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2025–most precisely, the fall of 2025–is when Marker really started coming together under saddle. In part this was due to me doing a lot of arena work on him, including basic schooling, focusing on getting his canter leads right but also doing a lot of lateral work such as two-tracking, shoulder-in, haunches-in, and so on. We also did a lot of pattern work and started doing the really fussy stuff involving sidepassing and backing through ground pole patterns. The fussy work didn’t come along as well–that’s a goal for 2026–but canter leads and lateral work showed progress.

Along with saddle work came a distinct improvement in ground manners. While old Mocha definitely played a role in ground manners–the old girl had very strong opinions about manners and was not afraid to tell Marker about an infringement of the Mocha Rules–after her death it somewhat seemed like he realized that he was the Only Horse and that he needed to step up to the plate, behaviorally. Of course, part of it is that he is very much a human-oriented horse and isn’t very interested in sharing His People. He’s become quite polite about his grain. Lately, when I bring him in from the field, if no one else is doing anything in the barnyard, I can toss the rope over his withers and tell him to “go to the rail.” He stops at the edge of the mats (despite seeing the grain bucket right there–such a temptation!) to wait for a cookie, then turns his head away until I say “All yours now” and step back from the bucket.

That turning away of his head is definitely one of his coping mechanisms when there is something that is just so tempting but he can’t touch it. Or play with it. He’s done it when I’ve gotten after him for playing with the grooming caddy.

But it’s also clear that he is a horse with Big Emotions, and while he’s made significant strides in emotional self-regulation, he still has things to work out when it comes to his emotional expressions, especially in a herd setting. However, he’s a horse who understands a lot of human words, or at least human vocal tones. “Good boy” has a small positive response from him, and “bad boy!” elicits a droopy, sorrowful expression. I haven’t had to use it much lately. We’ll see what happens in springtime, though.

These days, he’s 95% at giving me the correct canter lead when I ask for it, and I can usually figure out reasons for why he doesn’t always get that correct lead (usually due to soreness or I didn’t set him up right). There’s very little of the switching leads when he gets tired. Part of that is due to conditioning. Some horses need a lot of conditioning time to get a nice smooth canter, or to hold a particular lead. Gaited horses like Marker also have some different wiring as to whether they can pick up a proper canter from whatever their intermediate gait is, whether that’s singlefoot, running walk, or fox trot like Marker does. Time and conditioning work wonders in that situation–something I learned from Mocha, who took a year from purchase time to getting a canter in the arena that didn’t scare the other riders (or me! She went all over the place with a rider). But in Mocha’s case, she’d been on a long layoff due to a tongue injury, and once we went through the initial conditioning phase her canter was always pretty good–I learned the value of taking time for conditioning from her.

Marker now has a nice, relaxed, rocking horse canter on his left lead. It’s very smooth, slow, and on a slack rein–basically, the weight of a latigo leather rein on a loose ring snaffle. We’re getting there on the right lead–he strained his left hind this fall, which is the driver of a good right lead canter. Right lead has somewhat been a challenge at times because that’s the one where he’s most likely to swap leads when he starts feeling tired or sore. So…since we’re in the field for the winter, it’s lots of straight line canter work for a distance. And it’s coming along–I can now sit that canter instead of needing to go into a half-seat so he can move freely underneath me. It’s no longer as rushed as it was. We have moments where it feels like the left lead, and those are happening more often.

I spend winters riding and schooling in the field. It’s a throwback to my youth, where I had no access or means of transport to an indoor arena, so I rode a lot in a swampy field. One advantage of field riding is that if the field is big enough, you can do that straight line work to build strength. And Marker, unlike Mocha, has no problems negotiating diagonals across the field due to footing. We do a lot of fox trot work to improve his ability to gait on rough footing. Boy also likes his fox trot–he will happily zone out while fox trotting along, moving nice and relaxed in light collection.

Winter goals right now are to make that right lead as smooth and relaxed as the left lead. Which just takes time and practice. Then there’s the fox trot on rough footing. More than that has to wait until we can get into the arena–more pattern work, and work over ground poles that includes learning to relax when sidepassing and turning over a pole corner. I also have to figure out his sweet spot–his turning radius differs from Mocha’s, because she could turn a lot faster and smoother on her haunches than he can. Other things he needs to work on include being able to work calmly around a lot of other horses. That has to wait until summer and local horse events. I’m doing some of it now by riding him in and around the herd. And being calm when there’s a lot of chaos going on around him. He’s pretty good at it around the barn, but he needs to develop that skill elsewhere. It’s just a matter of time and exposure.

Another winter goal is working on reducing the strength of my cues. Which–he’s pretty responsive to turning from a weighted seat bone, even if he isn’t rounding up as much as I would like when working in serpentines. That’s a mutual goal because I have to maintain the strength to cue softly. He also is responsive to me turning my head along with a weighted outside seatbone. Could I take him bridleless? Possibly–more likely than I ever could do with Mocha. But we have some work to get there. In the meantime, we’re working on softer, softer cueing. Which, again, falls back on me as well.

One biggie for me is working on getting my legs back and not leaning forward as much as I can do when going into canter. I’m also planning to spend time working on bareback riding–I’d like to be able to canter Marker in the arena while riding bareback. That’s important for my core strength and balance. I’d like to find a reasonably priced dressage saddle that can fit the boy’s round barrel because that will help me as well. But until then, working bareback will be a big help on the core strength and balance front (I also do weight work off of the horse, too).

Overall, he’s definitely not a show horse type, at least from what he’s shown me so far. But taking him to local shows also helps him acquire that emotional self-regulation he needs to develop in strange settings (the standout from his first show last summer involved him screaming in my ear–literally, nose right there–as well as deciding partway through the under saddle class that he was done and pitching a temper tantrum because he wanted to go out of the gate on the other side of the arena and GET AWAY FROM ALL THIS STUFF NOW). He’s also a pretty darn nice and steady road riding mount, with a few exceptions (YAKS!!! Bicycles! EBIKES!!!). Which–I also want to work on.

All in all, he’s coming along nicely and is a good safe mount for a skilled senior rider. When I look back at my Mocha training notes, I notice that not only is he coming along faster, it’s with much fewer problems. Old mare had her opinions. Sometimes they didn’t match mine as a trainer–and she had no qualms about bucking in her young years. He’s less likely to argue with me, and wants to please. Some of this is the difference between a mare and a gelding–but another is the difference in temperaments. I’ve ridden geldings with strong opinions, too.

So yeah. The boy and I are going nicely into 2026. We’ll see what it brings.

There are years that are great years, years that are bad years, and years that just…are years.

2025 was one of those. I spent a lot of time with the spouse working on a house to sell, and while it sold, eventually, the labor on the place ended up sucking out a lot of time and money. It slowed down my writing work and, as a result, I didn’t publish anything new this year, besides an extensive revision of Klone’s Stronghold into Klone’s Stronghold: Reeni, setting it up for potential sequels–that is, if anyone bothers to read or buy the damned books. There may be more of the same for 2026, but this time around I don’t anticipate it being quite as tiring or problematic.

In any case, part of the writing problem was that I had challenges getting into the world of Goddess’s Vision. That’s remedied now with Vision of Alliance on track for a late February/early March release, and starting preliminary work on Vision of Chaos. I plan to have all three books of this series finished and released in 2026. Additionally, I have other things going on for once, tied to my teaching history working with remedial writers and translating it into suggestions for writers looking to find ways to self-edit without resorting to software crammed full of generative AI.

I’ve also seen one of my ongoing projects with the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association start to take off, thanks to a visionary and energetic new Communications Director at SFWA. The Heritage Author Republication Project is small but mighty, and 2026 will be dedicated to getting it even more developed and on a firmer foundation. Additionally, I am now one of the co-chairs of SFWA’s Independent Author Committee, and hope to see the Committee’s projects really take off and thrive.

The other thing is that I turned sixty-eight this year. 2026 will be the year I turn the age that my mother died. That shouldn’t be a weight on my thoughts but nonetheless it is. All the same, I’m still active, going out to the forest to cut firewood with my husband and spending time riding and training Marker.

I’m down to one horse again. I realized that this was Mocha’s last year in February. She had developed a small abscess in her right fore in December of 2024, and while it resolved quickly, she never stopped limping. That winter was not very severe, but it was also hard on the old lady. She never really recovered from winter, despite my efforts to keep her warm and blanketed (she hated stalls in her last years). Her farrier had to kneel to put her hooves on his thigh when he trimmed her. The ranch owner saw her tripping and falling in the field for no obvious reason. Bone spurs kept popping out on that right knee in particular, and the vet just shook his head and said “no more winters” when he saw her for spring vaccinations. We made tentative plans for euthanasia in the fall, giving her one last good summer which–it was pretty good. She moved to her last field in June and was happiest with deer for companions, though she was also happy when Marker spent several weeks with her in July.

But her story came to an end on Labor Day, when I went to see her on my way to ride Marker, and discovered that she could barely walk. Several days before, she had resumed cantering, head high and proud–she was a horse who loved to run, and losing that ability was hard on her mentally. I could see it. Then the canter became a trot to my call, and finally a walk, and then that last day when it was all she could do to hobble to me for her last dose of painkiller. Evidence pointed to a possible neurological event, at least that’s what I think. Thankfully I had the full support of Vixen, Jeffrey, and Destiny Wecks as well as my husband in making the decision to put her down and bury her that night. Didn’t make it any easier, especially when Marker started screaming as the empty trailer came back from where she was buried.

Marker made huge gains this year under saddle and in hand. He carried Miss Rodeo Oregon 2025 as one of the horses in her 50 horse challenge, and went to his first horse show, where I learned that he could graze and scream at the same time. We worked hard on his canter–even though he’s a trotty gaited horse, he still needed a summer of focused training to not only work toward a smooth, rocking-horse canter but to pick up the proper inside lead on cue. But he also stepped up to the plate after Mocha’s death, becoming much more polite in ground handling and working more at liberty. While having a bit of spunk, he’s pretty much a good safe saddle horse for an elder rider. Which is what I need these days, along with that lovely little fox trot of his. He’s no Mocha but he’s definitely a good Marker. Not sure what we will do in 2026 but I have some notions in mind. He comes to call 99% of the time and is very human-oriented. A classic Foxtrotter characteristic, whether he’s purebred or not.

So that was 2025. Not gonna talk about political stuff because…these days I am focused on what I can do in my communities and that keeps me plenty busy. I’m hoping to do more writing and be more visible in 2026. We’ll see what the year brings.

I’m one of the first out there to note that my writing processes have changed over time, and differ from book to book. While other people have an established process, mine varies over time and type of book. Some of that is due to the nature of the world I’m writing in—a book fitting into an established series will have already-formed characters who are facing new challenges in a world that’s already built and ready to roll.

(Well, sometimes that happens. And sometimes my characters leap into a world that is entirely new to them.)

Other times it’s simply due to the nature of evolving ways of doing things in the face of a lot of life stuff going on. I’ve created detailed scene-by-scene outlines when I needed to be able to pick up the thread of what I’m working on quickly because I’m only able to draft in stolen moments. Other times, I’ve somewhat pantsed what I’ve been writing, going by instinct and feel—that tends to be what I do with shorter work, because my shorter work is often driven more by discovery writing. And still other times I have drafted a chapter-by-chapter synopsis that evolves as I work with the story.

In other words, I’ve been all over the place when it comes to how I plan my story.

And…sometimes a plan doesn’t work.

The current work in progress, Vision of Alliance, started out as a strict alternating-viewpoints by chapters story, because the characters were on two different continents in a high fantasy story where communications and travel take time. However, the further I went into the book, the more I didn’t like the notion, especially since I started alternating POVs within chapters. So I went back and decided that the order needed to be linear rather than shaped by chapters—and doing that required doing a bit of cutting and pasting to fit things in properly.

I’m not normally one to do a lot of cutting and pasting in my work these days. However, I noticed that once I was doing that with larger sections of text, I started doing it with paragraphs. Sentences. Within sentences.

Which is…interesting.

Now as I start planning the next book in the series, Vision of Chaos, I’m finding that what I really want to do is write an extended narrative about each main character’s situation at the beginning of the book. Alliance has a somewhat cliffhanger resolution. I’ve been trying to decide where to start Chaos—immediately after or not? I also drafted a solstice story that was a newsletter exclusive (publishing newsletter, not Substack newsletter) that for a while I thought might be the beginning of Chaos—but it starts six months after the end of Alliance.

I’m still not sure where to go with it. On the other hand, in writing the extended narrative about one main character, I realized that I had an explanation for the delay put forth in the solstice story. Alliance ends with a call to action, but…the extended narrative explains the delay in implementing that call to action. Other things have to be dealt with, and what gets sworn to as a necessary happening in the heat of emotion and reaction often faces the reality that to make it happen requires preparation and planning. Which is the scenario here because there are other issues that have to be dealt with before responding to the situation at the end of Alliance.

On the other hand, I think I’m working out what needs to happen in the story by writing this extended narrative. I’m going to be very interested in seeing what happens by the time I’ve finished writing four of these narratives, because I suspect I’ll have a lot of good plotting material already laid out for me.

Additionally, what I’ve also learned is that it’s not always a good idea to rush story development. I’ve had better results from letting a story seed sit around and mature than when I force it—that’s one reason why I don’t write well to prompts, unless it’s just a casual tossoff of a short story.

It’s also interesting because I usually write these sorts of side stories/notes/narratives during the original drafting, not in preparation for plotting the next story. Other things that are happening—the growth of secondary characters, the development of more worldbuilding touches, all things I can lift from these narratives to insert into the main story.

I’m finding this to be a fascinating process, and look forward to seeing what happens next. Will I do this with the next book in the trilogy? Hard to say. We’ll see when I get there—the same for the next book that is simmering for 2027.

But meanwhile, I’m enjoying the journey. And that is what matters.

Some thoughts about digital personalities in my work

(self-indulgent blather about my take on artificial digital beings, as I’ve written them)

I’ve been watching the latest AI developments with a somewhat…oh, what word do I want? Not jaded, not cynical, but definitely somewhere in between. Especially when I start reading about “AI Grandmas” and the use of that tech to speak to long-dead relatives. Oh, it’s presented with that same amber glossiness that seems to dominate the worlds of AI visual creations. But…we’re already seeing some of the dark side of these AI creations with reports of self-harm and worse coming from AI “personalities.”

One reason for my attitude is that the creation of self-aware digital personalities is something I’ve somewhat explored in my work, most notably the Netwalk Sequence series and the Martiniere Family Multiverse Saga. In both cases, the tech I explore is already somewhat different from what we are seeing. I don’t go into the nuts and bolts of just how that self-awareness ends up happening (well, a little bit in the Martinieres). But nonetheless, I think this dynamic of what that really looks like is something very much overlooked in the current hype around “preserving the memories of your loved ones” in order to recreate them in a digital simulation. I can oh-so-easily see how it could turn bad.

What happens if AI Grandma is toxic? Or if AI Grandma develops sufficient self-awareness to start meddling in the affairs of her descendants? It’s entirely possible. And while AI Grandma might not have the ability with current tech to really muck up her descendants’ banking and financial history…there’s still a lot of damage she can do to living beings.

The Netwalk Sequence was my first exploration of just what the problems with a separate digital personality creation could end up being. I started building the Netwalk Sequence world back in the ‘90s, when digital personality uploads were somewhat the fashion in fiction and in theory.

My base assumption was that digital personalities could completely upload to the internet upon their death. In that world it’s entirely possible to be a complete personality online, with full body immersion, using the mechanism of a highly sophisticated wireless communication chip implant called Netwalk. Uploading came later, in the midst of a dramatic political struggle where an older leader—Sarah Stephens—uploaded upon her death and began to stalk and attack her opponents. The new development was called Netwalk, and the uploaded personalities called Netwalkers.

A restraint that I created in the Netwalk universe was that Netwalkers would go insane and turn predatory on living beings if completely cut off from sensory inputs. They would attack alive users of Netwalk in order to gain sensory exposures and recharge themselves—as well as fulfilling agendas and settling resentments that hadn’t been dealt with in life. In some cases this would end up as possession of the living being by the Netwalker. As a result, with the exception of a handful of rogues, Netwalkers ended up being tied to a living host, most specifically that host’s Netwalk chip. In the Sequence, we see is how this plays out within one powerful family, the creators and controllers of this technology. With some other dynamics thrown in as well—the control of a war machine of unknown origin which has some influence on the development of the original Netwalk, plus intensely weird family history that involves a lot of infighting and struggles over who controls what.

There’s no grudge like a family grudge, shall we say?

In the Martiniere Multiverse, I postulate something closer to our current concept of the “AI Grandma,” where videos and recordings lead to the creation of digital thought clones. Thought clone appearances in the Martiniere Multiverse aren’t constrained to computers and devices, however, and they can hop universes. This is somewhat connected to a magical Fae origin which is tied to a computer worm that can also skip through assorted multiverses.

The Martiniere digital thought clones (digis for short) differ from Netwalker personality uploads at death in that they are specifically digital constructs of a once-living personality, and only become activated upon specific actions by a living person who is keyed into the algorithm. The digis are fully aware that they are digital constructs and are not the uploaded personality of the dead person they’re modeled after.

Digis don’t appear in every Martiniere book. To follow their development chronologically in series order, start with The Enduring Legacy, the fourth book of the Martiniere Legacy series. We see Gabriel Martiniere’s first awareness of digis shortly before his death, when he ties the appearance of a dangerously destructive computer worm to specific holes in not just his memory but the memories of his closest family. Gabe takes the first steps to establish the bounds of his digi, with a specific activation algorithm tied to certain family members.

More details about digis and their creations happen in two of the Martiniere Legacy standalones, The Heritage of Michael Martiniere and Justine Fixes Everything: Reflections on Mortality. Heritage shows Gabe’s activation; Justine goes into further complications. However, the most details and the most explicit multiversal version appears in the three books of The Cost of Power: Return, Crucible, and Redemption.

Like Netwalkers, digis are capable of possessing living beings and bending them to their will. There are malign digis and beneficial digis. We only see them in the context of one, powerful family because, in both cases, the artificial entities serve as chess pieces in ongoing family battles. They are obstacles that need to be navigated and overcome by the protagonists.

(Sarah Stephens and Philip Martiniere would probably strongly disagree with me but—nothing says that they are pawns.)

Back in real life, Netwalk is probably not at all feasible, though digis…may be. Current technology doesn’t allow for digis to function the way I wrote them in the Martinieres, but some of the same issues raised by both Netwalk and digis still exist. The news has multiple examples of people being influenced by AI interactions to do harm, whether to themselves or others. Or of people who develop a strong emotional attachment to artificial beings to the detriment of their attachments to living beings.

Rather than the apocalyptic stuff I postulated in the Netwalk and Martiniere books, that’s the real harm in uncritical adoption of the creation of artificial beings. At what point do we slip from a clear awareness that “this is a creation; this is not real” to uncritical acceptance of these creations as real beings?

What happens if we start treating these AI creations as something above and beyond an artificial construct?

What rights will they have as opposed to living humans? Or lack of rights?

What happens if they turn malign, either due to the manner in which they are constructed or due to abusive treatment from living humans? Then what?

All food for thought.

Meanwhile, the artificial beings I created in my own worlds are definitely not your happy-happy AI Grandmas. And at times, I wonder if those imperfect visions of mine may end up reflecting an actual reality.

We shall see.

So far it’s been an open winter. We’ve had some snow, some frozen ground, but now things have warmed up a little bit, thanks to a series of storms brought in by an atmospheric river. We don’t get it nearly as bad here as the people on the West side of the Cascades will, but all the same…it should be snowing here, and it isn’t.

It’s somewhat of an adjustment to not be worrying about a hard-keeping horse in the winter after twenty years with a hard keeper. Even in an open winter like this, I had to keep an eye on Mocha to make sure she wasn’t losing weight, and she would have required a blanket or rain sheet on some of our stormy days so that she wasn’t burning calories keeping warm. But now, with Marker, it’s…simply not an issue. He went from a dry lot with hay nets (to keep him from wasting the hay. Boy is a very messy eater) to the big field and…has gained a little bit of weight. He’s back to the next-to-the last hole on his rear cinch, and even then it’s snug. Might have to punch another hole in it to fit.

But it feels weird to not be thinking about the blanket dance.

Marker had to take a little bit of a break because he strained a fetlock (we think) in his left hind. He recovered from that quickly. But I started poking around, and thought the root of the problem might be higher up, too, so I started putting liniment on his gaskins. Which he likes but…he also has shown a taste for the liniment itself. I discovered this the other day when he tongued open the cap and was licking the bottle. Spilled some today and he was licking it off of the truck tailgate. It has juniperberry oil in it so I suppose that’s what the attraction is.

In any case, we’re getting back into full work, riding in the field because it has the best footing. I haven’t been taking him on the roads because the type of storms we’ve been having reduces visibility, and even with a bright purple quartersheet I’m not sure we can always be seen. At least it’s not the driving, steady, pounding rain of Western Oregon. But intermittent showers can still leave me cold and wet at the end of a ride! Especially on a windy, blustery day.

On the other hand, it’s no worse and actually better than some of those stormy days I spent skiing at Timberline. I use the same type of base layers out riding that I used when skiing–synthetic, yes, with the ability to wick moisture away from my skin. In some cases, those base layers are the same ones I used in those ski days. Couple that with some of my old ski sweaters and an old hardshell parka, and it’s reasonably comfortable, even in the coldest weather. Oh, and insulated knee-high snow boots as well. I pushed wearing my regular boots as long as possible, then realized that I felt colder because wind could blow up the cuffs of my pants. Pulled on the insulated snow boots and did that ever make a difference.

The kind of riding I’m doing now has changed. Summer was a focus on schooling and refining skills–for both of us. I hadn’t realized until this summer just how much I had modified my riding to accommodate Mocha’s needs, then switched to young horse schooling with Marker. I’ve been doing light weight work to deal with tight back muscles, and that’s also helped as well. But I needed to work on bringing my legs back, which…those tight muscles had been impairing. One of those sneaky impairments that creeps up on you with age, I suppose.

In any case, Marker and I spent a lot of time in the arena this summer, and it’s pretty much paid off. He hits his canter leads darn near 99% of the time. He’s much more confident and strong when cantering, too. I’ve found that some horses really do just need to have a lot of time cantering to be strong enough under saddle to be relaxed about it, and given that a lot of gaited horses often struggle with cantering under saddle, we had to spend a bit of time conditioning. And it’s not consistent yet. I have a lovely, balanced, rocking-horse left lead canter. Right lead? He still wants to rush and speed up. More work and conditioning is required–rushing is a sign of tension. It’ll happen over time.

But winter work is different from the intensive schooling of summer. Oh, I do a little bit of schooling. Right now I’m working on developing seat cues, and he’s picking it up pretty well. We’re doing small serpentines and circles where the primary cues are the weight of the outside seatbone and the turn of my head, and that’s coming along nicely. It’s interesting, because Mocha was the cattier of the two horses–up to her last days, she was capable of executing a sharp 180 turn off of her haunches tighter and faster than most of the other horses (it was one of her evasions when another horse started making her move her feet). However, she wasn’t as responsive to seat cueing as Marker is so far–most of the time, I had to tune her up before I could casually weight a seatbone, turn my head, and have her respond. Marker? He has picked it up quickly. No tuning required. I can get that response with a weighted seatbone and head turn early in the ride, rather than later, after starting with heavier cues, then softening to the lighter cues. It’ll be interesting to see how light I can make him on a consistent basis.

I also invested in some inexpensive oversized stirrups because I didn’t like the way my regular stirrups work with the winter boots. Additionally, I had this sneaking hunch that they were making it more difficult to get on from the ground. Well, I’ve only had two sessions with the new stirrups but my theory has been confirmed–it is easier to get on with the oversized stirrups (just a hair wider), and they work a lot better with the winter boots. Plus they hang better from the fenders than the originals did. The biggest drawback is that they are plastic, so I wonder how durable they’ll be in cold weather. Oh well. Gives me data should I want to upgrade to more expensive ones.

But, mainly, winter riding is just more about keeping up the fitness for both of us. A slower, more relaxed riding time. A chance to work on our connection with each other. A throwback to the days of my youth, only with a better quality of horse.

If I had been told years ago that I would still be throwing a leg over the back of a good horse at age sixty-eight, I might not have believed it then. Now? Well, I’m gonna do my darnedest to keep going as long as I can.

And in order to do that, I need to drag my rear out to the field and ride the horse in all seasons.

It’s a labored truism that after you’ve lived a certain number of years, time seems to speed up rather than slow down (mileage varies as to when that happens for each individual). Certainly, autumn seemed to sneak up on us this year, in part due to higher daytime temperatures. It doesn’t seem like it was that many days ago that I was still wearing T-shirts and no base layers to ride Marker. Now…while it’s the lightweight base layers, it’s still the beginning of five-six months with some sort of base layer underneath, sweater or sweatshirt on top.

Time passes, nonetheless. It’s weird to think that the husband and I are now in our eleventh year in retirement. Neither one of us really thought that we’d be living this life at this age—that was not the case for our parents. Medical advances, different jobs, not going through a world war makes a difference. That said, I know darned good and well I couldn’t keep up the pace of my younger years. Oh, the sustained effort can happen over a couple of days—and then I’m done. Not that I’m a lazybones or anything, it’s just—I get tired. The arthritis calls my name. And so on.

Part of this life is getting out into the forest to cut firewood. Yesterday, we went out for what might be the last load of this year. The chainsaw is complaining about eleven years of use, even with diligent maintenance, and while we might get one more session out of it, we might not, either. There was two inches of snow in our preferred cutting area, and the first of two controlled bull elk hunting seasons started today. We might get out again for woodcutting this year, or we might not. It all depends on our ambition and the weather.

In any case, for us, the wood harvest in fall is more about building a stockpile for next winter, not this winter. At some point we’ll stop getting out there because we’re just too old and tired for woodcutting.

Yesterday, however, was not that day. Even though we couldn’t find the one lodgepole pine we spotted at the end of our last cutting that would have made the perfect start for a big load, we still managed to find some good stuff. Nice lodgepole with pitch pockets that are good for starting fires; not so much white/grand fir. It was harder to see the good stuff on the ground because of the snow, but on the other hand, it was also easier to spot standing dead trees that we had overlooked before.

Fall is often a lot nicer for woodcutting than spring. It’s usually cooler, there’s less mud, and there are lots of opportunities for pretty pictures of autumn leaves. Yesterday was overcast with a sharp breeze that meant despite layering, we didn’t take off the layers. I took some shots with the artsy filters on my Canon Power Shot of golden tamarack against snow-covered firs and pines. Some turned out, some are…well, more material for book covers and promotions, I suppose.

#

Along with fall comes my birthday. Sixty-eight this year. Some years linger lightly, others bear a weight. For some reason sixty-eight has that resonance for me. As I said to my husband this morning, “A year and eleven months more, and I’ll have outlived my mother.”

But it’s not just that. There are some days when I catch myself after fretting about not doing enough and I have to think—I’m in my late sixties now. Sixty-eight and today I schooled my Marker horse at various gaits, including an attempt at racking. Which…I think he is doing. Either that or an extended fox-trot. He was a wee bit sparky, a wee bit on the muscle, but—he also called for me and fretted at the gate because he heard me talking to Dez and he wanted me there. Now.

I never thought I’d still be riding an energetic young horse in my late sixties. Here I am, however. Granted, he’s a safe horse moving into his full maturity at whatever age he really is (vet said seven in the spring of 2024, which would make him eight. Hard to be sure, though. Horse physical and mental maturity is really an individual thing). But still—besides the racking, I asked him to stretch out and gallop a little bit. We’ve spent most of the summer working on a slow, rocking-horse canter). Boy can move when he wants to, and today he wanted to. Which was fine. And it’s good to know that I can still gallop a horse on my sixty-eighth birthday.

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Thinking about time passing also affects my writing, as well. I’m working on a high fantasy at the moment (yes, it will be a trilogy!) and one of the protagonists is an older man who has decided to step down from his leadership role because, well…his wives have died. One of the young women he helped raise as part of his extended family circle (in this world the terms Heartfather, Heartmother, and Heartsdaughter/Heartsson are common) has died and become a Goddess, while the other one has successfully overthrown the Big Bad Emperor (with the help of the woman who became Goddess). He has visions of the woman who is the heir to the new Empress, and…he not only wants to help his Heartsdaughter the Empress but he’s curious about this woman he keeps seeing in visions.

More than that, he grows to realize that he really, really wants to do something different with his life. He wants to matter—and it becomes clear that he wants to leave his position as Leader to his grandson, who is a rising star in his own right. He doesn’t have a reason to stay where he is, so…he’s moving on, to reinvent himself. And yeah, a lot is going to happen along the way.

#

I find it interesting that while I did have older protagonists pop up here and there when I was writing in my fifties, I really didn’t do much with them until my sixties. Part of the original Martiniere Legacy series is driven by the fact that the protagonists Ruby and Gabe are older, with a lot of life experience, and that knowledge shapes a lot of their decisions. The final book of that quartet, plus the matching individual related standalone books, ends up taking a long look at what later life can mean for different situations—including a clone whose progenitor was in his seventies, and who has inherited a lot of that man’s aging physical problems.

I’m fascinated by the places that my thought process is taking me these days. It’s definitely different from when I was younger.

Well, we’ll see what this year brings.

Two horse blogs in a row…wow! Not to worry, I’m working on an essay about an Ernest Haycox Western that I hope to get up this week.

“Trust” is one of those big buzzwords in horse training. We’re supposed to be cultivating it in the horses we work with, so that we can ask them to do—whatever—and they’ll willingly do it, no matter how scary.

One aspect that doesn’t get talked about as much is building your own trust in a horse. I’ve found that trust is a two-way street. If you aren’t trusting a horse, how can the horse trust you? Which means—it doesn’t happen overnight, or even in a few months. Trust is an ongoing process of building up a relationship between horse and human.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this, especially after a couple of incidents with Marker that showed me the degree of trust I’ve developed with him. One thing we do—it’s a game my husband started with him, and something I’ve continued—is to slide a cookie across the tailgate for him to grab. Sometimes he misses and the cookie falls off. Since he’s tied to the truck (a trust relationship in itself), he can’t reach to the ground and pick it up. I bent over, my behind to his chest, and at that moment when I picked up the cookie I realized that I wouldn’t do this with just any horse. Marker has proven to me that he isn’t going to do anything more than stand there and wait for me to retrieve his treat.

It’s an unconscious assessment on my part, coupled with two years of experience with him. I wouldn’t have been this casual during our first months together, for good reason. Since then, he’s learned self-regulation skills and isn’t as pushy.

Another incident. I was working on tying a hay net to the fence while on the phone, when I felt the soft brush of a nose on my neck, from behind me. Again, allowing this behavior is an exercise in trust—and it was one of the first ways that Marker showed his trust in me. He first did this four months after I bought him, during a moment when I was yelling at another horse who was kicking at my old mare. Marker slipped in behind me and briefly rested his chin on my shoulder—reassurance to me, or seeking it from me? I’m not sure. In any case, it was just a light touch, and he moved away without running into either me or Mocha. Since then, he’ll often give me an unsolicited light touch on the neck or shoulder. Very light, sometimes a request to exchange breath, then move away. No squealing, no striking, just—checking in.

This contact around my face isn’t something I allow most horses to do, except those I’ve worked with for a while and know well, because without that trust relationship it’s not safe. Period. By four months, I knew that Marker wasn’t going to lunge at me to bite or strike. I wasn’t going to feel teeth on my face, neck, or shoulder. That moment marked a reaching out on his part to express confidence that I wasn’t going to smack him for presuming to show affection and concern. He’d already shown me that he was a very “touchy” horse—brushing a nostril against my hand for reassurance after we’d had a “discussion” (aka argument) over boundaries. He’d learned that I didn’t accept him lipping my hand (lipping leads to nibbling and nipping) but that a touch was fine. Letting him touch my neck was telling him that “yes, I trust you too.” That I knew he wasn’t going to knock me down or bite me. I was using my many years of experience to make a judgment call.

(this is not something that I recommend anyone do casually due to the risk of injury)

We’ve come a long ways since then. Oh, we’ve had our moments—the yak incident was one, but between the yak coming off of a mound of dirt, dogs barking at the same time, and me falling down when he dragged me as part of his spook (I had dismounted), the combination of Scary Things Happening was enough to send him running off. But we recovered. I realized after a second incident when I tripped over a mat and almost fell that he finds me falling down to be very frightening (something to work on with a horse owned by an elder). Plus I realized that while dismounting was a good strategy with my old Mocha mare in a similar situation, Marker feels more confident if I’m in the saddle when we encounter something scary.

Live and learn.

Building trust is an ongoing situation. From the human side, one builds trust from the horse by being consistent and predictable in handling behaviors, including reprimands. The horse in turn builds trust from the human by being responsive to the human’s handling behaviors.

One trust area I really work on (besides being consistent and structured when training a horse) is dealing with scary stuff. Too many people have a “one size fits all” attitude when it comes to their horse being afraid. I remember a young wannabe trainer telling me I had to force my rather reactive Mocha mare past something that worried her. That was Young Trainer’s take on what you did when your horse spooked.

Well, that approach worked for a couple of school horses in that barn who tended to be reactive and jumpy but would settle if pushed past the scary places. However, by this point I had been working with Mocha for several years and knew that this was the wrong approach for that mare. I let Mocha stand, look, then asked her to move past it. Which she did, then had no problems the next time we passed it. I explained my reasoning to this person afterward (this was an unsolicited piece of advice on her part, and not only was she not working with me, she had less experience than I did).

Taking this approach really helped several years later when Mocha developed a cataract in one eye that impaired her vision to the rear. Over the course of one summer riding the roads, I taught Mocha to slow, turn her head so that she could see the problematic item better, and relax. Forcing her to go by something she couldn’t see well would have just created more issues. Mocha was still a rather reactive horse at that age, but because she had learned to trust me, she knew that she could ask for more rein to turn her head so she could see better. In return, I knew that I could trust her with that much rein, and that when she asked for it, she wanted to look at something.

Marker is much the same way, though my voice works as a soothing agent more than it ever did with Mocha. Early on, I taught him the “go touch” command for something that worried him and was touchable. “Go touch”—then allow him to take his time sniffing and touching it to confirm it’s nothing scary. He’s learned that when I give him that command, it really isn’t something to be afraid of, but that I will give him time to make that decision for himself. Sometimes, though, touching isn’t a good idea. “Go look” works for those cases.

Would establishing such routines with those reactive school horses have worked? Possibly, but because they had multiple riders, perhaps not, either. Not every rider is ready to trust a reactive horse in that manner. Not every rider has the skills to handle that situation should it not work.

Which circles back around to trust being a mutual relationship between horse and human. It’s not something that gets built overnight. Like any relationship, it grows and develops with time and experience with each other. And, most importantly, if the human doesn’t develop trust with a horse, the horse is going to be slow to trust the human.

Remember that young trainer I mentioned above? She hadn’t learned—yet—how to develop trust in the horses she worked with. Therefore, her toolkit was based on force, not cooperation and trust. I lost contact with her when she moved to another barn, but I hope she learned that lesson.

Trust is built in everyday interactions and observations. Trust is built in horse and human understanding each other and how we react to each other. It is not a simple thing—but if you want a horse to trust you, then…you have to learn how to trust that horse. And that is not something achieved in a few short weeks.

It’s been a little over a month now since that late afternoon when I went to Mocha’s field and discovered…she could barely walk. That moment when it became The Time I Knew Was Coming Far Too Soon.

I’ve finally stopped thinking about dividing the apple slices for horse grain. Noticed how slowly both grain and supplements are getting used, now that I’m down to one horse, especially one who just gets the bare minimum of grain to make his supplement palatable because he’s such an easy keeper (for those who are curious, it’s ¼ lbs grain, ½ lbs supplement. He still does well on that and on hay).

I’ll still glance off at that field on the way back from the ranch, somewhat of a habit from the summer when it was Mocha in that field and I wanted to check on her (and noticed that she knew when Her Truck drove by the field. Of course she knew. She knew the sound of my car when I pulled up at Gregg’s place, and would often be standing in the middle of her stall, where she could see me coming through the door. Sometimes she whinnied at me, but she was always, always looking for me).

Haven’t catalogued her ribbons yet, though that day is approaching.

And…it’s moving on with the Boi. A week ago he had the honor of carrying Miss Rodeo Oregon 2025, Mary Makenna Olney, as part of her Miss Rodeo America 50 Horse Challenge, where they have to ride 50 different horses within a set time period. Despite not having anyone besides me on his back since I bought him in August, 2023, he did well by her. I had a brief regret that Mocha never had this opportunity, but oh well. Marker’s path is different from Mocha’s.

I finally tossed the brushes I have been using on both horses. Surprise, surprise, they wear out faster when using them on two horses. I got a marvelous tail tamer brush and had a brief regret that I hadn’t discovered this one for Mocha’s lush mane and tail. But it was one of those moments when I’m aware things are moving on. That said, I’m holding onto one Mocha brush from Gregg’s day, because it still has a tooth mark from one of his dogs who I was fond of—the Bernese-Great Swiss Mountain Dog cross Cowboy. Two memories to cherish when I see that brush. Right now I have two braids, that brush, a custom bar shoe, a chunk of tooth, and several bits that were Mocha’s and Mocha’s only to remember her by.

But. New brushes, not worn out. I also finally found the right snaffle bit for Marker, a three-piece smooth ring snaffle with a dogbone center and a copper roller. He likes playing with the roller, just like he does with the curb bit. I put it on the old snaffle headstall I got over twenty years ago for Mocha, along with the seven-foot latigo leather reins, and the cavasson from Mocha’s early training. It seems to work for him.

Moving on. Our work this summer has made his canter smoother and more consistent. It’s a lovely rocking-horse type of canter that is easy to sit. Now we’re working on all three types of canter lead changes—simple (walk or trot before asking for the change of lead), interrupted (whoa, then pick up the new lead), and flying (change the lead at the canter). He’s starting to get them.

One thing I really appreciate about the training options this time around (as compared to Mocha at the same age) is that we aren’t locked into an arena. Both going down the road or riding in the hayfield allows for simple, straight-line work, just to build up muscle and provide a mental break from arena work. I’m not sure if that is why it seems easier to teach him things or if it’s tied to conformation and mental differences between the two horses. Or a combination of both. Nonetheless, he really settles into covering a lot of ground at the fox trot, which he seems to like doing.

There are some things I haven’t touched on much in our training, but may do this fall now that I have the snaffle. He’s solid in round pen and lunging work, though when I deviate from a pattern he expects he gets worried (well, we’re doing more of that variation stuff so he adapts). The injury to my shoulder earlier this summer means I’m not working on ground driving. Maybe that will be a winter thing. It’s possible.

He also needs a lot more work with ground poles in box and L backing/sidepassing. Again, probably best done in the snaffle, not the curb. It’s the kind of detail work that is best laid down in a non-leverage bit with some horses, and I think he’s one of them. But oh, he is really getting decent at gates. Not crowding my knee into them, either.

I’ve found that lunging or round penning him before I tighten the cinch eliminates a lot of the tension he’s had around saddling. And getting him to settle into the snaffle means I tie the reins loosely to the saddle while he works, then adding the cavasson after he’s had a few minutes to mouth the bit and settle into it.

So we’re settling into fall. For some reason his fall coat seems to be heavier than in past years—maybe due to the supplement he’s getting. He seems to be more relaxed, and…shows signs of becoming a fully mature horse. Oh, he’s still playful and mouthy, but there’s just that filling in of the front end, and a certain calmness that comes with maturity.

And, perhaps, knowing that he is now the Only Horse.

I miss the old mare, but…he’s doing a decent job of filling her horseshoes, in his own way.

Over the past five years, I’ve somewhat evolved a writing process that really worked for me, using Scrivener and Word together. Scrivener was where I put my worldbuilding details. Character notes. Oddball stuff like any weirdnesses about time, including timelines for the stories where timing was crucial. Synopsis. Anything that I needed to know about the backstory, all in one place, with easy access for reference purposes.

At the same time, I would draft a chapter in Word, with Scrivener open to let me refer back to the synopsis, or any other worldbuilding details—mainly because certain formatting things are easier for me to do in Word. As I finished each chapter, I pasted it in Scrivener, because I found it so much easier to look something up in an individual chapter rather than scroll through a full manuscript or open multiple documents to find a niggling continuity detail—or fix a continuity detail that became problematic later on in the story. I also devised methods for updating the synopsis as the characters changed and evolved, documenting the whole process. Oh yeah, I had it together. Really together. Not just for the Martinieres but for a couple of standalone books plus a couple of novellas.

Then 2025 happened.

I had finished the final work in what I had started calling the Martiniere Multiversal Family Saga. There wasn’t anything else I wanted to write in that world (after twelve books). Along with that also came the need to spend time not writing because we had a major project happening elsewhere. Plus, I needed to do something to revive interest in my backlist books. I spent time writing up some essays about my stories and…well, thinking about the next project.

Problem was, what I was facing for the next project was…something I had been poking at for five years (the Martinieres as well as several other writing projects between 2020-2025 kept me from having to deal with That. Damned. Project). I looked at other ideas and…none of them were adequately fleshed out to be ready to write. Either they required more work than the Damned Project or…they needed to cook for longer.

Sigh. The work in question is a followup series to my high fantasy series Goddess’s Honor, set in the world of the Seven Crowned Gods. I’d poked at the notion for five years, because while I had wrapped up the major threads of the Goddess’s Honor series arcs, there were still…things left dangling. I had intended to get back to the followup series but…it was a mess.

Yes, the Big Bad Emperor was dead. The hero(ine) who killed him in a magical duel (spoiler: he cheated first), also died but was raised up to be a Goddess. The fated hero(ine) became Empress. Meanwhile, in the new Empress’s homeland over the ocean, the Empress’s mother had defeated another Big Bad.

All well and good, except…it was clear within the story that the Empire was a mess. The Emperor had been covering up a lot of problems and they all showed up at his death. Over the ocean, that particular Big Bad showed signs of being defeated for now, but lurked as a potential problem.

I had written a few chapters. So once I was finished with the Martinieres, I blew the dust off, did some revisions, and…reached the 30k word mark, whereupon I realized that nope, what I was writing was more exposition than storytelling. I was facing the infamous “muddle in the middle,” plus…it just wasn’t falling together.

After the ease of writing the Martinieres, this was absolutely frustrating. I’d also started the story too late. Deep breath. Instead of that lovely writing process I had been using for the past five years, I needed to go back and rip everything apart. Expand events that I’d just mentioned as asides into scenes. Damnit.

And life just kept yanking me away from writing, so that I couldn’t give this book the concentration it needed.

Then I ended up with a nice cover for a previously released book from 2018 that I wanted to overhaul for various reasons. The process for doing that revision dragged me back into working exclusively in Word.

I didn’t like that. Especially since I’d gotten used to my combined Scrivener/Word system. Nonetheless, despite everything, I got it put back together, adding about 24k words to what was originally a 62k story. Filled in a few holes, added more material at the beginning, then completely rewrote the ending as well as setting it up for sequels. Klone’s Stronghold: Reeni, is a much stronger book than the original (if you want to check it out, it’s available at https://books2read.com/klonesstrongholdreeni).

But then it was back to the fantasy project. The more I hacked at it, the more I realized that the material I had originally considered sufficient for one book is…more like two books. There were conflicts I needed to expand upon, especially since my original concept was for a trilogy—and I couldn’t figure out where on earth the material for the next two books would come from.

I lacked subplots and subarcs.

Well, it was time to do the pantser thing. I had 30k, and too much of it brushed over what I had originally dismissed as not important to the main story. I’d made a big mistake.

So I returned to carefully expanding the story. But something happened as I worked. The stubborn, evasive story started coming to life. More backstory started hollering at me. Before I knew it, all the revisions expanded that initial 30k to 50k. I had a credible early arc, along with development of deeper themes and richer characters.

I’m now at the point where I can start ripping apart the synopsis for this fantasy novel and revising it. Back on track for my original methodology—once that synopsis is written. But at least I’m back on familiar territory, with a method that works for me. And I figured out the problem 30k into the book, rather than falling apart later. Definitely an improvement from my earlier writing days. Both books are stronger, thanks to those revisions. But it’s taken me…several decades of off and on writing to get to this point.

The lesson, of course, is that no one writing process is carved in stone. Different books will require variations in the process. I’ve been known to develop extensive and detailed scene matrices, but that won’t be necessary for this trilogy. The key is remaining flexible, and meeting the needs of whatever the story requires.

Sometimes those needs require a more structured process. Other times…a more flexible process. After twenty-four books, I’m still learning lessons about drafting my stories and—each book is a different lesson.

Which is as it should be. A good writer should never stop learning.

When you commit to owning a horse for their whole life, you know that there’s going to be That Day happening at some point.

Sometimes That Day is a day early, sometimes it’s a day late.

And sometimes That Day just happens Right Now. Not when you want it, not when you’ve planned, but…it just slaps you hard, right in the face, that this has to be The Day.

That day was yesterday for the horse of my heart, Miss Olena Chic (Mocha), who I had owned for twenty years. I had already discussed the need to put her down this fall because she just wasn’t going to do well in the coming winter. Held that discussion with the vet, the ranch owners, and my husband. We’d agreed that she would have one last good summer (hopefully), eating grass, hanging out in one of her favorite fields, having time with Her Gelding, getting lots of treats and being loved on. Which was happening.

I knew things were going downhill. The bone spurs on her problematic right knee were starting to make the cannon bone (big bone between the knee and hoof in a horse’s foreleg) twist noticeably this last week. But she was still getting around, and was even managing to canter-hobble when I called her for grain, treats, and attention (oh, was she ever holding her head high and proud those days when she figured out how to canter with that bad knee). Then it became a trot, then a walk, and then…yesterday.

She had taken to standing under a big willow in the front of the pasture she was in, especially if I was coming later than usual. So I wasn’t surprised by that, or by the nicker she gave me. But then…she didn’t come to her usual feeding spot. My heart sank because at that point I knew. I called her again, offered her an apple slice with the painkiller she’s been on for the last few months and…she could barely walk. Her legs quivered with the effort. I coaxed her over, gave her grain and treats, and called the husband because it was clear that something had happened over the last twenty-four hours. She had been walking fine the day before, hanging out with a whitetail doe and her fawns.

No signs of stress, like she had been running and strained something. Just a little sweaty under her heavy mane, which was normal for her on a hot summer’s day. I checked her water trough and she had been drinking from it. She was eating normally, acting normally, except…there were signs of a possible neurological issue.

You don’t call the vet for a last-ditch treatment for this. Not for an old mare that the vet has already shaken his head as he says “no more winters.” If you call the vet, it’s euthansia time.

I went to the ranch. Burst into tears when I told the ranch owner’s daughter and asked her for another pair of eyes in case I was wrong (she’s Miss Rodeo Oregon 2026 and is very experienced in her own right). Her parents were out of town but almost back. Dez eyed Mocha and agreed, calling her parents. Something bad had happened. Jeffrey dropped Vixen off when they got to town and…more consensus. We decided to try to get her on a trailer and back to the ranch. While Mocha’s never been that friendly with Vixen, she’s always loaded well for her and–no hesitation, no problems. Thankfully.

Then the discussion at the ranch. Today or tomorrow? Gunshot or vet visit tomorrow? Thankfully, I’d already had that discussion with Jeffrey because they’ve dealt with a lot of older horses who need to be put down. The recommendation was gunshot because sometimes the euthanasia meds don’t work as well with older horses, and they’ll fight them, making those last few minutes awful and fearful for the horse. Mocha was a tough old girl–and I feared that she would fight it. So no, no vet. Tonight, because it was cooler and we all feared given the rapid progress of her deteroration that she would go down and not be able to get up, making things more complicated. She was already in pain, why put her through more?

She was happily eating hay in the trailer. I gave her the last peppermints while Vixen quickly braided her tail and clipped the braids so I would have a keepsake. Then it was watching the trailer and backhoe go out to the back field, and stand with Marker, waiting for the end. All the horses on the ranch were fussing and anxious because they knew something was up. Marker called to Mocha when the trailer went out. Then he stood while I cried on his neck (I’d cried on Mocha’s neck in the trailer), nuzzling me and licking me.

We waited while Jeffrey dug the hole with the backhoe. Then the trailer headed back. Marker screamed and called as the trailer went by, fussing when there wasn’t an answer. Shortly after, the final shot.

She was a fine horse. I’ll write a little bit more about the twenty-five years I knew her at another time, because I had been around her from a foal, even though I didn’t buy her until she was five. I have a big collection of ribbons she won at various shows, and a belt buckle she won. I have one of her shoes, a portion of one tooth, and the braids. Plus tack–some of which has not been repurposed for Marker–and pictures. She had been bred to be a show horse and did pretty darn good at it.

But right now there are still tears and an empty spot in my heart.