Deborah J. Martin's Blog, page 4

Update: Now with More Cussing!

Last week, I told you about my shoulders freezing again. As a friend of mine said, I’m a “pragmatic masochist.” After going through it all twice, I know what to do – there’s no reason to drive to town and pay someone to tell me. So, every afternoon, I torture myself. The physical therapy is going well…range-of-motion is almost back to normal but the pain has only subsided a little. I know it’ll eventually go away but as I’ve said before, patience is not one of my virtues!

(I’ll be “done” whe...

Getting Old: Not for the Faint of Heart

If you’ve followed me for any length of time, you may remember that six and seven years ago, I had surgery on my left and right shoulders, respectively, for idiopathic adhesive capsulitis, aka “frozen shoulder.” That’s where, for no known reason, the shoulder slowly stops working and seems to happen more often to post-menopausal women. At the time, it was so bad I couldn’t raise my arm & had to bend over in the shower to wash my hair. But the surgery plus several weeks of physical therapy (o...

Magic Works!

I know I don’t write about magic much. But I wanted to share a success story with you:

As background, I drive a Kia Sportage. There’s been quite a bit in the news about engine issues with some Kias and Hyundais catching fire and those vehicles are under recall. What hasn’t quite hit the news is another problem with those same engines: something about metal shavings from some rod in the engine that can cause the engine to seize up.

I got a letter in December asking me to bring my car in for r...

Blackberry Cove Herbal – A Review

I don’t know about you, but when I read a non-fiction book, I always check out the references and recommended reading section. I found this one listed in another book and am so glad I did!

Ms. Rago takes us through a year of happenings (herbal and otherwise) at a cabin in the West Virginia mountains. She grew up there, as did her parents, grandparents, great-grandparents…I think she has the “native” part down.

Her writing is extremely evocative – you can easily picture yourself walking along...

Mystic South

I know, I know. I’ve been quiet again. Things have been crazy around here, including a 2-week bout with bronchitis right after we got back from vacation.

Anyhoo, I have great news! I’ve been accepted to be a presenter at this year’s Mystic South in Atlanta. I don’t attend many pagan gatherings because most of what they promote isn’t my thing, but this one sounds fun – I already know a couple of the presenters and they have good information.

The subject of my talk is, “Medicinal and Magical P...

Trans Siberian Orchestra

I had planned on just posting a bunch of pics to social media but this deserves a blog post.

First, remember where we live … in the country, up in the mountains. We rarely go to concerts or other artistic events because what may be an easy 15-20 minute drive for city people is over two hours for us; at least half of that on secondary roads to this particular venue. We had tickets to see TSO last year and the weather the night before would have made our trip treacherous, so we opted not to go....

Moving from CreateSpace to KDP

Mercury Retrograde strikes! But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Originally, I’d published my fiction books only as e-books. Then, a couple of years ago, I realized there were still a lot of people who liked tree-books* so I decided I should bite the bullet, pay the money to get full covers, and have some paperbacks printed. However, the retail pricing CreateSpace insisted on seemed excessive to me, so I priced them at what I thought was reasonable for books that length and kept them in my own in...

Occult Day 18 November

Did you know? There’s a holiday for that! This year it falls on Sunday, so you get my comments about it early.

Some people tend to forget that “occult” simply means hidden. Look at the various definitions from Merriam-Webster. You don’t get to the ‘woo’ until the fourth definition of the adjective, yet every site addressing this day that I looked at talked about magic. The noun (almost always used with, “the”) is what folks look at. The vast majority of images when you search for “occult” had...

Interview with a Witch: Laura Perry

One in a continuing series of interviews with cool people I’ve met.

Laura and I first met a bunch of years ago…in a Facebook group, I think. We discovered our mutual love of herbs (and other things), then discovered we lived fairly close to each other – a little over an hour apart which, in the Facebook world, is next door. She’s now a good friend and my editor! On to the questions:

When did you start writing and what inspired you to do so? 

I’ve always written stories of one sort or another,...

Interview with a Witch: Wendy Steele

I did a few of these four years ago, and am going to get back into the habit. I meet such interesting people online!

I first “met” Wendy through a mutual friend on Twitter perhaps a year or two ago (thanks, Laura!) and subsequently in a Witch Lit group on Facebook. Her books are “Witch Lit” par excellence.  On to the questions she so kindly answered for me:

When did you start writing and what prompted you to do so?

I wrote my first poem when I was twelve years old, after visiting the Tutankha...