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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.

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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.

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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.

CHANGING COVERS

One of the reasons I like being self-published is the ability to look at things I’ve put out there and say “well, that didn’t work. The foundation of the story is good, but it’s not resonating with readers…let’s try something different!”

(note: this is often after sending this out to betas and having editing done. I don’t want lectures about the joys of critique groups, traditional publishing, etc etc ad nauseum.)

Sometimes that means ripping apart a story and rewriting it (which is happening right now with Klone’s Stronghold: Reeni) for various reasons.

More often it’s quick fixes of typos, updating the back matter and…creating a new cover. I started learning how to make semi-decent covers early on in my self-publishing days, when I got ripped off by a cover artist working through someone trying to set up their own hybrid publishing company. Not only did the artist not come anywhere near the concept, but the pricing was way out of line for the times (and given what the quality was, would still be way out of line. Though I suspect the current equivalent would be someone dashing it off using AI).

I started doing my own covers instead of working with a designer regularly because I was also putting out short stories and the cost was just too high. I didn’t like the results working with cover creation programs offered by several distributors, either. Plus I also tend to take pretty decent photographs. Making covers using my own pictures for background images seemed to be a pretty sweet notion.

As a result, I downloaded GIMP and started wrestling with it. GIMP is a perfectly good enough program, but…I started looking elsewhere after a while because it was always a fight to get everything done correctly. One friend does her covers in PowerPoint. I tried it and, well, it was still a wrestling job. Then I ended up with BookBrush and, for me, it’s well worth the expense. I don’t just do covers in it, I do promotional material.

Keep in mind that I’ve been told I have a decent eye for colorways, based on my quilting and my past history making beaded jewelry. Not everyone can do that. I also dedicate some amount of time looking at current covers, taking a few courses here and there, and studying what may or may not work.

The biggest challenge, however, is finding background images that work. I’ve learned the hard way that I have to modify my picture taking in order to create useable cover pictures (though I will use them in promo stuff). Then there’s the challenge of AI-generated images. I won’t use AI, so for a while last year I thought that meant no images on my covers unless they were pictures I’ve taken myself. I couldn’t find anything in my various photo sources that both fit and were uploaded before AI became a thing.

Then…something changed, as evidenced by those two covers above. The original Becoming Solo cover was kinda okay, but it was quickly outdated color-wise and font-wise. I stumbled across that image a week ago while doing something else in BookBrush, and looked up the licensing source data. Imagine my happy surprise when I discovered that this image was created in the twenty-teens, pre-AI. I added an updated font and…I like this cover so much better. To me, it hints of the darkness within that story, not just the choices that the main character Yesenia has to face but a secondary character with darkness within her, Shadow the Question, who has seen the destruction of a Magic Fair first-hand.

(yes, there will be a sequel, no, I don’t know when or what it will be about. Might be Shadow’s story. Might not be. Still brewing in the backbrain.)

The Crucible cover came about from the same sort of poking around—in fact, I discovered both images at the same time. When I was putting together the covers for The Cost of Power trilogy last year, I just couldn’t find anything that worked. I was fiddling with a promotional trailer for the trilogy’s omnibus edition and…this image came up. I took one look at it and realized that this picture of a man with a gun was Gabriel Martiniere throughout this series, but even more so for the second book, Crucible, where Gabe struggles with a LOT of issues and bad choices, in the face of increasing desperation because he can’t admit that he still wants a way out from the Martiniere Family. Which leads to…problems.

I looked up the upload date and, again…a twenty-teen upload. Perfect! The same held true for the other two books of the trilogy as well as the omnibus. Why I couldn’t find them a year ago I don’t know, but I was more than happy to replace the plain brown and gold covers in Cinzel Decorative font (which is in EVERYTHING right now, especially romantasy—I fear it is going to be the next Papyrus as far as people not wanting to see it). Add in the Black Ops One font and the tone…fit.

(the other two covers involve lightning striking two hills…which fits the ending of book one, and a cutout of two lovers looking at each other against a background of a heart made up of sparks, which fits what happens in book three. The omnibus cover is flame against darkness. All twenty-teen uploads, again.)

Sometimes my cover fiddling works and makes me happy, like these covers. Or the covers for my Netwalk Sequence series. Others…well, I’m still struggling with some of the main Martiniere Family Legacy covers. That may be an issue of the fonts. Same for the Goddess’s Honor fantasy series because I haven’t been happy with any of the covers. The original ones by a designer are outdated, alas. Fantasy covers are a big challenge because there is so much AI out there.

But…I’ll keep looking around. Sooner or later I’ll find what I need…as I just discovered.

When the time is right….

Whew.

It has been, one might say, quite a year so far. And that’s not even talking about political stuff. The overwhelming dominant theme so far has been the work on a house we’ve been getting ready to sell. We bought it for a relative to stay in while finishing up their career before retirement. The interval between that purchase and going to sell the place led to some changes in the house and, well, our attempts last year went nowhere.

Major renovation work had to be done if we were going to get this place off of our books. While it is in a resort area, running the numbers didn’t show much if any of a benefit for running it as a short-term rental and it’s a location where we didn’t really want to spend time ourselves. Long-term rental wasn’t something we wanted to do for very long, since we’re downsizing everything due to our ages.

So we sucked up and did the renovation. The big pieces were contracted out but some of the small repairs plus painting was a job we took on ourselves to save on expenses. Since the house was several hundred miles away, that meant traveling a lot. Because we are olds and sustaining a lot of effort for more than a few days was more than we could handle, this ended up taking more time than it might for a younger couple (and dealing with contractor schedules plus finding more things we wanted to fix…).

We started in January and finished in the first part of August. Dealing with this took a couple of weeks out of every month. That doesn’t seem like a lot until you factor in travel time, other things that had to be done, and recovery time. As a result, I really didn’t get much writing done this year to date.

Add to that some shifting in my volunteer work. I left one regional writing organization because it just wasn’t fitting my needs anymore and I felt as if I was putting in a lot of work for no return or recognition (acknowledgments and/or thank yous go a LONG way for hard-working volunteers. I wasn’t getting any of that plus credit for what I was doing kept being attributed to other people). I’m doing work for a couple of other writing organizations as well as my local Soroptimists and that ends up consuming time, too. However, I do feel recognized for that work and one big piece is starting to (hopefully) come into being.

And then there’s the horses. Managing Mocha in her last months (we’re discussing euthanasia scheduling with the people who will be handling that plus burial) is a challenge. She started going downhill last November when she sprouted new bone spurs on one arthritic knee and it just keeps getting worse. Keeping weight on her and providing limited pain relief (she has colicked on the best medication before so she only gets a half dose) has been a dance. The vet is firm that she shouldn’t go through another winter, and both vet and farrier have speculated about what an x-ray or ultrasound of that knee would reveal as far as twisty, weird bone formation goes.

This has also been the summer where I started serious arena schooling with Marker. The previous year and a half has been more about conditioning him and letting him grow up a bit mentally while establishing a lot of boundaries. In addition, the owner(s) before the person I bought him from let him get away with a lot of stuff. The owner before me started the hole-filling process in his training but didn’t necessarily have the time he required. Plus he needed a slower process due to a past significant neck injury. I really didn’t feel right asking him to collect up until he had the right kind of muscling in his neck and…that takes time to establish. But that’s another post!

Nonetheless, progress is happening. I took a class in July which resulted in the creation of an onboarding sequence for my monthly newsletter. A spinoff of that was making a batch of themed samplers to showcase my book catalog. That, along with house painting, sucked up July.

Ah well. I’ve survived all this.

Now it’s time to get back to writing work, and catching up with household stuff that has been getting a lick and a promise since January. I also have a pile of sewing stuff that needs to be happening.

In the meantime, there are some story ideas simmering in my brain.

Onward.

Yeah, I’ve been quiet a lot lately. Some of that has been due to just a pile of stuff going on—edits for others, working on renovations for a house we’re selling, horse hijinks, and—gestures wildly—just everything going on.

Part of July has been taken up with a class about The Story of My Books—an approach to newsletter onboarding for people like me with a big but obscure backlist to promote. As a result, I drafted five essays centered around themes common in my work (well, that’s four of them, the fifth picks up on my assorted short works). I ended up creating multiple samplers of my work as a long-range promotion, and created a Joyce’s Books section on my Substack for those essays—and more, as I write more.

(That is, if the stars finally align and I don’t have life/cataracts/other health issues interfering with writing work.)

I do have a project in mind for August that is writing-connected but not writing—updating my website. Those backlist essays will go there, along with an updated bibliography.

Hoping to get back to regular essays this month. I looked back at essays I wrote about training Mocha at the same age as Marker and…wow. Lots of attitudinal similarities, except that I can persuade him to cooperate a lot faster than I ever could her. And he doesn’t buck as much as she did…but he bolts. Working on that, plus I bought a back protector for road riding. I’m not getting any younger, and after an incident involving yaks (yes, YAKS), I realized that even though I don’t have osteoporosis, I am getting up there and don’t need a broken back or ribs to complicate life.

Anyway. This week, I’m talking about Corporate Weirdness in my books, and have three samplers for you to check out! Or you can go to my essay about Corporate Weirdness and get the sampler links from there.

Corporate Weirdness essay!

The Martiniere Family Corporate Weirdness Sampler: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/p3zrsk5bke

Netwalk Sequence Corporate Weirdness Sampler:

https://dl.bookfunnel.com/4nkr251psk

Science Fiction Corporate Weirdness Sampler:

https://dl.bookfunnel.com/72na9hig88

Write What You Know…Except When You Can’t

Normally I’m a big proponent of “write what you know.” That’s why you’ll see a lot of Pacific Northwest settings in my work, along with horses and things I’ve taken the time to learn. Most of the time my inspiration comes from incidents, or thoughts that pop into my head when out and about. And all that political and corporate stuff which shows up into my stories?

You guessed it. I spent several years as a complex securities litigation paralegal, and my spouse worked in sales for an aerospace-oriented foundry. I saw and read a LOT of stuff, though what I picked up from the paralegal days often falls into the category of “you wouldn’t believe it even in fiction.” I was also a political activist and organizer for a number of years. Some of those stories have fallen into the “stranger than fiction” category. Others are just cooking and waiting for the right plot to come along. A couple of them…I’m not sure I’ll ever write, though those experiences definitely shaped some of my perspectives. Let’s put it this way…for me, the eye-opening parts of Careless People (one person’s memoir about working at a particular social media company) elicited the reaction of “this isn’t news to anyone exposed to the Jack Welch school of corporate thought, except for the degree of hedonism involved.” Even then, I wasn’t wildly surprised.

But…I was a middle school special education teacher and case manager for ten years. Part of that experience included walking the picket line on strike as well as being on the union local’s board.

With a few exceptions, however (my short stories “Aspens” and “Witch Trails”), teaching is the one experience that doesn’t want to lend itself to fiction. Oh, I’ve written nonfiction based on my teaching experience, primarily a series of essays about learning disabilities and working with learning disabilities. One of those essays explaining the Patterns of Strengths and Weaknesses method of learning disability identification was recommended reading by a professional association.

But fiction?

Not really.

I recently read a review of the one book of mine that lightly touches on my teaching experience. The reviewer wished I had gone the route of cozy fantasy and focused on the struggles of teaching cryptid children, instead of the story choices I made, which backgrounded that aspect of the book.

Well, I wish I could have written that story.

I was a big fan of Zenna Henderson’s “People” stories back in the day, which focused on teachers who encountered alien kids and the impact on the teacher/the kids. I’d love to write my own version of those stories, and to some extent wanted the book to lead to that kind of tale. However, that particular story (which needs some serious reworking for a second edition, especially to set it up for potential sequels) didn’t want to go in that direction.

My teaching work, except for isolated inspirational moments, overall falls into the category of some of those political experiences I probably won’t talk about even in fiction, except perhaps face-to-face and maybe not even then.

Why is that? Why can’t I cross that line?

Part of the reason, I suspect, has to do with the nature of those experiences. In the case of politics, one of those stories involved powerful people, a bit of corruption, and significant political scheming by nearly everyone involved. Plus I’ve lost touch with a couple of the main people who were a part of the story, and I don’t want to get much more explicit than a wee bit of vibes without getting their permission first. Let’s just say that the experience in that case and a couple of others ripped apart any illusions I might have about political purity, in both partisan and issue-oriented politics.

The story has shaped some of the darker political moments I write about, but…the details will not be written.

Teaching has a different element involved. I was teaching during the era when blogging was big (as in Blogger, Blogspot, LiveJournal…). For a while, teacher blogs were everywhere. I read them because I was in the trenches and found reassurance that what I was seeing in the classroom was not necessarily unique. I used techniques from those blogs, thought about issues raised, and otherwise used them as a lifeline while doing a very challenging job.

Then the crackdown began, primarily tied to critiques of No Child Left Behind. The union issued warnings about watching what you said on social media. Holding a drink in a casual social media picture could be grounds for getting fired in some school districts. Disgruntled parents and controlling administrators combed social media (which wasn’t that much at that time) to find reasons to get rid of teachers criticizing the status quo.

Teacher blogs started disappearing. A few exist, a very few, although I’m starting to see more appearing on Substack, usually from teachers who have passed their probationary years (which vary from district-to-district and state-to-state—my district had a three-year probationary period) and have some protection.

So why didn’t I put my teaching experience into fiction, except for those limited pieces? I’ve been out of the classroom for a number of years, and I certainly don’t have a job to protect these days.

I’d like to say that writing about teaching is similar to those political stories I won’t write. Confidentiality. Concern about the story veering too close to real life. Overcoming a filter that still exists in my own mind, despite being years removed from the actual experience. Not wanting former students to pore over my work to see if they are in it.

But I think there’s more to my reluctance to write about teaching in my fiction.

Teaching for me was a very heart-rending process, especially the case management side where I needed to advocate for my students. One of my principals cautioned me about this deep emotional involvement, warning that it could lead to burnout.

It’s part of who I am, but…I find I just can’t write about it, and the reluctance goes beyond concerns about confidentiality and related issues. I’ve not tried to push it, but the block still exists. I suspect I’m not the only writer out there with “things I can’t write about.”

Sometimes you just can’t write about what you know—and there are darn good reasons why.

We’ll see if that holds when I turn back to the major rewrite that one book needs, especially if I consider it for a series. It’s been six years or so. Maybe I’m done processing the experience…or not.

For now, writing about teaching is just something I can’t do in fiction. And I just have to live with it.

(recently fallen Douglas fir—of its own accord, not something we did! We can’t legally cut it up for firewood—besides the green needles, it’s too big in diameter. But it’s an example of what firewood cutting on the national forest is about.)

Getting old ain’t for sissies.

Never have I felt that statement more than in the past few months, when we’ve been working on a house to sell (long story, not going into it here) and now, with woodcutting season upon us.

Ten years ago, when we retired, we figured we’d be able to keep up the active lifestyle which also involved cutting our own firewood for maybe five years, perhaps eight years. Well, here we are, ten years later, embarking on our eleventh season cutting firewood in the spring. Sure, we ended up buying some last year for health reasons, but this year we’re back in the woods, racing to get our firewood cut for the season in the spring.

There are several reasons why we prefer to cut in the spring. It gives time for the wood to cure and burn better. The temperatures are better for several hours worth of exertion. There’s less danger of triggering a fire because everything’s still damp. And…there’s also the prospect of coming across these darlings.

But it’s also not just about harvesting wood and morel mushrooms. Spring flowers are popping up everywhere. We’re likely to see wildlife—on our last trip, we spotted sandhill cranes, deer, elk, mountain bluebirds, and turkeys.

It’s a chance to shake off the limitations of winter and get out into the national forest around us. See what changes the winter has brought—what trees survived the winter wind and snow, whether some of our backwoods roads are still clear, and just get out and explore everything around us.

Because of last year’s issues, we didn’t get into this section of the woods then. We generally don’t do the majority of our woodcutting in this area—it’s farther from town, therefore a longer drive and longer time spent cutting. As it is, even the closer locations end up taking most of the day. This area just adds a couple of hours of drive time on gravel roads to the time spent out.

Not that it isn’t rewarding. When we got out the first day, I exhaled heavily, not realizing until then the degree to which I’d been craving this expedition. Seeing familiar stringers of trees. Favorite rock formations. Little spots that hold meaning for the two of us, perhaps not to others. Here’s the grove where we spent several years thinning out dead white fir and Douglas fir. There’s the place where we kicked up a big herd of elk. That’s the backroad where we saw a big cinnamon black bear who took off running.

The spot where I worked on a particular book (there are several of those places) while the husband cut down a tree. The place where we had to resort to pulling the tree down with the pickup because it hung up on other trees (we don’t do that sort of thing anymore; that happened when we were younger than late sixties and early seventies). Favorite flower patches that bloom at a certain time of year.

We end up chasing the flowers and mushrooms to higher elevations. The closer location tends to hold snow longer, so we don’t go there right away. That spot also holds hunting season memories, where we camped for a couple of years with a friend (until a fall rain and wind storm knocked the tent’s center pole down and we had to scramble to keep everything off of the wood stove until we could get it set back up). The particular place where we found grouse for a few years.

With all that, the clock is ticking. We’re well aware that this could be the last year—but that’s been a concern for many years now. So I drink in the surroundings, the forest, the canyons, and the prairie land that feels so much like home. Cruising down the old road that follows an infamous horse and cattle rustler’s trail. The trees. The grasses. The flowers. Enjoying it now, before age/politics/fire/logging takes it away from us.

This land strikes that deep chord of home within me. Even though I didn’t grow up here, even though I lack ancestral connection to this sort of land. What European connections I know about lived on coastal lands. But coast doesn’t resonate with me. Not like the mountains. The forest. The high ridges and deep canyons. Those are more home, more the sort of place I enjoy than the coast.

We’re moving slower these days. What we consider a full load in the pickup bed is less than it would have been before now. We’ve added a backup heating system to the house, for various reasons. But we take the time to savor what we’re doing (well, as much as one can when lugging an armload of firewood to throw in the back of the pickup). Workaholics, both of us, but we’re learning to slow down.

Firewood cutting isn’t just about providing for winter. It’s a time for reconnecting with the land we love to be in. For assessing the health of the lands we love. Over the years, we’ve seen more and more dead trees from a species that is fading from these forests (white/grand fir, because the winters aren’t as cold as long as those trees prefer). We’re doing our small part to remove wildfire fuel, because at some point those trees are gonna burn. Better they burn in a wood stove with a catalytic converter than provide more fuel for a wildfire.

Or so we tell ourselves. Reality? Not reality?

No matter.

However one wants to cut it, we’re staying active, we’re out on the land. The two of us, together, after forty-five-some years of dating and marriage.

I’ll take that any day.