Peak Amygdala

I guess I’m joining all the cool kids in writing a 2022 retrospective. Oh well, it’s one of those traditional things that happens. I don’t make resolutions, per se, but looking back at the year does serve some sort of purpose. So here goes.

I started 2022 with a lot of energy, somewhat akin to 2020 when I vowed that what eventually became the core of the Martiniere Legacy series would be my breakthrough book into traditional publishing. I signed up for World Fantasy, planning to network my little heart out and push my book.

Well, we know what happened in 2020. And, ten or so books later, the Martinieres have become a major chunk of my catalog, have a Substack of their own, and all.

2022 had a lot of promise. I was going to republish the Netwalk Sequence series for various reasons, including dated references, dated interior formatting, and, most of all, covers that didn’t match. I had five cover artists across six books and that doesn’t really work.

I was going to get aggressive about promoting my (now decent-sized) backlist.

I was going to publish a bunch of my story ideas that had just been sitting around, partially completed, on my hard drive. I had a whole plan based on serializing those stories on Kindle Vella, moving them to Kindle Unlimited for 90 days when they were completed, then publishing them wide. Some of those stories would launch new series–Weird West, space opera, urban fantasy.

I was going to start the new Goddess’s Vision series–finally.

I was going to start selling fabric art and start making jewelry art again, selling it on line.

A lot of plans. A lot of ambitions. And, well–

Some of it happened, but a lot of it didn’t.

What did happen:

The Netwalk Sequence reissue came off, but nothing much happened with it. When my regular cover designer ran into life issues, I ended up making my own covers in Book Brush. It was a slog to reissue a book a month, especially given some of the issues I was dealing with. I still don’t have the paperback copies up yet, but that will happen in 2023. At least I can look at those books now without flinching.

Some of those languishing stories got published. They got a little attention on Kindle Vella, but nothing much otherwise. Beating the Apocalypse, Bearing Witness, and Becoming Solo (huh. All “B” titles) are out there but not much is happening with them.

I published two more Martiniere books–The Enduring Legacy, which in my personal opinion is an award-worthy standalone conclusion to the core Martiniere Legacy series and the book of my heart–and A Different Life: What If? where I pursued a sideline into the possibility of a Martiniere Multiverse, with digital thought clones vying for control of the future. A third Multiverse book: A Different Life: Now. Always. Forever. will come out in February, and there will probably be a third in the A Different Life series at some point. But it will be very dark. Meanwhile, I’m working on a separate Multiverse book that may be a standalone, may not be–The Cost of Power, which will serialize in rough draft on the Martiniere Stories Substack. I’m not going to run out of Multiverse ideas anytime soon, but I will be working on other things.

I wrote some new short stories that are making the rounds. I started submitting my backlist of short stories again.

I joined SFWA as a full member.

I sold a quilt through a friend.

What didn’t happen:

By April, the cataract in my right eye that ended up sapping a lot of my energy was making itself known. A fast-developing cataract that started blocking the vision in the inside corner of my right eye. If I had a drink of coffee, the cup blocked out the cataract so that I could see clearly around the rim. The minute I lowered the cup, it was back to right eye blur. I was just starting up the backlist promotion campaign but between the cataract and my MacBookPro becoming unusable, leaving me to fall back on my iPad when traveling to Portland for business, family, and medical stuff, I couldn’t do much. It was a slog to keep up with the Vella and Substack serials and edit the Netwalk books, keeping to my production schedule. I had no energy for promotion. By summer, I was needing to take breaks of 1-2 hours with a cold pack over my eyes to relieve the strain. I worked much more slowly because I just couldn’t do things. I couldn’t read much. My depth perception was messed up so I couldn’t do a lot of outside stuff, and I stopped working on fabric art.

Surgery happened in October, fortunately after I went on Medicare. But it’s taken me a good two months to get back up to speed on things, and I’m still scattered, with focus issues. Pushing through with the cataract has taken a greater toll on my ability to work than I realized.

I’ve started poking at fabric art designs again. I plan to have something figured out by August for holiday sales, but also want to have a bunch of stuff ready to enter in the local County Fair. That includes figuring out something to do with my photography.

I didn’t develop those new series. The Vortex Worlds series is still somewhat difficult, though I have notes on paper for it (that’s the Weird West Multiverse series). I have notions for the Bright Star Fair Witches series but nothing written. Federation Cowboy is only now in development, and I hope to get episodes up on Kindle Vella by February if not mid-January.

Right now I feel swamped and overwhelmed. I’m still looking for the right structure to build that helps me do stuff and stay organized. The Twitter meltdown hasn’t helped, as I’ve been experimenting and checking out new social media for promotional purposes. Right now, the new additions appear to be Tumblr (jreynoldsward) and CounterSocial (joycereynoldsward). Mastodon continues to be a source of annoyance and frustration and I look at it maybe once every two weeks, then go “bah!” and move on. But Spoutable appears to be a thing, and I’m waiting to see how that works out. I’m looking around at my office and trying to figure out how to set things up. I have a lovely new MacBookAir that needs to be taken for some extensive writing work, even though I don’t care for the version of Word on it.

Tomorrow, I’ll talk about what I’m planning to do in 2023. That planning will be part of today’s work.

 

Yesterday when driving back from a ride and visit with the old mare, I suddenly had the thought “it’s nice weather and gonna be for a few days, so maybe it’s time to take a drive.” Easy enough to do here, where it’s possible to get out and see stuff but not go much more than forty-fifty miles.

Great minds think alike because that’s what the husband suggested when I got up this morning. Now, being on the older side, that doesn’t mean that we got out of here all that quickly–needed to pull things together before we headed out. But soon enough, we were off for a short cruise around the County. After the morning visit to grain the old mare, give her some attention, and provide entertainment for the horse herd, we were off. We headed out the Zumwalt hoping to get out there and see some critters.

Well, we saw some hawks. I took some pictures with my camera setting on artistic shots–like the one above of the Seven Devils.

And then we encountered THIS.

I didn’t take the pic from very close because as soon as we saw that first big drift and no tracks past it, we KNEW. Before I could jump out and take a pic, husband was backing the truck. So this is a very long range zoom shot. The drift in question looked to be about three feet high, and since we’re a.) old and b.) the closest house was ten miles back on the road and c.) we’ve done our share of getting stuck and having to walk out and we’re (see a).

So we turned around. On the other hand, on the way back, we spotted these big boys.

They know it’s not hunting season.

So we cruised around elsewhere. Spotted two big family groups of bald eagles, ranging from first years to full adults. But also spotted a small flock of pheasants–two roosters and three hens. Encouraging to see. I hear those roosters crowing all the time when I’m riding Mocha on the roads, so it was cool to see them in a group. For some reason, vehicles don’t spook them as much as a horse and rider seems to. I’ve seen those roosters drop to the ground and sneak along at a pretty good clip.

It was a nice break to the day, and I got some good pix. Did some thinking about the new Martiniere serial that begins tomorrow over on Martiniere Stories, The Cost of Power. Also started thinking about a historical set in the Martiniere backstory–the origins of the Double R Ranch and the love story of Ben Ryder and Mollie Bennett. Might be a straight historical…or not. Hard to say. Probably will be just short works. But who knows? It seems to work for Yellowstone, and the Martiniere books, no matter which series (The Martiniere Legacy, The People of the Martiniere Legacy, Martiniere Multiverse) are basically near-future Yellowstone meets Succession meets Willa Cather meets Ivan Doig.

The other piece was considering just how to represent the somewhat different relationship between Gabriel and Philip Martiniere in that book. Power is the story where they end up collaborating against someone worse–but Gabe has to look really hard at himself and what he will and won’t do in the name of power. Not sure what that’s gonna look like, but I’ve decided that serials are where I let my pantser flag fly (as opposed to something I’m not serializing).

Anyway, it was a much-needed break, and a nice change from driving to Portland to do medical/family stuff.

The rhythms of winding down from fall into winter this year have been rather odd. It seemed to take forever for the trees and bushes to change their leaves, and we had flashes of cold and wet followed by dry and warm (for the season).

The plants are confused as well. The tamarack (western larch) trees on the mountains changed late, and they’re still holding onto their needles so that there’s a faint gold glow under snow. Our big burning bush never completely changed before wind blew off half its leaves, and there’s still leaves in various stages of change clinging to the brush.

Nonetheless, we have snow on the ground, and after cataract surgery, a flurry of appointments tied to the surgery and other medical needs, and a vacation trip to the Coast over Thanksgiving, it’s time to settle into the winter routines.

Fog lingers late in town, while it’s bright and sunny out at the ranch. The mares have settled into their winter patterns, quiet for the most part with no drama. Old Mocha waits until I’ve come to what she thinks is the proper distance before she begins walking toward me. The snow isn’t deep enough yet that she follows trails in it, but she’s in no hurry to move, either. Between hay and the grass the herd is still pawing for, she’s well-fed and satisfied. The treats and grain she gets from me on a daily basis are just dessert, along with the attention she gets on a non-riding day.

Mocha slowly savors her mite of grain, just enough to add flavor to her supplement. She chews steadily but doesn’t frantically grab at the grain–another indicator that all is well in old mare world. She’s not ravenous. She issues occasional, contented grunts as she eats, occasionally jerking her head out of the bucket to look at something. Then back to the bucket, half-closing her eyes as she works through the pellets.

At last she’s done with the grain. Then it’s pick the hooves to monitor how well her front rim pads are working and check growth on the hinds, followed by a light brush to make sure there’s no injuries and work out itchy spots. She’s feeling good today–high noon seems to be her best time these days. After attention and final treats, I turn her loose. She visits the heated waterer, goes over to the selenium block for some contemplative licks, then back for a second drink before wandering out to the herd. No need to hurry. It may be sunny but it’s still 18 degrees F, and not a time for old mares to get too snorty, unless they get cold and go for a run to warm up.

Back home again, to the foggy depths of town. Hoarfrost clings to the long needles of the Jeffreys pine. I eat lunch, and gaze at the white outside.

It’s peaceful.

Slowing down.

Staying warm.

I return to my office and begin to work. Stories start to stir. Perhaps I’ve been waiting for this winter quiet.

Well, I finally got it together and figured out how to do the Netwalk Sequence box set. Vellum was easy but I kept running into issues with making the image…but it ended up working, after all.

$12.99 for the entire thing–six books in one. That includes all the short stories connected to the Sequence.

Plus I finally came up with a blurb for the whole thing–

I used to be a special education teacher with a fascination for neurobiology and how the brain works. While I was a generalist, I had been exposed to a couple of cases where vision issues needed to be taken into consideration. Such cases called for a specialist associated with a neighboring county’s Education Service District. Vision Impairment specialists are not only rare in education, they’re very much prized (and there are times when I regret that I didn’t go into that subfield). That said, I seriously only had two confirmed cases of Vision Impairment in ten years of working in the field.

However, the class session for my special ed training cohort that covered Vision Impairment was utterly fascinating. Little did I know that the experience of that one session—including wearing goggles that simulated different types of vision impairment—would ultimately prove to be personally valuable.

It started sometime around April, 2022. I had been noticing that I was having greater problems than usual with sun glare on my desktop—which is situated so that reflections shouldn’t be an issue.

At first I didn’t think anything much about the situation.

For the last fifteen years or so, I have had issues with focus during certain times of spring and fall. A conversation with my optometrist at the time centered on the aging of my eye muscles, and slower focusing as a result. I had also noticed that sometimes during that period of sun angle, my eyes were unhappy and needed some additional time to focus.

I didn’t get excited.

I figured that this was just a worse case of my seasonal focus issues than usual, possibly an effect of dry eyes and spending a lot of time at the desktop instead of the laptop, which was failing (tends to happen, especially when you’ve drafted something like seven books or so of about 100,000 words each on the device, in the course of two and a half years. That tends to make laptops Very Tired. I had worn spots on keys and the space bar).

So I spent money on a mouse for my iPad and switched over.

I had bought said iPad a couple of years earlier because my eyes hurt when reading on my phone.

I figured this would make everything better, and that part of the problem was my laptop.

It wasn’t.

The blurring became more specific in location. Inside portion of my right eye. When I drank from a coffee cup, everything around the rim was as clear as it had been.

It became harder to see the temperature and time readout in the Subaru, located on my right side.

Bright sunlight hurt my eyes more. And, as several weeks passed, things were getting worse, not better.

I looked up macular degeneration. Nope, didn’t fit. Same for retinal detachment, which had been a worry since I had a sign of some old damage there.

I looked up glaucoma. Maybe, especially since my eye pressure readings were borderline at my last exam. Possible.

I didn’t think much about cataracts, simply because the changes were happening quickly. We had a friend who had needed surgery for glaucoma, so I was worrying about that, and knew I needed to act quickly.

I made an appointment with my optometrist.

The first big sign of trouble was when it took a lot of effort on my part and the assistant’s part to get good scans of that right eye. Left eye? No problem. Right eye? Trying to center in on those bright red dots proved to be more difficult than expected.

“It’s a fast-developing cataract, and you need surgery,” was the optometrist’s verdict. “Your glaucoma numbers are also pretty high, so you need to have that checked as well.”

Which was a complication. I do not have vision coverage, so I don’t go to the optometrists at Kaiser (my medical coverage). Multiple reasons for this choice, including dealing with opticians in the Kaiser shops who don’t understand people who do things like ride horses. The arguments that I’ve had about bifocal line placement, as well as finding frames where coatings don’t peel off the lenses, much less finding frames that will hold up to a horseperson’s lifestyle…yeah.

Nonetheless, I sent a message to my doctor at Kaiser requesting a referral, and citing the glaucoma numbers as a primary reason (they were up there).

The stately dance of managing my cataract had started.

“We’re looking at mid-fall for a surgery date,” the ophthamologist said when I finally got in to see him. “Sorry, but we’re backed up.”

He also dismissed the glaucoma as an issue. “Not concerned about those numbers. Let’s deal with this cataract first. My scheduler will contact you.”

So I went home and prepared to live with a cataract.

Coping with vision impairment, especially a fast-developing one, takes up a lot of cognitive effort.

At first it wasn’t too bad. I didn’t open the curtains in my office. I implemented some dry eye management systems such as running a diffuser with plain water to improve the humidity in my office. I took more frequent breaks.

After all, as a former special educator, I knew coping strategies were possible.

The blurriness got worse.

I found myself taking longer to get my daily words down. Lying down once or twice a day with a cold pack on my eyes ended up being necessary. It became harder to plow through any reading on a computer screen, and paper wasn’t any better.

But what was worse was the beginnings of cognitive fog.

It affected my reading comprehension. I had to read things more slowly and carefully. For a fast reader like I have been all of my life, needing to slow down was a frustrating exercise. Retention became a challenge. Tasks that had been simple became slow slogs.

The issues weren’t just tied to computers and reading. My close-up depth perception worsened. I stopped working on a couple of quilts because I didn’t trust myself to measure, cut, and sew accurately. Walking down stairs or an uneven slope became a challenge.

I worked out strategies, but the price for trying to cope and compensate was greater fatigue. I started postponing my applications for book promotions because the cognitive labor of facing the questions or even the applications themselves was tiring. Too much effort. I managed to get two books finished and released, but a third is still awaiting edits.

Schedules started falling apart in September. I could see how I was losing track of things, slowing down in writing production, spending more time lying down with a mask over my eyes, just to relieve the aches.

But I didn’t beat myself up over it. I was dealing with a vision impairment, yes, but one that hopefully could be fixed. I remembered that class session so many years ago, with the goggles. What was happening with my vision was simply a result of the cataract.

I kept telling myself that frequently, and planned for the possibility that things could get worse.

When things happened, they happened quickly. I qualified for Medicare and had a start date. A surgery date popped up, after I went on Medicare. I would have taken the offered date no matter what, because my vision was worsening week-by-week, but the Medicare piece made it simpler.

I went in for the pre-surgery scan. The technician called in a second person to verify the drastic differences between my eyes. My left eye was still good, but my right eye?

I couldn’t read the top line on a vision chart. Just too blurry.

And yet, every time I raised a coffee cup to take a drink, it blocked out the cataract. I had a temporary reprieve from vision impairment.

But there’s no good way to replicate that blocking. I tried.

“It’s a relatively uncomplicated cataract,” the opthamologist said.

I clung to that lifeline, because the speed of the cataract developing was worrisome.

I am one of those squicky people when it comes to my eyes. I don’t do contacts because I don’t like fussing with my eyes. Heck, I never did eyeliner because that was too much fussing around my eyes. So facing the prospect of cataract surgery, especially after watching the detailed video about it, required a bit of fortification.

It helped to have a number of friends who had already undergone cataract surgery.

“It’s nothing. You’ll be so happy afterward,” was what I kept hearing.

I clung to that reality.

The surgery itself was pretty uneventful. I was part of a production line involving several different types of eye surgery, all performed by my opthamologist. I noticed that there was space for thirty-eight beds in the Eye Procedures department, and I’m pretty darn sure they were all occupied by patients in different stages of preparation for surgery.

Soon enough, it was my turn to go in. I was nervous about the whole thing, especially because of my eye squickyness. I happily accepted the offer of a calming agent, especially since I was very explicit that I was nervous about the whole affair.

I saw bright colors while the surgeon worked.

And then it was done, and the blur was gone.

I’m taking my time to recover right now, listening to my body. It took a couple of days to get past the anethesia. My opthamologist wasn’t very restrictive—when I told him I had an old horse I needed to exercise to keep in shape, he advised me to give it three to five days, and not throw around any hundred-pound hay bales for a while.

I notice that my eye muscles are still adapting to this change—I had subconsciously developed some adaptive mechanisms where the left eye was compensating for the right eye. My eyes are still tending toward fatigue, but improving.

But I didn’t have any major focus issues. To date, the recovery has been uneventful.

I’m grateful for that.

So I’m starting out my Nook Oops pricing special with the first book in the Netwalk Sequence series, Life in the Shadows.

Shadows is currently available at ALL VENDORS for $2.99, October 14th through October 20th.

It’s a collection of stories that chronicle the growing estrangement between Sarah Stephens and her daughter Diana Landreth, from short stories such as “Leave Him–or Else” to novellas such as “Shadow Harvest.” Because Diana and Sarah are powerful women working with world-changing technology, their off-and-on relationship has an impact beyond just themselves, especially when a war machine of unknown origin begins to destroy cities around the world. Ultimately, they have to make a choice between family and power. Will their alliance forged to manage the Disruption Machine endure, or will it fall victim to the choices they make? To what degree do the shadows of their past–including the shadows of the men they love–impact their decisions?

Shadows is a prequel of sorts to the Netwalk Sequence series. It’s possible to start with Book Two, Netwalk (on sale next week) but Shadows provides backstory for the entire series.

Here are the links to specific vendors:

Amazon

Apple

Kobo

Nook

Please check Shadows out! It’s also available to libraries through Overdrive and Hoopla, so if you want to read it but don’t have the cash on hand to buy it, please request it from your local library–and thank you to those of you who do purchase it or request it from your library!

So. All these books I’ve been talking about? The Netwalk Sequence reissues, plus A Different Life: What If?, The Enduring Legacy, and Becoming Solo?

Guess what. Not a one has a link to Barnes and Noble, aka Nook, in the universal Books2Read link. Until this year, Nook has been my best-selling vendor.

I’ve been fretting about the dearth of sales on what has been my best sales platform to date, and, well, now I have a pretty good idea of just why that has been happening. No links to Nook.

I’ve gotten lots of suggestions from other indie writers about how to manually add those links in B2R. Taking a deep breath because that means nine books to fix (not the eight I had erroneously claimed on social media last night). But there are other issues I have to consider as well, most explicitly a.) how to republicize each book and b.) rebuilding trust in my readers that when I say there’s a link to Nook, there really is one.

Add in the issue that in the next two weeks I will be dealing with cataract surgery and the aftermath, plus gearing up to promote box sets for three series (once I make them, that is). There will be some conflicting issues for sure, and I’m thinking that perhaps the box set I most dread (the one with the Goddess’s Honor series, dreading because of all the short story pieces that will go into it) needs to be my first one. It’s the only series unaffected by this link issue.

So, what to do, what to do?

I’ve decided to start by running a reduced price feature on each individual book, starting on Fridays and running for a week. I’m going to call it the Nook Oops promotion. That means that every $4.99 book will be $2.99 for that week, and the $2.99 books will be $1.99, with the exception of Becoming Solo, which is brand new and releasing in time for the Halloween season.

It’s not much, but it’s something. I’ve added individual links to Barnes and Noble on every promo slide I’ve made for these books in the last year.

Will it work? Will I start seeing Nook sales again?

I don’t know. It’s worrisome.

Part of me splutters and growls because of course this sort of thing seems to happen to me, just about every damn time I start to gain some traction in this writing business. If it’s not an important reading expanding my market getting canceled because the venue’s ceiling fell in, or the big periodical that bought a story that would be a splashy debut losing important funding and the principal person behind it dying, or Covid happening just when I wrote a book that might be my Big Breakthrough…or…or…or….

One of these days, something’s gotta break in my favor, right? Right?

Time’s running out, though. I’ll be sixty-five in a few days. It’d be awfully damn nice to have one of these breakthroughs happen sooner rather than later.

Ah well, enough whining for now. I need to schedule price changes on a book and think about the promo for the upcoming week. Time to get to work!

I’ve been drafting a short story this week, which is somewhat of a new process since most of the last three years has been dedicated to novels and serial fiction.

It’s been an interesting experience going back to short fiction. Somehow, I seem to have integrated some of the process mechanisms I’ve developed for long form work into the process of short form work–namely, thinking in 1000-2000-word chunks. I haven’t been able to do it in quite that manner before, but I’m hoping the trend continues.

Meanwhile, I’m realizing that the process of drafting several works for serialization on Kindle Vella and Substack seems to have affected some of my drafting skills for short stories. The optimal length for a serial episode is really under 3000 words, whether it’s Kindle Vella or Substack. When carrying novels over to either format, I’ve split up chapters into individual episodes loosely based either on a single scene or several closely related scenes. My drafting for the serials has followed that pattern of writing complete scene sequences during a day’s work–a chapter usually takes about five days using this process.

So far, I’m noticing the same pattern with short stories. But the other piece is that I’m suddenly able to think through the arc of a short story, hopefully without turning it into the first chapter of a novel (which is my lamentable habit). Oh, the prospects will still exist, but…the current short story should be coming in at around 4ooo words.

This is–different. In the past I haven’t been able to chunk up the progression of a short story quite this easily. Haven’t thought through the beats of story and the character arc like this.

I’m tending to attribute this difference to serial writing. Now I’ve only really composed about three things specifically for Vella–Beating the Apocalypse, Becoming Solo, and Bearing Witness. And even at that, Apocalypse and Bearing Witness were both mostly completely written before I revised them for Vella. However, I started the process of integrating Word and Scrivener for long form work using those two stories in particular–breaking the story into episodes with separate files in Vella, then consolidating them into chapters later. Becoming Solo was really the height of this process. Then I carried it over into other long form work.

But somehow, in the process of divvying up sequences to post appropriately on Vella, I developed that mental construct which allows me to wrap my head around the structure I want for a particular piece of short form writing.

A learning process, I suppose, like any aspect of writing.

Will this trend continue? I certainly hope so. At the moment, my priority is to draft several stories for particular anthology calls. We’ll see if it results in saleable work. Once I’m done with that, it’s time to start work on a couple of other serials, plus worldbuild for that dang second fantasy series in the Goddess’s Honor world that I keep talking about. All of the shorts that I’m working on are tied in somehow to worlds that I’m fleshing out or thinking about doing more work in.

We shall see how it unfolds.

 

I keep lollygagging about putting up new posts. Oh, it’s not for a lack of ideas. It’s more an issue of energy, time, and…I dunno. I keep wondering if maintaining a website and a blog really works for me or not. Perhaps I need to fork over for a decent website. I dunno.

Then again, the issue of the cataract is a very real situation. I find that it tires me out–not so much physically but with mental fatigue because I’m coping. All to be expected–that’s how disability works, after all. But it’s still frustrating.

Especially since I need to be focusing on drafting short stories and getting a bunch of other stuff done. SIGH.

Anyway.

So here’s the latest work. Becoming Solo had its roots in a particular anthology. In its original form, it was rejected. I put it aside, occasionally tried to market it, but otherwise didn’t think much about doing anything with it until Kindle Vella happened. I looked at what I had, saw where I could turn it into a nice little short piece to put up on Vella–and here it is.

The essential conceit behind Becoming Solo is that magic in a certain part of the world–the Pacific Northwest–is managed through daemons, which are tied to a specific region. Daemon power is renewed through yearly Magic Fairs, which coincide with your everyday county fair.

So what happens to an area’s magic when a Fair becomes Lost?

*******

The inspiration for this story came from my days as a 4H Leader. The county that we lived in, with a strong tradition of being the first urban 4H program, decided to defund its 4H program. I provided a community club option for my county’s 4Hers at a neighboring fair–our project areas were small animals, tech, science, plus all the home ec stuff. One of my members, who was a powerhouse at our fair, waltzed into the new fair and easily dominated a very competitive field, especially in the Style Revue sewing division (in Style Revue, one not only makes an outfit but displays it in a runway walk–and it is competitive).

I used that experience to create Shadow the Question–but it took other experience to fill out the family spell matrices, the role of the Senior Council, and more.

******

So far, the story hasn’t really been one that I thought was big enough for a book. Oh, I could whip up a full-sized book, I suppose. As I wrote this one, other threads popped up that could make it longer. But. I couldn’t necessarily do it from Yesenia’s point of view. Her arc within this novella is more-or-less completed as a major character. And, as I look at possibilities, I just do not see a single character or set of characters that emerge as story leaders for anything long enough to be a book.

However, I do see possibilities in individual stories, not just about this fair but others. Shadow may have a story. So may Bright Star itself. Or other magicians. That’s why I labeled it as a “Bright Star Fair Witches” story–holding space for future stories in the series.

I’ll probably come back to it at some point.

But for now, here is Becoming Solo. A nice little short piece, at a reasonable price ($2.99).

Becoming Solo can be found on Amazon as well as Apple, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo. Due to size, it’s unlikely to come out in paper, unless I write other Bright Star Fair Witches stories.

 

One of the things I’ve been struggling with as I contemplate my next big project is the role that Empire and monarchy play within many SFF stories. This ramble is me putting down some of my thoughts, working through the process, and sharing it with others. Why?

Well, why not? I’m conceptualizing a big theme and still in the worldbuilding phase. What better time to write something like this?

#

Most of the time, Empire and monarchy are viewed in the context of being Good (while that is changing, there’s still a surfeit of kings, queens, emperors, and empresses in SFF).

And it’s not just any sort of monarchy/empire that gets a lot of representation (again, this is a broad statement, Things Are Changing), but a heavily medieval, heavily European-themed perception of hereditary rule.

Oldest children inherit leadership roles. There’s a whole hierarchy of nobility underneath them. It’s a very structured pyramid of who-does-what-and-you-are-fated-to-live-out-your-role. Add in a heavy dose of deterministic thought—not a lot of free will if you are the Chosen One—and patriarchy, and—colonialism, veiled or unveiled.

For those of us from European-origin cultures, trying to break free of that vise can be…challenging. It’s a far-too-familiar, far-too-friendly rut.

I can be just as much an offender as anyone else.

Even when I’m trying to do better.

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My first real attempt at deconstructing empire is in my Goddess’s Honor series. As I contemplate writing the next series in that world (Goddess’s Vision), I keep wrestling with certain aspects of my personal and regional history, because not only am I the descendant of settlers, but my settler/colonialist history goes back far enough that I lack emotional resonances and ties to the Old Country.

(Wherever that is. Possibly Cornwall. Darned if I know otherwise.)

My resonances are with the land I grew up in—the home of one of the Kalapuya peoples. With the Columbia River Plateau country—home to diverse peoples. My family were and are wanderers, and for the most part my personal history is reflective of my ancestors, clear back to their murky origins someplace in the British Isles and probably the main European continent as well.

Poor dirt farmers don’t keep a lot of records, especially if there’s a lot of movement within each generation. I have a sibling who has put in some time working on our family’s genealogy, and one thing that stands out to me is that in the three hundred-some years that my ancestors have been in North America, very few of them have died anywhere near where they were born.

If I have any tradition, it is that of the wanderer. The choice to pick up and move on, usually for financial reasons.

This lack of family histories and traditions has somehow left me less interested in European-based stories over the years. Oh, when I was younger and that was pretty much all that was available, things were different. Like a lot of kids, I got into the notion of being fascinated by monarchy, and had a real thing for histories of Elizabeth I.

But that wore off, especially as I became more aware of Indigenous history and stories about the land where I live. I wanted to see something besides the Europeans. Something besides castles I could barely visualize, even if I looked at pictures. Monarchs that I might see on an occasional TV special.

I began to look at Pacific Northwest history as a possible inspiration, especially the conflicts between Indigenous peoples and my settler ancestors. Another facet is the degree to which my region has been and still is viewed as a place to extract resources, starting with the fur trade before moving on to fish, timber, minerals, and cheap hydroelectric power.

The problem of colonialism.

I wanted to see more fantasy in this setting. Heck, any fantasy that didn’t default to Europe, castles, and a medieval era that I could barely visualize much less resonate with. I wanted some glorious epic tales—that weren’t European.

But I also wanted to see colonialism—and empire—deconstructed.

So I set out to write what I wanted to see.

That became the Goddess’s Honor series.

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I don’t think I was able to articulate as precise an analysis of colonialism as I would have liked to do in my Goddess’s Honor books. That series rose from a set of what if thoughts about how the colonization of the Pacific Northwest could have happened differently.

I didn’t get rid of monarchy in those books, but I like to think I subverted it.

First of all, the motivation for the Daran Empire to move into the land of Varen was initially not resource extraction but the condemnation and exile of the Rightful Heir. Alexran and his family fled across the ocean to Varen, where they found a place in a land—Medvara—still suffering from a curse-caused plague. They brought protection and healing resources. As time went by, more of the Darani people fled to Varen.

Eventually, we reach the situation where the series opens. The Emperor has decided to Do Something about those pesky relatives in Medvara—and oh by the way, Medvara has lots of resources of interest to Daran. Hijinks ensue, nasty stuff happens. The surviving daughter of the noble family manages to get away and find a safe place. She has a daughter who is somewhat the Chosen One, who ends up in exile herself.

The colonial critique, ineffective as it is, turns up in the last two books of the series. It ends with the Return of the Heir(ess), and other stuff happens.

However.

I knew I didn’t want to end the story there, though the series arc was complete.

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The Returned Heiress becomes aware that she’s inherited an Empire in crisis. She has no particular loyalty or devotion to the existing system—she just wanted to stop the Big Bad Emperor. Her closest ally, the Big Bad’s disabled, scorned half-sister, has no reason to maintain the status quo.

So does the Returned Heiress decide to repair the Empire, or burn it all down?

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Ironically, I’ve just finished nearly three years writing the “slow repair” version of this concept, in a near-future, agripunk form. When Gabriel Martiniere, the anointed heir, finally wins control of the Martiniere Group and the Martiniere Family, he spends the rest of his life battling the evil done by his psychopathic biofather. However, he fears that he’s essentially battling a Hydra—get rid of one issue, and half-a-dozen more crop up.

He’s invested in the system and his family, though. And that investment drives Gabe’s choices, both good and bad.

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That’s not the case with the Empress Witmara.

She wasn’t raised in Daran. She finds much of the corruption and practices common there repulsive. As she discovers just how broken the Empire is, and how extensive the façade holding it together has to be, she needs to make a choice—long, slow repair that will last, or burn it down and let the chips fall where they may?

Or is there a happy medium?

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I’m still working through this, but the most likely choices are either the quest for a happy medium or else burn it all down. I don’t think Witmara would go the route of burn it all down. But she’s insufficiently invested and/or inclined to take the long slow route of trying to preserve the Empire as is.

However, she’s also well aware that broken as the Empire is, there are still a lot of undeserving people who will suffer if it’s immediately thrown into chaos. She just has to look at the rising threat to her homeland from a realm that went the chaos route. And—they were allies of the previous Emperor, so they’re targeting her as well.

What to do, what to do?

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There’s obviously a reason why it’s taking me a while to develop this series. Heck, I wrote the Martinieres as a diversion—though now, in retrospect, I think I was subconsciously working through the long, slow repair notion.

I know that I will eventually be writing the end of empire.

I just have to figure out what that looks like for this world.