New Book Out

So… I kind of did a thing. Well, really, I did a thing a few years ago, but then I got bogged down in editing and got tired of reading my book over and over and over again. After about the third time through, mistakes just blend into the page, and I don’t even catch small things anymore. Sometimes, I need a little step back so that I can take a look at it again with fresh eyes. Only in this case, my little step back turned into a giant leap back and then a leap across and over yonder. Anyway… I finally “dusted off,” obviously not literally since it was a file in my computer but whatever, the book that I wrote several summers ago. Like, before the pandemic. I read over it again, realized that I actually really liked the story, edited a little bit and turned it into an ebook so that I could get it out.

With my first book, Away Away, I experimented a little. I had it for sale on Amazon, but the profit margins are miniscule. The one good thing was that it was print on demand. So people could order it, Amazon would print it and ship it right out. The bad thing (besides the low profit margins), is that if you sell your book that way on Amazon, you are not allowed to sell it anywhere else. That’s a little depressing.

I left it up on Amazon for a while, but I didn’t sell very many copies. (Turns out, you have to actually market these things). So, I decided to have it printed and then just sell it elsewhere. I have it listed on Sistership Publishing as both a hardcover book and an ebook.

I decided that with Harvest Moon Hurricane, I would publish it there as an ebook first to see what the response would be and if there was enough demand for the hardback versions to get it printed.

So, I did it. Finally. It’s a miracle.

What is it about? I’m glad you asked.

If you have been reading this blog for a while, you will have noticed that I am a bit of a weather nerd. I love tracking hurricanes and planning for major storms. I also love sailing. This story has a bit of both, plus super mean bad guys and a bit of romance thrown in for good measure.

Basically, our heroin, Holly, has recently moved to Texas to work as an engineer and has gotten herself a cute little sailboat to play around with on the weekends. Everything is going great in the first few pages until… (insert ominous music)… a hurricane starts to form. Unbeknownst to Holly, super bad terrorist guys have been planning an attack on the power grid under the cover of a hurricane and have been waiting for just the right moment to set off their electronics-crippling electromagnetic pulses (EMP’s). So, when the lights go off because of the hurricane, they don’t come back on. The EMP’s don’t just attack the power grid, they shut down anything electronic within range, including cars. Not only is there no power, there is also nobody coming with disaster relief. The proverbial s*!? hits the fan, and Holly narrowly escapes attack in an attempt to flee to her sister’s house, halfway across the state. She makes it out of the city, but then her car comes within range of an EMP device, and she is forced to continue by bicycle. The power grid failures spread out across the country. Holly doesn’t realize that her escape is really no escape at all.

Meanwhile, on the East Coast, the people at the FBI’s Department of Environmental Terrorism have been trying to prep for just such a scenario. In a race against time, they dispatch a team toward Texas to locate the master EMP controller to try and salvage what’s left of the power grid.

Holly and the team cross paths while they are trying to disarm an EMP device on a cell phone tower. She alerts them to an angry mob approaching their van. They make their way toward what they expect is the controller, only to discover that it isn’t there. Not only is it not there, the home office manages to trace it to a location offshore. Holly offers the use of her sailboat, if it is still afloat after the hurricane, and the three of them head offshore.

I really enjoyed writing it. It has everything you could want in a story- a sailboat, a cute little puppy that Holly rescues along the way, a little romance just to keep things interesting. Also, there are fight scenes and a little blood and gore. Like I said, everything you could want in a summer read.

It’s a race against time obviously. They are outnumbered and way out-gunned, but they have a sailboat, and that’s the important take away here. Oh, and the cute puppy. Don’t forget the cute puppy.

Anyway, if you are looking for something entertaining to read, or if you already finished binge-watching Season 4 of Stranger Things and don’t have anything better to do with your time, check it out. It’s on sale for the first two weeks. Away Away is also on sale. Just a note though, Away Away is a young adult book. It’s relatively clean and suitable for teens and preteens to read. Harvest Moon Hurricane is definitely not a kids book. There is sex, violence, and bad language. Definitely not a kids’ story. You have been warned.

Here is the link for Harvest Moon Hurricane. Get your copy now!

Rocks, Rocks and More Rocks

Once upon a time, there were two children who lived in the country. There was absolutely nothing to do except for exploring the forest around their house. To keep them busy, their father sometimes took them to a rock shop.

Fast forward over thirty years. (I don’t want to talk about the number of years, so don’t ask). Anyway, I am working on a new screenplay involving an unsuspecting witch. I don’t know anything about witchcraft, or magic crystals, or anything of the sort, so I have been researching. Don’t worry. It is possible to learn about things without becoming those things. A few centuries ago, that sort of talk would have gotten me burned at the stake. Seriously. I mean, individual free thinking, having ideas of my own. These days, those kinds of things are okay as long as they aren’t about the current ruling political party, or in support of the currently unpopular political party, or about anything to do with vaccines, or really pretty much anything about current states of affairs. But come on, guys. We have totally progressed beyond burning people at the stake. Now we just cancel them so that they can no longer make any money. They still die, but it is slow and of starvation/ humiliation, and we don’t have to watch or go home smelling like roasted witch. I think I may have gone off on a tangent there.

Anyway, while I was looking into rocks and stones and crystals, I Googled the old rock shop we used to go to as kids. It is called Johnson’s Rock Shop, and I didn’t really expect to find anything. The guy who ran it was already old when we were little, so I really expected it to have shut down years ago. To my surprise, it is still there! I called them to make sure they were going to be open, and then I recruited my parents for a rock hunting trip Monday after Christmas. I wanted to recruit my little brother, but he had covid at that point, so he was out of luck.

I’m really not quite sure how my parents found this place in the days before Google Maps. You go to Livingston, which is already in the middle of nowhere, then you go to a little area outside of Livingston (even further into the middle of nowhere), then you take a series of dirt roads. Once we got to the dirt roads, there were little yellow signs nailed to the trees at the various turns, but that is a recent addition.

For you city-dwellers, yes, there are actually roads that are still made out of dirt.

The shop itself is heavily fortified and guarded by two vicious shop cats.

Sleeping on, I mean, guarding unpolished rocks.

One of the vicious shop cats used her powers of persuasion to hold my dad captive for a while. Resistance was fultile.

Apparently, they both like to ride around on people’s shoulders, but we didn’t give them a chance to demonstrate.

Not only are they still in business, but they’ve expanded since I was a kid. The only thing you have to note if you go there is that they don’t take cards. My guess is that the credit card fees are too high. A lot of their stuff is cheap (not cheaply made, just cheap), and if someone were to only spend a few dollars, they would lose most of that to the card reading companies. Again, that’s just my guess. Whatever the reason, you end up saving so much money, it’s worth getting a little bit of cash on your way out to see them. I recommend taking a little bit more than you think you will spend. Some of their stiff is just incredible, and you don’t want to not be able to get it. I found a really cool piece of blue calcite, for example. It’s large – about the size of my palm- and I saw the same thing elsewhere for $80. At Johnson’s, I paid $15. So seriously, don’t complain about the cash only rule. I would like to keep getting deals like that. Also, I found a small piece of citrine elsewhere for $3. By small, I mean roughly the size of the fingernail on my pinky finger, or slightly smaller. I got a container full of citrine the same size and bigger, 18 pieces total, for $2.

I had forgotten how much fun it was to go to the rock shop. They have so many cool different stones and rocks. A lot of them are polished, but they have unpolished stones too in case you want to polish them yourself. They also have geodes that you can take home and crack open.

The little pile on the left cost me more than the pile from Johnson’s Rock Shop (on the right).

I had so much fun that I decided that I needed to introduce my niece to the art of rock hunting. When she came over later in the week, I showed her a few of my rocks and gave her a little box to put them in. She immediately pushed the rocks all to one side and informed me that she had room for more rocks. New Year’s Eve, we made the long trek back to the rock shop. The way it is set up, they have little tiny shop buildings with different types of rocks. One has geodes that have been opened. One has super-polished stones and jewelry. One has rocks that have been drilled to make beads for making jewelry. One, my niece’s favorite, has an old claw-foot bathtub full of polished stones that are a quarter each (or you can buy them by the pound). I gave my niece a little wire handbasket and let her pick out 20 of them. She was completely entertained for over an hour and would have been happy to stay longer, but we were all hungry and left to get lunch.

They also have outside tables with random polished and unpolished rocks. My niece was over the moon when she found one that was a “Frozen” rock. I’m not sure what made it a Frozen rock, but apparently it was. She said that Elsa froze it. You can’t really argue with that kind of logic, so we got the Frozen rock. I think it was a dollar.

We had a really good time at the rock shop. I definitely want to take her back again.

My niece’s haul. The one in the top left corner is the Frozen rock. The rainbow rock in the top right corner actually came from Amazon. (She also snagged a couple of my moonstones).

If you are interested in rocks at all (for metaphysical or non-metaphysical purposes), and if you have some time to go wandering around in East Texas, you should definitely check out Johnson’s Rock Shop. It’s listed at being in Livingston, but it is in the community of Indian Springs. It’s actually not that far from the Alabama Coushatta reservation, which now has a casino. We used to take our canoe out in the lake at the reservation, but I’m not sure that’s allowed anymore now that there’s a casino.

Anyway, happy rock hunting!

Christmas in Texas, A Cautionary Tale

Okay. Maybe that was a little overdramatic. It’s not really a cautionary tale. Christmas is here. Again. I’m not sure where Fall went. If you have been reading this blog for very long, you already know that I don’t do normal very well. This Christmas break is a really good example of that. The week before break was shaping up to be a normal holiday season. My nephew had a Christmas concert (he plays trumpet). My niece had a Christmas program. She graduated up to being an elf this year. Last year, she was a tooth fairy. I was shocked too. It made more since when they started singing, “All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth.” Anyway, it was moving right along. Friday came, and I was all ready to get the break started. I expected my niece to spend a good bit of the break at my house. I had the crafting supplies out and ready to go. Then the first person started feeling COVID symptoms. Then the next, then the next. Pretty much everyone tested positive who would have come over for Christmas except my parents. I tested out of precaution, but it came back negative. Luckily, they all seem to be getting over it very quickly. Most had mild symptoms (even the ones who were unvaccinated). So, that’s good, but it totally threw a wrench in my Christmas plans.

(Screeching tire sounds)

I suddenly found myself with time on my hands. Luckily, I have had an idea for my next story mulling around, festering perhaps, in my head for a while, and I kind of needed to do a little bit of research anyway. So… I may look normal, but I enjoy sci-fi and fantasy. I’m not totally gung-ho into dragons, but I’m not opposed. I like the idea of people who can do magic or at least have abilities that would normally be attributed to magic, but I kind of wish all the witch stuff weren’t so dark. I mean seriously. Just because a person has gifts doesn’t necessarily mean that person is evil or has made pacts with the devil or other such things. Why do we always assume that people shouldn’t be able to do interesting things? Even God-fearing people get hunches sometimes, or gut feelings that something isn’t right. Isn’t that a little in the realm of magic?

The story I am working on is about just such a person. It also involves regular witchy types, and people who are into the occult. I don’t know anything about any of that. So, I decided to take some time and do a little research. One of my students a few weeks ago, dropped a shiny rock in class. I think it probably fell out of her pocket. I found it under one of the desks, but it was too pretty to just be a random rock. I put it on my desk in case its owner was looking for it. Sure enough, when she came in the next day, she was very happy to see her rock safe and sound on my desk. I told it was pretty and asked her what kind it was. She said it was carnelian and that it was a healing crystal. Until then, I had imagined my character mostly just being kind of magic, or having visions, that sort of thing. It hadn’t even crossed my mind that crystals might be a good addition to the story.

My brother and I used to hunt for rocks when we were kids. We lived in the country, so there were plenty of rock hunting spots. My dad would take us to a local rock shop for fun, and we would spend hours comparing our finds. I decided that maybe I needed to visit some rock shops.

Enter: The Magick Cauldron.

So… The Magick Cauldron is actually right across the street from the parking lot of my favorite Greek Restaurant in Houston, Niko Niko’s. If you haven’t tried Niko Niko’s, then it should be on your restaurant bucket list. It’s super yummy! I don’t know how many times I have parked right across the street from the Magick Cauldron to eat without noticing that it was there. I guess it’s because the front of the store faces the main road and not the Niko Niko’s parking lot? It’s also a few blocks down from Texas Art Supply, which is amazing, but it’s a divided street and there are trees. So strange that I never noticed it was there. Now that I know, I will definitely go back. So. Many. Rocks.

If you are into Renaissance Fairs, or dragons, or rock/ crystal jewelry, or incense or anything to do with witches, Wiccan and pagan beliefs, then the Magick Cauldron is worth a visit. (There was a super cute blue calcite dome/ paper weight that I would totally display in my house, but I didn’t really want to spend the money at the time). The people who work there are super knowledgeable and helpful but not pushy. They let you browse and check out the bins of rocks without hovering. They also helped with questions I had about the different stones (specifically which ones were which after I put them in my little basket). I felt like a kid again. I kind of wanted all of the rocks. So many colors! I got a cool one called Dragons Blood Jasper. It’s okay. No dragons were harmed in the making of Dragons Blood Jasper. Really, it’s just a cool shiny rock with swirls of a rusty red through it. Very cool. I also liked this one (Epidote). It’s prettier in person; the coloring is a little bit off in this picture. I like the marbled cream color stone mixed in with the brown specks.

My current favorite though, is the moonstone. I got a really cool one on Amazon. It is polished up and shaped with a thumb groove like a worry stone, but the cool part is that when the light hits it just right, there is an iridescent glow. It’s amazing! I can totally see where people hundreds of years ago, with no knowledge of geology and no internet to look things up, would have thought that it had magic powers.

This is the stone with a little bit of light on it. You can already kind of see a little bit of the underlying blue. Side note: Don’t worry, I’m not suddenly sprouting a green thumb from reading about witches. I had a bit of a mishap with fountain pen ink.

Now, here it is when I slanted it to the light a little bit. It’s okay. Seriously. If this were 400 years ago, and you didn’t know anything about rocks or geology and didn’t have the internet to search this, wouldn’t this look a little magic to you?

My question now is whether the light from a full moon would be enough to make it glow. I mean, it is called a moonstone. I am going to have to take it outside next time there’s a full moon. I’m a little concerned that the light pollution in my area will interfere. If it doesn’t reflect the light, I may have to find a darker spot without the light pollution. Back in ye’ olden times, there wouldn’t have been any light pollution. The light from the moon would have seemed much brighter- especially when full. I mean think about it, if you were trying to convince someone that you had magical powers and that they should do what you say, and then you pull out a “glowing” stone during a full moon, people all over the place would think you were magic. (That may or may not be in the story I’m writing… just sayin’).

Anyway, even though my Christmas break hasn’t been normal by any stretch of the imagination, it has been quite productive. I was able to do some research and outline a good portion of my story. I even started writing the actual story last night. Not a bad Christmas at all (even if it was originally a pagan holiday that was repurposed by the Christians).

On a possibly related note, I may have to actually get a Christmas tree next year. My five-year-old niece was not at all impressed by the quilted Christmas tree wall hanging I made to save space. In my defense, I live in a townhouse, and when I have a tree, I have no place to exercise. But, with all these stories about witches, having an actual Christmas tree might go a long way toward tricking convincing people that I am still a little bit normal. #writerproblems