Renée Harrell's Blog, page 6

Dizzy

P​Several years ago, waking up in the middle of the night, I knew something was wrong. Although it was very dark, I could tell my bedroom was swirling around me. I’d never experienced anything like it before. And I was terrified.
 
“Harrell, wake up,” I said. “I think I’m having a stroke.”
 
I was too young to have a stroke (not true, by the way. Ten percent of all strokes occur to people under the age of 45), but nothing else made sense. I could barely stand upright, walking was a challenge, and nausea was coming at me in waves. We should have called an ambulance – and you should, too, if this ever happens to you – but we lived so close to the local hospital that we never thought of it. Minutes later, Harrell had collected a wheelchair from the Emergency Room entrance and was wheeling me inside.
 
It was 3:00 AM-ish, and the place was empty. Vitals were taken, questions were asked, I was gowned, I.V.’ed, and presented to the ER doctor. Other than my loss of balance, I didn’t exhibit any of the early warning signs of a stroke. I was medicated for my nausea and fell asleep for a couple of hours. When I woke up, I felt better, but not well. Any motion made me sick, which ruled out getting an MRI. Whatever was happening to me, the ER doc didn’t think it was something awful. Which is how I knew he’d never experienced that level of dizziness.
 
I was sent home and told to return to bed. If I didn’t get better in a few days, I could return to the ER. For what, they couldn’t exactly tell me, but Harrell wheelchaired me out and to bed I went. With the room twirling, twirling all around, I fell asleep again.
 
While I dozed, Harrell went on the computer. The internet is an easy place to misdiagnose symptoms, but he generally remembers this and treads cautiously. Within minutes, he had a name for what I was experiencing: benign paroxysmal positional vertigo. The condition is benign, which meant it wasn’t going to kill me; paroxysmal, which meant it came on fast; it’s positional, which meant the calcium crystals in one of my middle ears had gone rogue, escaping into the semicircular canals; and those shifting crystals were sending the wrong signals to my brain, giving me vertigo.
 
According to the online experts, BPPV can be over in a minute. Or it can last for days. WebMD advised, “If you have dizziness on and off for more than a week, you should make an appointment with your doctor.” You think? Just don’t use the ER doc in my town, I’m telling you. He’ll have no idea on what to do.
 
The good news was, the internet offered multiple ways to treat this condition. Harrell printed out the Epley Maneuver. (Thank you, Dr. John Epley.) It’s easy to do, cost nothing, and only took a few minutes to complete. If you’re curious, there are multiple YouTube videos on how to do it properly. For some people, the Epley Maneuver resolves the problem immediately. For the cursed – like me 😊 – the process has to be repeated over a period of time to shift those inner ear crystals back to the utricle, where they belong.
 
The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad news was that BPPV can return. And, when it does, as it did frequently with me, it’s as miserable as ever. Each time it happened, the dizziness and nausea would knock me down for a day. There was no way around it.
 
But, but, BUT… after making a couple of lifestyle changes, I haven’t had a BPPV attack in years. When I told my local Otolaryngologist (Ear, Nose, Throat MD) what I thought had helped, he looked at me as if I was crazy.
 
“There’s nothing about that in the literature,” he told me, completely dismissing what I had to say. Then he asked if I’d let him do something to me that sounded completely crazy.
 
That story, however, will have to wait until next week.

Time to buy some reviews!

​Now that our latest novella has officially published on Amazon, Harrell and I are hoping the story will find an audience, that those readers will think it’s a satisfying addition to the overarching tale but a corker of a read in and of itself, and that some of our buyers will feel motivated to leave a review on what we’ve written. I don’t care what kind of review as long as it’s honest, but Harrell is a sensitive sort. If any of our work gets less than 5-stars, he feels like we’ve let those readers down.
 
Consequently, he feels like we’ve let people down all of the time.
 
The other day, he wondered out loud how our kitchen sink’s sponge holder could receive 400 five-star testimonials on Amazon while our novel, The Runaway Mail-Order Bride , has thirteen. I told him his question was easily answered. More people bought the sponge holder, more people reviewed the sponge holder, and the company that produces the sponge holder offered their Amazon buyers… well, bribe is a harsh word. They offered those fortunate souls a $10 gift card if they’d leave a positive review on the site. And by “positive”, they were demanding 5 glowing stars of admiration. Otherwise, no ten-spot.
 
The sponge holder cost us less than thirteen bucks. (Checking Amazon at this minute: yep, still cheap.) To be fair, it probably cost less than three bucks to make the gizmo.
 
Since when did buying reviews become a thing? On principle, I refused to write anything about the stainless-steel sink caddy, even though it does a fine job of holding sponges. It would be almost amazing if it didn’t. Later, I started to wonder if the company really did send those reviewers the promised gift card. Seems kind of shady to me.
 
It turns out, the Sink Caddy Consortium aren’t the only ones who pull these kinds of shenanigans. (I write mail-order bride novels. Of course, I’m going to use a word like “shenanigans.”) On Valentine’s Day, Harrell gave me a rechargeable hand warmer. No chocolates or flowers for this girl; the boy knows what I like. When the hand warmer arrived, it included a card offering a $15 Amazon gift card for every buyer who gave the warmer a 5-star review. A hefty reward for something that only cost 17 dollars.
 
After two weeks of use, I decided I loved my portable little warmer. I left a very happy review because (a) it was as good as advertised; and (b) I had an insatiable need to know if these outfits actually made good on their offers. Hand Warmer, Inc., did, and promptly. Then… two days after I received my digital payment, the hand warmer quit working. I edited my review to reflect this, then used the gift card they’d sent to buy a different rechargeable hand warmer.
 
Wouldn’t you know, that $18 replacement hand warmer arrived this week with its own offer of a $20 gift card, provided I told Amazon buyers that I held five stars of admiration for their teal-colored wonder. Not this time, fellows. I’m out of the reviews-for-hire game.
 
If you’re wondering how the company makes a profit, paying $20 for every $18 purchase, the answer is simple: volume. (Old SNL gag.)
​ 
I’ve drifted a bit from the main point here. One Bride for Seven Brothers: The Fifth Brother is on sale! Although we offer no gift cards in exchange for reviews, Harrell will likely curl his lips in an icy smile if you say nice things about the story.
 
Also, the new hand warmer? So far, it’s great.

Mrs. Hiền’s plight

Although I’m spending a lot more time in the house these days, this doesn’t mean I’ve spent those hours cleaning every nook and cranny. It’s not as if I don’t have the basic skills. Years ago, I worked as a housekeeper at a historic hotel not so far from here and the experience changed me. Following that period of employment, whenever I’m a guest at a motel, hotel, or inn, I tidy up after myself. Each day of our stay, Harrell leaves a warm note of thanks to the staff (my handwriting is terrible) and we always, always, tip the housekeepers for the work they do.
 
If you’d seen what I saw, you’d do this, too.
 
Tired of all of the nooks and crannies, I was pleased when Harrell came home with two cartons of Clorox Bleach & Blue. According to the instructions on the box, if I dropped a tablet of B&B in the corner of my toilet tank every few weeks, the tablet would clean, deodorize, and prevent toilet bowl stains for months. Months, I tell you. Where we live, the water is so hard, it’s practically a solid. As a result, everything the water touches gets stained. If the Clorox Company’s little round wonders would keep me from having to scrub the porcelain thrones on a semi-regular basis, I was all in favor of using them.
 
For the first few weeks, that’s more or less what happened… and, then, my toilets stopped flushing. Lifting a tank cover to investigate what had happened, I discovered the Bleach & Blue tablets had dissolved into an ungodly blue goo nesting at the bottom of toilet tank. That cerulean ooze was so thick that it held its form beneath the water. It appeared the ooze had stretched its tendrils into each of the toilet’s inner workings and poisoned them. They were too gummed up to work.
 
With a pandemic happening, I don’t allow visitors into our house. Not even visitors with babies, which are my favorite kind of guests. Harrell suggested we might make an exception for a plumber. I didn’t love the idea, although a plumber carrying a baby would have been exceptionally tempting.
 
With a sigh, my co-writer and partner in crime told me he thought he could get things in working. He also pointed out how much he hated working with water. Then he asked if I’d make him homemade chicken pot pie once the toilets were working again.
 
Which, in a very small way, opened my eyes to the plight of Mrs. Hiền. I found her story on Kiva.org, the nonprofit crowdfunding group that lends money to the world’s disadvantaged. According to the company’s website, the lovely Mrs. Hiền lives in the province of Thanh Hoa in Vietnam, a very poor area, and her home lacks a hygienic toilet. Seeing her story, I felt a certain kinship with her. Listening to Harrell in the background, cursing Clorox Bleach & Blue as he struggled to replace flush valves and fill valves, flappers and floats, I sent my Kiva our first donation in a while.
 
Oh, and he noticed an orange stick in each of our toilet tanks, something we’d overlooked for the past twelve years. That sticker reads, Warning: Larks’ Vomit. No, the sticker actually reads, Warning. Do not use in-tank cleaners.
 
Live and learn, eh, Clorox Company? I’m just glad we can flush again and I hope our donation helps Mrs. Hiền do the same.

Old dogs, new trick

​For the last few weeks, Harrell and I have been polishing/tweaking our published One Bride for Seven Brothers novellas in anticipation of finishing the series. It’s being published under our pen name of “Anne Glynn”; Anne is the name we use when we write romances. Sunday, the polishing was completed and Harrell loaded the revised manuscripts onto Amazon Kindle. At my request, he returned the series to the way we’d originally numbered it. The original One Bride is, as it has always been, the first story in the series. The Second Brother is, once again, Book Two. Third Brother, Book Three, Fourth Brother, Book Four. As you would expect.
 
For now, the Bride stories exist only on Amazon. That will change in about four months as we go “wide” with the series, placing it with Draft2Digital, Google, Apple, and so on. We’re a little uneasy about leaving the Kindle Unlimited nest – every month we’ve been there, we’ve collected a little something in royalties – but this feels like a good year to try new things.
 
While Harrell was doing his digital magic to upload the manuscripts – which I happily leave to him. I love magic, I struggle with digital – he discovered how to set-up an Amazon pre-order for our new novella, One Bride for Seven Brothers: The Fifth Brother. It’s the penultimate story in the series, paving the way for the very last tale to be told. He tells me Amazon has made everything very easy and I’ll trust him on this, since I have no intention of learning the process on my own.
  
The Fifth Brother will come out on March 7th, a couple of weeks from now. If you've read the other stories in the series, thank you. If you're interested in doing the preorder thing on this story, go  here and we’ll all find out if Harrell did this properly. Or not.
 
The last of the series, One Bride for Seven Brothers: The Last Brothers, isn’t yet available for pre-order. It’s longer than the stories that came before it and Harrell needed a little more time to work on its formatting. We’ll have it on preorder next week, with a publication date of April 4th.
 
Finally, if you’d rather wait to read the entire collection at once, One Bride for Seven Brothers: The Complete Saga, will be released on May 2nd. That’s coming out as both an eBook and a paperback, so Harrell has his work cut out for him. Our Saga is rather massive for one of our romances, wrapping at almost 200,000 words. In word count, it’s a little longer than Moby Dick.
 
Writing the words, “longer than Moby Dick,” I can only think of inappropriate things to say. I can be such a child.

Comin' Up ACES

​It's been a while since we posted anything, but there was a long stretch in our lives when most of the interesting things that were happening to us weren’t the kinds of things we cared to share with others. Okay, some people might talk about such things, but not us. Well, okay, maybe one of us is a bit more open to unveiling all of life’s events, but the other one of us is all Mister Nobody Else’s Business and a compromise had to be reached.
 
If you haven’t heard the definition of a successful compromise, let me share it here. That’s when two people decide on something and neither party is entirely happy. In this case, we jointly decided not to do a new blog post until we had something nice to announce.
 
And, so, the years passed.
 
I’m kidding, I’m kidding. We had many good things happen in our lives, but I’d gotten out of the habit of posting notes about them. I’m hoping this post will encourage me to do this again and more quickly.
 
Today, though, I’m announcing a nice thing: Harrell’s second professional comic book story is being published in volume 46 of Aces Weekly . For those in the know, Aces is a marvelous, digital-only comic art publication out of the UK. David Lloyd and his team of magicians have worked for years to provide an intelligent, interesting electronic comic book anthology worthy of admiration. They deserve all of the awards they’ve won.
 
Since Harrell’s first professional comic book story was published *ahem* a little bit ago, how did he elbow his way into a respected web publication that accepts submissions on an invitation-only basis? Pure talent, baby. Also, he got lucky. He’d developed a friendship with Alex Sheikman, a gifted comic book artist with a slew of published stories to his credit. Like Aces, Alex has won awards for his art and stories. Some of his work landed on the New York Times Best Sellers List (Hardcover Graphic Books), where it hung out for weeks. He has chops.
 
Somewhere along the line, Alex drew a 4-page horror story and he asked Harrell to give it a look. Since there wasn’t any writing on the pages, Harrell guessed at the storyline. He guessed wrong, but Alex enjoyed the tale that Harrell believed was being told, and asked him if he’d care to create a script for this new version of the story. When the two of them were done with their collaboration, the 4-pager had become a 7-page story. A 7-page story that was in need of lettering.
 
Since a professional letterer would have expected compensation, the pair turned to me, instead. That was my fault for having worked as a graphic designer. Alex offered me some tips along the way, Harrell was willing to alter a line here and there whenever I stomped my foot, and it came together rather sweetly. I found it to be quite the learning experience.
 
I don’t like learning experiences. Be forewarned, Harrell and Alex, I don’t ever plan to letter a comic book story again. Unless, of course, I’ve been properly bribed with a vintage Barbie. Just an FYI.
 
If you’re wondering how the story ended up at Aces Weekly, well, Harrell got lucky again. He knocked on the right door at the right time. David was amenable to an EC-inspired horror story at the very moment that “Forever” sailed over his electronic transom. Still, he wanted some changes, Harrell and Alex were amenable to making most of those changes, I was, well, no, willing to make those changes… and the original 4-page story, which had become a 7-page story, became a 9-page story. I think we all agree it became a better story, too. Plus, we all got to work with the David Lloyd. (In regards to DL, there's too much for me to write here. Wikipedia can do that for you, if you like.)
 
Wrapping up: Aces Weekly Volume 46, available for pennies a week, and out now. Look for “Forever” by Hal Turner and Alex Sheikman, with 1RatStudio – me – credited for the lettering. (This may be your one and only chance to see my lettering handiwork. I’m not kidding about the Barbie doll.) The story comes in two parts, will appear in two of the volume’s seven issues, and, as you’d expect, there are several other comic book tales to be found in each issue, too. You’ll need a tablet, desktop, laptop or smart TV to view Aces; a cell phone won’t cut it. Alex’s artwork deserves more respect than a cell phone screen can provide. So does Harrell’s story.
 
But it’s the lettering that really rocks.
 
See you next time.

We're a couple of tired writers...

...but here we are, anyway. With July nearly upon us, it’s time we blogged a little something again. That’s what the Good Witch tells us, anyway.
  
We may have disappeared from here for a longer than expected but we had our reasons. Baby-proofing (always a pleasure because it means babies are coming to visit) was at the top of the priority list but we were also busy playing with Microsoft Word. We’ve been busy working on The Fourth Brother, the – as it happens – fourth story in the Mail Order Mischief saga. We’re happy to report that the manuscript has made it through its first and most challenging stage, the first draft. The story still has to be edited before it goes for a visit to our beta readers, but we’re feeling pretty happy with the story at the moment.
 
Somehow, 4th Bro’ became the longest M.O.M. story yet. That was so NOT the plan because, despite all appearances to the contrary, we did have a plan. We plotted the tale as tightly as we could, thinking a step-by-step outline would make for a fast write and a quick read. We’d even aimed for a specific word count; we wanted the sequel to be exactly as long as the first story in the series, One Bride for Seven Brothers . Then the characters in the sequel went off and did what they wanted regardless of our intentions, going into entirely different directions than we had hoped. Consequently, the word count kept growing, the story kept expanding, and now we’re both wondering if the whole thing is going to end up the way we originally envisioned.
 
Probably not, Renee worries. Possibly so, Harrell thinks.
 
Meanwhile, the Good Witch remains on the sidelines, enjoying the drama and offering to beta read the latest addition to the family. After all, she tells us, she was supposed to get the pages a couple of months ago. She’s absolutely right.
*sigh*
 
Even before we'd typed – end -- on this sequel’s last page, we knew things had gone astray. It’s not that we didn’t like the changes. We thought the differences were interesting and true to the characters, but we wondered if maybe we should do something differently the next time. If we were pantsers – writers who jump into each project with only the vaguest idea of what happens next – we’d certainly be able to start the next story more quickly. Plotting a novella takes us days and sometimes weeks; but what if we DIDN'T plot the next one? We could use the plotting time to start typing and get The Third Brother off of the ground. If we gave up any attempt at planning the story, we’d be halfway through the second chapter before we knew it.
 
After all, Fourth Brother had a six-page, single-spaced, outline and it didn't exactly keep us on track. Oh, it helped for maybe three-quarters of the way but that's not the whole ride, is it? If we jumped in our little red car and went three-quarters of the way to La Jolla, we'd end up in the desert.
 
Then we remembered…Dobbins' Luck.
 
In our house, “Dobbins' Luck” means you've gotten into a mess but somehow it's going to be okay. It's also the name of one of our unfinished efforts. It was meant to be a sequel to the science fiction novel, Aly’s Luck , which we wrote years ago. Aly’s Luck is absolutely packed with adventure, it’s the first book we wrote together, and we love the characters that populate it. Sadly, we were nearly alone in that affection; the British publisher that picked up the title struggled to sell copies of it. Once the rights reverted to us, we published it under our own banner and -- like the UK publisher -- wondered if an audience for the would-be series would ever appear. 
 
*SPOILER ALERT* It turns out, nope, not many.
Even as this grew more evident day by day, we started working on a sequel: Dobbins' Luck. Because nothing builds a fan base like doubling down on a book that very few people have read. But this time, instead of spending a month plotting the novel, we decided to just jump in and write the story. We felt it would be more fun that way. More spontaneous. Faster, too. And, at first, that’s what happened. The pages streamed right along. Life was good.
Then one sorry day, we came to this:
Dobbins’ Luck
 
Waiting made Dobbins itch. Waiting, suspended five meters above a Snarden slug pit, awakened a curious feeling in him. It made him thankful.

After all, things could have been worse.

At first glance, his surroundings appeared quite harmless. He was in a large, airy room, its curved walls supported by exposed beams of native wood. Soft, violet light filtered down from cracks in the domed ceiling. The stone floor below was smooth and unblemished, save for an irregular opening at its center.

The opening revealed the black, liquid surface of the slug pit. Except for that, and a large planter of exotic flora lining the far wall, the room was empty.

Unless, Dobbins amended silently, you count me. Or the slugs. Or the corpse. What’s left of the corpse, anyway.

It was hard to tell exactly what it had been. The body was laying half-in, half-out of the planter, its torso stripped of flesh. The body parts that remained were a bilious green mixture of mold and rotting meat.

Dobbins felt the rope around his ankle give a little, its fibers stretching but not yet ready to release. Even if the rope didn’t snap, he was still sinking toward the pit at an alarming rate.

As if on cue, a bright blue slug rose to the pits surface beneath him. Slugs were foul-tempered things, innately hostile and far too eager to use their razor-sharp teeth.

Only a Snard would keep slugs as pets.

Thrusting its sleek, muscular body forward, the creature leapt free of the pool, making a lunge for the bait hanging over it. Dobbins caught a glimpse of its twin eye stalks, flushed red in anticipation. The monster’s vestigial limbs stretched out from its three-foot long body, its end claws clicking excitedly.

Dobbins fought the urge to gag. Slugs smelled really bad.

At the last moment, he jerked himself upward, jackknifing at the waist. The slug gave a keening scream as it passed beneath him, its teeth snapping harmlessly against the empty air.

The slug splashed back into the brackish ooze. Dobbins watched cautiously as it disappeared beneath the surface. It wouldn’t be long before the monster tried again.

Slugs didn’t like to wait, either.
 
-- and the ideas stopped coming. There our hero waits to this day, not yet eaten, not yet saved, and neither one of us feels any inclination to change his plight. Because, while it wouldn't have been too much of a brain-teaser to get Dobbins out and on his way, neither one of us knew what we wanted to have happen next. We both had ideas, but nothing that delighted. We hadn't plotted the thing.
 
It turns out, neither of us are pantsers, as much as we’d like to be. Although 4th Bro’ didn't go as planned, but the changes that occurred were good ones and the novella is close to done. Maybe we're mostly plotters with a little pantser in us: plantsers. A brand new term, copyright us, but you're welcome to use it.
 
Just tell people where you got it, okay? :)

When we said we'd return in July...

…we said, maybe. We also didn’t say July of which year. In life, as in publishing contracts, it’s the small details that truly make a difference.
 
The last time we posted here, our writing team was feeling a little shaky. It started like this: On the eve of an international trip, one of us wasn’t feeling so good, so we stopped at the local Emergency Room before heading to the airport. Honestly, we just wanted the doctor to tell us there wasn’t an Indonesian appendectomy in our future and we could go on our way.  
 
Instead, one test led to another, scans were done, and the next thing we knew, we were told that Team Turner was in dire straits. We were told to see an oncologist STAT. We also needed to contact a surgeon, arrange a PET scan, see a GI specialist, plan on other imaging studies, and on and on….
 
With his radiology report in hand, the doctor was absolutely certain of his skull-and-crossbones diagnosis. There was no other possibility. We asked if it might just be stomach flu. He shook his head sadly. Oh, foolish non-doctors.
 
In a firm but kindly manner, he told us there wasn’t a snowball’s chance that terrifying scariness wasn’t in our immediate future. So, the trip was cancelled and a wedding we dearly wanted to attend was missed.  Instead, appointments were made, scans were scheduled, and -- well, if you've been there, you know the routine. Tears were spilled, weight was lost, sleepless nights ensued.
 
After more tests, more scans, and one intensely personal invasion of body space, most of the results are finally in. It appears the ER doc was mistaken. He was a catastrophist, according to the surgeon we consulted. What we'd been told was a life-threatening situation is now looking like a pair of highly-reactive lymph nodes and...a bad case of stomach flu.
 
In case you're wondering, yes, we're not big fans of that particular ER doc.
 
It took a bit, but we've recovered our emotional equilibrium. Once we did, we should have remembered to return to this website and post a note. Then we could have told you that several of our stories have been translated into various languages since last we said hello but, unless you speak Portuguese, Italian, or Spanish as one of your tongues, it seemed unlikely you'd care. We meant to return but we were so busy writing stories under one of our other pen names, we forgot.  We both thought we'd get to it later.
 
It turns out, much later.
  
When an internet acquaintance contacted us, saying she was sorry that we'd stopped writing, we realized we'd disappeared for a bit too long. Even though we haven't posted here for the past few months, one of us is usually at the keyboard every day. Under our "Anne Glynn" pen name (anneglynn.com), we’ve been posting fairly frequently. We've also been writing romance fiction that often includes a fantastical element. It's been fun. Sometimes, a lot of fun.
 
This wasn't the first time we'd written in the genre; Wicked Games came out under the R.H. Turner byline a few years ago. In that story, a younger woman falls in love with an accomplished artist-slash-werewolf, then she finds him cheating on her with another werewolf, and...well, complications ensue, as you might expect. The story came together nicely, the tale found a decent-sized audience for its publisher, and we decided we'd like to write more of such things. When the rights reverted to us, we changed the title to Twisted Games and the author's name to Renée Harrell. Once "Anne Glynn" started to get established, we changed the author's name on the cover once again.
 
As you can see, we aren't very good at keeping a pseudonym secret. After all, we made almost no effort there. We're only sharing it here and now because we trust you. You won't tell.
 
Currently, we're writing our first series under the Anne name.  Set in the 19th century, One Bride for Seven Brothers  received some stinging reviews but a little more attention because of it.  Its success led to One Bride for Seven Brothers: The Sixth Brother, our first ever sequel to a story. In the last week or so, we've even released our first ever sequel-to-the-sequel, One Bride for Seven Brothers: The Fifth Brother. 
 
We bet you can guess which story we're working on next.
 
If you'd like to follow what we're doing, Anne posts a blog on Thursdays. Usually. We haven’t managed to do a weekly post here for a couple of years, and don’t see us doing that here for, oh…say, another couple of years. Of course, things could change at any minute. Our experience in the ER has taught us that.
 
Assuming nothing startling happens in the next few weeks, what say we all get together again in -- July, maybe?
 
Reading:  The Getaway Car: A Donald Westlake Nonfiction Miscellany . If you’re a Westlake fan, it’s a must-have. If you’re not a Westlake fan, check it out, anyway. (We mean, literally. At the library, where all non-fans should start.) The section where D.W. torches everyone who was anyone during The Silver Age of Science Fiction is truly jaw-dropping – and no wonder. He burned those bridge as his farewell from sci-fi.
 
Watching: We wanted to love The Legends of Tomorrow but, so far, haven't managed to do so. We enjoy Agent Carter and wish you did, too, but the ratings say otherwise. That leaves Gotham, which we've recommended before, and The Magicians.  The Magicians is a little angsty, but still worth the view. Plus, the Syfy network is already promising a Second Two.

Best. May. Ever. Or so...

...we're telling everyone in our particular piece of the world. A little past mid-month, our family grew in size by one, as our wonderful son married the woman he loves. Life would be even better if the new couple were to decide to move, say, 9300 miles closer (they are very, very far away), but we’ll make do for now. Thank goodness for Skype.
 
It was also one of our worst months ever, when -- on the day we were to fly out of the country to attend the wedding -- we ended up in the Emergency Room instead. One test led to another, the ER physician offered two varieties of news...bad and worse...and we ended up missing this grand and glorious celebration. Both of us were so disappointed.
 
Also frightened. The ER physician's prognosis scared us but other medical specialists have since provided a more encouraging outlook on our situation. There's more testing ahead but, so far, it looks as if the Renée Harrell team might manage to stick around for a few more years. Fingers crossed.
 
But when someone in the medical field suggests that you or your partner may not have even a single year left in their account, it tends to catch your attention. To that end, we've been spending more time with our closest family members, we've been reaching out to our friends, and we've decided to knock at least one item off of our Bucket List. In the next several months, we're going to focus on finishing our current writing projects. We want to complete five interlinking novellas and ten chapters of our next novel, take a look around, and see where Mars Needs Writers goes next. (Because there are SO many places we want to go. There's Ashes and Ink, The Preacher's Son, and...ah, you've seen the bumper sticker: so many books, so little time.)  In short, like everyone else, we have things to get done. It's time we started doing them.
 
As a result, over the next few months, this blog probably won't be updated very often. If the writing goes great, and the med tests go great, and life itself is a fine thing...we might post a little something in July. Maybe not, though. All things considered, we're going to use most of the months ahead to devote our energies in a different direction. We'll all talk whenever we do get back.
 
Deal?
 
Watching:  Zombeavers on Netflix. Huddled together in the dark, we still couldn't resist a movie with this title. As it turns out, the movie itself isn't especially memorable but the theme song at the end? We love it. Turn the subtitles on and enjoy.

Best. April. Ever. Or so...

…we’re telling everyone in our particular piece of the world. A little past mid-month, our family grew in size by one, our first ever granddaughter, and she’s absolutely adorable. So says her grandparents. Both mother (and father) and baby (and brothers) are doing well, and life is good.

Life would be even better if they were to decide to move, say, 1700 miles closer, but we’ll make do for now. Thank goodness for Skype.

 For us, the baby’s arrival was such exciting news that other, less-grandbaby-centric events have paled by comparison. We’ve read and approved the German translation of After Things Went Bad, and it should be appearing on Amazon.de in the next week or so. We assume Nach der Katastrophe will also make an appearance on all of the other Amazons, too, but – let’s be honest – if there’s a market for the three stories, it’s probably not going to be found at the Amazon Japan site. Birgit Hausmayer and her editor, Anja Bauermeister, did a terrific job; it’s one of our favorite translations of our work, ever.

  One of our other stories has been translated into Spanish; this is the first time a translator has neared completion on something that wasn’t ATWB. We’re hoping to tell you about the finished, polished product sometime next month. Fingers crossed.

Before the summer is over, we hope to give our thumbs up to a new audiobook; the narrator says she should have it ready for us by June. We’ve learned that the first listen is only the first step down a long road. Either Renée will want changes in what we hear, or Harrell will want changes, or the narrator will decide, hey, now she wants changes, because those are the things that happened with one or the other of our previous audiobooks. So, if the narration is completed by late August, we’ll count it as a win.

If our new novel is done by the end of the year, we’ll count that as a win, too. We’re halfway through chapter eleven (of twenty), we’re really enjoying it, but this one is taking longer than any of our other books. A variety of small troubles (and a couple of major delights) has siphoned much of our available writing time away. Which is just life, y’know?

Watching:  Daredevil on Netflix. Seven episodes in, we’re already happy that the series has been renewed for another year.  Is it genius? Nope, but it's engaging. If we enjoyed drinking games, we'd drink every time Daredevil was knocked unconscious. If we drank each time he knocked someone else unconscious, we'd never survive an episode.

Reading:  Independently Animated: Bill Plympton, The Life and Art of the King of Indie Animation – and is that a title or what? The oversized hardcover is loaded with cartoons, and drawings, and storyboards, but we’ve enjoyed Plympton’s words (shaped and presented by David B. Levy, his co-author, we presume) even more than his artwork. It turns out, indie animation and indie publication share a lot in common.

           

Posting on April 1st always seems a little iffy...

....mostly because of the whole "April Fools' Day" thing. Although we're not fond of pulling pranks, the tradition of doing so is a long one -- the Romans had the festival of Hilaria (which sounds like a Seinfeld sketch), the French...or maybe the British, or maybe it was the Hindus...but somebody had All Fool's Day, long, long ago -- while the actual origin of  this silliness is still up for discussion. Not here, mind you, but in more intelligent, scholarly blogs.
 
If you came here, hoping you might be inspired to pull a few gags on that boss you don't like, you came to the wrong place. You should have stopped at Paste Magazine, which will provide you with a handful of pranks "straight from your kitchen". Or you could stop at The Huffington Post, if you'd like to see some strangers doing outrageous things to their loved ones and/or co-workers. ("Outrageous" was HP's phraseology. Still, pretty funny.)
 
Here at MarsNeedsWriters, we like to pretend we're above such shenanigans (no one knows the origin of the word, 'shenanigans' but everyone expects it will vanish from the lexicon shortly), but we're mostly too lazy to bother.
 
Besides, we've been busy. Busy writing, naturally, with a fantasy novel coming out this month and a romance novella to follow (both under different pen names, neither of which we'll bother you with at the mo'). We have a pair of translators who should be giving us new and foreign versions of After Things Went Bad shortly, too, for our review. But, for us, the big, big news is that one of us -- the better half of the team -- is finally painting again.
 
Life issues had caused Renee to set her paints aside. We both thought it was a temporary hold before other issues popped up; and one thing followed another until, alas, years had vanished. Looking back, we were both surprised at how quickly the time had gone. But, no more. Bad Hair Day is complete, another painting is on the easel and under construction, and the switch from oils to acrylics had been surprisingly smooth. She's having fun.
 
We hope you are, too. Just watch out for a mayonnaise-filled donut (Paste Magazine, you're such a scamp).
 
Watched:  The last of the Hobbit movies: The Battle of Two Many Armies. Even on DVD, the visuals were gorgeous, the acting was solid, but the storyline was a little ham-handed and a bit padded. And couldn't they have completed dealing with Smaug during the second movie?
     Yes, yes, they could have. It would have made Hobbit the Second that much more enjoyable.
 
Reading:  .M.C. Beaton's The Death of a Policeman. We love us some Hamish Macbeth and we're glad to see the series just keeps trucking along. This is #29 in the collection, if Amazon is telling the truth, and we can't wait for #30.