Home 2012 (Page 3)

Year: 2012

What Does a Writer Do When Not Writing?

Due to some very busy life circumstances, I haven’t been writing anything besides blog posts for the past few months. Sure, I might technically have time, but mental energy is another question. Knowing that these circumstances are temporary, I’ve given myself permission not to write fiction for the time being. But that doesn’t mean I’m not being creative. Here’s what I’m doing instead… Blog posts are keeping me sane. The act of putting one word after another, of making a coherent argument or narrative in a set length, of finding the right phrasing, is something my soul needs. Blogging takes less mental energy than fiction, and I can knock out a finished piece in a few hours, so it’s staying in my life.

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Fey Touched by Erin Zarro

Chapter 1     JOE   The woman lay in the cemetery on a bed of snow. Snowflakes clung to her blonde hair and sparkled like diamonds. Slivers of moonlight touched her serene face. Her skin was the blue-tinged skin of the Fey. After turning up the heat in my coat, I reached out to touch her and immediately recoiled. She was so cold that I’d gotten a taste of frostbite, the cold stinging my fingers. Was she dead? Pixie, a German Shepherd who was my companion and familiar, whined. She was right to lead me here, her thoughts urgent in my head. She poked the woman with her nose. The woman did not move, did not even twitch. Pixie whined, poking the woman again. There was no rise and fall of her chest. There was nothing. “What do you think, girl?” I asked. Pixie gazed at me with eyes that reflected sympathy and intelligence. The thought – Pixie’s – unfurled in my mind. Not dead. Must save. My heart thudded. I was Fey Touched, a Hunter of her kind. Technically, she was my enemy. I had the right to kill her on sight. Why didn’t I? I didn’t like the Fey as a rule. There were Hunters who believed that all Fey were evil and must die. I was open to the possibility that maybe, just maybe, they were wrong. Maybe some of them weren’t evil. That even without mana – a soul – they could be good. Maybe…

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Fey Touched

Two sisters. Asha is the Queen of the Fey, genetically engineered immortal humans who feed on human souls to survive. But she’s running from her people. When she is found by her enemy, one of the Hunters of the Fey, she expects to die. Yet he’s oddly intrigued by her, and Asha finds herself falling in love with him, hoping she can find safety and the home she’s been seeking. Then she’s kidnapped, and everything changes. Fallon is a Hunter. She’s looking for her long-lost sister, using an addictive drug to search through the stream of time. Her addiction leaves her dangerously exposed to her enemies but, consumed by her search, she doesn’t care…until her fellow Hunters start dying from a mysterious illness. She is torn between duty and desire, and must find an answer before they all die. What Fallon doesn’t know is that Asha might just be the key to saving them all, if only she can find her. And time is running out. PLEASE NOTE that this book contains explicit language, explicit sex, and graphic violence and is not suitable for those under 18. Read the first three chapters here. Click here to buy it for Kindle. A print edition can be purchased here.

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Solitude and a Solid Piece of Furniture

  My desk has been through a lot. It’s a great big computer-tower cabinet on one side, file drawer on the other, full hutch on top, desk. I bought it to put my first Dell on, some nine years ago. I put it together myself, in the extra room we made my office. If you were to look closely you could probably guess I did it alone, though I mostly followed the directions. I’ll tell you—electric screwdrivers are worth the money. I wished for days that I’d had one. I’ve moved this behemoth—well, moved houses twice. Moved among rooms two or three times more. I’ve dumped coffee on it and shoved cats off it and once my neighbor pushed it down a flight of stairs.

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The Many Shades of Success

  My writer-friend SM Reine  recently blogged about her definition of success.  And I thought I’d weigh in. I used to think that unless I had an agent and a publication contract in hand (especially with that large advance), I was a failure.  I was doomed to remain unpublished and unknown, toiling away in my office, my work never seeing the light of day.  I was terrified that I’d die before my work ever became known, and my existence on this Earth nothing more than a blip of…nothing. Why yes, I was quite morbid and depressing (it’s a gift).

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Detox from Routine

As I write this, it’s Monday. Before today, I haven’t touched my computer since Thursday — and I can’t even remember the last time I’ve been away from a computer for that long. Even my vacations usually involve a lot of writing. If not, they involve reading…and I think I’ve read all of one chapter during this time. This weekend hasn’t been a vacation. I moved on Friday — from an apartment into a house. It’s been a massive amount of work, with the occasional snag to keep things interesting. There have been literal blood, sweat, and tears. There’s an errands list that’s getting longer instead of shorter. My feet hurt. But.  

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Originality isn’t Everything

Today I’m a lucky, lucky girl. I got to tour Kartchner Caverns, a marvelous experience carefully tailored to protect the living cave from the likes of us messy humans. We weren’t allowed to take anything in so we couldn’t drop anything by accident. No cameras, since flash photography can be destructive and people can’t be trusted. No gum lest someone decide to spit it somewhere unseen. No touching anything but the metal handrails. Our guide carried little flags, and if we accidentally brushed a rock in passing, she marked it for later cleaning. At one point our guide directed her flashlight upon the tracks the discoverers of the cave left in a mud-flat on one of their first explorations back in 1974. Every scientist who has had to cross since has walked in those tracks. Because of care like this, despite the cave having been open to the public for twenty years, over 80% of the cave floor has never been touched by a human.

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Changes

I am a creature of habit, and I tend to not do so well with changes, even positive ones.  But I am also a firm believer in making your own destiny, so sometimes those two ideas collide. Like right now.  I’m embarking on a huge life change.  It’s scary, it’s crazy, it’s the unknown.  But the basis of this is wanting to change my life, wanting to better myself.  Not being a victim of circumstance.  Unfortunately, that’s what my life has turned into — things keep happening and I react as best I can…but I’ve been feeling emotionally drained by it all.  And I have to put the blame where it belongs — on myself for making the choices I’ve made. None of these choices were bad choices per se.  I’d been in some difficult situations and at the time, the choice I made was the best one.  But now that I’m older and wiser, I’m starting to realize that things don’t have to stay the same.  I can change my life, change my destiny.

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