A.T. Weaver's Blog, page 8
July 29, 2015
What’s a Snow Day – TBT
Snow day? What’s that?
This is one of those “when I was your age” stories.
The picture above is me with my pony, Peanut. It was taken sometime in the summer or fall of 1951 when I was eight years old. That fall, I lived with my grandparents and went to school at Pleasant Ridge, a one-room school about a mile from the farm. The school was located between two asphalt roads. From our side, it was accessed by a narrow, dirt lane. From the other side, the road went down a very steep hill. The road from the farm to the asphalt was gravel and there were two or three hills between.
That fall, I entered the fourth grade and rode Peanut to school. I’d tether him to a post, give him hay and water, and store my saddle in the shed that held fuel for the school stove. I can’t remember if the stove burned wood or coal, but I think it was wood.
Sometime that semester, we had a snowstorm. The drifts in the lane to the school were too deep for me or Peanut to walk through. Grandpa couldn’t even drive the pickup through them. To go around to the other blacktop and down the steep hill was about six miles.
Even though Grandpa had a tractor, he still had a team of work mares. To get me to school, he harnessed one of the work mares and pulled me up behind him.
I’m not sure how the teacher got to school that day. She had to drive from town.
Now, when I hear of schools being closed because of snow, I just shake my head.
July 24, 2015
Fen does it again
Once again, Theo Fenraven has managed to keep me on the edge of my seat. I first met Fen’s writing two years ago when a friend lent me the first of the Procog in Peril series. As soon as I finished it, I had to get the other two.
In Half Moon House, Fen melds murder, the supernatural, and betrayal into a love story. I compare it to going from point A to point B down an unknown road. You know you’ll get to point B (where Jon and Cass become a couple), because it’s a love story and that’s what happens in a love story. But, you don’t know what you’re going to find along the way.
When Jon and Cass decide to go into partnership building ‘little’ houses, they have no idea what’s going to happen. Ghostly sightings. Murder. Infidelity. Theft.
I will warn you. If you’re looking for a gay love story with hot man-on-man sex, Half Moon House is not for you. If you want a story you won’t want to put down to go fix supper, this is it.
Also, check out Fen’s blog on WordPress. Almost every Monday there is a new flash fiction story. Some with unexpected, bizarre endings.
July 22, 2015
Good news
Got a couple of good notes on Facebook:
I started reading Travelers, and of course, couldn’t stop until I finished it. I had to know what was going to happen next. Love how you tied together a reason for their time travel. This was a very interesting and fantastic story. It makes one think about if we could time travel, would we try to change things. I definitely think you should do more time travel stories. Thank you so much for allowing me to read it.
Thank you for the copy of your short Christmas story, Old Spark/New Flame. I really enjoyed it. I love a good story about people falling in love and having a happy ending together. I am looking forward to reading Travelers. Thanks again.
July 14, 2015
Travelers pre-sale
Travelers is now being processed for pre-sale with a publishing date of Aug. 1.
It’s very different from any of my other books. It’s in a whole new genre – time-travel. No gay characters.
July 3, 2015
I’m still here
I can’t believe it’s been nearly three months since I posted anything. I need to get more active on here.
An update:
Shifter Born has been picked up by a publisher and is at the editor.
Travelers has been at the proof reader since April.
Cousins is still in progress.
New Christmas story in the works – Old Spark/New Flame.
Negotiating with an Italian publisher to translate and publish Shifter Born.
April 18, 2015
LGBTQ Push Back
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April 5, 2015
Travelers blurb
Rory McGregor is being haunted by dreams of a house and the people who occupy it. At times, he feels he is the person in the dream. He wonders what is causing the dreams.
An invitation to a ninetieth birthday party for James McDonald, a distant relative, contains a strange message. James insists that he traveled from 1941 to 1892. While he was there, he met Rory who told him they would meet this year at his birthday party.
James provides Rory with a journal that tells an unbelievable story of time travel. He asks Rory to go back to before World War I and bring his son forward to the present so he won���t die in the war.
With his sister, Erin, Rory embarks on improbable journey into the past.
April 4, 2015
March 31, 2015
Travelers
Every story should answer six questions. Who? What? When? Where? How? And Why? Travelers answers some of those and others are up to the reader���s imagination.
Who ��� thirteen people.
What ��� travel back in time.
When ��� depends on which side of the gateway you���re looking at. On one side, from 1755-1914. On the other side, from 1777-2034.
Where ��� From several different places in the world to MacKinnon���s Farmstead on the east coast of Maine.
How ��� Does anyone really know how time portals work?
Why – ?????
There���s an old saying, ���All roads lead to Rome.��� Well in this case, all roads lead to Hamish MacKinnion���s farm in Maine.
Prologue
MacKinnon Farmstead ��� May 28, 1919
Fierce, gale-force winds whipped the trees behind the house. The building shook with thunder induced vibrations. Lightning bolts flashed non-stop across the sky and pounding waves struck the rocks halfway up the cliff below the house.
Sara Carter stood by the mantel and looked at the photograph of Charles in his uniform taken just before he left for France. He looks so much like James. She picked up a letter from under the frame and read:
���We are sorry to inform you PFC Charles Carter was killed at the Battle of Cantigny, May 28, 1918. He was buried there with honors.���
Tears blurred her vision. Why. Why do men have to go to war? There have been so many wars in the history of this place. Culloden. The Revolutionary War. The War of 1812. The Civil War. When will it end? She turned, wrapped her arms around herself and walked to the window. James said I���d be the last of the family to own the MacKinnon Farmstead. He was right. I am the last.
She walked around the room touching little mementos. She stroked the back of a rocking chair. Great-great-grandda Hamish made this for Grandmother, Elspeth. So many babies have been rocked in it. Will there ever be any more, or will Charles be the last? She touched a photo of her parents on the mantel. Mam, Da, forgive me. I just can���t go on.
Sara climbed the stairs to the third floor. The lantern in the window reflected out into the storm. She opened the door and stepped out onto the railed walkway that encircled the third story. The wind immediately attacked its new target. Her light-colored hair became a swirling nebulous around her head as it came loose from the pins holding it in place. A flash of lightening illuminated her frail figure as she climbed onto the railing. She spread her arms wide and jumped.
February 13, 2015
Storm
A post on Facebook this morning reminded me of something that happened several years ago. It was around 2001 or 2002, I think. I lived in a mobile home in Olathe and my oldest daughter lived under a mile from me. It was a June evening and we were under a tornado watch.
Now my youngest daughter has always been a worrier. ���What if��� was one of her favorite phrases.
I got home from work that evening and was fixing supper when the youngest called. ���Mom, there���s a tornado on the ground in Topeka (60 miles away), you���d better take cover.��� ���M., Topeka is 60 miles from here. If they sound the sirens, I���ll go to your sister���s house.��� So I hung up and called oldest daughter to be sure she was home and arranged to head there if the sirens sounded. Hung up. Youngest called again. ���I���m fixing supper. If the sirens sound, I���ll go to your sister���s.��� Sound of sirens. Phone rings. Oldest daughter. ���Are you coming?��� ���I���m bringing my sandwich with me.���
I got to her house which had five levels. I found her and the two kids in the lowest level with their supper. Her husband was on his way home from Topeka and called. We didn���t know at the time, but he was even with Lake Perry where a tornado was on the ground at that minute. She asked him how to run the TV through the computer in the room we were in. (Remember, this was over ten years ago). We sat and watched the weather coverage for about ten minutes when daughter said, ���I���m tired of watching this and turned the TV to HBO, grabbed her video camera and went out into the back yard leaving me and the kids in the sub-basement watching a movie. The movie? Twister.
