Maggie Shayne's Blog: Maggie's Coffee House Blog, page 3

The Dreaded B-Word

I wrote this for my newsletter, and the response from my subscribers was so powerful that I decided to repost it here on the blog.

The B-Word

I try not to look at reviews. A bad one can mess with my writing.

 

But I peeked at a few pre-release reviews of The Mermaid Murder, and they were really good, so I kept reading and got to one reviewer who feels it's inapropriate for my main character, Rachel, to call her inner voice "Inner Bitch."

 

The reviewer has every right to her opinion, of course, but I feel compelled to respond.

The Bitch in Nature

The bitch is the female canine. If you're familiar at all with dogs, you know that if there are a male and female in the same home, the bitch is always the boss. In the wild, a bitch is the alpha of her pack. Her partner is also a leader as her partner, but make no mistake about who is in charge. He might lead the pack, but she leads him. Bitches provide for their families, lead hunts, and defend against predators. They protect their own.

 

The Power of Words

Words are important. Words are to a writer what paint is to a painter. Would we deem certain colors off limits to an artist? Words are colors, and sometimes there's only one perfect word to express the precise meaning a writer wishes to convey.

 

There are exceptions, but only a few. For example, I'd never use the N word in life or in a book. It's been used by people who look like me as a hateful slur against people with darker skin tones than mine. It's not my word to reclaim. Only those it's been used against have that right. I never want to hear that word on a caucasian's tongue. How People of Color choose to use it is none of my business.

 

In a similar way, "bitch" belongs to all women, because we are the ones it's been used against. We get to use it in any way we decide, because that's how bitches roll. In taking back the word, we take back its power, and our power--the power they tried to take from us by using the word as a pejorative.

 

In fact, it's long been a practice to use words that mean "female" as insults. Pussy. Hag. Crone. Cunt. Bitch. Twat. Witch. Femme. All refer specifically to women or parts of women. All have been stolen and repurposed to insult women and men who aren't deemed masculine enough.

 

Crone, for example, was originally a term of honor. In Wicca, we hold croning ceremonies to honor our elder women as they ascend to that status. Crone is not an insult unless we allow it to be. It was never an insult until we allowed it to be.

 

Bitch as Alpha

Rachel de Luca is an alpha. (So am I.) She's a leader, provider, and protector of her pack. She does not use the word "bitch" as a pejorative. She uses it as it is, a powerful word with connotations of female strength, female assertiveness, female outspokenness, female empowerment, female courage, female persistence, female leadership, female dominance, women's unbreakable will, women's unshakable confidence, and women's unstoppable determination. That's what the word bitch means when Rachel (or I) use it.

 

In today's world, women call each other "bitch" in a respectful manner clearly not intended as an insult. It's a word women use a lot like we use the word "sister" or "boss." If you're called a boss bitch, you should feel doubly complimented. One of the most powerful New York editors I ever worked with had a plaque on her desk that read "Bitch Queen of the East Coast." She was not, I promise you, insulting herself. She was proclaiming her power, her leadership, her status.

 

Bitch is a word in need of reclaiming, owning, and using as women see fit. Kind of like our bodies.

 

Today, the word bitch means whatever the bitches of the world say it means.

 

Women

As women, we are under attack worldwide: 200 million girls and women from 31 countries have undergone genital mutilation; 15 million girls worldwide will never set foot in a classroom; 50% of the world's women are restricted from certain jobs or careers; in Missouri, pregnant women aren't allowed to get a divorce; trans women are four times more likely to be the victims of violence than cis individuals; the rights of women to control our own bodies by means of birth control, fertility treatments, and/or abortion are being taken away in more places every day.

 

The pack is under attack, my sisters. Our daughters and granddaughters are under attack. Their futures are under attack. 

Bitches defend the pack, not by policing one another's word choices or freedom of expression, but by amplifying them! We do it by standing together, fearless, loud, outspoken, empowered, and by refusing to back down. These are the qualities attributed to bitches, the very things "they" dislike about us. They want women to be quiet, small, silent, polite, and pretty. (Not to mention barefoot and pregnant.)

 

Screw that. Be a loud, proud, outspoken, empowered, independent woman.

Bitches rule!

For more from Rachel and her Inner Bitch, click the link for the blurb, excerpt, and all the buy links. Coming to paperback and ebook Tuesday! Pre-order today.

THE NEW TEXAS BRANDS

I just had to start my story over again, after having written exactly 80 pages. I went off track around page 50, but really the problem was deeper, and began at the beginning, so I had to make a clean break and start over, and that's okay. That's part of the job. It's not a fun part, but it's a necessary part.

In his book On Writing, Stephen King advises his fellow scribblers to "kill your darlings," and I thought of that when I axed the 80 wayward pages. I mean, they're still hanging out on my harddrive, and maybe I'll come to a spot where something I had in there can be plucked out and re-tooled and inserted in the new version, but I doubt it. The energy is different this time around. The dynamic between the two characters is different, and the characters themselves are even different.

The Next Generation of The Texas Brands

The working title of the story I just started over is Harrison Hyde and the Runaway Bride and it will be the first book of the New Texas Brands, or whatever I'm going to call this new series. It will be focusing the seven kids of the original Texas Brands. Let's review, shall we?

In Book 1, a baby was left on the doorstep of The Texas Brand ranch. The note with the baby named him Garrett Ethan, but big Garrett Brand knew it wasn't his child. He's the most upright man in town, a local sheriff who's raised his 5 younger siblings after their parents were killed. He wouldn't father a child and not know it. But Baby Bubba, as they call him, is in need of a home, and when his angry aunt comes looking, well, love ensues.

Bubba's all grown up (29,) a country music singer in pursuit of his big break while trying to figure out who he really is.

Jessi Brand's five big brothers did everything they could to keep her away from ranch foreman Lash, but Jessi always gets what she wants.

Tough as nails veterinarian Jessi can track like a hound, and fight like an alley cat. Her man, Lash, might be whipcord lean, but he held his own with her family, and won his woman, even after an accidental pregnancy pushed up the clock their wedding.

Maria-Michelle Brand Monroe (26) has her mother's toughness and her father's easy charm, but she's a little too eager to get started on the perfect life she's imagined. She wants it all, the house, the kids, and to take over and expand her mother's veterinary clinic. But her impatience has her about to walk down the aisle with the wrong man. What's a cowgirl bride to do?

Wes Brand is the half Navajo result of an affair between the Brand clan's patriarch, and a beautiful Native woman called Stands Alone. Wes learned more about his heritage from an aging shaman with ulterior motives, while trying to scare off the archaeologist who was digging up her own ancestors' sacred lands. At first. Soon he was trying to win her heart, instead.

Taylor and Wes own Sky Dancer ranch, where they raise horses and their daughter, Willow Stands Alone Brand.

Willow (25) is tall, gorgeous, 75% Navajo, and as cool as winter. She's confident, brilliant, and afraid of her own emotions. She never gets upset or loses her temper, has a plan for her life and career, and doesn't intend to let anything like romance distract her.

Ben lost his wife Penny, or he thought he did, but nothing was as it seemed, and their tragic love story got a second chance that was nothing short of a miracle.

Ben's a martial arts enthusiast and teacher. Penny has a private investigator's licence and has embraced her natural talent for snooping.

Their son is Orrin Kenneth (24) named for his grandfather, and their daughter is Drew (22) named after Nancy Drew, fictional dectective and Penny's childhood heroine.

Drew is two years younger than Maria and Willow, but the three cousins are best friends, even if she is always the one getting the crew into trouble--usually because she's trying to prove that she's as brave and daring as any of them.

Orrin, two years older than Drew, feels like he spends most of his time trying to protect his kid sister from herself, or get her out of whatever mess she's caused.

Elliot Brand, aspiring rodeo rider and all around funny guy, took a wild journey, and came back with a bride from another time, Esmeralda, whose family once owned the land where the Texas Brand sits.

She's adjusted to life in the modern day, and wouldn't go back to her past even if she could - because she has a family now. She adores Elliot, and has brought a new son into the Brand clan.

Trevor Brand (24) feels things more deeply than most. He's never believed his mom's story about coming from another time and is fairly certain she had a mental break followed by amnesia, and imagined the rest. But she believes it, so he doesn't challenge the very private family legend until one day he encounters the undeniable proof that challenges everthing he thought he knew.

Luke Brand, cousin to the siblings Garrett, Ben, Wes, Adam, Elliot and Jessi, returns home to the family he's never known, to find a former stripper named Jasmine hiding out in his house with her frightened, genius little boy, Baxter, now (29).

Baxter's life had been in danger after witnessing a murder, and while his mother took him on the run to keep him safe, he's always felt like he was the one caring for her. He didn't get to be a kid until they arrived in Texas. His childhood started right then.

Scrawny and brainy, he bonded with big, athletic Bubba even though they're opposites and in every way--because neither of them are Brands by birth, but they way they feel about that is entirely different. Baxter feels he blongs, but Bubba never has. Despite being physically smaller, Baxter has always been a leader among the cousins--even Bubba looks up to him.

Here's who would play the Brand girls if I were casting them in films:

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Maria-Michele: Julia Garner Willow: Ashley Callingbull Drew: Amanda Seyfried

I picture Maria played by Julia Garner (as a redhead.) She has the attitude, the angst and the look. She's one of my favorte actresses.

Actress Ashley Callingbull has the perfect look and cool demeanor (with fire just beneath the surface) to pay Willow.

I can't imagine a better acrtress to play young, adventurous, sometimes screw-up Drew than a very young Amanda Seyfried.

I haven't cast the boys yet. Bubba is big and broad and little bit lost. Baxter is is a blond genius born in the city, fitting in amongst the cowboys in spite of being different. I don't have a great handle on Trevor and Orrin yet, but they'll show themselves to me as things begin to unfold.

The first book, Harrison Hyde and the Runaway Bride, is Maria Michelle's story. I wrote 80 pages, then trashed them all and started over. Now I have 10 far better pages, and it's going well.

And that's all the scoop I can give you at the moment, because that's all my characters have shared with me so far, but it's coming together and I'm getting the feeling this is going to be a big, fat, hairy deal that results in at least 7 more stories set on and around The Texas Brand.

Now it's your turn! What should I name this new series? Post your suggestions in comments, and also feel free to suggest young actors to play the guys! Drag photos into your comments. Help a gal out here!

Yeehaw!

ONE WEEK LEFThttps://video.wixstatic.com/video/ee4f31_6b7c8a06070c47a8b9b83e439b34cb46/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

Sales & Freebies & Bargains, oh my!

Happy Spring! Yeah, I know it's not spring yet. We're not even ten days into February, but it hit 50ºF yesterday, and is expected to do so again today, with afternoon rain. Sure feels like April to me.

I didn't get a newsletter out this week and I have news, bargains, and freebies to tell you about as we speed toward the release of THE MERMAID MURDER in 4 weeks & 4 days!

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Update from Maggie

After three weeks of classes, the cell diagrams in bio are starting to make sense. I have BlissBlog.org and EatLikeYouGiveaShit.com on a schedule I can manage and am writing posts in advance. I am a week ahead on most of my classes and finally beginning to catch up to where I should be on the book in progress, THE RUNAWAY BRIDE.

Obviously the newsletter fell by the wayside this week. Usually you'll receive an issue every Tuesday.

I have it in hand. I can do all this and all my writing, too, and still make room for all the other services I offer, such as:

Developmental "MASTERCLASS" editing Tarot readings Whole food plant-based coaching

Each of the above is an email link for more information and how to set things up. No committment, just more info, so feel free to reach out.

It seems like I'm doing a lot. But I'm find the older I get, the more I want to fit into my life while it lasts. There's more time behind me than ahead, this time around, and so much I haven't yet done!

Talk to you next week.

Maggie

62

Deep thoughts and a snowy walk. With photos!

More folks would've clicked on this if its title had been 69.

I just want you to know that I know that.

Today is my final Monday as a sixty-one-year-old. I'll turn sixty-two this weekend. Those words don't make sense when I hear myself say them. I feel bad that for a lot of my life, I've thought of people in their sixties as old. Now that I'm here, I can say with all certainty that 62 is not anywhere near old. I don't even feel grown-up most of the time.

Getting older is weird. The me on the inside has changed only for the better, in my not-so-humble opinion. And yet my physical form is sixty-two mortal years old. The me on the inside is far, far older. I think the inner me was around long before this current body and will be around long after. But it's not old, my soul. It's ageless. Timeless. Eternal, I hope.

But still, it's sad to see the bod's expiration date ticking ever nearer.

I always get a little reflective on birthdays, and maybe a little more reflective with each successive birthday. I expect to have many more. At least twenty more. Maybe thirty. I'm not in any hurry move on. I just started college, for Pete's sake.

We think we are our bodies, most of the time, don't we? It's only in moments of deep contemplation that we remember we're eternal. But really, from that perspective, I'm not turning sixty-two. My body is. My car has 50,000 miles on it and my body has 62 years on it. Same deal, only the body is one-per-lifetime. (I bet that won't always be the case.)

I was pondering all that when three o'clock rolled around. That's feeding and walkie time for Roxanne, the temperamental mastiff. So we walked.

We are at the beginning of a snowstorm as we trek outside to walk the boundaries of our lawn. We've worn our path so well the deer use it now. We walk no matter what, even in a snowstorm. Only it doesn't feel like a storm. There's no wind at all. The cool air is perfectly still, and the snowflakes are falling vertically. At first they were big and fluffy, but they're smaller now, and so close together that I can't see the hillsides I so frequently photograph. They are hiding behind a curtain of white.

We went quiet as we walked. I took photos. Roxy rolled in the new snow. I imagined Niblet doing a ride-along inside her, and she made me believe it when she rolled again, wiggling her way down a slight incline just like Nib used to do.

Snow feels like peace. It brings a bone-deep infusion of calm. It's the embodiment of Serenity, the name I call my home. I think the reason snow brings this kind of energy with it, is that, while water holds memory, that memory is erased when it changes from water to steam, from pond to mist, from puddle to ice...  and from liquid raindop to crystalline snowflake.

Snow is a blank slate. It has no memory, and therefore no judgment. It's perfectly perfect with everything just as it is, with me just as I am, with the world just as it is.They bathed me in their peace, those tranquility flakes.

We didn't have to tell each other to walk a little slower, to take the longer route, to stop and just stand there in the snowfall and the silence. Snow is a muffler. It falls in absolute silence, and any noise that might exist out there can't penetrate.

There's no other kind of silence like the silence of standing in a fall of heavy snow.

It felt a little bit like those heavy flakes were washing all the stress and negativity away. My aura was taking a snow-shower. I felt cleansed and cleared and recharged. I felt like 62 is meaningless. I am me, and I am happy and well. Very well indeed.

I took a little short video of the snowfall. I hope it gives you a little touch of bliss.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/ee4f31_572d4f096a364228a42881341267ec5c/720p/mp4/file.mp4Only 42 days untilTHE MERMAID MURDUR

Excerpt: The Mermaid Murder

An Exclusive Excerpt from THE MERMAID MURDERCopyright 2024 by MS LewisAll rights reservedNo copying or pasting any part of this is permitted without the written consent of the author.The Mermaid Murder

If the bullshit I wrote about was true— and I’d pretty much decided it was— then I wouldn’t be drowning. My eyes were squeezed tight, but I forced myself to open them, to try to see my underwater world. Something was waving in the darkness— sea grasses, I realized, and there were oversized flowers so big they looked fake. They were fake! The sides of my world were smooth and made of glass, but it was even darker beyond them, and I could see my reflection.

 

I was not me; I had long, curly hair, darker than my own chestnut brown, and sparkles on my cheeks. I wore a clam-shell bra, and

I had a long, gorgeous tail, covered in scales of iridescent blue— lighter at the top and darker at the tail. I tried to move it, and the tail swept through the water, startling me so much I almost gasped.

 

I wanted to gasp, I realized. I had to gasp. I needed air. I had to breathe!

 

I flexed everything from my abs to my toes, and my powerful tail propelled me upward through the water. I expected to burst through the surface and drag in a big breath of air. Instead, my head smashed into something solid and pain shot down my spine. The dancing sea grasses made stripes of light and shadow as I sank through them to the bottom.

 

Then I lay there on my back and opened my eyes for what I feared would be the last last time. But I was in my own warm bed, beside my sexy cop. He was tipped up on his side, looking at me. My little bulldog lay across my feet, snoring like a chainsaw.

 

“What?” I asked.

 

“You were twisting, sort of. Seemed agitated. I was debating whether to wake you, but Myrtle flopped across your legs and you got peaceful.”

 

I sat up, shaking off the weirdest dream I’d ever had. Then I wiggled my toes to make sure they were still there, because looking under the covers would’ve been too obvious. I was not about to admit to my guy that I’d dreamed I was a mermaid. That would blow my hard-ass image right out of the water, pun intended.

 

“You should probably not wake me from a dream unless it looks dire,” I told him. “In case it’s, you know, one of those dreams.” Because if it was one of those dreams, I needed to experience every detail I could get. Those dreams came for a reason. They were, it turned out, work assignments. You know, for my side gig “consulting” with the cops.

 

“It looked pretty dire for a second there.”

 

I glanced down at his sexy chest and asked myself why I was in such a hurry to get out of bed.

 

It’s not too late, Inner Bitch suggested. Get horizontal!

 

“You want to tell me about the dream?” Mason asked. “Another nightmare about the wedding?”

 

“No, hon, nothing like that.”

 

There was only just the one, Inner Bitch reminded me.

 

Yeah, one in which I kissed my new husband on the shore of the reservoir where we lived, then turned smiling to find our family all gazing, horrified, past us. My sister screamed and pointed, so I turned to look. There were Misty and Christy, my beautiful twin nieces, lying dead in the shallows, their faces in the shell-shards and sand, their hair moving with the waves.

 

To a person whose dreams sometimes came true, that one was traumatic.

 

They don’t come true. The ones that do, aren’t dreams at all. More like you do a ride-along inside some killer’s mind, Inner Bitch said. Or a mermaid’s. The one about the twins was just a stress dream. Marry the man, already.

 

While my wedding nightmare was unlike those other kinds of dreams, it might still portend doom. Maybe all the death was symbolic, rather than literal. But what could a pair of dead nieces symbolize, besides disaster?

 

I hadn’t told Mason any of the details of the dead twins dream. He knew I’d had a nightmare about the wedding but thought I couldn’t remember details. I'd had to tell him that much. He’d known something was wrong.

 

“Rache?” Mason prompted.

 

I pulled my feet out from under Myrtle and she growled in her sleep. “It was a what-the-hell-did-I-eat-before-bed kind of dream,” I said. Then I frowned, trying to recall. “What did I eat last night?”

 

"The surf-n-turf at Aiello’s.”

 

“Well, that explains it, then. Too rich and too delicious. There had to be a downside. I’m good. I’m good.”

 

He lifted his brows, but he hadn’t sat up yet. Inner Bitch was right, I needed to get back in. I slid myself lower and my phone rang. I glanced at it, and then turned it to show Mason.

 

He made a pouty lip and flung back the covers. Then he walked naked to the bathroom while I admired the dimples in his perfect ass.

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Winter is Here

For a while, I didn't think winter was coming this year. Even into the second week of January, we had 40º temps and the ground was still green. Every time we got a storm, it came as rain instead of snow.

But this weekend, the middle weekend of the first month of the year, we got a good old fashioned snow storm. The temps barely got out of the teens yesterday, and when I got up this morning it was 6º outside! Brrr! Looks like the cold stretch will last for the next week, at least.

We did our morning walk all the same, though it had to be short, or Roxy's poor paws would suffer. Still, she refused to go without us, so we bundled. Only my eyes showed through my wrappings. I resembled a fluffy and colorful mummy.

The pond froze over for the first time this season. There's been a little ice here and there, but it's frozen solid now, except for the spot where the stream runs in, and the hole being kept open by a predator feeding off the overabundance of goldfish we never intended to proliferate. We're not sure if it's a mink. It's smaller and has shorter legs than a fisher, and weasels don't like water. It's too small to be a river otter. It seems to have made itself a den underneath my little red storage shed. We're deliberating what should be done, if anything. It does seem that nature has sent a solution to our pond's over population problem, but it's tough to let nature take its course. At least it doesn't seem to be eating the koi. Maybe. I hope.

We got about 7 inches of snow, before this cold snap, which is when the photo of Roxy was taken. It melted almost immediately. Then it rained and sleeted and snowed a little more, and now there's a layer of ice, topped by a dusting of snow, with the grass still poking out from underneath. And I am counting my blessings anew that I am a work-from-home type. All I need to work is my laptop and an internet connection. But I could also write stories with a pencil and paper if push came to shove.

Or if even that went away, then I could tell stories, making them up as I went along, in front of a warm crackling fire.

2024 Goals

I have some goals for the coming year, and due to events, I didn't do my usual year-end review, year-ahead wish-making, goal-setting exercise. So I'm doing it now.

I'd like a certain number of paid subscribers to my publications. The Bliss Blog and Eat Like You Give a Shit both have free and paid subscriber levels to help offset the time it takes me to write them. I have a number in mind for each.

I'd and a certain a number of clients for my" Whole Food, Plant-Based Transition Coaching" program. Not more than I can manage easily. Ease is going to be a key word for me this year.

I also have a number of stories I'd like to release this year. Three is the number I'd like, but two is more realistic. I finished The Mermaid Murder and it's releasing in March. Check.

I've just started writing The Runaway Bride, a next generation Texas Brand Tale featuring Maria-Michelle Brand Monroe, the daughter of Lash Monroe and Jessi Brand from The Baddest Virgin in Texas. This is the beginning of the next iteration of the Texas Brand series! So that's a pretty safe bet to be the next one.

In one week, the spring semester begins and I will finally be able to put my carefully crafted scheduling plan into action. I'll see if it works and then readjust if necessary.

Right now, though, I feel like there's nothing I can't do. I got through a journey through my personal holiday hell all the way to the Christmas miracle at the end. If I can come out of that almost unscathed, then surely, I can do all the tasks I've set for myself in this new year, in small pockets of carefully segmented time that includes novel-writing, three blogs, college classes, coaching, self-care, and family time. I need to rearrange those a bit. Self-care, family time, storytelling and classes are equal in importance to me, and then all the rest are bonus activities with which I reward myself when the other tasks are done.

These are very high goals, and I bet I can't do them the entire year. I bet I won't even want to. I might have to rearrange a bit, spread things out a bit, lighten things up a bit, or even let something go for now. It's a malleable, manageable mass of possibility, my life right now. I have surrounded myself in things I absolutely love doing and sharing and learning about. I have the energy and health to do as many of them as I can, while still feeling good. If it gets overwhelming instead of fun, I'll adjust.

I have so many passions to try to explore in this one little lifetime! There just aren't enough years. But I'm making the most of every last day I'm given.

Brown and de Luca ReturnTHE MERMAID MURDERMarch 12th in Paperback and eBookPsst! Pre-ordering a book is the literary equivalent of applauding when the curtain opens in a theater, before you've even seen the play, just to express your excitement and eager anticipation of what is to come. It also generates ripples of that excitement throughout the book universe, which helps the book, which helps the author, which helps ensure the series will thrive and go on.

Brown and de Luca Return

And there are two series now!

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/ee4f31_6b7c8a06070c47a8b9b83e439b34cb46/1080p/mp4/file.mp4

There are two Brown and de Luca series now.

Part 1The Brown and de Luca Novels Sleep With the Lights On Dream of Danger (ultra-short online read) Wake to Darkness Dream of Danger Innocent Prey Part 2Brown and de Luca Return Cry Wolf Girl Blue Gingerbread Man (Crossover Novel) The Mermaid Murder The Mermaid Murder

Hey, I’m Rachel de Luca, a self-help guru with a potty mouth and a penchant for crime-solving. My partner, soon to be husband if I can get over my paralyzing fear, is Mason Brown, a detective with the Binghamton PD.

Ten years ago, professional mermaid Eva Quaid disappeared without a trace from The Sapphire Club in Saratoga Springs NY. Now, my niece Misty is working at the same club, doing the same job. Coincidentally, (not) Misty’s college roommate is in the thick of her self-produced true crime podcast about the same cold case. Misty has kept every bit of this from our way-too-close-for-privacy family.

None of this would be a big deal, except that I’ve been having nightmares. It's my wedding day, and I look from my adoring groom to my twin nieces, face down in the shallows of the reservoir behind the altar.

I dreamt, too, of a dying mermaid who’s been trying to get my attention ever since.

When my sister Sandra says she’s worried about twin daughters, Mason and I agree to do a little snooping—only to find Misty has been keeping some big secrets, and is not where she’s supposed to be. Nobody knows where she is.

I’m pretty sure that Misty’s gone off the grid with her podcasting partner Zig to surveil their favorite suspects in the ten-year-old case of the missing mermaid.

I’m even more sure the mermaid is dead, and that her killer is determined to keep their oldest, deadliest secret, even if it means taking another young woman’s life.

I have to find my beloved niece before my visions come true—the way they always do.

THE TEXAS BRANDA Brand New Generation

Do you remember this classic cover? This was the original cover for The Baddest Virgin in Texas. It's the story of baby sister Jessi Brand falling in love with ranch foreman Lash Monroe in spite of her her five big brothers' objections and interference.

This week, I've begun weaving the story of the daughter of Jessi Brand Monroe, Maria-Michelle. She has her mother's fiery hair and feisty attitude times ten, and I think you're going to love her.

Working title is The Runaway Bride. I'll have to get a little further in the story before I can give you a release date, but it is going strong, so stay tuned.

I don't know what I'll call the new series. The Texas Brands: something. I'm mulling on that. Suggestions are welcome.

I'm pretty sure this is not the story that will be my annual serial. More on that soon.

If you get the newsletter, you might be aware that we had a traumatic holiday season during which I very nearly lost a daughter.

But I didn't. Our family experienced the kind of holiday miracle I've spent so many years writing about.

She is home now and she's going to be fine.

I haven't done my usual year-end review, or New Year's Eve ritual of letting the old year go. It was too busy and frantic as the year wound down. And now that things are better, it feels I'm already speeding forward into the new projects and dreams of 2024. I didn't take that down-time in between as I usually do. And I'm not sure how that will go. Is it better, maybe, to just keep moving forward, without too much time spent on mulling what has gone by? Is a year-end review even necessary?

In 2023, I released a Wings in the Night book every other Tuesday (except one) until sometime in June. I released Fatal Phantasm, a new book in The Fatal Series in February--that was the Tuesday without a Wings release. And I wrote Young Rhiannon in the Temple of Isis, Rhiannon's origin story, and released it in June. And then I started work on The Mermaid Murder, which will be my first new release of 2024. I think that's all, but it's rather a blur.

I also lost 40 pounds from March 1 to December 31st, 2023, got off all my prescriptions and over the counter meds and into the best health of my life just by changing my diet. If you want to read more about that, you can visit the website I also started in '23, EatLikeYouGiveaShit.com.

In 2023, I earned a certificate in plant-based nutrition from eCornell, and I then I enrolled in Finger Lakes Community College to begin working toward a degree in nutrition. When I saw how much just changing what I ate impacted my health, I was honestly angry that no doctor had told me this in my entire life. So I want to help other people learn this crucial information.

I closed my Bliss Blog Magic shop at the end of the year and moved the blog itself over to Substack to try a new business model for that end of things, with two levels of subscriptions, one of which is paid.

My husband's business, CNY Water Gardens, really picked up steam during the spring, summer, and fall of 2023. Lots more people have little pockets of paradise in their back yards in our neck of the woods.

So it's been a big year for us. A busy one, too.

I'd like 2024 to be a little bit slower. And since I don't have a 25-book series to re-release, it almost has to be. I'd like to end it with one new Brand Book released, and another one written. And I want to write another Fatal book this year too.

I'd like to help a few more people one-on-one, as they shift into a whole food plant-based diet and reclaim their health. So I'm mulling on ways to do that. I've already helped a handful of close friends, and it is incredibly rewarding.

That's a lot of goals for the year, given that I'll be taking classes full time. I did say I wanted things a little slower, didn't I?

One thing's for sure, I am re-devoting myself to my meditation practice. Daily meditation solves a plethora of issues and I tend to let it slide when life gets busy. Or maybe life gets busy when I let it slide...?

Happy 2024!

Aging in Reverse

I turned 60 and started getting sick.

I had chronic reflux all the time and was living on Tums. I took that other pill until they pulled it off the shelves for being deadly. Then I just went with Tums at a dosage of a handful several times a day, as needed. More at night. I had a peeling, flaking scalp. I was snoring louder than my bulldog and sometimes would stop breathing in my sleep and wake up gasping. My cholesterol was very high, but not quite bad enough to require a prescription. My A1C was high enough to put me in the “pre-diabetes” category. I had a condition where my heart would race for no reason, diagnosed as “primary supra-ventricular tachycardia” or PSVT. (Similar to A-fib, but less deadly.) I had to take meds for it. When it kicks in and wouldn’t let up, I would have to go to the ER where they would stop my heart for a couple of seconds, then let it reboot. They did this with drugs in an IV. I never lost consciousness, but man is that some kind of pain. I had this procedure 5 times. My blood pressure was all over the place. High, low, up, down. I was on a daily prescription for that, but changing it often, because we couldn’t get it stabilized.

With each of these conditions, I saw a doctor, and nearly every single time, I asked, “What is causing this? What can I do to reverse it?”

Every time, I was told, “Well, you’re getting older. This is what happens.”

That was a blatant lie.

Fortunately, I knew better. I started my search for the true answers and I found them.

Now, all of the above listed conditions are 100% gone. I simply don’t have them any more. The prescriptions are also gone. I don’t take them anymore. 35 pounds have left my body, as well.

The weight and all the other conditions, were not conditions at all, but rather symptoms of a single core problem; malnutrition. I was putting too many toxic foods into my body, and too few healthy foods. Why would anyone do that? Because I didn’t know the difference. How could a person live 60 years and not know how to eat healthily? Because I’ve been lied to my entire life just like you have, about things like white meat and skim milk and protein and calcium and nutrition in general. Nobody is telling the truth about what a healthy diet really is. And why would they?

Just think if we prevented and cured our high blood pressure and diabetes and heart disease and cancers with food instead of prescriptions and operations. Who would go broke if we did this?

The meat industry The dairy industry The egg industry The entire food industry that produces ultra-processed poisons Big pharmaceutical companies, which need us to keep buying prescriptions The industrial medical complex which needs us to keep getting stents, bypasses, and chemo. The diet industry which needs us to never ever be able to maintain a healthy weight in an easy, natural way.

That’s a large part of the economy. Honestly they need us to stay sick, just to keep the whole thing going. But the good news is, the change will be gradual. Maybe it’ll be in time to save the planet and maybe it won’t. But it definitely won’t happen fast enough to collapse the economy. Climate change will do that.

So I set out to learn everything I could about this, beginning with my initial eye-opener the documentary FORKS OVER KNIVES.

As soon as I watched it, my husband and I changed our lives entirely. We stopped putting animal proteins into our bodies and immediately began to improve our health.

Then we discovered “Vegan junk food,” and kind of forgot about some of the finer points of healthy eating as taught in the film. We ate Impossible Burgers and Beyond Nuggets and lots and lots of plant-based ice cream and goodies like that. And we started getting sick again. In fact, that was when my blood pressure went wild. So I watched the film again, and the second time, the whole message clicked into place a little better.

The answer, the solution, is not a plant-based diet; it’s a whole food plant-based diet. That is not the same as “going vegan.” You can be vegan and live on potato chips, Impossible burgers, and beer. And you’d be just as sick as an omnivore.

So yes, we don’t eat animal proteins, but we also quit using refined oils and sprays in recipes and for cooking, and we quit ultra-processed garbage. We switched from refined sugar to raw sugar or maple syrup as a sweetener, and from white flour to whole grain flour. (I have found the best whole grain, gluten-free flour blend recipe!)

So we cleaned up our diet and returned to eating fruits, veggies, whole grains, all the beans and other legumes, nuts, mushrooms, berries, and minimally processed things like Tamari (soy sauce without the fish) and tofu, and a little bit of plant-based milk.

It’s way easier than it sounds. And it’s DELICIOUS. Here are some of our go-to favorite meals now:

Chili Marinated portobello mushrooms Huge savory stir fries Tacos Burritos Fajitas Goulash Tofu scrambles French toast Cheesy Breaded Asparagus. Mashed potatoes and gravy

Any dish you can make with animal proteins, you can make without them. You don’t have to give up any of your faves, and it doesn’t take any more time to cook this way. It’s just a matter of deciding that adding extra years, healthy years, to your life is worth it.

My health has improved so dramatically wondered, why no one ever told me how easy it was to get and stay healthy at any age? This knowledge has been out there for 25 years.

I wanted to learn more. I wanted to know the science behind how and why eating this way results in such excellent health so I could share it with others. If you don’t have a paper, nobody listens to you. But when you’re over 60, you become invisible. It’s hard to be noticed much less listened to, and nobody takes you to seriously. So I started looking for credentialed courses I could take, mainly just to have more credibility.

I found the Plant-Based Nutrition certificate course through eCornell, and saved up enough to pay for it. Not cheap, but it’s Cornell, so I didn’t expect it to be.

I took that course, got the certificate, and learned tons more. There was an entire section on how animal agriculture is responsible for MORE GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS THAN ALL TRANSPORTATION COMBINED. Yes. More than automobiles, trains, planes, and ships combined.

The revelations from that course set me on fire. I wanted to know more. And so it is that in January, at the age of 61 and 11 months, I’ll be starting college and working toward a degree in Nutrition.

In the meantime, I am developing a program to help other people make this change easily and at their own pace. Right now I’m helping 3 locals.

Eventually I will have an online program to help as many people as possible. Before I get to that point I will take on a few more free clients to help me perfect my approach. So let me know if you are interested and willing to do the work and I’ll see if I can help you. I can only take a few more right now. Once I know how much time the college classes will take, and ensure I can still fit in my writing, I’ll be able to take this project wider.

If you think you’re interested, the first thing I’ll assign you to do is to watch Forks Over Knives on Amazon Prime without a phone in your hand or a computer in your lap, and without distractions. Watch it like an assignment. You might even want to take notes. This will give you a clear idea of what my program is about and you’ll see what it looks like.

So that’s part of what I’ve been up to, along with finishing the novel, The Mermaid Murder, closing The Bliss Blog Shop, and preparing for the holidays. It’s a lot!

I’ll be cross-posting this update to both The Coffee House blog at MaggieShayne.com/blog and the Eat Like You Give a Shit blog at EatLikeYouGiveaShit.com

Happy holiday season! May 2024 be the year you reclaim your health!

Here is the link to watch the documentary FORKS OVER KNIVES for 2.89 on Amazon Prime. Forks Over Knives

A Woman's Autumn

It's autumn where I live. Fall. The most beautiful time of year. There's vivid foliage all around me that takes my breath away. The days are cooler, so I can break out my favorite sweaters and jeans and jackets. Cooler nights mean I can snuggle up under the covers instead of kicking them off and cranking up the fan. I love autumn's dark, moody skies. I take photos of spiderwebs in autumn. For some reason it's the only time of year I find the conditions just right. The sun is low in the sky during our morning walk, and the dew is heavy on the webs. When the light hits at the right angle, it's magical.

This is one of my faves.

I am not spring anymore. I think spring women are young, single, usually childless, falling in love. Everything is new and bright and the body is in full working order. Spring is like the prologue of a book, or that "ordinary world" piece where you see how things are supposed to be.

I'm not summer anymore, either. I think of summer women as those in the full throes of life. Summer women are doing what they came to do. They're building careers and businesses and running them. They are raising families and maintaining friendships. Summer women are the busiest women. They are always doing 100 things at once. They juggle it, all barely ever dropping a ball, and they wonder if they'll ever reach point in life where they can pee without feeling rushed.

I think we spend the bulk of our lives in summer and autumn. If a year is a novel, summer and autumn are the bulk of the book. Spring is brief, and doesn't last, and Winter is usually not very long either.

I'm in autumn. I'm highly likely to have a long and healthy autumn because of my lifestyle. But no matter how we live, things shift in autumn. Autumn is the very epitome of change, after all.

I've shifted from running, which I can still do, thankyouverymuch, to walking, which I enjoy more. I have fewer aches and pains from walking every day than from running every day. Instead of loud music with just the right beat to keep up with my feet, I listen to audiobooks, and feel I'm doing two extremely good things at the same time. Training my body and my brain.

I've shifted from nose-to-grindstone all the time no matter what, to following my heart. I have discovered dozens of things I love to do. As a storyteller, I'm self-employed. As an entrepreneur, I have side-businesses, and my husband has his own biz, too. I can play with any of them and it qualifies as work. So I can write stories, write blog posts, create promotional memes and graphic designs. I can combine the two and publish a newsletter. I can cook some amazing dish, photograph it, and publish the recipe. I do what calls to me, unless there's a deadline. (There's a deadline now, come to think of it.)

I've shifted away from eating whatever I want because life is short, to eating the things that will help make life longer and better for me and for my planet and all who live here. I followed my heart in that way, too, and it's led me down an ever-expanding spiral path to a cleaner and healthier way of eating. First I shifted to a plant-based diet, and then to a whole food plant-based diet, shunning processed foods and oils.

I've shifted from being sedentary and overweight, to being at a healthy weight and active enough to close my watch's exercise ring most days. And I've raised that goal twice!

I think this shift to a healthier lifestyle happens to most of us at some point. Either when we first notice our bodies beginning to decline or when we hit a certain age or when we are prescribed our first daily medication. We are stunned to realize we are "that age." We look around and realize people our own age and younger dropping like flies. Our term life insurance policies expire, and suddenly we get very interested in getting as healthy as we can. That's why I publish EatLikeYouGiveaShit.com. Because I've got this, and I want to share it.

I've shifted away from doing things I don't really want to do. I've refocused my time on doing what makes me happy instead.

I've become intensely interested in climate and environment and nutrition and politics. I think I enjoy life more. I think I relish it more. I feel as if in this stage I am fully becoming the women who has been my lifelong work-in-progress.

And that fits, doesn't it? With Autumn, the plants are achieving their goals, their fruits. The leaves are reaping the rewards of having achieved theirs, the beautiful burst of colorful life before they die.

Like plants in autumn, I've done my body of work. I'm still writing, but there are way more books behind me than ahead of me. I've raised my daughters, and they are gifts to humanity, every one of them. I've built friendships that will last a lifetime. I've released every toxic being from my orbit. I've settled into a deep, spiritual, passionate, and abiding relationship with my hubs. I'm in a very good place.

It's like it took me this long to fully realize who I am. To realize her, as in, to make her real. To become her.

I love autumn. It's a time to bask in a sensory feast of colorful foliage, the smells and tastes of cinnamon and apples and pumpkins and spice, the sounds the geese crying farewell as they head south for the winter, and the touch of that brisk autumn air. For me, it's a time to bask in the harvests of my life, and enjoy the beauty of that life more fully than ever before.

It is not a time to waste worrying about winter. Autumn isn't a time to do anything besides relish autumn.

That's what I'm trying to do with my autumnal years. Relish them...

You know, most of the time. Right now I have a novel to finish.

Sidebar: It's October and my deadline is November 3rd. I am in the do-or-die, crunch-phase of a new Brown and de Luca thriller. I'm going to reveal its title in the Tuesday newsletter, so make sure you've subscribed (bottom of every page on this site.) And so I am about to enter the most fun phase of creating for me. Putting it all together, polishing it to a shine. Oh, this is the good part! It's also grueling, torturous, maddening, and intense. Beam me your best vibes!

Audio Sale

Special announcement!

I just got exciting news from Tantor; AUDIOBOOKS.com has two of my audiobooks on sale for ,half price,!

,That's only 10 bucks each!

Click the audio links below to see the books at the special 50% price of $10

At ,Audiobooks.com (No membership required.)

,SALE ENDS OCTOBER 6th