack-obama-guantanamo-bay-gitmo-open-letter-congress-republicans-donald-trump-inmates-a7536346.html
[iii] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/peace-president-how-obama-came-to-bomb-seven-countries-in-six-years-9753131.html
[iv] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-president-barack-obama-bomb-map-drone-wars-strikes-20000-pakistan-middle-east-afghanistan-a7534851.html
[v] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/15/us/politics/obama-as-wartime-president-has-wrestled-with-protecting-nation-and-troops.html?_r=0
[vi] http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/11/21/poll-americans-feel-divided/94224968/
[vii] http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-37918303
[viii] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/09/how-did-donald-trump-win-analysis
[ix] http://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2017-01-23/donald-trump-reinstates-mexico-city-policy-banning-international-abortion-funding

Princesses and Wise Women

   It’s 2017, at last! I think we’re all relieved to see 2016 behind us. No one seems to be able to remember a year when there were so many notable deaths that made us all feel as if the world was a little darker for the lives that were snuffed out. We endured losses of our troubadours and musicians, our storytellers and writers, our thespians and actors/actresses that made us smile, think, and just brought happiness into our lives. When Carrie Fisher had a heart attack coming back from Paris but survived, I know that I breathed a sigh of relief. It was less than forty-eight hours from the end of the year, we’d lost enough. Our Princess who grew up to become a General in one of the most iconic and arguably most influential movie franchise of our times was going to make it to 2017; yay! Of course, we all know now that didn’t happen. Carrie Fisher died from another heart related issue. She left behind a mother, a brother, and a daughter, and millions of fans. Then her mother, Debbie Reynolds, who was a bright star in her own right, passed away just a day after her daughter. I grew up watching Debbie Reynolds in Singing in the Rain, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, and so many other wonderful films. I was honored to see her perform that last role on stage in a traveling production that came to the Muny in St. Louis. At first, I remember thinking she’s too old to be playing a teenage girl, which is where the character begins, but in a few minutes I forgot that this was a 60-70 something woman playing a teenager. She became Molly Brown at any age. Now that is stage presence! 

   I didn’t realize how much Carrie Fisher’s death had affected me until I watched one of the tributes and found myself far more upset than I expected. She was a writer, actress, advocate for mental health, and at the end she fought to be a woman in her fifties owning all of it and standing her ground in Hollywood. If they wanted her in the new Star Wars movie it was at the weight she was at, she would not lose weight for the role. Since I believe part of her addiction issues came from losing weight for Return of the Jedi, it was wisdom to refuse to go down that road again.  

   I sat in the theater when I was fourteen and saw Star Wars for the first time along with the rest of the world. I saw a princess that defended herself, and those around her. A woman that would endure danger, torture, and one of the most evil villains to ever be on film, and win. As a young teenage girl living in the middle of farm country in Indiana seeing a woman that was a major part of the action and gave as good as she got was important to me. I may have wanted to grow up to be Luke (though that may have been the huge crush I had on Mark Hamil), but Princess Leia Organa was a fully realized part of the story, not just someone’s girlfriend, sister, duaghter, mother, etc . . . There’s nothing wrong with being any of those things, but we can be people’s girlfriends, sisters, daughters, mothers, and still have grand adventures. Princess Leia helped teach the world that being a girl didn’t mean you had to stay home and wave goodbye to your knight from the casements. Leia taught the world that had never read Robert E. Howard’s, Red Sonja, or a book by Andre Norton, or Marion Zimmer Bradley, that girls can be the main character and go out adventuring with the boys. Star Wars taught that men and women working together can be daring, brave, bold, and victorious. I don’t think I realized until Carrie Fisher passed away just how important Princess Leia was to me, not just Star Wars, which I knew, but Leia. 

   I will mourn as a fan and admirer of her work, but my heart goes out to her family and friends that knew her best. I cannot imagine what Todd Fisher is going through with such loss so close together, but her daughter, Billie Lourd, who is only twenty-four, is the one that makes me feel the most for her loss. I know what its like to lose your mother and grandmother, but my losses were decades apart. I can’t imagine losing them so close together. My daughter is almost the same age. She calls me for advice or just to talk often. She still believes I can solve problems and help her think her way through life issues, and I do my best. I never had that kind of relationship with my grandmother, and my mother was long dead before I reached my twenties. My daughter and my close friends have taught me what it is to be close to your mother, or father, and to be able to rely on them for good counsel, or just a good cry. Mothers and Grandmothers, Fathers and Grandfathers, are supposed to be our wise ones, wise women and wise men. They bring all the experience they have that we don’t as younger people and they can help guide us through things so we don’t have to make the same mistakes. I am so sorry that Billie Lourd has lost her wise women all at once at an age when she will be making so many decisions that they could have helped her with. It is not just love that a good parent child relationship gives us, it is wisdom and guidance. I didn’t have it in my twenties, my world had diverged too much for my grandmother to understand and give advice, and I had neither father nor mother, so I had to find my wise women and men in teachers, or on screen, in books. I hope that in time Billie Lourd finds other wise council, because it’s not just love we get from our mothers and grandmothers, they are our wise women, and we need them in our lives.

Be Sure

Eomer and my current office view, for those that keep asking there’s a clue to what I’m writing in the picture.
I typed, Be Sure, today as I sat down to work on the book I’m writing. What I meant for it to do was remind me that I needed to pick an opening gambit and just start typing, but that’s not how my subconscious took it. Once I wrote those two little words, Be Sure, I didn’t write another damn word for an hour. It took me that long to figure out that it was those two words that had put a monkey wrench in the creative flow. Honestly it hadn’t been flowing that well to begin with, which is partly why the phrase stopped me dead in my tracks. Be sure, really? The beginning of a book for me is one of the least sure things in the world. I can know the characters intimately, the plot, the world, everything, but the beginning of a book is like the beginning of a romance, or a trip, you know what you think will happen, or what you want to happen, but what actually happens can be vastly different. That first date, like a first chapter can start out great, but fizzles and you think, nope I don’t want to do that again. The plot that seemed so brilliant in the planning stages is like that great vacation that you were positive the whole family would love and it turns into a nightmare of crossed schedules and hurt feelings. Staring at those two words, Be Sure, froze me. My muse and I stared at them and thought, but we aren’t sure. We aren’t sure of anything. The only thing I’m sure of is which world we’re writing in, and what characters we’ll be dealing with, but beyond that there are so many choices of where to start and how to get to the plot goals that its almost paralyzingly in its complexity. No, not its complexity, its possibilities. I’ve recently realized that too many choices is bad for me, that deciding is my strength and hesitation between choices is horrible for me both in writing and personally. So, I need to just pick a direction and start writing, even if it’s the wrong direction for me as a writer almost any decision is better than indecision. I think for a minute, or an hour, I forgot that. Be Sure, that’s for the end of a book, not the beginning. Right now its all about possibilities, nothing is off the table, or impossible, its all still there floating, waiting for me to choose that first leap into the empty whiteness and write.