Red Tash's Blog, page 3

Countdown to Election

Countdown To Election

Our chance to do better ! Lets get ourselves ready.

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A Literary Game Night Proposal

Have you ever read a physical book with hand-written annotations? It’s a trend, and a great one, I think.

I am considering starting a game night/book club thing where we play some kind of mystery game or other RPG and pass around a book. Everyone would get a turn taking the book home and adding their own notes, and then when the book has been annotated by all, everyone would get a chance to read the other notes.

Then we would pick out a new book and a new game to go along with it. Does that sound like fun? It could also be done virtually, but I feel like in person would be better.

If you’re interested, please leave a comment and any other pertinent info (preferences of book type, game type, in-person or virtual, etc.).

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A cozy fantasy midlife mystery

Hey! Happy New Year! Have you heard of “cozy fantasy”? Oh, it’s divine. A lot of it is set in fantasy worlds, but some of it is more on the magical realism side, or low fantasy, where the magical world intrudes into our everyday life. Cue Miss Fitz! I’m now subtitling these as “Cozy Fantasy Midlife Mysteries.”

AND, obviously an entirely new aesthetic!

I really loved the original artwork I had commissioned for the series. It seems as though cozy fantasy mystery is heading another direction, though, very into the floral filigrees and the fantasy fonts (and not so much on images of the witches themselves). So, I hope you will appreciate this tarot-inspired book cover makeover.

And book 3 is still in progress, but you can get an idea of what it’s going to look like in the Secret Updates from Red Tash facebook group.

Looking forward to hearing what you thought of the audiobooks, as well! If you enjoyed my narration, I would very much appreciate a review on Audible.com. They still have the old covers, as of this post.

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Harping on the harp

My child is playing her fingers raw preparing for her first ever solo gig, and I am so proud, while also SO the bad guy, because I am not letting her slack.

She’s really GOING for it and her little fingers are growing callouses, but it feels like she’s conquering something within herself. It’s difficult to say, as a third party, but it’s beautiful to watch.

And, yeah, I am the bad guy, but I really think she’s learning how to discipline herself in this way. Did I mention how proud I am of her?

Pray for us!

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First trip out of the house this year!

Tomorrow is really the first “normal” Monday of 2025, and we just paid a ridiculous amount of money to have our driveway shoveled, so the obvious agenda for today was LEAVING the Treehouse!

We made two stops! One for food, and the other for…food. You can’t go to the grocery store hungry, after all, unless the grocery store has an appealing restaurant within. Ours does not, so we indulged in a little Panera, then we were off to Big Kroger!

How quickly one forgets how tiring the grocery store is! It doesn’t help that I have basically been living in pajamas since New Year’s Eve.

It’s been a very productive time, though. I have worked every day of the year except for today. Tim has been working on his projects, too. It has been bliss! I love being on a roll.

Tomorrow I will have to run some errands, but I think it will be relatively quick on my other “car”:

Felt cute, might zip down to the Witchy Bookstore later.

Happy New Year, all! Hope it’s magical!

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Spirit Animals

Cozy Kittens & Animal Symbolism

This morning–just a moment ago–I was visited by another of my spirit animals. It was a cozy kitten. Not too surprising, considering the eight inches of snow that fell overnight. Nestle in, settle down, and rest. Keep warm. I know what she wants.

They’re never this detailed in real life, but it was something like this. ^

It isn’t the first and hopefully it won’t be the last of my forest visions, even though we plan to sell The Treehouse this year and move. Over the years here through the seasons of bare trees and myriad branches, I have been visited by bears, roosters, whole words spelled out in English, squirrels…I’m searching my brain to try and remember what else…and today, a kitten.

When I first starting “seeing things” in the woods, I would do a double-take. Wait. Was that? No…

Then later in the same day, the same reaction.

The first time one came to visit, I took a few days before mentioning it to Tim. “There’s a bear out there,” I told him.

“Oh, yeah?”

“I mean, obviously not a real bear, but every time I look out there, I keep seeing this bear…that isn’t there…”

Tim believes strongly in the symbolism of wild animals, so we looked up the meaning of the bear. In my case, it was a young bear. Not a baby cub, but not an adult.

Here is where the trouble starts. Where do you look up something so personal?

Appropriation or Not?

In American culture, spirit animals are seen as Native American / First Nations / Indigenous property. There is a well-meaning rapid response from some people to assume any yt person who sees an animal spirit must be appropriating Indigenous culture.

Even if they’re not.

I have kept this thought on the back burner for the past few years, because something this personal that doesn’t affect many others isn’t worth diving into, lest one sound too defensive, and thereby, insincere in one’s beliefs. As fortune would have it, however, I have made some rich cultural discoveries among my own heritage. I wasn’t looking for this information, but there it was.

The Cunning Folk

See, I am a Cunningham.

If you know anything of the Cunning Folk, then you may know what that means. If you have read anything by Scott Cunningham, then you might have a hunch regarding the cultural connection. It’s not popular knowledge, sadly, but my Celtic / Gaelic / Scots / Pagan ancestors from all over the British Isles used animal symbolism in their way of life. They were aware of animals, just like human beings on this continent. They saw qualities in animals similar to every other culture on this earth.

Consider: all over the world, a bear is a symbol of strength. A tortoise is a symbol of patience. A serpent is a symbol of evil. If you’d like to read a quick article about other international animal symbols, here’s a little from the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW).

In any culture that is aware of and values animals, there are going to be connections between these animals and the human psyche. That is how humans were designed. We learn from our environment.

We don’t just assign symbols to animals. We assign them to trees, flowers, homes, cars…Think of those horrible cyber trucks! What do they symbolize to you? What does a douche symbolize? A handgun?

Symbols are an unconscious language all their own. This is the language of tarot, of painters, of poets. It is the soul’s communication with the eye.

When I see my spirit animals, I do not think, “I have learned this from the Native Americans who once tended these woods.” I just see them–and the more I see, the better I understand them. I don’t try to see anything–they always surprise me.

The ironic thing about being a yt American is that we do live on formerly indigenous territory. As Tim pointed out to me once, Native Americans could have seen animals here in these woods, as well. Maybe not a kitten, but maybe a bobcat or a Puma. Firsthand accounts of people who lived right here in these woods might not exist. But, if you’re curious, these are the tribes historically associated with the spot where I live:

𐓏𐒰𐓓𐒰𐓓𐒷 𐒼𐓂𐓊𐒻 𐓆𐒻𐒿𐒷 𐓀𐒰^𐓓𐒰^(Osage)
Shawandasse Tula (Shawanwaki/Shawnee)
Hopewell Culture
Adena Culture
Kaskaskia
Myaamia

The internet says that these cultures believe in spirit animals, but that doesn’t mean that’s why I am seeing them. We can have separate, but overlapping experiences. That is okay!

I do believe that the commonality of human experience is a good thing. It helps us relate to one another. And for marginalized cultures, it helps them be SEEN. I respect other cultures and find them fascinating. If you find this intriguing, then you can look up these cultures and learn as much as you can about their beliefs, if they allow that (some tribes prefer to not be your spiritual entertainment, and that’s totally understandable!) But, appreciation of things we have in common? Yes. You can do that. You can honor things and not appropriate them as your own. There’s a balance there that sane folk have no trouble keeping–mostly because they are not trying to find meaning in their lives through copying and pasting traditions. They are just living.

To that end, fairies, pixies, and sprites are traditionally thought of as a white cultural fantasy beings. Celtic legends and pagan tales tell of Fairy Trees and the little people. Did you know that American Indian tribes also have tales of “little people” and beings similar to fairies and brownies?

Is that appropriation? No way. I believe it’s being a human being with eyes and a heart.

Just because you haven’t heard of spirit animals or animal spirits or forest ghosts or tiny little fairy people in other cultures doesn’t mean they haven’t existed. It just means YOU haven’t heard of them.

I can’t unsee my snow kitten, and I don’t want to. I want to love it, and I want to cherish this gift of being my intuitive self. I hope you have intuitive gifts of your own to cherish–and if you do, don’t feel like you’re not allowed. You can’t call dibs on “animals.” Nobody owns the wild.

The New Weird

I wrote a little about spirit animals in The New Weird. Chapter Thirteen is titled Seeing the Forest for the Trees: Treemancy and Spirit Animals.

At the end of of every chapter of The New Weird, I gave the reader Journaling Prompts. Yep, it’s an interactive kind of book! There’s even a paperback version if you want to use it that way.

Here are the prompts from the end of Chapter Thirteen: Seeing the Forest for the Trees: Treemancy and Spirit Animals:

1.) Have you ever seen shapes in things where no design was intended? What was your first reaction? Surprise? Welcome? Doubt? Were you taught to write off such fantasies as sinful or wrong? What if seeing shapes in the clouds was just an innocent by-product of being a human being in a big, beautiful world? Think of a time when you saw something, even though it wasn’t “really” there. Do you cherish that interaction? Did you learn from it?

2.) I live in the woods right now, but I believe that if I were a sea witch or plains witch, I’d see symbols and take meaning in my surroundings, as well. Look around you. Are you in a thriving, living environment? If not, take a walk in the woods or on the beach. What do you see? What do you feel? Is there some place you’d like to vacation, where you feel more connected to the natural world? Perhaps you are *that* sort of girl.

3.) Do you even want to see the future? What if, instead of seeing a future you can’t control, you could better understand your present? Would you feel more at ease to just understand your own self better?

Feel free to answer in the comments, or on your own blog, or in your journal! If you’d like, please drop the link so I can enjoy reading your own reflections!

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2025

It’s really here. We’re a quarter way through the century, and it’s disconcerting sometimes how very quickly it all happened.

I’m still a little kid–tall, lean, buck-toothed…my knees constantly skinned and my voice always too loud. I could fall down right now and rip a hole in my jeans on the basketball court. I could dive into a swimming pool and swim the length of it underwater, holding my breath. I could hit the bull’s eye from twice as far as any other kid, and keep on going until they dragged me away from the archery range with a bruised forearm from too much fun. Fifteen cartwheels in a row? Try and stop me.

That’s me, isn’t it? Planning on taking over the world someday…at least a part of it. Teaching folks, reading books, helping people understand things they couldn’t have or wouldn’t have put together on their own. I didn’t want or need to be famous, but a certain amount of professional success was almost certainly on the horizon.

Politics, family issues, and health concerns never entered the picture. As a kid holed away on the floor next to her bed reading fantasy novels and listening to the radio, the future was always some kind of perfect waiting to happen. A technicolor sunset that it would be an uncompromising joy to sail into.

And now it’s 2025? The time when robots or apes or robot apes are supposed to be running the world, I think? So far in the future that I can’t even imagine it, because I will be very old by then, indeed. Very, very old.

And here I sit, my hair still mostly brunette, only about 30% silver according to my new hairdresser. I’m losing weight and improving my work habits, taking more medicine for unimagined ills that I never dreamed would afflict me. I’m writing more than ever, probably, except for the year 2011 when my youngest daughter was a babe-in-arms and didn’t need companionship in the same way she requires it now. Goodness, Tim worked from the office back then, too. He didn’t snore in an easy chair three feet from me, as he does now, nor did he video conference day-in and day-out with other problem solvers, saving the world through one hospital interface at a time.

That first year of selling and publishing fiction seriously, rather than journalism, was so exciting.

2011! So far in the future! My goodness, I’ll be so old by then!

But there I was, homeschooling three little boys who I dearly loved and wanted to only nurture and encourage. Nursing a beautiful daughter–something I never thought I would have. And that first year, I published something like 25 ebooks, I think.

The total now is much higher.

Don’t freak out–not all ebooks are 800 pages long. Some are more like articles or short stories. It really all depends on how long it takes to produce the thing you need to make, really. How many words it takes to teach someone something, to explain the thing they wouldn’t have put together on their own.

Other books are long, sure. And, some are compilations and box sets. I’m published in over a dozen anthologies, and I don’t even count those, because they aren’t on my dashboards. I simply forget to add them in.

So, yeah, in a way, I am doing the thing that I thought I’d do. The fiction aspect of writing is the bigger part of my work these days, and that’s not always as obviously teaching as journalism or non-fiction, or freelance editing and the like. Fiction teaches in different, more subtle ways. If you’re doing it right, people think it’s just entertainment. They don’t realize until weeks, months, or even years past the consumption of the material that they learned something from it–that it changed them somehow, or simply opened their mind to another way of thinking.

And heaven knows that many writers actually have no bloody idea that they’re teaching something to someone else. They’re just trying to make ends meet.

I once told a fellow writer (CD Reiss, if you’re interested) that I thought we all write our truth. We can’t help but write what we know deep down to be true–especially through fiction. I think she agreed with me at the time. She’s an amazing writer–even if you think you’re not into that kind of book, just give one of her books a try. You’ll be glad you did.

But the other side of the coin of writing all that good truthiness is that we live in this ever-changing, chaotic world of the future where nothing is what we thought it would be, and the things that are must be strategically leveraged to attain the next goal–just to survive. I’m not talking about billionaire shit. I’m talking about real life. You need to do X to get Y so your kid can afford Z. Wash, rinse, repeat. In a world like that, every little personal indulgence is so precious. The manicure, the Wild Blueberry White Mocha latte, the new tiny sweater for the dog.

This isn’t the way I thought the future would be. I’m definitely not the person I thought I would be in 2025. The world…well, people say it burns, or that it’s a dumpster, or whatever, but the truth is, it’s just difficult. Human nature has always cycled through its crises, and it will keep doing so long after my generation is forgotten. We make a chain of love, and hopefully it lasts a few years beyond our lifetimes, and what more can you ask for?

Okay, so I hear it now. That^ doesn’t sound like the ten year old who just discovered Piers Anthony. That^ up there sounds like the middle aged mother of four who she became.

I love my life. I love my life and my work. I love my life and my work and my family, even if some of my kids aren’t my biggest fans.

I do my best. I write my truth.

And sometimes, I teach people things, whether I mean to, or not.

(This has been a blog entry a la the days of Xanga and eFairy! If you want to read something lighter, I recommend anything from this page.)

Have an amazing year, and watch out for those robot apes.

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Glow up time for ZuZu in her children’s chapter book

Chicken Impossible Cover makeover

ZuZu’s lazy freeloader chickens fail to hatch any chicks, so she sets out on an adventure with her family to add three tiny fluffballs of chickeny goodness to the family’s backyard flock. With the help of Mom, Dad, and three older brothers, ZuZu becomes a chicken agent, nonpareil. If you loved Junie B. Jones, give ZuZu and her family’s adventure a read. Recommended for ages 6-12. A children’s chapter book.

Tim and I have been writing up a storm! We’re literally high-fiving at our desks! Looking forward to the future, babies!

I can’t believe it’s been seven+ years since I published ZuZu’s story in this children’s chapter book. WOW. I thought I’d give her a quick cover makeover. Enjoy.

(I’d love to write another ZuZu story! Have you read this one? Let me know what you think.)

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It’s beginning to look a lot like Witchmas for cozy fantasy mystery lovers!

Readers,

As promised, the winners of the Miss Fitz Magical Mug situation were announced today! Did you miss it? Check your spam or trash folders (and mark the email as “not spam” or “not trash,” by all means). There were four winners in this giveaway!

In other news, work continues rapidly on the next story in the series. I told newsletter readers all about it, so if you are interested in downhome cozy fantasy mysteries and witchy fiction with small town charm and likeable characters, by all means, join the email list! And you can start reading the first two books right now on Amazon (free in Kindle Unlimited), order them in paperback, or listen to the audiobooks narrated by yours truly on iTunes or Audible.

No pre-order link yet for book 3, but a cover reveal and that link will undoubtedly come in 2025. I love being happily back at work on this series!

Life is so weird, isn’t it? There isn’t much that makes me happier than writing, but in between the “get started” phase and the “hit the publish button” phase, there is a ridiculous amount of procrastination (or procrastivity, as my friend Kat calls it). I recently learned I have ADHD, so that explains a lot–about me AND about Miss Fitz. Oh, Miss Fitz. You poor, sweet, unsuspecting fictional character. What a future you are in for (in the coziest, least scary way, of course).

I must run now, because I have done the opposite of procrastination today and overachieved. It’s time for me to relax!

Hope your holiday season is going beautifully. If it’s not, feel free to complain on BlueSky or Threads. There are some very funny people on both.

I have finally joined each (look for me as PlanetTash on BlueSky and ThePlanetTash on Threads. Of course, I’m still on Facebook & Instagram, as well. I might still have a MySpace. *shrugs*

Feliz Navidad!

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