Let's Talk

We need to talk.

I haven't posted for a very long time. Part of this is because I don't know how much 'me' I should talk about. I know many interesting people, but I am not certain that I am interesting enough to hold your interest.

Today: Fuck that. I'm talking about me.

I have the usual spells of depression, of course, and I have also taken on the responsibility for maintaining the Florida Gulf Coast Chapter of Sisters in Crime's website. Then, there's the Strangely Funny series and the Three Snowbirds series I write with Gwen Mayo.

Plus, I work a job where I have a low hourly rate of pay, but get an incentive bonus based on how much I produce compared with the rest of my team. So, overtime.

Let's move on to the stellar disruption I'm dealing with now. My mother has suffered from moderate vascular dementia for the last couple of years. The way in which this differs from Alzheimer's Disease: portions of the brain are deprived of blood flow, and they die, creating the dementia. It is not a smooth gradual process, but stair steps into the basement. A 'new normal' happens each time.

In June, Mother took a steep step down. 

She does not know where she is. We can tell her, but that information doesn't really compute any more. She was calling the police in the middle of the night, saying she was lost. My wife and I have not lived with her since 2014 for Reasons I Will Not Go Into, but her actions made it impossible for us to cohabitate with her. That, and there is not enough Paxil in the world to help me deal with it.

The caretaking service had someone in the house for an 8 hour shift each day. She needed more care than that, and we (me, my spouse, and my POA sibling) soon realized she needed 24/7 care. The service said they could provide that for circa $19K a month (they pay their employees about half of what they charge, which is fucking criminal). None of us (including my mother) could afford that. 

After visiting several memory care units, we chose one and moved her there. It's not cheap, but is much more affordable than in-house care. It is near where we live, and my wife and I visit her on a daily basis. This is important for several reasons: 1) Even though she forgets we came, it does help keep her calmer, 2) The facility knows we are paying attention to her care, and 3) At some point, she will be gone and this is the time I have left with her.

Mother calls multiple times a day with the help of the staff at the facility. She claims that she doesn't live there and has never spent a night there (she's lived there since July), and wants to go home. Unfortunately, she didn't recognize her house when she was in it. We need to sell the house to pay for her care.

So, my brain space and time are more tied up than ever before, and the only thing I've thought about posting in a while is what I've said here. 

Personal Archetypes, 30+ Years Later

Public Domain, Link

Something you may not know about me is that I have a side interest in personal mythology. It goes way back, as in at least thirty years... probably more, since I was interested the moment I heard the term. I say thirty, though, because that's when I took an archetype quiz from Awakening the Heroes Within.

At that time, my strongest trait was Seeker. Some of the archetypes are set at specific ages, most notably Innocent and Orphan, the childlike archetypes.

When I first took the quiz, I was Orphan --> Seeker, with an undercurrent of Caregiver. I know that last is hard to believe, but the alternatives were Lover and Warrior.

Recently, I've been listening to K.M. Weiland's series on using character archetypes in writing. She refers to Pearson's work frequently, and I dug my copy out. I got it in 1991, and now it is 2021. I retook the test, with some surprises.

Still an Orphan - duh. I'm a pessimist who had bad experiences with other kids. Still strong with the Seeker archetype, but Caregiver dropped into the basement.

My strongest archetype now is the Destroyer. This the one where the Heroine confronts Death and must resolve her emotions towards Death. It's also an archetype that appears when a person has suffered great loss. Gave up job and house to move in with dying parent - check. Driven out later by other parent, check. Downsized, check. Bitter AF, double check. Okay, I'm a Destroyer. Where are my superpowers, other than overwhelming bitterness?

The book advises I think about my own death as an exercise. I spoke to my spouse about it, but she asked me to please not do that during our anniversary visit to Daytona. That's what I get for bringing a book to the car.

Other archetypes are also developing, though: the Creator, the Magician, and the Sage, now of equal rank to the Seeker. The Sage is similar to the Seeker in many ways, but has traveled further down the path. I hope this means that the Destroyer phase will end. If I can't smite my enemies into oblivion, what good is it?

Patricia Josephine: The Challenge of Writing Short Fiction

Patricia Josephine is a writer of Urban Fantasy and Sci-Fi Romance books. She actually never set out to become a writer, and in fact, she was more interested in art and band in high school and college. Her dreams were of becoming an artist like Picasso. On a whim, she wrote down a story bouncing in her head for fun. That was the start of her writing journey, and she hasn't regretted a moment. When she's not writing, she's watching Doctor Who or reading about serial killers. She's an avid knitter. One can never have too much yarn. She writes Young Adult Paranormal, Science Fiction, and Fantasy under the name Patricia Lynne.

Patricia lives with her husband in Michigan, hopes one day to have what will resemble a small petting zoo, and has a fondness for dying her hair the colors of the rainbow. 

You may think writing a 200-word story isn’t that challenging, but it couldn’t be farther from the truth. Some writers may actually say it’s harder than writing a full-length novel, and I know a few who don’t write shorter fiction because they can’t wrap their brains around it. Their muse only works in long form.

Writing short fiction is different from a novel. With novels, you have an unlimited number of words you can use to paint a picture for the reader. Short fiction you have restrictions on word count. You may only have 1000 words. You can even have as little as 50. When you have that limit, you are forced to choose more carefully. Your strokes have to be broader instead of going into minute details as you can with a novel.

The way I approach short fiction is similar to my novels. I just start writing. I figure out the story as I go and when I get to the end, I edit. I edit until the story is at the word limit I’ve imposed. That’s done by cutting descriptive words. The sentence doesn’t need the color of someone’s shirt for example. Thoughts the character has might get axed as well. If it doesn’t serve the basic story I want to tell, it can go.

Sometimes that doesn’t always work. Sometimes the story I’m trying to tell needs to be longer. When that happens, I stop worrying about word count and let it end as a novella or novel. I have a zombie apocalypse story I hope to release in the future that I initially intended to be 100 words. It ended at over 10,000!

Writing short fiction is a great exercise. It makes you think about word choices and their importance to the story. I encourage anyone who enjoys writing to give it a shot.

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Magic.

Myths.

Fantasy.

We are bewitched by what we can't see.

Conjure delight with a fantastical collection of tales. Each story is told in exactly 200 words and designed to delight your imagination no matter how busy your day is.

Will you believe? 

Guest Post: It's Just Romance, by Edale Lane

About the author: Edale Lane is the author of an award winning 2019 debut novel, Heart of Sherwood. She is the alter-ego of author Melodie Romeo, (Vlad: a Novel, Terror in Time, and others) who founded Past and Prologue Press. Both identities are qualified to write historical fiction by virtue of an MA in History and 24 years spent as a teacher, along with skill and dedication in regard to research. She is a successful author who also currently drives a tractor-trailer across the United States. A native of Vicksburg, MS, Edale (or Melodie as the case may be) is also a musician who loves animals, gardening, and nature. 

Please visit her website at:    https://pastandprologuepress.lpages.co

Twitter:   @EdaleLane

It’s Just Romance

By Edale Lane

The Night Flyer Trilogy is a blending of drama, action, mystery, and romance creatively splashed on the backdrop of Renaissance Italy. One protagonist is an inventor’s child and student of Leonardo da Vinci who has a secret identity as the masked vigilante known as the Night Flyer, because of a set of glider wings granting the power of flight; the love interest is a young widow, mother of two, whose brother is one of the richest merchants in Milan. Both of them are women. One of my beta readers gave me an interesting response: “I’ve never read a lesbian romance before; turns out, it’s just romance.”

I was always taught, “Write what you know.” When one is a woman who loves women, I suppose telling a story about women like me is the natural thing to do. I am also a historian, so that is where my passion lies. One of my philosophies about history is that while styles, governments, religion, culture, and technology have changed drastically through the ages, basic human nature hasn’t. People of the 1500’s had most of the same hopes and dreams, fears and ambitions as we do. They went to their jobs, looked after their families, and wished for something better, be it health, position, wealth, or love. Dangers abounded from much of the same sources as they do today—criminals, war, bankruptcy, wild animals, natural disasters, and social ostracism. Maybe they didn’t worry about car wrecks, but being run down by a panicked horse or injured in a carriage accident were genuine possibilities. Some people were religious, others not so much, and social functions were just as important in the caveman’s life as they are in ours. We aren’t that different from the characters in Chaos in Milan—we just have computers and cell phones. And just like modern times, as long as there have been people, there have been women who loved other women, and men who loved other men. Like today, they were the minority, and history has ebbed and flowed with the acceptance of and opposition to these relationships, just as there were matriarchal societies in the past in addition to patriarchies. There is nothing new under the sun.

I know Madelena and Florentina because they are me. I became a widow at a young age with two small children just like Maddie did. I, too, had always been attracted to girls but felt compelled to fill my “proper role” and meet everyone’s expectations. Like Maddie, I had a good husband and loved my children more than anything in all the world, but upon becoming a widow was faced with a decision: do I continue to live the life others have planned for me, or do I now get to choose to be who I really am? Florentina loves learning, music, art, nature, and has a thirst to constantly expand, improve, and experience more of life. She is creative, resourceful, and fearless; she also hides behind a mask, keeping her true identity secret. I am also Florentina. Her day job is as a children’s tutor; I was a teacher for twenty-four years. I had a secret identity for most of my life, because when and where I grew up, you simply weren’t gay. I could have lost my job, been kicked out of my church, or ostracized by family and friends if anyone ever found out. Truly, I was a phenomenal actress hiding behind a mask of normality. Thankfully, those of you today who read my books live in a different, more accepting world. 

What really sets a lesbian romance apart from a “regular” romance? Two people meet: maybe they are attracted to each other right away or the total opposite, but at some point in the story they realize how they feel. There is excitement, but also insecurity. What if he or she doesn’t feel the same way? Do I risk losing a friendship to possibly gain something more? There are obstacles to overcome, and with the Night Flyer Trilogy life and death situations to get through and mysteries to solve. The only thing that sets these books apart is that the love develops between two women; that is also the only thing that sets me apart from my straight friends. We like the same movies, laugh at the same jokes, attend the same churches, and listen to the same music. We all love our pets and our families; I just have a wife instead of a husband, and even that isn’t so different because it’s just as hard for me to get her to put her dirty clothes in the hamper instead of on the floor as it was to get my male husband to pick up his!

Edale Lane novels are historical fantasy lesbian romances with action and intrigue thrown in to boot, but they are not erotica. The reader will never be shocked with detailed love-making scenes or explicit language, however there will be fight scenes and even epic battles. Chaos in Milan features two strong women, each with a unique skill set, who work together to secure their own happiness, safety, and that of those around them. There are also several important subplots that carry throughout the series, including Antonio’s star-crossed romance with the daughter of a family rival and villain of book one, Don Benetto, who subsequently sets out on a road to redemption. Who is behind the assassination attempts? What clues can our heroes uncover in the Chaos Manifesto? What new weapon will the Night Flyer invent this time? How can a wealthy widow and a hired tutor from different classes but the same gender ever realize their desire of making a life together? Find out in Chaos in Milan!

Kindle Version: https://www.amazon.com/Chaos-Milan-Three-Night-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B08Q7H6DFX/

Amazon Print Version:  https://www.amazon.com/Chaos-Milan-Three-Night-Trilogy/dp/B08PXK13B3/

Barnes and Noble Link: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/merchants-of-milan-edale-lane/1136051210?ean=9781654780197

One woman stands between chaos and order – the Night Flyer.

When chaos strikes at the heart of Milan, it is up to Florentina’s alter-ego the Night Flyer to stop it. As Florentina and Madelena’s love deepens, so does the well of danger surrounding them. The race is on to discover the mysterious Shadow Guild and uncover who is behind the deadly rampage, but Florentina’s mission is threatened by a gang of assassins. Can the Night Flyer prevail, or will Maddie’s love be ripped from her arms?

Chaos in Milan is the third book in Edale Lane’s Night Flyer Trilogy, a tale of power, passion, and payback in Renaissance Italy. If you like action and suspense, rich historical background, three-dimensional characters, and a sweet romance, then you’ll want to complete the Night Flyer saga.

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