Beverage of Choice in 5 Star Systems

This sums up so many of my plotlines:

For the record: Lance and Lilly prefer "Four Roses", while Captain Brett Hill drinks ( and occasionally shares with Maggie and Swede) "Woodford Reserve".

Oh the Excuses You'll Contrive

Just slightly over a year ago I wrote a post that said: "I very much want to finish the first draft of Lilly's story before the end of August.  My kids go back to school on the 22nd and Guild Wars 2 starts on the 25th, so I'll be super busy and distracted after that day. "

Excuse me while I double over from wry laughter.

Oh, if only the start of the school year and a game launch had been my only distractions in the past year...

One day after writing that post, my husband broke his leg in three places.  He required a 4 day hospital stay and major surgery.  He couldn't place any weight on his leg for nearly six weeks and was on crutches for some time after that.  I had to play the role of home-nurse as well as wife and mother.

Two weeks after writing that post, my broken-legged husband was laid off from his job. We were faced with finding a new job for him while he couldn't walk or drive. He did, thankfully find a great company to join...in Seattle.

Three months after writing that post, we were unpacking after our THIRD 900+ mile relocation in the space of THREE years.  I spent my days trying to shepherd my two learning-disabled boys through the processes of new schools, new friends, and new routines while my nights were spent unpacking.

Also, in the past year, I've had to fly across country for a wedding, had major abdominal surgery, and managed to (barely) hold onto my sanity.

What's the point?  I've come to the realization that life is never going to be any easier or less stressful.  I will never have fewer demands on my time or a magical cave to which I can escape and spend my hours leisurely typing out fantasies.

I'm going to have to write as I always have: hurried snippets scribbled in margins of school notebooks, grocery lists, and Little League scorecards. I'm going to have to  struggle for every second it takes to get Lilly, John, Lance, Ailee, the Roman, Teriwyn kho'Khanna, and the rest of my characters onto paper.

If these imaginary friends of mine want to survive, they're going to have to fight for it.  Buckle up, it's going to be an interesting (Wash definition of interesting) ride.

Entry 11

Click on the picture link to read more wonderful snippets of fantasy and science-fiction! 

(Oh, and if you think it's frustrating reading bits of a story in 10 sentence increments, try WRITING the story that way.)

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Entry 11

I write this from memory as I was, obviously, unable to type out an entry as events were occurring.  At some point after my last writing, I fell unconscious.   I remember the over-head lights hurting my eyes but being unable to adjust them.  I remember racking coughs and sweat-soaked sheets.

I remember her.

I thought she was an illusion, a conjuring of my dying brain. Fevers, as I well know, induce swelling of cerebral tissues and make synapses fire irregularly, causing hallucinations.  These typically precede death by the space of a few hours.

But I didn't die, and she wasn't a fever dream.

I am prisoner 1138 but my name is Abraham bin Navi

Fame

The past few years have seen an explosion in discussions about the role of gender in the nerd & geek communities. In case you've been stranded on an island with Oliver Queen, a hashtag search for #GeekGirls should give you plenty of reading material.  I've contributed to these discussions myself, notably with this post: Hear it for the Heroines.  A video posted recently, and a post by friend and fellow author JC Cassels, prompted the following entry.

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I am a geek. I am a nerd. I am a female.

I am memorable.

I have always been these things.  I watched GI Joe and He-Man cartoons, purloined my brother's comic books and begged to play D&D with him.  I spent as many hours with the Atari Basic programming cassette as I spent with "Missile Command" and "Pac-Man".  I adored "Turtle Tracks".  I kicked my brother's whining ass, beating Castle Wolfenstein and DOOM long before he did.  The very first story I ever wrote was science fiction.

You'll remember me.


Yes, this made adolescence rather painful.  I doubt, however, that it was more or less painful for a nerd/geek boy. I'd be lying if I said I didn't care what other people thought or said about me. Those snide comments and date-less nights, though, made me who I am.


Don't you know who I am?

I don't take the easy road.  Anything worth doing is hard.  You want me to do something?  Tell me I can't.  I knew that using Cassandra Davis as a pen name would hurt sales.  I decided I didn't care.  If someone is so ignorant as to live in this century and still believe that the quality of storytelling is dependent on the gender of the storyteller, then I don't want that idiot reading my books. I'll sell fewer books, but as long as that is a reflection on the idiocy of a few and not on the quality of my writing, I am unconcerned.

Remember.


When you grow up marginalized, when you grow up "different", you become a grown up who dares.  You dare to believe. You dare to fight for what you want.  You dare anyone to stand in your way. You set the sky on fire.

I am unafraid, unapologetic, unswayed.

They'll remember.

If I'm doing my best, it won't matter what name I use.  I will live forever because my story will learn to fly. Every boy or girl, woman or man, who reads my books, will take a part of it with them.  The story will become a part of their lives.

Fame, and a name, are what you make of them.