Susan Trombley's Blog, page 9

Tired of Failing? Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Be.

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I’ve been having a difficult time writing lately. It’s not for lack of ideas, mind you. I have plenty of those knocking around. In fact, each day brings more frantic notes on my phone or in my journal to capture those ideas before they slip out of my overwhelmed mind.

The problem is that I’m struggling with self-doubt. Second-guessing every word I write until I’m so paralyzed by it that I stare at a blank page mentally groping for the right word to even begin bringing my ideas to fruition. That first word eludes me, but even if I could find it, I doubt its [Aaargh, couldn’t think of the right word here. See what I mean!]

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Though I’ve always had self-confidence issues, this is probably the worst it has ever been in regards to my writing. In fact, in some cases, I’ve had far too much confidence in my work, and only discovered later how raw and in need of further revision and editing it was. Perhaps that is part of my problem now. Since I’ve been mistaken before, I question my self-judgement. What if I’m filled with flaws that I can’t see? What if I’m blinded to my own shortcomings? (Perhaps you noticed I’m not just talking about my writing anymore.)

You see, I’m a perfectionist. It sounds like a good thing, right? Perfectionist. That means you show attention to detail and work hard to get everything just right. How could that possibly be a bad thing?

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The way it works for me is that I’m not satisfied until things are “perfect.” I don’t think I need to tell anyone how often things are “perfect”—especially the things I do. I’m an exceptionally harsh critic towards myself, and my internal dialogue would certainly hold up in court as verbal abuse. I’m trying to change that, and I fully intend to over time, with positive thinking and inspiring mantras.

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I’ve gotten better at derailing some of my worst criticisms as soon as they pop up in my head. In fact, I think one of the reasons my characters feel so alive to me is because I allow them to talk to me as loud as they want to drown out my own worst enemy. Myself. (I’m not really hearing voices…at least, not the way that sounds.

Morbidon’s Bride: Chapter 11

Author’s Note: Only one chapter today, unfortunately. I feel like my confidence in my writing has been shaken lately, so I’m dealing with a touch of writer’s block. I’m still gamely tapping away at the keyboard, but everything I write seems like garbage to me, so I have to go over it again and again, and I’m never satisfied. I’ve been sitting in front of the computer staring at the screen, so paralyzed by self-doubt that I can’t even remember the words for common things.

Still, I made a commitment to myself to keep to my set deadlines and post these chapters in the time I promised. In fact, it’s even more important that I do it now, because these moments of self-doubt can turn into something much longer lasting, crippling my ability to create at all. So here is Chapter 11, in all it’s imperfect glory. I apologize if it seems rough and raw. I hope you enjoy it. Feel free to add any comments, questions, or critiques below. I love hearing from you guys, and I’m certainly open to constructive criticism.

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Chapter 11

Febe followed the steward into the dark palace where she was met by a young, ethereal maid who led her to her rooms. By this time, she wasn’t even bothered by the strangeness of the ghostly servant, though the steward had at first frightened her. She’d been eager enough to escape her betrothed that she’d chosen the smaller fear of touching a ghost over remaining behind with the god of the dead. Now, she realized that the souls around her were not mournful or vengeful hauntings, but merely the spiritual form of once-living people. She doubted they meant her any harm, which was more than she could have said about the servants in her mother’s castle. Far too many of them had been agents of her sisters.

Her rooms were far nicer than she’d been expecting after walking through the dour, dark palace that was decorated with skulls and skeletons—constant reminders of where she was and who she’d be forced to marry soon.

In her mother’s castle, she’d only had one room, and she’d preferred it that way since it had been easier to set her traps in the smaller space. Here, she had a spacious suite of rooms to contend with, as well as multiple entrances where assassins could get to her. I must remember, my sisters aren’t here. There’s no reason for anyone to assassinate me now. No, she was facing a far worse fate than dying. She was facing the future of marriage to Death.

Despite the inconvenience of a large space to set traps over, the rooms were cozy and elegant. The sitting room was filled with bookshelves packed with books the likes of which Febe hadn’t seen even in her mother’s extensive library. Several overstuffed chairs sat beside the bookcases and a handful of side tables held candelabras that filled the room with a warm, mellow glow, chasing away the gloom that tried to creep in from the corridor.

A four-poster bed hung with silk drapes in a soft pink that complemented the lilies that were embroidered on the bedspread dominated the bedroom which sat just off the sitting room. There were so many pillows arranged on the bed that despite the size of it, they took up over half the surface.

A massive wardrobe sat against one wall, intricately carved with magical beasts. Febe looked away from it when she saw that the curving, graceful shapes were dragons. One glance had been enough to tell her that the wardrobe depicted the Allgods pantheon, based on the symbols of their elements enshrouding each dragon as they writhed across the surface.

A vanity table with a huge silver mirror sat near the wardrobe. Rugs woven with flowers in pinks and reds—with a dash of purple and green—warmed the black marble floors as she walked to the final room of the suite in the trail of the ghostly maid.

When the maid threw open the door, Febe stepped inside a room with a huge marble basin that was already filled with steaming water upon which rose petals floated on the surface. Beside the tub was another basin on a table carved of marble. Across the large room was a garderobe unlike any she’d ever seen before. It was carved of marble and the seat wasn’t simply a crude plank with a hole in it, but rather shaped in a way that made it look like it would actually be comfortable.

“Everything is self-filling and self-emptying, milady. You need only touch the side of each basin here.” The maid demonstrated by tapping her fingers on the edge of the small hand basin.

Febe watched as the basin magically filled. She’d installed pipes to pump water to her mother’s bathing room in their palace, but nothing she’d ever seen had been this convenient. Even with her pipes, draining the bath had been a hassle, and the heater she’d built beneath the tub had to be constantly tended, yet the water in this basin steamed already without any sign of a heat source, and when the maid tapped the basin again, the water simply disappeared.

She’d avoided magic her entire life because she’d always seen it as a dangerous and destructive force. She considered her engines and inventions as far more positive, even though they’d been misused by her mother, because anyone could make use of them. Magic required an inherent talent, and far too many mages had abused their power to oppress others who weren’t blessed by the gods with such talent.

Yet she couldn’t deny that she was charmed by this bathing room, and given her current state, she was eager to make use of it. Nothing sounded better to her at the moment than a relaxing soak in the bath with the fragrant petals brushing against her skin as she washed away the dirt and tension from her ill-fated escape.

As she dismissed the maid with as much kindness as she could muster, the apparition told her that dinner would be sent soon, but that it would be delivered to her sitting room. However, she could take as long as she wanted, since it would remain warm indefinitely.

More magic! I suppose I should get used to this. She shook her head as she closed the door and locked it, appreciating the heft of the lock that had been installed in the solid oak panel. She didn’t have the supplies to trap the entry, but then again, she doubted anything would stop Morbidon, and right now, he was the only one she feared.

Still, she hesitated as she stood before the bath, fingering the worn fabric of her tunic hem. The idea that the god of the dead could come across her at any point while she was nude and vulnerable in the bath made her wonder if being clean again would be worth it. She eyed the lock.

The maid had explained that these rooms were created especially for her arrival. Not built. Created. Out of nothing. That was a power that the spirits took for a granted. A power their lord wielded without effort. Yet, he’d installed locks on every door in her suite. Complicated—difficult to pick—locks. Who are they meant to keep out?

She wondered if he’d done it for her sake. If he’d known that she would be more comfortable behind a locked door, even if she were aware that it wouldn’t do anything to stop him from entering. She wasn’t certain what she thought about that. If he’d truly added the locks for her peace of mind, it demonstrated a surprising—and perhaps disturbing—insight on his notions of honor. Not only that, but the rooms were beautifully designed, filled with books and piles of pillows, both of which were luxuries Febe had enjoyed in her own chamber back in her mother’s castle.

The many shades of pink used in her rooms were also surprisingly soothing. Her mother had never allowed such feminine colors in any of Febe or her sister’s rooms, so she’d grown up with greens and blues, but the soft pinks and the bright blossoms made her oddly content, as if the color and the blossom design would have been her pick if she’d had the guts to go against the upbringing that had been instilled in her by her mother.

There was simply no way that Morbidon could know her so well when they’d barely spoken. She couldn’t imagine a monster such as she’d seen back on that mountain taking the time and effort to learn about her so that he could create this haven for her. A haven so far removed from the rest of the palace in tone that it could have been in a different world altogether.

Perhaps it had been merely luck, or a good guess, that had informed his choices. At any rate, the bath was calling to her and her aching muscles couldn’t resist it any longer. The sooner she entered it and washed up, the sooner she could dress again and feel less vulnerable.

 

She had to put her worn and dirty clothing back on over her clean body because she didn’t have her pack—a realization she’d come to only after she’d sank deeply into the soothing warmth of the bath. Anxiety and panic had assailed her, causing her to sit up with a slosh of scented water, but then she slid back down until only her nose and eyes remained above the water, her heart breaking as she recognized that she would no longer need her design book, filled with schematics and mathematical equations and blueprints. She was going to be the wife of a god. He could create an entire palace out of aether. He had no need for her inventions. The one thing that had truly made her feel special—her ability to invent—was completely pointless in this kingdom. She was just another princess and not even a pretty or charming one.

Her warm tears blended so well with the bathwater that she barely felt them on her cheeks.

After a good cry, Febe had pulled herself from the tub and dried off with a new sense of determination. Just because Morbidon didn’t need her gift, didn’t mean she couldn’t still use it. She would get a new book and fill its blank pages with new inventions, new equations, and new schematics. The ideas already started to prickle in her mind as she studied the bathroom surrounding her. How nice it would be for everyone to live in such luxury—how lovely for even the poorest peasant to touch a basin and be rewarded with hot water for washing or maybe even cooking.

Perhaps she could come up with inventions that could do these very things without magic. It would give her something to focus on, an idea to germinate in a mind that had spent too much time dwelling on a frightful future that had come to pass.

It occurred to her that the wardrobe she’d avoided studying too closely for fear she’d be reminded of her future husband might have a change of clothing for her. However, now that she was filled with a renewed purpose that cheered her, her body demanded food, reminding her that she’d neglected it for too long. She had no idea how long it had been since her breakfast with Marcos, and she hadn’t even eaten much then.

Just as the maid had promised, the food was laid out on the small table in the sitting room, almost buckling the table beneath the amount of dishes set upon it. It seemed that her new husband had somehow become aware of her favorite dishes, because they were all there, tempting her with the aromas of spice and savory meats. Every warm dish steamed, and the cold dishes, like the bowl of summer berries, were still crystalline with ice. Marvelous! There has to be some way to do this without magic! I will figure it out!

She was just about to sit down to the spread when there was a light knock on her door.

The food and the rush of ideas inspired by it had lured her into forgetting where she was, but the sound of the knock had her instantly on alert again. She eyed the door, complete with its lock, which had not been turned by the maid when she’d gone out. Her thoughts twisted from practical inventions to those that insured her survival. Her gaze darted around the room. Febe had no traps set. Nothing to protect her from danger.

“Milady?” The soft voice of the maid called from beyond the wooden panel.

Some of Febe’s tension eased, though she still felt the tightness in her stomach and the trembling of her limbs from muscles ready to move at a moment’s notice. “You may enter.” Her heart was still pounding, but she tried to rein in her nerves. She’d gotten through much worse encounters than dealing with a ghostly maid who was nothing but kind and helpful. After all, the girl had seemed downright sweet and childlike.

The door swung open, revealing the maid, who quickly stepped aside to allow another person to enter ahead of her.

Every muscle in Febe’s body stiffened again as she froze in her seat. Her jaw gaped open, but she was powerless to close it. Fear spiraled through her like acid, burning her stomach and tingling in her limbs. At the same time, she was unable to look away from the man in her doorway. Her eyes didn’t even want to. He was the most beautiful creature she’d ever seen. No artist had ever captured masculine beauty like his—an idealized perfection that didn’t seem real.

His black brows were dark slashes set low over silver eyes that were piercing and pale in stark contrast to his swarthy complexion. His jaw was square and chiseled, and high cheekbones framed a straight nose without a hint of any bumps or breaks. She’d seen those lips before, but hadn’t realized how sensual they were when they weren’t tight with disapproval. Long, straight ebony hair framed his perfect face, falling well past his shoulders, blending into his black robe.

His eyes looked familiar. The color, the shape, even the almost glowing quality, reminded her of the goddess Vivacel. But there was no sign of sympathy or kindness in the face of the man who faced her. Not man—god! No matter how lovely he was to look at, he was still the monster, Morbidon. She didn’t need to have recognized his robe to know that. There was simply an air about him—an air of darkness and authority that didn’t tolerate being questioned.

Fear paralyzed her throat and kept her from swallowing, much less speaking as her future husband stood in her doorway.

He studied her as she trembled, then his gaze left her to take in the surrounding room, freeing her from the piercing power of it. He sighed and his shoulders slumped in a manner so human—and so at odds with his ethereal beauty—that Febe was caught off-guard. For a moment, he’d looked disappointed and almost vulnerable, his features shifting to reveal an actual human expression before his face returned to sculpted perfection.

Then he caught her further off-guard by sliding the strap of a pack off his shoulder, holding it up so that she could see it. “I was told you would want this returned to you.”

Complex emotions warred within Febe. On the one hand, she wanted to leap to her feet and rush to grab her pack so that she could dig out her design book and check it over in an almost compulsive need to reassure herself that it was safe. She’d never expected to see it again, so the relief she felt made her almost lightheaded.

On the other hand, she still feared the man holding the pack, and her fear made her want to leap from her table and run into the bedroom, slamming the door behind her to close him out. This conflict kept her frozen in her seat.

A flicker of impatience crossed Morbidon’s beautiful face, tightening his lips into a slight frown as his gaze touched her face, then settled on the pack in his hand. “This is important to you, yes?” His eyes met hers again. “Do you not want it back?”

Febe nodded, surprised she was able to do that much. Morbidon’s imposing height and breadth filled the doorway so completely that she couldn’t even see the ghostly maid behind him. At the same time, now that he didn’t have his cowl, she was better able to see his expression—which made him slightly less intimidating. He didn’t look angry. Rather, he seemed exasperated. No doubt she was making him seriously reconsider his choice to make her his bride. Good!

Her nod of agreement seemed to act as permission for him to enter her room, because he stepped forward, rapidly approaching her as if he worried that she’d change her mind. Since she hadn’t meant to invite him in, there was nothing to change.

She thought about getting up to run as he neared the table, but knew that was foolish. There was nowhere to go. She was at his mercy and as vulnerable in this place as she’d been in her cradle right after birth. No matter how clever her mind, no matter how cunning her traps, she couldn’t harm the man in front of her. Her safety and continued well-being were entirely in his hands—and she hated that. Her helplessness made her angry.

The anger was a good antidote to her crippling fear. Febe rose to her feet and snatched the strap of the pack as he held it out to her over the table. “Of course I want it back! I wouldn’t have been separated from it if you’d treated me with any degree of respect instead of grabbing me up like a sack of grain to haul me back to this dreary kingdom!” Her words spilled forth on a river of anger, stress snapping her restraint like a dam breaking under too much pressure. She’d endured so much just to avoid this very situation. Now she was stuck here, chattel to this creature, and he had the nerve to act as if he were doing her some favor by returning her property to her when he was the one responsible for her losing it in the first place.

A frown deepened the shadows beneath his brows and creased the skin between them. “You would have had plenty of time to pack your things properly and return with me in comfort if you had honored your obligation and not run away in the first place.” His tone was chiding, his deep voice rumbling into the room like one of her engines growling to life.

How dare he try to turn this into my fault! “I never made any promises! You made your bargain with my mother! Why should I have to honor it?”

“Are you saying you don’t obey your matriarch? Your queen?” He crossed his arms over his broad chest, one straight eyebrow lifted in skepticism. “You create weapons of untold destruction for your mother’s army.” He spread his arms out to his sides as if to encompass the room. “My kingdom is filled with the victims of your genius. These weren’t created out of obedience to your mother’s will? Is this something you do for your own enjoyment?”

The pack slid from Febe’s nerveless fingers and dropped to the marble floor at her feet with a soft thud. Anger spilled out of her like sand from an hourglass, leaving her deflated, her knees weak from the abrupt departure of the strong emotion. She gripped the edge of the table as her legs buckled.

Suddenly, strong hands grasped her before she could topple forward. They pressed her down into her seat, taking the weight off legs that no longer had the strength to support her. “I don’t enjoy killing.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “I did what I was told.”

“And yet, you rebelled when it came to marrying me.”

Febe looked up into Morbidon’s eyes. He was standing over her now, leaning over the table, his hair brushing against her shoulder, his hands still gently gripping her arms. He was so close she could see the pores of his skin, the perfection of it unmarred by any scars or marks. His lashes curved long and lush beneath his lowered brows, and within the silver of his eyes were small spots of blue and green, barely visible. “I’ve never been more afraid of anything in my life than marrying you.”

She didn’t know how she managed the words without her anger to bolster her, but the truth would no longer be contained. She’d never directly disobeyed her mother before; because that was the one person she’d feared more than anything. Yet, Morbidon had replaced her mother as the scariest person she’d ever met. That was why she’d run from the betrothal instead of doing exactly what she’d always done—which was to obey her mother.

Strangely, his frown this time didn’t seem angry, but rather sad. “I know. I see your fear knotted within you.” He released her arms and stepped back, towering over her still but giving her breathing room. “I would never harm you.” He gestured with one hand to the room around them. “No one in my kingdom will ever harm you.” His eyes narrowed. “No one in the world would ever dare harm you now. You are safe with me, Princess Febe.”

Febe twisted her fingers together, avoiding his eyes to stare at the table piled high with food that still steamed or crackled with frost. “You say that, but I’ve seen….”

Morbidon turned away from her, running long fingers through his hair, ruffling the smooth fall of it so that he looked less perfect and more approachable. “I know what you’ve seen. I will not pretend that the reaper is not a part of me, just as my dragon is a part of me. Perhaps that makes you view me as a monster.” He glanced over his shoulder at her, catching her staring at him.

She quickly looked away as he spoke again. “I would have you see me as more than that.” He turned back to face her, his eyes blazing. “No part of me would hurt you, Febe! I swear this on my word as a god! I swear on my honor that you will be safe.” His jaw was set as he struck his chest with one clenched fist. “Give me the opportunity to court you, Princess, and I will prove that I am a god with honor and that I can be a worthy mate for you.”

His tone rang with sincerity. He was asking for what he could simply demand, or even take by force. Febe still feared him, and she didn’t know if she’d ever be able to feel the way he wanted her to about him, but he’d been right about one thing. She’d disobeyed her mother for her own selfish reasons when it came to marrying him.

In most kingdoms, arranged marriages for alliances were common. Doing your duty by forming an advantageous match was simply an accepted part of being a princess. Am I truly better than these other royals who have done their duty by their countries? Surely there’s no more advantageous match than marriage to a god! I already accepted this when I agreed to marry him, but he’s offering me a chance to know him as a person before I must learn him as a man. It would be foolish not to at least make an effort!

When broken down logically, the decision was an easy one. Taking her fear out of the equation, she had no reason not to take him up on his offer and allow him to court her. She’d already committed to him, but her fear would stand between them and only make her miserable if she didn’t put forth an honest effort. “I… I will try to….”

She swallowed around the lump in her throat, thinking of all the times she’d faced down death and come out on the other side unscathed. Those other times, she’d bent her mind to the task of surviving, overcoming her instinctive emotional responses to danger in order to triumph using logic and tactics. This time should be no different. “You may court me.” She didn’t know exactly what that entailed, but figured it would take time—time she desperately needed to grow accustomed to her new life and this strange creature who’d invaded it.

His stance relaxed, his fingers releasing from clenched fists to hang at his sides. The crease between his brows smoothed out as he sketched a bow to her. He still didn’t smile. She wondered if he even knew how. “Very well, Princess. I will leave you to your meal and rest.” He gestured behind him and the ghostly maid floated into the room. “Macie will provide anything you want or need. You have only to ask.”

The maid curtseyed to Febe, a bright smile on her sweet face. Her gaze turned from Febe to Morbidon, and her eyes lit up, fixing on the imposing god with naked devotion that made Febe uncomfortable, sparking an unexpected twinge of possessiveness that made her want to snap at the girl to leave the room. She kept her mouth shut, pushing away the unwanted emotion.

Morbidon didn’t look at the maid as he continued speaking to Febe. “The days in my kingdom follow the sun on the surface world. In this part of the underworld, I have adjusted the day to match the same cycle as Barselor.” He gestured at a wall that was empty of bookshelves, and suddenly a window formed, revealing a landscape where the sun was setting to cast a brilliant rainbow of colors across the small clouds that dotted the horizon. “This is a view of the Isle of the Blessed. There are many beautiful places in my kingdom. I would show them all to you. This window will allow you to choose which view you see.”

Febe stared at the view beyond the window in awe. She’d never seen a place so lovely. Not even in paintings.

“I would like to take you there tomorrow, after your morning meal.”

She turned back to him. “That would be… amazing!” She was struck by the desire to see the place in person, to experience its vivid beauty with all five senses. Even if it meant she would be spending time in Morbidon’s company.

He bowed again. “Then I will come for you tomorrow. Farewell, Princess. Enjoy your meal.” He turned abruptly and left the room, striding through the door that had been left open by the maid.

Once her lord was gone, Macie clapped her hands together, grinning at Febe. “Milady, you must choose something perfect to wear for tomorrow! There’s a whole wardrobe filled with clothes! Once you finish eating, I’ll gladly help you go through them.”

Febe stared at the maid, feeling exhausted from the excesses of emotion. Since Macie seemed to be excited enough for both of them, she figured it was okay that all she could do was stare at her empty plate with no energy to fill it, despite the emptiness of her stomach. She glanced at the view within the magical window, as breathtaking as the god who’d created it. Tomorrow. I’ll deal with it tomorrow!

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Do People Even Read Anymore?

I’ve been asking myself this question since I’m surrounded by people who don’t. I did a little research and discovered that there has been a decline in people who are reading. Many of the articles lamented about the fact that people aren’t enlightening themselves with literature. [image error]

Personally, I think if that’s what we consider reading, then add me to the number of people who don’t, despite the fact that I read about 100 books a year on average, though I can read much more than that depending on my available time. None of those 100 books is “literature.” Hey, I did my time in high school! I wrote the painstaking analysis essays. I know “how” to read literature. I just never learned to enjoy it. Probably because I was always taught to take it seriously. To look for some deep theme or message. To analyze the heck out of it.

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So as soon as I walked out of the classroom, my nose was buried in a different type of book altogether. Andre Norton, Dianne Wynne Jones, Terry Pratchett, Robin McKinley, David Eddings—not a Twain or Tolstoy among them. The thing is, all of the books I read (yes, even the romances) have a theme. There is some deeper meaning to them (even if the author didn’t intend it to be there). I could sit there and write a complex analysis of a book from any one of the above authors. I could. But why the heck would I? I don’t need to constantly analyze what the author was trying to say. I don’t care. I want escape. I want to travel to a different world and walk in the shoes of a different person. I want to experience that new world through vivid imagery. I don’t want to waste my time breaking down that imagery in a mind-numbing comparison of tactile versus symbolic. Bleh!

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I know that reading is on the decline. I don’t need a survey to tell me that. It makes sense that it is though. It’s difficult to convince the newest generation to delve into the written word when they have the Internet, smartphones, and video games. To make it even harder, most of the more popular YA books are being made into movies, so why should a kid bother reading the book when they can just wait for the movie to come out. (I know, I know. The movies are never as good as the books, but they are flashy, bright, colorful, and require little effort to enjoy—like most modern entertainment.)

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Just for the record, I LOVE video games! But still…

However, even though convincing people to read in these media-glutted times is difficult, I think it’s worth doing. I believe that people are missing out when they don’t read. (And no, you don’t have to slog through heavy tomes like War and Peace to get the full benefits of reading. I don’t care what your English teacher says.) The reason that people should read is because it forces you to use your imagination instead of relying on some movie producer or game developer to create the images for you. You can picture the characters as you’d like. You can visualize the setting as your mind draws it. It’s not just the author’s world anymore—it’s your interpretation of it. You bring your own knowledge and experience into the world and make it belong to you. That’s why reading is far more personal than going to see the movie of the book.

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It seems like many of the proponents of reading push literature as the gold standard, but if that was the message I’d absorbed as a child, I probably wouldn’t be a reader now. In fact, had I grown up in this generation, where entertainment is cheap, readily available, and bright and flashy, I might never have sought out the fiction shelves at the library for something to do, and with my teachers pushing books that made me want to break out in hives as an alternative (no offense to teachers, you guys are awesome and do hard work trying to inspire kids!), I never would have become such an avid reader, and if I hadn’t, I doubt I would have developed the wild imagination that I now have. Being able to visualize the stories created by others gave me the ability to imagine my own worlds and then translate those images into words.

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Now I’m not saying don’t introduce people to classical literature. If you truly love a book, then by all means recommend it to others. Share your love of it, and why you love it, and they might find that they love it too. What I am trying to say is that if we expect people to see reading as comparable entertainment to everything else that’s available now, we can’t push heavy literature as the standard. Short stories, novellas, pulp fiction—it’s all good. Anything that gets people reading and gets their imagination working is good.

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If you want everyone to love reading, you have to point them to works that are accessible for everyone. People who don’t normally read might consider literature to be all those books they were forced to read and analyze in school. It’s no wonder they avoid reading like the plague. From the articles I’ve read on the decline of reading, the complaint isn’t that people aren’t reading. It’s that they aren’t reading “literature.” So I thought I’d add my own two cents to this, and say I don’t care if people never read another classic in their lifetimes. There are so many books out there that will never be considered in that category, but I bet you’re going to love them.

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So consider turning off the TV or putting down your smartphone for a bit and check out the vast number of different worlds and experiences you can live through in the pages (real or virtual) of a book.

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What do you think about this? Do you love classical literature and think I’m being too hard on it? I’d love to hear your comments on that. I still shudder whenever I think of reading anything recommended by a school board, but if you have recommendations that you think would wipe away the bad taste I got from forced reading, let me know. What do you think of the decline of reading? Can it be turned around, or are books on the way out altogether, unable to compete with all the other media? Do you think reading books even matters anymore?

I’m on Goodreads Now!

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I know it’s not regular blog day, but I wanted to share some news. I will be doing my regular blog on schedule though on Monday. I have something planned that I hope will be thought provoking. Anywho, on to my news.

I’ve clearly had my nose in a book for far too long, because I’ve heard of this whole “Goodreads” thing, but I’ve never actually spent much time checking it out. Full confession: I’m very lazy about technology. Since I have a BS in Information Technology, that’s probably not a good thing, but that’s a whole ‘nother story.

Oh Happy Day!

Yay! Today is the first day of my vacation!

Memorial Day 2017

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Today is Monday, blog day. It also happens to be Memorial Day. I have a lot of things I’d like to blog about and share, but I think that today would be better spent honoring the fallen.

For those who have served, are serving, and will serve, I thank you for your sacrifice, and I honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in service to our country. I hope their loved ones can find peace on this day as we take time out to remember those who died for our freedom.

You will not be forgotten.

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Despite the solemn occasion, I hope that everyone can enjoy today in the spirit of living life in honor of those we’ve lost.

Morbidon’s Bride: Chapter 10

Author’s Note: The good news is: I’ve decided to publish more than one chapter at a time if they are ready by that Friday. The bad news is: I’m currently only one chapter ahead, and I want to keep a one-chapter cushion in case I run into a difficult two week window and don’t have a chance to get to my writing. However, now that Jessabelle’s Beast is almost ready to be published, I have more time to work on Morbidon’s Bride and should be getting several chapters ahead pretty soon. Hopefully by the Friday after next.

More good news is that–while making some character notes–I hit an inspiration bubble and managed to fully map out the rest of the story, clacking madly away at the keyboard as the ideas flowed and the story fell completely into place. The end was not what I was expecting! We’ll see if it’s what you all were expecting.

I have to say, I’m very pleased with it. It feels right. I love when a story I’m working on takes off in a direction I didn’t anticipate, or that I had specifically planned against. This sense of “rightness” sometimes makes me feel like I’m not making these stories up, but simply telling them as they happen in some other dimension. Hey, it’s fun to dream!

Jessabelle’s Beast Coming Soon! What’s Next?

As the title suggests, I’m finally nearing the release date for Jessabelle’s Beast, and naturally, I’m very excited to be at this point! I’m still waiting on some final details and updates—and a truly awesome cover—but soon, very soon…I will get to take a vacation!

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Anytime I publish a book, it’s a stressful lead-up to that final moment. While I have awesome beta-readers, I do the majority of the publishing work myself, so every detail must be considered carefully. This sometimes means I have to focus on the less creative parts of the process, and I often get so wrapped up in dealing with the business side of things that I want to just toss my laptop aside and leap out my office window to escape.

 

I love writing! This is why I do this, day-in and day-out. I write every day unless I’m sick. I love spinning stories and bringing characters and places alive on the page. When I have to focus less on the story and more on the book details and distribution channels and formatting, etc., well, yeah, I need a vacation so I can get back to writing!

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So now that the majority of the work is complete on Jessabelle’s Beast, which will release in the beginning of June, what’s next for me?

Of course, Morbidon’s Bride is still on my plate, and I’m truly excited about really getting to focus my energy on this story. I expect that I’ll manage to get many chapters ahead of my publishing schedule for that, so don’t worry, I’ll still be posting chapters. At this point, Morbidon’s Bride is the only new story I’m working on, and I think it would be great if I could finish it and publish it as a bonus to the Princess’s Dragon, which I plan on rereleasing in December, but we’ll have to see about Morbidon’s Bride. I don’t want to rush anything and end up with a story that’s less than it could be.

The only other project I’ll be focusing on publishing this year will be the rewrite of the Princess’s Dragon. While it has taken something of a backseat due to my efforts on getting Jessabelle’s Beast out on time, I’m looking forward to digging back into that narrative. The first revision is already complete, and there will undoubtedly be several more as I tighten up the prose.

Still, I’m a bit like a butterfly when it comes to my writing, so it wouldn’t surprise me if I wound up working feverishly on a new project, or fluttered back to an older manuscript within the upcoming months. This happens a lot, which is why I try to set deadlines on myself for the books I want to get published each year. Otherwise, I’d be flitting all over the place, but never getting anything done.

I hope to have a cover image and a firm release date for Jessabelle’s Beast ready for an announcement soon, and I will be running a promotion for the new release, so I’ll be sure to keep you posted on that, so you can snag the next book in the Shadows in Sanctuary series at a deal.

Here’s to a more relaxing summer (fingers crossed!), and I hope you all enjoy your upcoming summer as well. Be sure to take time out for yourself, hit lots of BBQs, and curl up with a Kindle once in a while (or even a good paperback! Man, I really miss the smell of books sometimes, so I’ll go back and pluck one off my “keepers” shelf just for some nostalgia.)

The Mother’s Day that Almost Wasn’t

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So we just celebrated Mother’s Day, and I had a great time. But then again, I celebrate every day that I get to be a mother, because that almost didn’t happen for me.

I just finished reading a romance novel where the heroine is infertile, and the hero expects to revitalize his people by having a bunch of offspring. This is exactly the type of situation I’ve been searching for in these “fated mate” romances, and much to my delight, I not only found it in this book, it was also well done. I felt like the author understood the pain that a person goes through when dealing with infertility.

For me, infertility wasn’t the inability to get pregnant. I was pregnant five times! It was the early miscarriages—the horrible hope that shears off a piece of your soul when it’s torn away from you. Time after time. Hearing the heartbeat at eight weeks, strong and determined, only to hear silence at your next appointment. You learn by the third pregnancy not to buy anything for the baby. Not to even choose a name, or think about nursery colors. You learn to guard yourself from thinking too hard about the baby at all. But hope still betrays you. It still manages to seep in and find a way through the cracks in the fragile wall you’ve built. So when another pregnancy ends in failure you’re still left defenseless.

By the time I lost the fourth pregnancy, I’d finally gotten a medical answer beyond the casual “miscarriages are normal” answer that was so nonchalantly passed on to me as if I should just stop worrying about it—as if my grief was nothing. It turned out that my miscarriages were anything but normal. I have a chromosome abnormality called a Balanced Reciprocal Translocation. This caused some of my eggs to be nonviable. It seems that my body wasn’t failing me after all. It was doing its job. The babies couldn’t grow beyond a certain point because they didn’t have enough chromosomal information—or they had too much.

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With an answer, I found hope again. If you have a diagnosis, there has to be a solution right? Only in this case, the “solution” was expensive. They can now do pre-genetic determination during IVF where they test a cell from a growing zygote prior to implantation to tell whether the fetus is genetically viable. We didn’t have a lot of money, but we wanted to give it a go. After all, on top of having so many miscarriages, I’d gone for two years being unable to even get pregnant to try again. Plus, trying the natural way was like playing the lottery, only far more was on the line for me that mere money.

The genetic testing was both disappointing and eye-opening. Of the sixteen eggs harvested, only two were viable. My odds were terrible. Neither of those two implants took, and my husband and I were left devastated and in debt. We couldn’t take the heartbreak anymore. The emotional roller coaster was killing us, and my body was a mess after all the hormone treatments for IVF and the stress of the process. For seven years, we’d tried to grow our family of two. For seven years, we’d suffered the ravages of hope dashed. So we threw in the towel. We spoke vaguely of adoption, but the process for that was also exhausting and filled with bitter disappointments and challenges. We just didn’t have the strength left to get into another lengthy and grueling process.

We learned to picture our future without children, though it was something we’d both wanted. We’d learned to accept that we would never know what it was like to hold and protect a child of our own. Surprisingly, instead of tearing us apart, the experience brought us closer together. We weren’t turning away from each other in our time of need, but rather propping each other up through each emotional blow we received. United we stood strong against the fate that had been delivered to us. We found solace in each other. My husband didn’t despair that he would never build a dynasty out of his childrens’ futures, and I learned not to despair that I would never see his eyes in the face of my child. That reaffirmation of our love and commitment to each other went beyond the initial trials every new relationship faces.

And then one day, I mention that my period is late, and my husband turns to me and says, “I bet you’re pregnant.”

I said no way! It had been two years of trying. It was true that I’d had a procedure to remove some endometriosis, but the doctor had said there wasn’t as much as he’d thought. That couldn’t have been what was keeping me from even getting pregnant. When my husband went off to work, I bought a pregnancy test and took it.

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I’m not sure how to describe the stew of emotions I felt as I stared down at those two little lines. I couldn’t tell you how many pregnancy tests I’d taken in the past. So many, I’d lost count. So much wanting and pleading with the stick to show positive. So many disappointments. Yet every time it had shown positive, it had ended worse than if I hadn’t been pregnant at all. I didn’t want to gamble again. My heart ached too much from the last losses, and my husband and I were finally starting to heal.

I called him at work. Told him I was pregnant. Then promptly burst into tears. He was overjoyed, in stark contrast to my pessimistic despair. I knew this pregnancy would end like all the others. Appointment after appointment passed, where I knew that I would stop hearing the heartbeat. When I started bleeding at fourteen weeks, I thought I was prepared for it, but nope, that cursed hope had snuck past my defenses again. I sat in the emergency room cursing the world for being so damned unfair and wondering what terrible thing I’d done to deserve to suffer like this.

Then I saw my baby on the sonogram, swimming around hale and healthy, tiny but alive and filled with energy. The bleeding stopped, but seeing my baby moving had only made her that much more real to me, as if she wasn’t already!

At sixteen weeks, an amniocentesis showed that she had a chromosome abnormality—the same as mine. This wasn’t the worst possible outcome. We had hope. The geneticists were cautious. They didn’t want to reassure us. “This could be a problem,” they said, but I looked in the mirror every day at a healthy person. My baby was my little “mini-me” right down to her genetic problems. It was the first time I dared to feel kinship with the life growing inside me. Though I’d grieved for all the previous babies I’d lost, I’d never allowed myself to feel this much. I’d never dared to lower my walls and allow that much hope to pass through. I feared that if I lost her at that point, she would take the last of my soul with her.

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My husband remained strong at my side as I spent every day in fear. Every time I used the restroom, I checked for blood. Every. Single. Time. Do you know how often a pregnant woman has to use the bathroom?

It was the longest nine months of my life. The most harrowing. I dropped out of college because I didn’t want any stress to affect my pregnancy, and the Chemistry program was pretty stressful, especially since I have an almost compulsive drive to maintain a 4.0 GPA.

But this story has a happy ending. Eleven years ago, just before Christmas, I welcomed the best present I have ever or will ever receive into my life.  I’m a writer, and I can’t even find the words to describe what I felt when I looked down into the face of my newborn daughter. I can say there was definitely a sense of abject terror. When someone holds so much of your heart, you realize that you have so much to lose.

I write romance. I read romance. I thought I knew about love, but there is love far stronger than any romantic love. A love that transcends all that “fated mate” love. The love of a mother for her child is unlike anything I’ve ever known before. Yesterday, we celebrated mothers, but every single day of my life, I celebrate my daughter.

I’d given up hope. I didn’t believe it was possible to ever become a mother. The odds seemed to be against me. The doctors were even more pessimistic than I was. My story had a positive outcome, but I know that many women struggle daily with infertility. I know that sometimes hope seems like the enemy, and despair can move right in and take up permanent residence. Each person’s story is different, and I have no advice that I can offer to anyone else going through this. But I can say one thing. If anyone ever asks me if I believe in miracles, all I have to do is smile and pull out the most recent picture of my child. Yes. I do believe in miracles.

I know this wasn’t about writing, or about my books, or even about romance, though the real-life love that my husband and I share got us through this difficult time. Yet, I wanted to share this story because it is a big part of my life experience that informs my writing. I draw from my pain, my outrage at the unfairness of fate, my grief, my anger at the lies of hope—and my wonder at the existence of miracles when you’ve already given up—to create stories and characters that are as alive as it is within my power to make them.

I have yet to write an infertile heroine in one of my romances. I still cry when I write or talk about this. The wounds seem fresh, though a lot of time has passed. Someday, perhaps, I will tackle this issue in one of my stories, but for now, the best I can do is this post.

Morbidon’s Bride: Chapter 9

Author’s Note: Not a lot of notes to add this time. I’m having fun with this plot, but the prose is killing me for some reason. I know exactly what I want to say, yet it just isn’t coming out to my satisfaction. Still, I know better than to rework a single chapter over and over again before finishing the story, so out it goes, Chapter 9. I hope you all enjoy it. Oh, yes, and for those of you familiar with the myth of Hades and Persephone, the similarity is completely intentional.