Home Articles posted by KD Sarge (Page 6)

Curiosity Killed the Cat — Part 5

by KD Sarge Read previous installments: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 After a time sitting in the dark by the dripping stone, Srivasi sighed and lit his wand again. “Warn a fellow,” Dasid grumbled. He sat with his head leaned back and his eyes closed. He looked very young and very dirty. No, that wasn’t—well, yes, he was dirty. But his eyes looked bruised from lack of sleep, not dirt. He’d been stuck in that room at least a day before Srivasi dropped in, so he must be hungry too, though he didn’t complain. Srivasi knew well that at Dasid’s age, he himself would have been a whiny, sniveling mess who probably would have demanded to be carried by the poor adult who found him. “Your turn for the water,” Dasid murmured. The curved rock was full. Srivasi drank the water and replaced the rock. The drops were coming a little faster now. Srivasi leaned his head back and wondered why Jhi Bo didn’t come. She was trying, he was sure. She just—had a lot of places to look. And, probably, monsters to fight. She knew many things, but he didn’t think she could read Aduli, or answer a number of other questions he’d seen… Too late, Srivasi knew he should have just stayed in that first room, just pulled up a cushion and waited. She would have come soon…and maybe they’d still be lost and going in circles, but he’d have Jhi Bo with him, and that was worth…

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Escapist Literature

Nope, not talking about it. I hope you’re safe, I hope you’re well, and I have faith you are doing all you can to protect yourself, your loved ones, and total strangers. That said–I’m gonna talk about escape books. A reader once told me that mine is the book she reaches for when she needs a break, when she needs to get out of reality for a while. (This one, specifically–Knight Errant.) It made my day, and continues to make me happy. I never wanted to write a world-altering novel–I just wanted to make people as happy as many a book has done for me. So. In no particular order–my escape books. I’m not linking them all, but here’s Indiebound if you’d care to go look for any. None of these are exactly new, but hey. Spoiler warning. If you don’t want spoiled for a title (probably just a little,) don’t look at the paragraph that starts with that title! The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien I first read The Hobbit in 8th grade (so, 12-13 years old.) It was a very bad time for me, but The Hobbit took me away so magnificently, I reread it about eight times in a row. Even after that, I still carried it for months, rereading bits, and especially the chapter Flies and Spiders. Poor Bilbo, lost and alone in Mirkwood, but then he found his courage, and rescued his friends! It was a time I needed courage, and Bilbo finding his, gave some to…

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Meanwhile, Two Decades Later…

Ahh, 1994. Bill Clinton was president of the United States. Nelson Mandela became the first black president of South Africa. Comet Shoemaker-Levy hit Jupiter, George Foreman hit Michael Moorer, and the Lion King hit EVERYTHING. It was big, y’all. Harry Styles, Dakota Fanning, and Justin Bieber came into the world, while Jack Kirby, Dinah Shore, John Candy, Kurt Cobain, Raúl Juliá, and Cab Calloway all left it. Doesn’t seem like a good trade, but no one asked me, so. (that’s actually only a swipe at one of those born in ’94, by the way. I have no opinion on the other two.) Another movie released in 1994 was the Star Trek “bridge” movie passing the torch from the original series (TOS) to The Next Generation (TNG)–aptly titled Generations. This post is not about that movie. In 1994, I had nothing to do with any of the above. I was working as a Jack in the Box drive-through cashier and also as nanny to three children, and dreaming of writing books but doing very little actual writing of anything. But 1994 was the year I decided I needed to change that. Writers, I reasoned, should write things.* Or they should not call themselves writers. Enter this poster. I snagged it from work because duh. It was a free Star Trek poster. I used it to get myself to write most days in 1995, and finish my first novel. But this post isn’t really about that, either. It’s about the fact that…

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Painting in Layers

Once, not too long ago, I very rarely watched TV. Then I bought one for my room. Oops. Now I watch probably a half hour to an hour a night, after I go to bed and before I turn out the light. So I like…happy stuff. Queer Eye. Tidying Up. Wildlife documentaries (I skip the episodes about climate change because I KNOW ALREADY, I KNOW, BELIEVE ME) and sometimes conspiracy theory silliness. I save my movie watching for the weekend. Lately my go-to has been Bob Ross. Have you watched him? The series is “Beauty is Everywhere” on Netflix. It’s so relaxing, without being boring. Bob Ross has this kind soft voice, and he works magic and explains every step while insisting that I can do it too, and it’s just…lovely. When he’s doing something repetitive, he’ll show a short video of him charming wild animals, like injured baby squirrels he’s hand-raising, or an orphaned deer a friend is taking care of… via GIPHY He cracks dorky jokes, too. While putting in a shoreline in a painting, “Don’t let the trees fall in the water, that’ll make a big splash and scare that little beaver that lives here.” Note–he hasn’t painted a beaver. Or on balancing out the highlights he’s putting in, “We don’t want these trees left out. Nothing worse than an angry tree coming after you.” When he washes his brush, he bangs it on the easel to finish, and he always gets a kick out of it…

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Happiest of Holidays, Whichever You Celebrate

It’s Christmas Eve. My 21-year-old kid is regressing to wide-eyed childhood as I write. It’s the third night of Hanukkah. Kwanzaa begins this week. For my beloved witch friends, solstice just passed. Islam doesn’t seem to have a holiday coming up right now, from my quick look around the interwebs, but I don’t want leave out a whole lot of people. So I’ll say it with all my heart–happy holidays. Whatever you celebrate, I hope it is joyous. I hope you find rest, and peace, and comfort. I celebrate Christmas, but one of the best I ever had was the time I stayed home alone with Chinese takeout and a Bruce Lee movie marathon. Take that time if you need that time. And hey. I get it. Sometimes family is just not what you need, so you go on the internet and read blog posts. I’m here for you, hoping to give you a laugh. Please enjoy this video of cats and Christmas trees. There are a lot of tweets about this, too. I used to have two cats. Frito would take down the tree at two in the morning, and Rohrschach would come wake me up to snitch on his brother. Unfortunately I don’t have any video of that. Cats and menorahs apparently are also a bad combo, but I didn’t find a funny video of that. Perhaps because when your beloved cat sets itself afire, you help the cat instead of recording? One would hope. Are there other…

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Flame Isfree and the Feather of Fate

A novel of the Spell-Wracked Lands Bucking thousands of years of tradition, Flame ran away from her elven heritage, her glorious destiny, and her arranged marriage. Now she’s an expert treasure-finder in the human world, one job away from buying out her indenture and setting up a tower somewhere full of pretty things and pretty men. Just one more job–but her employer doesn’t know exactly what they’re questing for, and also the world has changed since his map was drawn. Flame can handle all that with her usual sarcasm and skill, but when her intended husband turns up at the fateful meeting of the moons, ready to fulfill his destiny and help her save the world, she really just wants to run again. All Flame really wants to do is nothing, but failure in the quest means a price on her head. Failure in the world-saving would be even worse. Why can’t everyone, fate included, just leave her alone?

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Go-To Movies

Life’s been…a bit rough lately. While commiserating with friends, someone asked on Twitter about “go-to” movies. The ones you watch when you just want to enjoy yourself for a while. That you trust to do that for you. I followed the thread a bit, looking for some new additions, but in the end I stuck with my own. Which, I guess, is how that works. So, while it may not be of use to you, there’s always a chance, so here’s my list in almost no order. I’ll link some of my favorite bits, in case you want to check them out. Armageddon I can’t help it. Bruce Willis at his gruffest and grumpiest? A whole team of uncivilized men being ridiculous and caring about each other? Teamwork and banter, lots of things blowing up? I am so there. “The money’s good, the scenery changes, and they let me use explosives.” The Fifth Element More Bruce Willis! Also multi-pass. And a fun DJ, and lots and lots of fun and fighting and explosions. Love Leeloo. SO MUCH. “Weddings are one floor down, my son. Congratulations.” Godzilla (1998) I love me a good monster movie. This is another one with a great team and lots of banter. The part where they are fleeing Godzilla in a cab, arguing over the best route? Just fills me with delight. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph that is really..that is…large.” Twister Dr. Jo Harding, awesomesauce. Bill “the Extreme” Harding, estranged hubby still in love. A great…

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Flame Isfree and the Feather of Fate — Sneak Peek

You may think you’ve read this, but actually you haven’t. Please enjoy the expanded adventures of Flame Isfree and the Feather of Fate. The full novel will be available for purchase December 15th. Scampering through the treetops, never worrying what was happening on the ground—squirrels knew how to live. Flame ran among them, heart thudding and brisk air in her lungs, the sun shining through yellow- and red-edged leaves. All that and a deep blue sky, the wind in her face, the ground far below—it had been far too long since she’d run through a mountainside forest. A squirrel dropped onto a branch beside her and flicked its tail. Flame accepted the implied challenge, running past it. The beast bolted past her and leaped and Flame followed as best she could, ran along a branch and leaped again when the squirrel did, but even she couldn’t leap where it did, so it gained on her with every tree. Off in the forest, something screamed. Flame hesitated. The sound came again. Well, she was losing anyway. Flame tossed a salute to the squirrel and slowed, listening. The sound came again. Something in distress, that much she could guess. Flame took her bearings from the sound and trotted on. A frantic rustling at the foot of an oak brought her down to a young fox, wrapped nose to back legs in a cord tied to a sapling. The animal saw her and opened its lips to growl at her. It couldn’t do…

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The Pitfalls of Research

It’s probably safe to say that every writer does research. It’s fun! It’s important! It takes a lot of time that could be wasted staring at your (lack of a) plot! This year, for the first time in a while, I’m doing NaNoWriMo. Since I’ve got big gaping holes in my plot that I don’t want to think about, I’ve been doing a lot of research. Alaska. Kayaks. The behavior of moose and orcas. What do rich people do all day? What’s the temperature of Resurrection Bay in June? My NaNovel will be contemporary and not speculative, so there’s a LOT to research, of course. The last time I researched for a contemporary story, in the author notes I left the disclaimer, “KD wishes fervently that she had found more time to research rock-climbing, the Civil War, the Underground Railroad, video production, colleges in Western Pennsylvania, visa requirements, Danbury, Connecticut, Civil War re-enactors, and navy slang, but hopes there are not too many factual errors.” People have interests! Things are done differently in different places! You have to get it as right as you can, or people who are enjoying the story get tossed out of their suspension-of-belief and that sucks. I, personally, hate when it happens to me. I don’t want to do it to anyone else! Of course, then you can run into things like the Tiffany problem. Or how, after reading one story I wrote, people found it impossible to believe that a young man went all…

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All the Modern Inconveniences

Once upon a time, more than twenty years ago, I was a shift manager at Taco Bell.* The next step up was assistant manager, but when the store manager sounded me out about it, I was adamant. Heck no. Assistant managers had to wear pagers. They had to be always reachable. No way was I going for that. I needed my freedom. Fast forward a few years, and some people had cell phones, but I didn’t. Never wanted one. I’m good. When the hubby decided he needed one when I was pregnant I still didn’t get one. ( “What if you go into labor??” “Who’s going to call you? Not me. I won’t have a cell phone.” ) After he passed, though, and I was a single parent, I gave in and took and used his cell phone. Single parents have to be reachable. But I didn’t have to like it. And that was easy, because it was a piece of carp from Cricket that rarely worked, so yeah. Didn’t like it. I was the last person I knew using a flip phone. When I made the jump to a “smart” phone (I was all but dragged to the Verizon store!) it was still a flip phone. (I still miss this phone. It was freakin’ cool!) Of course, I adapted. I moved on from the hybrid smart/flip phone when it stopped working well. I got a Samsung Galaxy S4-I-think. It did things. I found cool apps. I grew dependent on…

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