Nancy E. Dunne's Blog, page 28

Music Mondays: Elys and Hack

 [Their story is coming, for those who have laughed along with and fallen in love with the most unlikely duo in all of Orana.]

So, I was first introduced to this song by a Rennie friend of mine when he mentioned how perfect it was for a workout. Y'all, I am so far away from a workout if it involves leaving my house...but it ended up in my Music from Orana rotation and I had never associated it with any one character or place until recently. 

I've been doing some drafting for the Guardians of Orana series where I want to be able to tell the backstories and current exploits of the cast of characters from the Nature Walker Trilogy, and this song is just Elys and Hack. Their unlikely friendship hit like the thunder before the lightning. Readers of the trilogy know Elys's backstory and how she never takes anything for granted. She is the line in the first verse that is dreaming of bigger things. Hack is the lightning strike that either illuminates her way or blasts it clear for her - sometimes/often both. Conversely, Hack is the thunder that warns the enemy - Elys does love to burn things, just like a lightning bolt.

Also, Imagine Dragons. Y'all. Perfection. Have a listen.

ThunderImagine Dragons
Just a young gun with the quick fuseI was uptight, wanna let looseI was dreaming of bigger thingsAnd wanna leave my own life behindNot a yes sir, not a followerFit the box, fit the moldHave a seat in the foyer, take a numberI was lightning before the thunder
Thunder, thunderThunder, thun', thunderThun-thun-thunder, thunder, thunderThunder, thun', thunderThun-thun-thunder, thunderThunder, feel the thunderLightning then the thunderThunder, feel the thunderLightning then the thunderThunder, thunderThunder
Kids were laughing in my classesWhile I was scheming for the massesWho do you think you are?Dreaming 'bout being a big starThey say you're basic, they say you're easyYou're always riding in the back seatNow I'm smiling from the stage whileYou were clapping in the nose bleeds
ThunderThunder, thun', thunderThun-thun-thunder, thunder, thunderThunder, thun', thunderThun-thun-thunder, thunderThunder, feel the thunderLightning then the thunderThunder, feel the thunderLightning then the thunder
ThunderThunder, feel the thunderLightning then the thunder, thunderThunder, feel the thunderLightning then the thunder, thunderThunder, feel the thunderLightning then the thunder, thunderThunder, feel the thunderLightning then the thunder, thunderThunder, feel the thunderLightning then the thunder, thunderThunder, thunder, thunderThun-thun-thunder, thunderThunder, thunder, thunderThun-thun-thunder, thunderThunder, thunder, thunderThun-thun-thunder, thunderThunder, thunder, thunderThun-thun-thunder, thunder

Notes from Exile: It's About Time Wednesday...?

I posted last week about finally feeling like a part of the Supernatural Family when this song came on the radio in the car and I subjected my partner to a diatribe explaining how the lyrics just perfectly fit with the events in the tv show. I have been binge watching this show all summer with the goal to have 14.5 seasons under my belt before the last half of season 15 starts in October.

The new season started last Saturday, and I'm still on season 6. But I carry on because this show is JUST SO GOOD. The first few episodes seemed slow, but like any book or series, the slow burn has been worth it. SO worth it! I'm just sorry that I was a total idjit and let this show pass me by for the past 14 years. 

Now, if you'll excuse me, blogger picks the music, reader shuts their cakehole. 

Carry On Wayward SonKansas
Carry on my wayward son
For there'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more
Once I rose above the noise and confusion
Just to get a glimpse beyond the illusion
I was soaring ever higher, but I flew too high

Though my eyes could see I still was a blind man
Though my mind could think I still was a mad man
I hear the voices when I'm dreamin', I can hear them say
Carry on my wayward son
For there'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more

Masquerading as a man with a reason
My charade is the event of the season
And if I claim to be a wise man, it surely means that I don't know

On a stormy sea of moving emotion
Tossed about I'm like a ship on the ocean
I set a course for winds of fortune, but I hear the voices say

Carry on my wayward son
For there'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more

Carry on, you will always remember
Carry on, nothing equals the splendor
Now your life's no longer empty
Surely heaven waits for you

Carry on my wayward son
For there'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more

Music Monday: Nelenie Ergwyn

[For everyone that is currently thinking that Nelenie didn't have a surname, she does. I just haven't gotten that book published yet. So, as per usual, SPOILERS and YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED, etc.]

There has been a topic floating in a fantasy writer's group I belong to for a while now. It ebbs and flows and resurfaces. "Do you feel inspired by music/Do you have music on while you write?" The five or six of you that are regular readers of the Lettuce know the answer for me, but it has been interesting to see how much my experience is not the norm, at least because I listen to music with words. Many of my colleagues in that group listen to ambient music/sounds or instrumentals only. Does that mean I'm cheating because I'm listening to music with lyrics that speak to me about my characters?

Nope. At least, I don't think so. Everyone is inspired by something, and this inspires me to create them. I think that's fair.

So, this week, a minor character turned major character as the story moved along. Nel and Gin grew up as friends until the differences between the Alynatalans and the Aynamaedeans pulled them apart. Their friendship influenced Nel's relationship with Elys and Tairn's reverence for Gin as a mother figure. Gin's feelings of inadequacy took root when Ben chose Nel over her. Not so minor, eh?

I have been thinking about her because she resurfaces in Guardians of Darkness, the beginning of the Guardians of Orana series and because the woman that inspired her is a good friend of mine who is accomplishing amazing things against incredible odds. So as I always do, I sat with a few songs before I found one that really is Nel's song to me.

Nel experienced so much upheaval during the events of the Nature Walker Trilogy. Her life changed when she came of age and realized that she and Gin were different. Her life changed when she followed the path of a warrior rather than a magic-user and took on all the difficulty that choice entailed. Her life changed drastically when she bucked the system of her people and trained Elys, an Aynamaedean, to fight in the way that Nel was taught. Her life certainly changed when that relationship was discovered and reported - by someone she had loved and trusted for her entire life - and she was exiled, forced to live as a mercenary. 

But with each trial, Nel held her head high and just got on with things. It's what drew her to Elys, I think because they are very similar in personality and threshold for surrender. But there comes a point where you have to just stop, reassess, and take the steps to get back on your path. The song "From Now On" from the musical/movie "The Greatest Showman" really spoke to me when I thought about Nel, and how she comes to that point - and I'll stop there before Nancy Spoilers spiral out of control.

From Now On

Zac Brown Band/Hugh Jackman

I saw the sun begin to dim
And felt that winter wind blow cold
A man learns who is there for him
When the glitter fades and the walls won't hold
'Cause from then, rubble
What remains can only be what's true
If all was lost, it's more I've gained
'Cause it led me back to you
And from now on, these eyes will not be blinded by the lights
From now on, what's waited 'til tomorrow starts tonight
Tonight, and let this promise in me start like an anthem in my heart
From now on, from now on
I drank champagne with kings and queens
The politicians praised my name
But those are someone else's dreams
The pitfalls of the man I became
For years and years, I chased their cheers
At the crazy speed of always needing more
But when I stop and see you here
I remember who all this was for
And from now on, these eyes will not be blinded by the lights
And from now on, what's waited 'til tomorrow starts tonight
Starts tonight, let this promise in me start like an anthem in my heart
From now on, from now on, from now on
And we will come back home
And we will come back home, home again
And we will come back home
And we will come back home, home again
And we will come back home
And we will come back home, home again
From now on, these eyes will not be blinded by the lights
And from now on, what's waited 'til tomorrow starts tonight
Starts tonight, and let this promise in me start like an anthem in my heart
From now on, from now on, from now on
And we will come back home
And we will come back home, home again
And we will come back home
And we will come back home, home again
From now on, from now on, home again

Notes from Exile: I think it's October

Me and my best girl, Bryn.
(Carolina Renn Fest)
It felt like October around here for a while last week, but now we are firmly back in August/September. October means faire season, under normal circumstances. It means leaving the house at O'Dark-Thirty to drive two hours and then work all day outdoors with one of my hounds at my side. I may be an accidental Rennie, but a Rennie I am all the same, and I miss it.
Even though my participation there has been tremendously scaled back, my mind has been drifting to a created village in Huntersville, NC, and all the performers and 'fairemly' that I see there every year. I have wished I could have a steaming mug of chai in my hand, trying to keep the excited wolfhound at my side walking calmly so I can drink it rather than wear it. I've missed the shouts of Good Morning from the vendor stalls, seeing my breath (and Bryn's) in the air, and the quiet beauty of the faire before the gates are opened and the tens of thousands of patrons stream through.

I have always loved that part of faire - the part where it's just us there, the way it would be if the grounds were a real, functioning village. The writer (and well-buried actor, if I'm honest) in me loves walking along, imagining that I'm my character: an Irish lass sent with an Irish Wolfhound as a gift for Her Majesty. I love the sway of my hoopskirt as I walk. I love the street performers and vendors already in character, addressing me as 'My Lady' and asking to pet the magnificent beastie at the end of my leash. 

She loves it too - though, in recent years, Bryn has been less apt to stay on a bed in the building we lovingly refer to as the Dog Barn, preferring instead to pull me out to the front to see the people. Ciaragh is the exact opposite - she is unnerved by large crowds and would happily stay glued to a dog bed all day if only the raised beds weren't the proper size for a greyhound and she finds herself slipping off of them onto the floor. 

But neither of the big faires where I work with my dogs happened this year, and the smallish local faire made the decision to close permanently. I keep forgetting how long it has been since one of my girls has surveyed her people from the joust platform in the Southern Kingdom (the Georgia Renaissance Festival) or taken that leisurely walk pre-cannon in the lanes of the Northern Kingdom (the Carolina Renaissance Festival). I forget until one of them noses her way into the guest room-turned-pandemic supply storage and happens upon my straw hat or a stray glove. They press their nose against it, wringing out the last smells of FAIRE, and then look up at me and wag. 

We're holding onto those last smells, the images like the ones above, and the lifelong friendships formed in the early morning fog, over mugs of chai and corset lacing, until we can do all of it again in person. Huzzah, well met, and on to the rest of October!

Music Monday: Taeben and Gin

[Spoilers ahead for the Nature Walker Trilogy]

New month, back to Orana and specifically to Taeben and Gin in Tempest. I know, the first thing a lot of my readers think when they see Taeben's name is that hashtag #benisadick that goes around. I mean, he's the bad guy, so he is supposed to be, right? Today, though, I want to present you with another view of him. This is a view that I got called out for pushing by one of my beta readers. I have a tendency to see the best in people, even when they don't deserve it, and the feedback was that I was giving Taeben so much grace that he wasn't even a bad guy anymore.

Some writers can create two dimensional bad guys who are like the little girl with the little curl, but I am not capable of that. I wanted people to know all sides of him because to me, that makes the reaction to him when he is bad more visceral, more shocking. This was the idea behind Tempest, to show the relationship between Taeben and Gin, so that his later behavior is even more awful and hard to believe. But I went too far, I think, at least for that beta reader - and, in truth, for me I suppose. Y'all, if I had kept on the way I was headed Taeben would have been completely unbelievable as a villain. 

So, to the point of this being a Music Monday post - I heard today's song, Silent Lucidity, in a TV show I was watching recently (ok, I will admit it was Supernatural and I'm trying to binge watch 14.5 seasons before October because I am late to that bandwagon) and I remembered that I loved that song back during the time that I was heavy into my MMORPG that inspired the Orana Chronicles. That was the time that I knew the person that inspired Taeben. It all fell into place as I was driving yesterday and heard the song again. That is what I was trying to convey in the relationship between Taeben and Gin. Maybe he was always bad. Maybe he had malicious plans for Gin well before the events of the end of Wanderer when he pulled Sath and Gin apart. 

Maybe this is Taeben and Gin in an alternate reality. Maybe this is Taeben's plan that went awry. Either way, I sat with the lyrics of this song for awhile after I got out of the car, and I couldn't get away from Taeben and Gin.

Silent LucidityQueensrÿche
Hush now, don't you cryWipe away the teardrop from your eyeYou're lying safe in bedIt was all a bad dreamSpinning in your headYour mind tricked you to feel the painOf someone close to you leaving the game of lifeSo here it is, another chanceWide awake you face the dayYour dream is over or has it just begun?
There's a place I like to hideA doorway that I run through in the nightRelax child, you were thereBut only didn't realize and you were scaredIt's a place where you will learnTo face your fears, retrace the yearsAnd ride the whims of your mindCommanding in another worldSuddenly you hear and seeThis magic new dimension
I will be watching over youI am gonna help you see it throughI will protect you in the nightI am smiling next to you, in silent lucidity
If you open your mind for meYou won't rely on open eyes to seeThe walls you built withinCome tumbling down, and a new world will beginLiving twice at once you learnYou're safe from pain in the dream domainA soul set free to flyA round trip journey in your headMaster of illusion, can you realizeYour dream's alive, you can be the guide but
I will be watching over youI am gonna help to see it throughI will protect you in the nightI am smiling next to you

Notes from Exile: Week Sixty-Twelve, and I feel FINE.

I'm calling this a Notes from Exile and not a Music Anything, because technically it isn't Monday, and this post just came to me as I sit here listening to the amazing Alicia Keys. This song, "Good Job" is just a balm for the soul and it is what I needed to hear this week, this day, this very moment. We spend a lot of our time these days just getting by, but we have a very human need not just for connection but to be appreciated. We need to know, from an external source, that we are doing a good job. We aren't just surviving, we are thriving as best we can under the current circumstances. Here we are on the cusp of yet another month, and times are really becoming scary and overwhelming, but we aren't giving up, at least not yet.

I can just hear my dear friend Robby's voice doing his best Casey Kasem impression here, but I'd like to send this long-distance dedication out to all of you that are struggling, all of you that are unsure or those that are sure you don't want to do this anymore, whatever THIS is. I hear you. I see you. And to quote one of my new favorite Instagram/TikTok creators, Thaddeuss Shafer, "you are precious, loved, and worthy," and you're doing a really good job. Stay strong. 

Good Job
Alicia Keys

You're the engine that makes all things go
And you're always in disguise, my hero
I see your light in the dark
Smile in my face when we all know it's hard
There's no way to ever pay you back
Bless your heart, know I love you for that
Honest and selfless
I don't know if this helps it but
Good Job
You're doing a good job, a good job
You're doing a good job
Don't get too down
The world needs you now
Know that you matter
Matter, matter yeah
You're doing a good job, a good job
You're doing a good job
Don't get too down
The world needs you now
Know that you matter
Matter, matter yeah
Six in the morning
As soon as you walk through that door
Everyone needs you again
The world's out of order
It's not as sound
When you're not around
All day on your feet, hard to
Keep that energy, I know
When it feels like the end of the road
You don't let go
You just press forward
You're the engine that makes all things go
Always in disguise, my hero
I see a light in the dark
Smile in my face
When we all know it's hard
There's no way to ever pay you back
Bless your heart
Know I love you for that
Honest and selfless
I don't know if this helps it but
Good Job
You're doing a good job, a good job
Good job
You're doing a good job
Don't get too down
The world needs you now
Know that you matter
Matter, matter yeah
It's a good job
You're doing a good job, a good job
Good job
You're doing a good job
Don't get too down
The world needs you now
Know that you matter
Matter, matter yeah
The mothers, the fathers
The teachers that reach us
Strangers to friends
That show up in the end
From the bottom to the top
The listeners that hear us
This is for you
You make me fearless
You're doing a good job, a good job
You're doing a good job
Don't get too down
The world needs you now
Know that you matter
Matter, matter yeah

Music Monday: Lex and Em...and Alex

 [Again, spoilers ahead for Rift, read at your own risk.]

Oh, what a tangled web. You have Madelyne, who thinks that she knows Alex. She hears his voice through her headphones every night. They share inside jokes and memories of times spent in a virtual world. He listens. He understands. He is everything she has been looking for - and suddenly she has a way to be Em to his Lex.

This song makes me think of several scenes - Em, upon arriving in Tyrael and seeing it for the first time, then Em outside the cabin, looking up at the sky. Em receiving her tattoo. Em trying to separate Lex from Alex. "I'm gonna get you out of here/if I could catapult my heart to where you are."

CatapultJack Savoretti
Following the headlightsGot to find a way back to youI can be the white knightYou can play the princessWe'll be running like outlawsHiding in the midnightBreak down them gatesLet in the sunlightThrow me over these wallsHigh up in the atmosphereIf I could catapult my heartWatch the empire fallI'm gonna get you outta hereIf I could catapult my heartTo where you areYou say you had your heart brokenWhat a stupid little thing to doNow you're tied to a train trackBut I'm a gonna comeAnd rescue youMake no mistakeI'll do whatever it takesTo get over these wallsHigh up in the atmosphereIf I could catapult my heartWatch the empire fallOoh I'm gonna get you outta hereIf I could catapult my heartTo where you areIf I could catapult my heartOh throw me over these wallsOoh high up in the atmosphereIf I could catapult my heartWatch the empire fallOoh I'm gonna get you outta hereIf I could catapult my heartTo where you areIf I could catapult my heartTo where you areI'm gonna catapult my heart

Music Monday: Lex

 [Spoilers for Rift, continue at your own risk.]

I know, Imagine Dragons again. Is it my fault that their music is PERFECT for the movie adaptations in my mind? Hardly. 

I had all but forgotten that I had this song on my playlist while writing Rift. I mean, any time you are writing any kind of fantasy novel, a song titled Demons is bound to be in the mix somewhere. But I took a second and really listened to the words today - this is Lex, all day long. Is he a monster? Is he Alex? Is he real?

[Really spoilery bit:] Lex struggles not with a lack of memories but with memories that he can't trust. He is anyone that has a past that has been purposely (or not) forgotten, who suddenly has to deal with the recurrence of who/what he used to be. But for him, it's worse - are any of those memories, good or bad, real? Or is he just an algorithm that has become self-aware? And through all of that, he feels so bound to Em - regardless of why he feels that way - that all he can do is try to protect her.

Anyway, this song is for Lex...please enjoy this version with another contender for my fantasy movie score, Halsey.

Demons

Imagine Dragons

When the days are cold

And the cards all fold

And the saints we see

Are all made of gold

When your dreams all fail

And the ones we hail

Are the worst of all

And the blood's run stale

I want to hide the truth

I want to shelter you

But with the beast inside

There's nowhere we can hide

No matter what we breed

We still are made of greed

This is my kingdom come

This is my kingdom come

When you feel my heat

Look into my eyes

It's where my demons hide

It's where my demons hide

Don't get too close

It's dark inside

It's where my demons hide

It's where my demons hide

When the curtain's call

Is the last of all

When the lights fade out

All the sinners crawl

So they dug your grave

And the masquerade

Will come calling out

At the mess you made

Don't want to let you down

But I am hell bound

Though this is all for you

Don't want to hide the truth

No matter what we breed

We still are made of greed

This is my kingdom come

This is my kingdom come

When you feel my heat

Look into my eyes

It's where my demons hide

It's where my demons hide

Don't get too close

It's dark inside

It's where my demons hide

It's where my demons hide

They say it's what you make

I say it's up to fate

It's woven in my soul

I need to let you go

Your eyes, they shine so bright

I want to save their light

I can't escape this now

Unless you show me how

When you feel my heat

Look into my eyes

It's where my demons hide

It's where my demons hide

Don't get too close

It's dark inside

It's where my demons hide

It's where my demons hide

Putting on my Confessor Face: on Terry Goodkind and Inspiration

Read this one, I mean it.Yesterday I learned of the death of an author that had a profound effect on me as a wanna-be fantasy author, Terry Goodkind. While I did not read everything he wrote, I did read the entirety of the Sword of Truth series. A review of this series never made it to my book blog, Well Read, but I wanted to do an overview here, and tell you why I believe this to be an important series to read.

I am one of a few, I'm learning, who write fantasy but aren't really fans of the "classics" in the genre, such as - steady yourself - Tolkein. I loved the Hobbit when I read it in 4th grade (age 8/9) but I moved on immediately to try to read The Fellowship of the Ring. While I'm sure both of my parents thought me to be a reading prodigy and sort of a genius, that book fell flat with young Nancy and I will admit that I never picked it up to try again. To this day I have read bits here and there and seen the movies, but I just couldn't.

If you look at my list of life changing books, the genres are all over the place: Wuthering Heights (with a modern understanding of the problematic parts), The Historian, The Percy Jackson novels. It was probably not until I discovered The Sword of Truth series, at the recommendation of a good friend and fellow gamer, that I had the idea that I might like to write novels. I had written other books in niche genres, but you know that feeling when you are reading something and you think that either you wish you could live in that universe or "I wish I had written this?" Both of those applied to Wizard's First Rule.

As I said in my Facebook post about Goodkind's passing, "the Mother Confessor, the Seeker, the Mord Sith, even Darken Rahl were such well rounded characters, dancing right up to the edge of being a Mary Sue (Richard) but not faling into that trope." We all want to write the character that saves the world. Goodkind reminded me that you can do that as well as show all the trials and tribulations leading to that win, and still have the story of the everyman at the end of the novel - or series. 

In addition to my life as a writer, Goodkind has also influenced how I think about my life as an interpreter. I have blogged before about how much I identified with the character of the Mother Confessor, Kahlan, in respect to my DayJob™ and interpreter decorum here:

Terry Goodkind has quickly become one of my favorite authors, and he describes in his Sword of Truth series a character who serves as a judge of sorts...she is called a Confessor, and he talks about her wearing her Confessor's face. I do that. I wear my Interpreter's Face. Impartial. Objective. A mask. The line "sometimes I wish someone out there would find me" rang out to me, causing me to recall those times that I stood outside the huddle of support, wishing for someone to hand me a tissue or take my hand in comfort...but remaining quietly in the background, Interpreter's Face on.

and here:

I've compared this before to the 'Confessor's face' that author Terry Goodkind created for his character, Kahlan Amnell, in the Sword of Truth fantasy series. Confessors are women that are born into a magical sisterhood and have the ability to discern truth from lies (by basically taking over the mind of the person and leaving them a slave to the Confessor, but that's beside the point here). From Temple of the Winds:

Kahlan was wearing her Confessor's face: the blank expression that showed none of her feelings.

We are taught as interpreters to do this - to an extent. We are conveying communication and by necessity that involves emotion, so I am never that 'blank,' but it is not MY emotion you are seeing. It should never be my emotion.

So I am properly mourning a life that never, ever, intersected with my own save through a recommendation heeded, a book series read/consumed, and inspiration sought and given. Thank you, Mr. Goodkind, for sharing your work with us and inspiring us to go forward, better understanding ourselves and our world.

In your light we thrive. In your mercy we are sheltered. In your wisdom we are humbled. We live only to serve. -part of the D'Haran devotion to Lord Rahl, Sword of Truth series.

Notes from Exile: That Author Life, Tho

Looks like I've worked at Waterstone's before, eh?I recently took part in an online vendor showcase for Beach Bound Hounds, an event that I used to attend every year when I had greyhounds. As a result, I now find myself swimming in extra book stock, so I'm trying to find ways to make it pretty.

The yellow tote in that photo (and the one beneath it) is filled with BOOK SIGNING BITS AND BOBS and copies of The Nature Walker Trilogy and the Tales of the Forest War. I've stacked the rest of the stock waiting to be autographed and mailed out on top, and I think it creates an interesting visual representation of my career (hee hee!) as a writer. 

The closest book to the camera is Proud Racer: An American Greyhound in Yorkshire, written in 2011 about my two years in Keighley but told through the perspective of my greyhound, Daisy. I JUST got that delivered TODAY because indie publishing cares not for deadlines nor my own sudden realization that I had no copies of it on hand. That's my beautiful Daisy's eye, there on the cover- which if you will indulge me a bit of self-promotion, is one of the best covers I have ever designed. Or maybe that's just me. Anyway... To me now, that book reads like it is telling someone else's story. 

Just behind it are copies of Bryn's book, Clobberpaws, and Ciaragh's book, Clobberpaws, Too! and there are only a few of them (that I found, y'all, what are the odds?). The Irish Wolfhound Association of the Mid South blew me away last week ordering all the stock I thought I had and enabling me to make a donation of over $200 to the Heather Burns Memorial Fund for Veteran Hounds. I blogged about my friend Heather's death last week, and IWAMS set up this fund to help adopters and foster homes take in the hounds most dear to her heart, the seniors and those with medical issues. I'm just glad I could do something to help - though it doesn't come close to repaying all the help that Heather and IWAMS have given us since we brought our big girls into our family. Wolfhound STRONG.

Along the back, there are copies of Rift, Scorch (Tales of the Forest War), and Guardian (the last in the Nature Walker Trilogy) and I am looking at them like the Waterstone's Bookseller I was when I lived in the UK. I used to love days when I could just hang out in the stacks and look at all the books on the shelves. Now, that isn't a shelf, but it motivates me to do more/write more/be better so that one day that will be the shelf in a bookstore where the Nancy E. Dunne books are.

I'm still home, I'm still working remotely, and the pandemic rages on as people take unnecessary chances and chose not to wear masks. But this week I am happy and overwhelmed with the little writer life that I've created, and that makes a difference.

PS-no word back yet on the pages request I got as a result of #PitMad back at the beginning of September, but if nothing comes of it that won't end me. I feel that, for the first time in a long time, I'm doing what I'm meant to be doing, and that is enough for now.