Peak Amygdala

For some reason, I end up buying horses in August. Maybe it’s because prices are usually better since people want to get horses off of their books before winter, but probably it’s just because that’s when the timing is right for me to buy.

Mocha came into my life nineteen years ago. Marker a year ago.

It’s been a ride. Mocha was my show horse and she was pretty decent at that. Marker is…well, we’re still figuring it out. Mocha is royally bred for cutting and reining, but I decided years ago that her bloodlines were common enough that I didn’t need to breed her, plus she was my only riding horse and I didn’t feel the need to be raising a foal (plus the expense, plus until nine years ago I wasn’t in a good place to raise a foal the way I would want to). I didn’t get Marker until after Mocha retired due to arthritis in her knees that led to her starting to trip and fall during our rides. More than that, she just didn’t have energy to do what she loved–and it broke my heart to feel her try to GO when she just didn’t have it in her, at age twenty-three. She is now settling into a nice retirement, getting handled daily and fed treats, with good days and bad days. Still more good days than bad, but the bad days hurt. On the other hand, in summer pasture with Marker, she is definitely the Queen. Besides her Very Own Gelding, she has the over-the-fence buddy retired gelding who has been madly in love with her for the past several summers. The old girl shows a definite preference for the quiet company of a small number of geldings over other mares–she is quite happy this summer with Her Boys. While Marker will try to boss her around occasionally, it’s still clear that She Is In Charge and that the pasture rules are Hers. Her weight is good. Her teeth are excellent. She still comes up with Cunning Plans to get treats, and it’s clear that there is The Mocha Way and The Wrong Way even in her retirement. She’ll be strong-minded until she dies.

Enter Marker. The horse of mystery, starting with just how old he is–somewhere between seven and nine is the best guess now, based on vet assessment of his teeth. No papers. He was sold to me as Quarab–Quarter Horse and Arabian–but over the past few months, as he’s matured physically and come into condition, I’ve been wondering about the Arabian piece. I thought that perhaps it was Morgan because he didn’t quite look Quarter Horse, either. But he gaits–and while gaitedness happens in some lines of Quarter Horses (and Arabians as well, though the gaited Arabian I knew was in the hands of someone who managed to get darn near every horse in her barn to gait, so…), it’s more common in Morgans.

I pulled hair and sent it off to Texas A&M for DNA typing. Those results were fascinating–and came back (in order of probability) 1.) Quarter Horse, 2.) Missouri Fox Trotter, and 3.) Tennessee Walker. Not a hint of Arabian in the mix. No Morgan. A little searching revealed that there are people who cross QHs with Fox Trotters. He has more of a flat-kneed movement common in Western Pleasure-bred Quarter Horses than any elevated movement you see in Arabians or Morgans, which kept throwing me a little bit (a daisy-cutter rather than high knees). His head carriage is NOT Morgan or Arabian, but the level top line of a Quarter Horse. But…the way he’s put together doesn’t match a lot of Quarter Horses, either. And his butt isn’t a QH butt. I figured that since the second two options were gaited breeds rather than what you would expect from a straight QH (which would be Thoroughbred or Morgan), that he definitely wasn’t all QH but QH mixed with a gaited horse.

After the results, I kept eying the way he’s put together. Hmm. There are certain physical similarities to the Impressive-bred Western Pleasure horses I’ve known, and some of his temperament quirks match one particular tough Impressive-bred gelding I knew in lessons. But. No real way to know. My best guess is that he is a WP-bred Quarter Horse crossed with Fox Trotter (he doesn’t move like a Walker. I think his gait is a fox trot). Nonetheless, he’s matured over the summer so that leans more toward the younger side of his probable age range. I’ll never know for certain, most likely.

Some things I do know. He naturally parks out and will take that stance frequently when saddled up. He looooves people and treats, but will happily settle for scratches and petting. He’s pushy on the ground, but that has improved a LOT. One of the things that made me question the Arabian side was the way he handles being reprimanded, especially as we moved past the “getting-to-know-you” stage. He didn’t react the way I would expect an Arabian or Arabian-cross to behave, and as we settled in together he became much less anxious about reprimands. He responds to reining cues when asked to spin, as if he’s been trained (and I don’t think I’m that good at putting on those cues). His undersaddle behavior can be better than his ground behavior, though the ground behavior is improving. One biggie–early on he would rebel by bulging his shoulder and trying to push into me. That behavior is long gone, thankfully.

He is a smart horse and learns quickly. Unlike Mocha he doesn’t do well with repetitive drilling. And since I don’t have the show horse pressures, I’ve been taking my time with him. He likes the fox trot gait and will hold it easily without needing to be cued for quite a distance, even up steep uphills. He doesn’t have the body bracing that Mocha did from early days even in the snaffle. Putting him in the curb was a non-event, probably because I’ve been developing indirect rein in the snaffle so he pretty much neck reins without a lot of drama. We’ll be transitioning to a single curb rein and only using snaffle and curb when schooling soon. Once the ground gets softer we’ll go back to schooling canter, which seems to be an issue with him.

His biggest issues are mouthiness (I suspect again that this is a factor of age) and dropping his–ahem–male appendage at the end of a ride. I think he sees it as a game so I’m taking measures to make it less enjoyable. Because he’s very treat-motivated, if he drops, he doesn’t get a treat. Plus instead of capering in a circle around me, I’m making him back up. That’s not fun.

But. He is a bold horse when riding out, especially with more exposure. At first he was worried about seeing road equipment, but now he wants to go inspect it whenever we see a parked one (Mocha always was suspicious and snorty). If something worries him, I can talk him through it. He’s a fun horse to ride on the gravel roads and that smooth gait of his is so nice.

A good horse for my senior years.

It’s a book birthday! The Cost of Power: Return is out today, both in ebook and in paperback through Ingram Spark. I haven’t set up the paperback link in Bookshop yet, because my experience has shown that I need to give the listing about 48 hours after it clears at Ingram before Bookshop will pick it up.

The Cost of Power is a trilogy. Books two and three will be releasing in September, plus an omnibus ebook-only edition in November (though I might bite the bullet and see if anyone wants the whole saga in one book…at around 270,000-some words, though, it will be expensive). So yes, the series is complete and you’ll have the whole thing in your hands soon. Book Two, Crucible, releases on September 10th and Book Three, Redemption, releases on September 24th.

I’m calling this trilogy a science fantasy NeoWestern. The science fantasy part is because it’s a mix of science fiction and fantasy elements; the NeoWestern is primarily based on the setting on a ranch in rural Eastern Oregon. There’s also minor tropes from classic Western stories–the bad banker and the corrupt sheriff, primarily. But there’s also wildfire sparked by an angry spirit, horses (of course, I try to get horses in everything I write), a nasty blizzard, and everyday life on a ranch. Plus main character Ruby is heavily into agricultural technology and designing her own nanobiobots to improve crop drought resistance as well as provide detailed feedback on what’s happening in the fields.

Power was one of those books that grew in the making (well, don’t they all, but some more than others). I originally wanted to examine the whole mind control programming issue I introduced in The Martiniere Legacy series, as well as the multiverse elements that emerged in the last book of that series, The Enduring Legacy. Then I started playing with the concept that in this universe, the primary villain of the other Martiniere books, Gabriel Martiniere’s father Philip, was as much a victim of mind control manipulation as his son was. Which meant there needed to be other villains. I pulled on a common trope from more literary Westerns, the bad banker, as a minor villain. Philip’s adopted son Joey turned into a bigger villain, but…there needed to be more. I had the Braun family and their Zingter Enterprises as corporate opponents, but…there needed to be more.

(There needs to be more seemed to be a consistent theme of this trilogy when I was drafting it!)

That’s when I realized I had unconsciously been thinking about La Chanson de Roland and the entire Carolingan mythos. Plus a dose of the Melusine of Lusignan mythos. The Martinieres have always been a cadet/illegitimate branch of the Valois French nobility, but I tied them directly into the Lusignans in this story. But I couldn’t have just one European water spirit floating around in this story. There had to be an opposing spirit, so…I brought in the Lorelei, who is the patron of the Braun family just as the Melusine is the patron of the Martinieres.

However, I also didn’t want this story to be all about European spirits. It is set in the Pacific Northwest, and Ruby, the female lead, has Native ancestry, albeit somewhat diluted. Ever since her great-great grandfather claimed the ranch, the Ryder family has made small offerings to the wild creatures of the Double R Ranch, very quietly and without any fanfare. That led to the subplot where Etienne Martiniere was a fur trapper in the Oregon Country, married a Native woman of Nez Perce/Cayuse affiliation, and left daughters in the country. He was tasked with protecting the Melusine and she found refuge with a Native spirit, Bear.

But that’s not all! We have digital thought clones, including malign ones. Lots of secrecy including the recent past history of Martiniere involvement in the MK-Ultra program, a feud between the leaders of the Martiniere and Braun family tied to that involvement, and more. One of the obstacles that protagonists Ruby and Gabe struggle with is the slow feed of information from the Melusine, Bear, and the digital thought clones about the impact of history on their current situation.

Then there’s the relationship between Ruby and Gabe which parallels their experiences in other universes. A betrayal in Book Two leads to disaster (hey, there’s a reason it’s titled Crucible) and recovering from that disaster is part of the story of Book Three, Redemption.

Ultimately, there is a cost to gaining power. Yes, Ruby and Gabe are powerful. But they pay a price for it, especially Gabe.

This is my last visit to the Martinieres but I wanted to end their saga with a bang.

I think I did.

Here are the links for Return. Click on your preferred ebook distributor to buy it.

Amazon Apple Barnes and Noble Kobo Smashwords

Sometimes you just can’t keep a good character down. Mike Martiniere sandbagged me when I wrote the first Martiniere Legacy books, appearing as the five-year-old clone of Philip Martiniere in Realization. He kept nagging at me until I wrote his own book, The Heritage of Michael Martiniere.

One thing that intrigued me was the thought of what it would be like to grow up as a clone. Mike is brought up on an isolated Eastern Oregon ranch, but he also spends time in places like Paris and Los Angeles as part of a wealthy, privileged, powerful family. He was originally created by his progenitor as a blood donor, though it later comes out that maybe, just maybe, his progenitor had notions of trying to possess Mike in order to achieve immortality. At the very least, Philip Martiniere in that universe viewed Mike as a source for spare parts.

All of this was based on choices as the author. I had Mike think of Philip Martiniere as his progenitor, because that seemed to be the best descriptive option, especially since Mike hates Philip’s guts for what was done to him before he was rescued from Philip’s clutches. In the climatic conclusion of Realization, Mike spits out defiance against Philip by threatening to bite him—the only weapon he had available as a five-year-old.

Mike is also subject to all the ailments of the man he was cloned from. That means osteoporosis at a young age, cardiac and lung problems, arthritis, and a lot of other issues. Not all cloning is like this—equine clones, for one, don’t seem to have the same issues that Dolly the sheep had. I went with the Dolly methodology because that made a better story.

His medical struggles make up a big part of Heritage. But it also deals with the malign influence of his progenitor, especially since Philip, although dead, manages to reappear as a digital thought clone. Philip is a rather nasty Big Bad with megalomaniac ambitions, and he had the money and power to try to implement them.

Which…brings us to multiverses and The Cost of Power.

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I didn’t originally set out to write a multiverse. However, in the last book of the main Martiniere Legacy series, Gabriel Martiniere, Philip’s son, starts speculating about what if. What might have been if…and the concept intrigued me. I wrote a couple of rather romantic books where one of the foundational premises of the Legacy changed.

Then I started getting other ideas, including the digital thought clones that popped up in Heritage and another book in the character-focused side series, People of the Martiniere Legacy. Things kept brewing, and I had the notion that digital thought clones could cross universes.

I had wanted to play further with the implications of mind control. That was the original concept of The Cost of Power. Then I decided it would also be interesting to look at a different version of Philip Martiniere. But what made things different? Well, that’s when the digital thought clones came in—digis. Then a bunch of other stuff that I’ll discuss another time.

Originally, a digital version of Gabe was going to be the dominant good guy digi. That got confusing, especially since Philip had an evil digi counterpart. Who else to bring in but Mike? The more I thought about Mike as the lead digi, especially in the later books, the more I liked it. Plus that allowed me to stage a confrontation between Mike and Philip. I thought there was more to Mike’s story than what shows up in Heritage, but there really wasn’t enough beyond that to write another book, until now.

So. Mike is the leader of the good digis as we move through The Cost of Power.

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Now this is the point where I slide into shameless self-promo. The Cost of Power trilogy releases in August and September. The first book, Return, comes out on August 20^th and it’s now up for preorder. As a preliminary, I’m running a sale on The Heritage of Michael Martiniere. $2.99 for the ebook at all ebook vendors, starting on July 15^th. So if you want to find out more about Mike’s background, check it out at the links below.

Stay tuned to find out more.

Heritage Book Links:

Books2read link

Amazon link

The Cost of Power: Return Book Links:

https://books2read.com/u/4EaEPe

Amazon link

One of the drawbacks of how my brain functions is that complex organizational schemes only last for a short period of time, generally. Some things remain relatively intact—my use of the 8 ½” x 11” Moleskine weekly planner, for one, which is just an extension of the complicated DayRunner scheme I used in the ‘90s—but others end up working for about six months.

I’ve tried both electronic and paper organizing methods and where things usually fall down is in the complexity of the system I devise. Last year’s attempt to do weekly/monthly assessments of the writing week, then blogging about it, just about wrecked me. Yes, it was supposed to be providing accountability.

No, it didn’t work.

What that method did was load about an hour’s worth of time-dependent extra work on me, more if you count the blogging piece. At the end, before I dropped doing it, I struggled with rising sensations of feeling overwhelmed and behind, racing along trying to keep up with my organizing structures rather than the organizing structures making things easier. Fewer things got done on my daily to-do list. I still needed to keep day and time-dependent reminders in my working memory. Not the best method for someone with ADHD issues.

Besides, the old method was too dependent upon paper tracking. Which is great if you can break down the tasks when first planning or scheduling, but if you need to add or subtract a task as your work on the primary task unfolds, then it becomes a time suck because you have to recreate the outlines on paper, juggle more 3×5 cards, or whatever to document the expansion. Not to speak of “where on earth is the outline for the more detailed breakdown of this task, damn it, I can’t find it now!”

It also seemed that I had more and more tasks coming my way where I had to go through “if this happens, then I need to take this step next.” But I didn’t always know what that next step would be until the task unfolded—deadlines, a step that needed to happen before I took the next action, etc, etc. An optimal organizing system required the ability to add subtask breakdown steps as part of my planning.

Having some sort of organization also became crucial because I’m juggling multiple volunteer responsibilities as well as preparing for a trilogy book launch this fall. Promotion has changed a lot over the past year and I needed to have some sort of organized strategy that worked for me. I looked at a book-oriented organizing program, but right off the bat it started giving me deadlines based on a slightly different sales model than the one I use. The promotion organizing program assumed I was using Kindle Unlimited and…I don’t sell well on KU, never have been able to get it to work for me. Examining things further it became clear that the program just wasn’t gonna work for me. Oh, I learned a little bit from it, but…it wasn’t the electronic organization I required for the book launch process.

More than that, I needed something to help coordinate my volunteer work.

An electronic planner seemed to be the answer—but was it?

Previous attempts to use electronic planners had failed because at the time I was trying to use them, the ability to nest those subtasks easily didn’t exist, much less being able to network my planner across devices. Oh, I could organize subtasks by date and time, but…arrrgh, it was simply frustrating because I couldn’t sort by specific organizations and major tasks. I got a taste of possibilities with Evernote, but alas, that ended up with issues in the long run. I forget what they were but they were enough for me to stop using the program.

I took a look at what came with my iPhone. One thing I wanted was the ability to go beyond simple calendar tracking. I already had that. I needed the ability to break up my assorted multistep tasks into separate lists. Ideally, it would show up not just on my phone but on my computer. Was there something?

Yes.

On the iPhone it’s called Reminders. I started poking at it and playing with it—aha. Works across devices. I could organize my to-dos by specific groups or tasks, into individual lists. But the program also brought together ALL of my lists that I could check with one screen on my phone. I could break individual to-dos into assorted subtasks so that step-by-step planning, complete with the date and time, could happen WITHOUT having to do a lot of workarounds and cobbling up strategies. It just…happened. Built into the app.

Even better, instead of being tied into extensive data entry on my phone, I could organize and do data entry on my computer. I’m not a heavy user of my phone for anything but the basics—don’t do email or social media on it, so I needed something that crossed devices.

Is it a perfect solution?

Not entirely. There are times when Reminders is a bit wonky.

However, I love being able to set up subtasks, add a date and time, then set times for when specific steps need to be completed. The lists work visually for me.

Plus there’s the satisfaction of tapping that little round button, and seeing the task go away.

Even more satisfying is the reduction of stress on my cognitive load. I don’t have all of my to-dos loaded on the app. Not all of them require that degree of complex tracking. But for the tasks that require that sort of tracking—I’m hopeful that this will make things easier, especially as my responsibilities pick up again during the fall, along with entering the drafting stage of a new book while promoting the new release.

We shall see how things go in the long run.

There’s been a lot of quiet progress on the equine front. Mocha and Marker moved to summer pasture in May. Mocha immediately began establishing her rule not just over Marker but the neighboring gelding, Blue. In past years, when it’s been just Mocha, Blue could get away with wandering off to his shed and ignoring Mocha when she called for him. She would come quickly when he called, but he didn’t necessarily respond when she called, which led to a lot of fretting and frustration on her part.

Things changed now that she has Her Own Gelding. I shut them in a smaller corner pasture because I wanted it to get grazed down first. Didn’t want to do it when Mocha was alone because she’d fret and fuss at not being near other horses. Marker hangs out with Mocha. She doesn’t need Blue for company, except when Marker leaves to go for a ride. She’s very attached to Marker now and calls both when he leaves and when he returns. In return, he hangs out with her and, while being pushy by nature, has become less so the longer he stays with her. If she’s pulled out, he fusses. There hasn’t been a lot of pinned ears, squealing, or popped-up hind end kicking threats from her, either. From past experience I know that if she’s unhappy with field partners I’d be seeing a lot of that behavior. Now, she moves into his space when I’m booting him up and saddling, anticipating shared cookies before I put her back in the field.

The pairing and the weather this year meant that I could rotate them between pasture sections, too, something we used to do with our horses when I was a kid. Unfortunately I think this week’s hot spell probably finished that management for the summer. They still have plenty to graze in that upper field for another week or two. But we shall see—depending on when the fall rains come, I might do it again.

She is having more issues with the steeper upper field, and some of the rocky paths she used to choose. However, Marker keeps her moving, more than she would if she was alone or with the mare herd. She is a stay in one place and graze type where he likes to move around while grazing. But she still trots and canters quite a bit. It’s good to see, and she’s putting weight on while still maintaining muscle.

Marker’s come quite a ways this summer. I took him to our first big event together at the end of June, the Ranch Rodeo trail ride that winds its way through Joseph and up to the top of the moraine. He had to handle being around 40-50 horses and mules; being in the front, middle, and end of the line; having a lot of horses moving in and out of his space; having stock dogs trotting behind him; and negotiating both town obstacles and rocky hillsides with a rider. Plus a big, wide ditch with water, about two feet deep.

He got a little worried when we were crowded going on our way out of town, but didn’t squeal, kick, or even pin his ears. Whenever he got nervous, I talked to him, then eventually circled back to put him in a less-crowded space. He did get worried about road markings (that bicycle path marker was eeevvvill, I tell you, EEEEVVILL) and cement retaining walls, but that was really the worst of it. We had a couple of slippery moments with his boots going downhill, but he cooperated with me and we did fine. Boy horse has that invisible fifth leg to catch himself that Mocha didn’t. She opted for precision and slow placement in those situations, while he marches through. But he’s a bigger horse so that makes a difference.

By the time we rode down Joseph’s Main Street, he was DONE, however. Not being a jerk or spooky, just letting me know by the speed of his pace and his overall behavior that he had gone through enough. He was a good boy as we rode near the head of the line through town, and whinnied at his trailer when we came within sight of it. I don’t know if he expected Mocha to be in it or if he was just happy to see the trailer.

Another thing that’s happening is that he is apparently gaited. I don’t know if this is natural or something I’ve done—I got Mocha to do much the same thing on the road, except that it didn’t feel as natural for her as it does him. Don’t ask me what gait it is that he’s doing—it covers ground nicely on the roads, is very comfortable and smooth, and eats up the miles. Might be singlefoot; might be running walk. Or even an amble. That points to a likely Morgan background in addition to the Arabian because while Quarter Horses do have some gaiting in them, it’s not as common as it is in Morgans. It’s easy enough to feel why horses with that sort of gait were prized back in the day when horseback riding was a dominant transportation mode.

Or it could be me—my first horse mentor, Carol Suit, got just about every horse that passed through her hands to gait. I was too young to realize that was a good skill to develop but I must have picked it up somewhere.

In any case, we’re making progress in horse world. I can direct Marker somewhat with hand signals and the use of the lunge whip as a guide. I can open the wire gate, tell him back and whoa, and he stays there until I halter him. He still gets anxious and pushy after I’ve been gone a day or two, but even that is improving.

Progress in small steps.

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Over the past few days I’ve been working my way through nearly a thousand pages of manuscript to whip The Cost of Power into some sort of continuity shape. After running all three books through a line edit, my next step was to sit down with paper and a felt-tipped pen to create a rough scene matrix intended to help me identify holes in the story as well as places where I contradict myself. I addressed some issues in the line edit pass, but this is laying the foundation for the big revision.

After two years of working on this trilogy, I needed to do this intensive review to get all of the pieces into my head as a coherent whole.

I’ve used this tool before, primarily when working with more than two points-of-view in books with a complicated geography. The last two books of The Netwalk Sequence required this treatment because not only were there four character viewpoints, but the characters were scattered across the Earth and in space. The same was true for the last two books of Goddess’s Honor, except in that case I was coordinating magical battles across two continents, plus dealing with less technological means of transportation.

The matrix this time wasn’t as complicated as either of those series, thankfully, just longer because it covers three books for nearly a thousand pages total. I only had two POVs to coordinate, and distance wasn’t a factor. So I didn’t need to figure out where everyone was in each scene and whether offstage characters were doing something important that needed to be covered.

For The Cost of Power, the biggest reason for resorting to the scene matrix (besides length and time spent writing it) was that the last third of the third book came up with some big surprises that needed to be addressed earlier in the trilogy. Otherwise these ending events read like a deus ex machina and that doesn’t work. They’re also the sort of worldbuilding pieces that enrich and deepen the story. I needed to identify holes in the story, plus figure out where to put this backstory earlier in the trilogy.

Is it going to make the trilogy significantly longer? Not really. For one thing, during the line edit pass, I got rather aggressive about cutting words. Those first drafts had a lot of repetition in them. For another, in this pass, the scene matrix identified spots where the characters were just blathering. It was interesting blather, but it didn’t advance the story or give much depth to the characters or the world.

Which is one reason why I really like using a scene matrix to analyze a book in revisions. All I needed to do was identify pages, characters in the scene, scene events, and scene purpose/notes (which became more notes than purpose as I worked through the piles of paper). Unlike Netwalk or Goddess’s Honor, I didn’t need to figure out what the other characters were doing and where they were.

I also sat down and ran through a book a day, rather than taking this step slowly. Why? Well, I wanted the entire trilogy in my head, as I mentioned above. Because I’d just done the line edit of all three books, I still remembered mental notes I had made about things I needed to consider during the scene matrix creation.

It’s not quite time to dive into the rewrite, though. I have to make further notes about several issues I flagged as backstory that I need to flesh out, as well as figure out where I need to insert the backstory or fix holes that need me to create the framework for fixing them.

But at least this step is done. My arthritic thumb is swollen and a little achy, but that’s gotten better as I worked. I have ink stains from the old and failing felt-tipped pens I used to create the scene matrix—better to use felt-tips for long periods of handwriting than ball points, as I’ve sadly discovered. Even if the felt-tipped pens are messy and I can only write on one side of a sheet of paper due to bleedthrough. I have a lot of spirals hanging around still (leftovers from abandoned student spirals that I just pulled out sheets that had been written on and saved the clean paper).

I have no freaking idea if this story will sell at all, or if it just turns out to be a trilogy of the heart. Nonetheless, I’m committed to making it the best damn trilogy I can. It’s the conclusion of the Martiniere Saga, even though I do leave myself an opening to possibly write something about the next generation. Though I don’t think that will happen. As I’m learning from wrestling with the concept of the sequel series to Goddess’s Honor, even if there’s a possibility that the stories can go on…that doesn’t mean they necessarily will.

Onward.

Note: I seem to be on a blogging roll of late. Soon enough I’ll be slowing down, but it appears that I apparently am able to get back to posting again.

Meanwhile, don’t forget, if you like what you read, you can buy me a coffee here.

It’s amazing how inspired I can get from reorganizing my office. Starting the process always begins with me reaching a point of frustration, because whatever structure I have been using suddenly just doesn’t work. Brain fog tiptoes in and I end up feeling overwhelmed, blocked, and dull. Until I find a solution, I fumble around feeling like I’m trying to catch raindrops in a sieve and straining to make sure I’m not dropping a ball somewhere.

The chaos flows over into planner use. When my systems are working, the planner has nice neat outlines for what I need to do during the week. I make my deadlines without stressing. But when they aren’t…the planner devolves into blank pages, scribbled frantic notes, and half the time I can’t find either it or my phone so I don’t have a mental picture of my day, my week, my month and it all becomes a big AUUGGGH, especially when I need a piece of paper and I can’t find that one paper I really, really NEED.

Sometimes the fix is simply an issue of doing the damn filing.

Sometimes the fix requires more, like rearranging furniture because the current office layout isn’t working.

That’s what I was up against this time. I needed a quiet space to spread out and do editing and revision work on the trilogy. While I always keep saying I need to have space when I’m shuffling papers or working by hand, for some reason that setup rarely seems to happen in my writing office, for various reasons.

My chair doesn’t fit the surfaces in the office to use for handwriting so I don’t use them. Stuff then accumulates on the surfaces. Or I can’t access my filing setups if I do have the surface that works for handwriting and paper shuffling, so the paper piles grow taller and taller.

It’s always that. Always.

I’ve been slowly working on addressing this issue over the past year. During my teaching days, I had a solution of sorts. My computer desk formed the base of a U-shaped arrangement. On the right side, I had files and a space for quick writing notes. On the left side was a big old Steelcase desk where I did grading, planning, and longer-term work. My chair raised and lowered easily.

But replicating a setup like that in my writing office, has always been a challenge. Remembering that U-shaped setup helped. Finding the solution without spending money on new office equipment was the challenge. That, plus accommodating bookcases, the need to find a better mousing setup, and replacing my office chair were all pieces to fit together.

It’s been a slow process. I found a solution of sorts for the mouse. Then the chair. Horse trailer repairs required a visit to a (relatively) big city nearby that had a Staples. One of my office chair issues is that I needed to sit in the darn thing. I had read too many negative Amazon reviews of all sorts of office chairs to make me comfortable with buying one online. There were some I thought might work, but….

I found the chair that worked. Then it was coming up with that flat surface for shuffling papers. First, I tried an old typewriter desk that my much older brother had used during his college years. It’s pretty nice—‘60s era faux wood with two drop leafs. I had been using it for sewing, but it wasn’t ideal. Too shaky.

However…I had been using a card table when I wanted to work on big projects. It wasn’t an ideal fit in that room, but it was kinda okay. The spouse had one of those early model pressboard student computer desks. He was using the card table because it worked better for him. I did some measuring, and…it fit!

I just sat down and did the major scene matrix outline for the first book in The Cost of Power: Return on that setup. It was comfortable, I was able to get up and work on other things without worrying about my papers being disturbed, and best of all, I was able to put it all away on the typewriter table when I finished. Ah.

It’s a tight fit, but I can move the typewriter table to see the books behind it, the filing cabinet is clear, and…I can be productive. Yay.

And now it’s off to do the scene matrix outline for Book Two.

Just a reminder, if you like what you’re reading, please don’t forget to buy your writer a coffee! The link is here, and thanks to those of you who contribute.

Image–roses at Arlington, Oregon, taken by Joyce Reynolds-Ward

Well, I’m back.

I didn’t expect to be away from writing a blog post for so long, but I’ve had my head down writing madly so I could finish The Cost of Power trilogy.

There’s also been life stuff going on. The sort of thing that comes along with aging and all that not-so-entertaining stuff involving doctors. Not life-threatening, and the health stuff wasn’t me, but the spouse. Thankfully, so far it seems to be settling down. However, it was a wakeup call. Add to that the news that the wife of our college roommate found him collapsed in their greenhouse without a pulse. He was revived, but…incidents like that happening to friends are the kind of thing that make you think once you hit that retirement age.

Especially when long-term household items decide it’s time to be replaced. The mattress. The tack room lock and the floor on the horse trailer. The old Subaru. Not fun when you’re driving up Cabbage Hill and the darn car won’t go over 45 mph even when floorboarded and in third gear. I’ve decided that I am never ever going to say “well I think that’s the last of THAT item I’ll ever buy” because…yeah. It doesn’t work that way.

So. A lot of life going on. Plus the realization that trying to write a trilogy, juggle several serial fiction pieces, and write Substack blogs just plain burned me out. It hasn’t been that I haven’t been thinking about writing blogs, it’s been more of a matter that I just haven’t had the energy to write them. Or work on fabric art. Or do much beyond basic housework plus horse training and maintenance.

Nonetheless, the last book of the trilogy is finished. Now the fun times begin. I have nearly a thousand pages of manuscript printed out and ready for the big continuity edit, after going through a preliminary line edit. I’ve been working on this trilogy for—let me think—something like a year and a half? Two years?

I don’t know if it’s finishing the trilogy at last or what, but all of a sudden it feels like I can actually get things done. While I attended the virtual side of the Nebulas last weekend, I didn’t feel as tired out as usual after a convention, and I actually have been accomplishing things this week, including a major office muckout and rearrangement. Now I feel ready to attack editing the trilogy.

That’s going to be a major job. While I plotted out The Cost of Power by writing chapter synopses, about halfway through the second book I started getting some twists I hadn’t expected. I anticipate that something like this will occur and usually account for it in my writing process, but by the time I got to the last third of the third book, I started realizing that the story had turned in an even bigger fashion. Therefore, the continuity edit. However, even with the last pieces, it’s not going to be a monster rewrite. More along the lines of dropping breadcrumbs so that the last part of the trilogy doesn’t come out of nowhere. All the same, I’m probably going to fall back on one of my tried-and-true editing processes, using a scene matrix to ensure that I haven’t left something out.

More than that, I may (yet again, damn it), have another piece to write about in this world. The Cost of Power is most definitely science fantasy contemporary western with a relationship. One of the backstory pieces that is now nagging at me to be written is a straightforward prequel involving high fantasy and a multiverse. But it might need to sit on the back burner and simmer for a while. I don’t think it’s going to be a big story—at most, a novella.

So things are pretty much plugging along. The first book of The Cost of Power will release on August 20^th, the second three weeks later, and the third two weeks after that. I plan to issue an ebook omnibus edition in November which will include snippets that are currently only available to my newsletter subscribers (which if you want to subscribe and get access, the signup is here). Those of you getting this blog post by email will also have access to the first snippet, available here. But the process right now is that newsletter folx get the first chance at it, then the email blog recipients. We’ll see after that.

Whew. Getting back into the swing of things is…a challenge. But I’m up for it. There’s a lot of stuff I can write about the horses—Marker is proceeding right along in training. He and Mocha are currently on summer pasture, and he’s being indoctrinated into The Mocha Way. The old mare is enjoying her well-earned retirement and looks good this summer.

That’s it for now…hopefully I’ll be getting back to blathering on a more regular basis.

Oh, and if you’re interested in tossing a coin to your scribbler, the horses would like some cookies. Buy me a coffee here.

Until the next time…which I promise won’t be so long!

This horse. This mystery of a horse.

Late winter and early spring have been a bit of a challenge because Mr. Boi is acting in a studly manner when he’s in turnout with the herd, and he’s been dropping his Male Appendage regularly when being handled, which is NOT good manners for a boy horse, whether intact or gelded (we have a couple of questions about how well the gelding process was–more further on). I’ve revised my mental estimate of his age to the younger side, because whether that’s true physically or not, it’s certainly true of him mentally. He acts like a seven-year-old to eight-year-old horse who hasn’t been handled consistently on the ground, and his attitude reminds me of a seventh grade boy. In other words, he can’t find his behind with both front feet, and he ranges from sweet as pie to absolute asshole, often within minutes of each other. The epitome of dorkitude. But it’s also how he’s built–even for a mostly-Arabian, he still looks to me like he needs to fill out and mature. Depending on the individual horse, that can happen from age seven to around ten. I’ve seen that degree of variance. Mocha hit physical maturity at age nine–there was one day when I looked at her and said “you’ve grown up.” But her neighbor in the stall row, Adam, a royally-bred Quarter Horse gelding from western pleasure bloodlines, didn’t hit that stage until he was ten. Which is why I’ve been cautious about distinguishing mental from physical age when talking about Marker. He reminds me a lot of Adam these days.

Under saddle, however, progress has been moving right along. We’re still a ways off with canter, at least for my purposes. Most of the time he picks up the correct lead, but it takes him a while to get into it. Eh, fixing that comes with time and he’s getting there. Arena time this summer will help a lot with that. It took a year to start getting Mocha settled into canter and it may take that long with him as well–a question of strength in part, but also just plain an issue of footing in his case. I’m introducing counterbend a lot earlier than I did with Mocha, the same for two-tracking. From the very start he’s been doing both correctly–do I think he had been trained to it previously? Not sure, but if it was, it was very lightly done. We’ve gone down the road several times and I’ve been pleased with how he handles riding out. He’s on his toes, but not the coiled spring that was Mocha, especially in spring time. He startles but listens to me, and he’s less reactive than Mocha (doesn’t hurt that he’s not yet as powerful in the front end as she was, to the end of her riding days). I can easily talk him past things that worry him–which gets to the opening line.

This horse. I’m humbled by the degree to which he demonstrates trust in me–and started doing so early on in our relationship. He showed this yesterday when we took him to the vet. He has a large divot in his neck, about the size of my palm and a couple of inches deep. The vet was amazed by it, and called several assistants to take a look at the scar. I made the rational assumption that he would be at the minimum worried about a vet visit, and at the worst freaking out, based on how reactive he is to clippers trimming his mane close to his scar.

He was worried, but that was it. Calmer in the trailer than Mocha is, with less pawing, no kicking the wall, and no screaming. He trembled in the trailer at the vet’s, but unloaded, and…immediately looked to me and hubby for reassurance. His only indication of worry was a wider flare of his nostrils. Then he would turn his head, brush a nostril against one or the other of us and…that soothed him. I walked him around and showed him several things. He followed me confidently, with only a couple of his worried honking snorts. Whenever something bothered him, he turned to us. He entered the examination area willingly, and followed me into the stocks with no fuss. Well-behaved throughout dental and sheath cleaning procedures, even though the vet felt he hadn’t had much if any work done on his teeth previously, except for the removal of wolf teeth when he was gelded. The vet cut down his canines (they were long for a horse. I have the tips, and may combine them with a chunk of Mocha’s teeth for a piece of jewelry, perhaps in combination with tail hair from both).

He stood with a minimum of fuss for a blood draw to check his testosterone status, because he’s been behaving as if there might be problems with his gelding. Or he could just be a studdy gelding. It happens. Nonetheless, we need to know if he’s throwing off excess testosterone for a horse who isn’t supposed to possess those organs. If it’s a retained testicle (worst case), then for his health it’s a good idea that we do something. The vet had a story about one case he encountered where he found a partial testicle in one gelding, then…a complete retained testicle in the abdomen. Besides being an issue for pasturing him with mares, there can be long-term implications, so…we’ll know next week.

Otherwise? It appears that I got lucky and ended up with another horse who hopefully has a low-maintenance mouth for dental work (in horses that’s an issue of uneven levels in the molars, as well as sharp points and spurs that can rub the inside of their mouth and cause ulcers there. They don’t get cavities filled, in part because horse teeth keep growing until they’re older, and they wear down because of the grinding effect from grazing). His overall health is good. And now he has all his shots on board. That’s a relief.

But most of all, he demonstrated that he trusts me, and he trusts hubby. Even though he’s only been with us for six months. Mocha has always maintained an attitude of “I trust you but I’m checking details anyway,” and it took her longer to reach that point with me. Marker is generous with his trust, it appears, and he’ll follow me just about anywhere, it seems. Which is–humbling to consider.

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Well, I got all ambitious and…nope, it’s not gonna work for being aggressive about blogging.

The first two months of 2024 have been somewhat of a coming to terms with myself about writing, letting go of ambitions, and accepting the fate of obscurity. Lemme tell you, letting go of a dream of making it big in a creative field is not an easy thing to do. Nonetheless, for the past few months I’ve been wrestling with this concept.

It was rather ironic that I read another newsletter about quitting Substack and getting off the hamster wheel of chasing subscription income and developing an influencer following just this morning. The person in question was pulling back to their Patreon, deleting their Substack, and just backing out entirely.

Which–I spent a lot of time thinking about this. Whether I could draft enough blog posts to maintain a weekly schedule. After all, I used to blog on LiveJournal just about daily. However, that felt different from Substack, or even what I’m doing now, which is posting on my WordPress blog, then to Dreamwidth, then sending it to a small list of subscribers via SendFox.

Eventually, I came to the conclusion that I just don’t want to obsess about my audience anymore. Seriously. One of the big issues with the Substack model is that there’s an almost constant pressure to keep putting out new work, and do what you can to remain visible. I ran into the same issue with my newsletter plans at the beginning of February when I realized that I wanted to spend some time wrapping up the conclusion of Crucible and moving on to Redemption, so that hopefully I can release the three volumes of The Cost of Power later this year, and move on to other work. Thinking about doing the bare minimum of posting made me flinch, and felt like a Sisyphean chore. I–just didn’t want to do it.

The other thing is that I am mourning the loss of a dream, and have been since December. I’ve dreamed about “making it big” as a writer for damned near sixty years now. I sent out short stories in high school. Never sold a one of them, and at times I wonder if I should have mentioned that I was a high school student. However, I’m not sure that would have mattered in the early ’70s, especially since I’m female. I’ve wondered if I should have started out under a pseudonym using initials, though the obvious one is already taken, and the number of Reynoldses out there is downright appalling.

I’ve been writing and submitting off and on since then. I had started to really push hard in the ’90s, but mistakenly listened to a so-called “friend” and tried to sell essays instead of fictions. Additionally, my spouse was working long hours which left me with the primary responsibility for raising our lovely but challenging son. As it was, I probably spent more time working at writing when I should have been parenting. But I had this dream. In retrospect, I should have been parenting more, writing less, especially considering what has happened to the dream.

Look. I have a decent essayist’s voice. But I find writing essays to be a challenge. Yes, even this blather can be like pulling teeth. And it’s not my first love. I want to tell stories, not necessarily spend my time writing about the latest and greatest or coming up with clickbaity rants. I suppose I could spend more time writing about politics. However, while I’m still an occasional politics junkie at heart, I also really don’t have the desire to write political essays regularly. Political fiction…sure. Essays? Nah. Maybe I’d feel different if the essays actually sent people to my fiction, but they don’t. Not even if I write essays about my stories (look. I review my sales dashboards regularly. I know when something clicks and people try me out. I’ve had assorted peeps claim they’ve either bought the book or their reviews sold books for me–and I’m here to tell you, if it doesn’t show up on my dashboards, I have a hard time believing you. You can BS a tradpub author that way. You can’t do the same for a selfpub author.).

The other thing that went bad for me in the ’90s was a toxic writing group that killed my desire to write for a few years.

This latest block of mine hasn’t been that bad, thankfully. All the same, I’ve had to face some facts.

I’m never going to be a famous or well-known author.

I can count my known fans on the fingers of two hands and have fingers left over.

The last three attempts at entering self-published fiction contests have been disastrous. The reviewers echo my traditional publishing rejections–“well-written, an interesting and different take on the topic, and–we’re cutting it from the competition, along with the poorly-written and poorly-edited work.” Sounds an awful lot like “love your voice, love your work…can’t sell it.”

I’ve gained some perspective as to why this might be happening. I tend to find my characters and their ethical dilemmas more interesting than McGuffins or tech or high, gimmicky, trendy concepts. I mix genres freely, including using scene techniques more in line with literary than commercial work (as I learned from reading a recent guest post on Jane Friedman’s blog). The current fashion in fantasy and science fiction is for hard magic and hard science systems, with visible, known, and consistent rules for both.

I don’t write like that.

Furthermore, I don’t like the sales model of spending 9K in advertising to earn 10K.

But the other piece is that I’m downright lousy at networking, butt-kissing, and schmoozing. Success on platforms like Substack or the assorted self-published competitions requires a lot of networking and back-scratching, some of which is just plain old tit-for-tat “buy and review my stuff and I’ll buy and review yours.” A certain amount of that is to be expected. Some of the schemes, however, verge on unethical behavior and I’m just not going there. I don’t really have the time or money for the big-name workshops that would give me an insider’s support. That doesn’t mean I don’t have friends in the writing world–I do. But I’ve said “fuck you” to powerful and toxic people far too often, and, well, that’s the price I have to pay for being true to myself and what I believe.

In any case, I’ve spent several months wrestling with where I go with my writing. At this point, I’m out of the contest world. But the other piece–letting go of the dream of “making it big” as a writer–is a hard one to accept. There have been days of tears and sorrow. Lots of them. Questioning. Bargaining with myself.

Nonetheless, I have to deal with reality. I lack the temperament to market myself in the manner that will earn me more attention. I don’t want to spend large amounts of money to earn a small amount in sales. I’m not going to spend $15k on edits for a series that isn’t going to earn me even a fraction of that expense. Same for covers. I’m not an influencer sort. I’m sixty-six years old, and women my age just don’t start breaking out in my chosen genres, whether you’re talking self-pub or tradpub. Note the bold. I’ve been told otherwise, but the examples cited are either male or in another genre, and comments to that effect are likely to earn you some barbed snark because I’m sick of hearing non-matching examples.

It’s not easy to accept, however.

So yeah. Lots of blather about why you haven’t seen anything from me for a month. I do have some horse blogs written, and maybe some other stuff. But for now, this newsletter is gonna show up irregularly, when I feel like writing it, and that’s the way it’s gonna be.

If you want to subscribe so you don’t miss this blather, here’s the link: SendFox.

Or you could throw me some $$ at Ko-fi. Or not. Whatever. It’s up to you.