Compass Rosegarten (Camellia book 5) will be available for purchase beginning October 1st. YAY!
Not up to speed on the series? Grab books 1 through 4 from iTunes or any of these sites:
Eternal Press (all print and ebook formats available; enter code 61NF17DV2LEX at checkout to get 50% off all books)
Lately, I’ve laid off Sims 4 in favor of playing Diablo 3 with Fluffy. These weekend level and gear grinds remind me of how we used to do this 9 years ago with Diablo 2, back before Spawn. We’ve had some really good runs lately, and it’s good to be able to bring up new characters when you get bored with your high-level folks. But…grinding for perfect gear is a chore not long left untended. So, I switch back to my monk, start working on finding the one fist weapon I need to max my DPS on the weapons end, and a little gem falls into my lap…or inventory, as it were. I got the season 4 special loot: Henri’s Perquisition, an adorable kitten mojo for my witch doctor!
Look! When it drops, it’s curled up asleep!
I can’t use it because I don’t have a decent one-hander to go with it, but I am having the best time moving it around my inventory. Every time I do, it mews. Sooooo cute!! Big thanks to the devs for that!
I have a cousin who has an awful life. She has no job. She lives in horrible conditions. Her landlord refuses to replace her broken water heater or fix the holes in her floors. Her van breaks down all the time. Her lawn mower breaks down all the time. Everything breaks down all the time, and she fixes it all herself as best as she can because she likes to learn how things work. That’s good because she has no money for anything. She has two daughters, both over the age of 20. One is in the Army, stationed somewhere like Texas, and has two babies. The other (and the reason she can’t keep a job) has a strange genetic disorder that kills the male babies and leaves the female babies in a state similar to severe cerebral palsy. My cousin refuses to put her in a home, so she does her best to take care of her daughter herself. Add to this, until this summer, my cousin’s husband couldn’t walk. He had dementia and brittle bones, heart failure and emphysema from asbestos. He broke his legs every time he tried to get up and walk. Hospitals would give him minimal care and then send him home in a cab that my cousin couldn’t afford. A cab and he couldn’t walk! This summer, he passed away. So far this week, the bathtub has broken, a random rooster showed up at her house, terrorized her dogs, and wouldn’t leave, and a wasp nest fell on her head and she was stung over 30 times. It’s just like the original story of Job (the one before someone went back and added that it was all a test and that his losses were restored). Nothing but pain and loss.
So…today, I was feeling really upset about a life goal I have that looks unattainable, but then I read about Danette’s life. My life is nowhere near that, so I just need to put on my big girl pants and grow up. I need to be more thankful for the dreams I have realized because many people never get to see any of their dreams come true.
Marco told me that he tells the same joke to every person his department interviews for professorships:
A man is about to die, and the angel of death says to him, ‘You can see Heaven and Hell first and then decide where you want to spend eternity.’ So the man goes to Heaven. Clouds, harps, people sitting around chatting. It’s pretty boring. Then, he visits Hell. There is a hot tub and music and a bar. People are laughing and having a great time. He says, ‘Okay, I choose Hell.’
When the man dies, he goes to Hell. As soon as he enters, a demon slaps irons on his wrists. Another prods him with red hot pokers. He is crying and through his tears he says, ‘I don’t understand. What happened? When I visited, it was nothing like this.’
The demon looks at him, smiles, and says, ‘You were recruited.’
I stood at the pump, smelling the rain come from the west. Big fat rain, the kind that you can walk in and not get wet. It’s been an odd summer, too wet then too dry. Ancient oaks are falling, and I’m filling my gas tank on my way to buy groceries.
I stood at the pump, hearing snippets of someone’s phone conversation as it drifted from the store’s front to me. I wondered if there were times that my mother went to church just because she needed a break from my brother and me, because she needed adult interaction.
I stood at the pump, calculating just how long it had been since I’d made a joyful noise unto anyone. The baby used to cry every time I sang Mozart’s piano sonata in A minor k331. It’s what I sang to him at night when he was in the hospital with his liver malfunction. After the first few bars, his eyes would fill and his lip quivered. Sometimes, I would sing it just to make myself laugh, and that is terrible and cruel.
Some things, usually horrible things, just stay with you.
I stood at the pump, snapping out of my thoughts when it clicked, signalling the tank was full. I declined a car wash, declined a receipt. I got back in the car and cursed at the CD player until it accepted the first mix CD Fluffy ever gave me. Then, I drove on to the grocery store.
Why I need my list: One thing I have been told repeatedly is to edit the hell out of everything before trying to get it published. This stands to reason, as a manuscript full of typos and incorrect word usage is a turn-off for agents, editors, and publishers. Great, but no one has ever told me how to edit the hell out of something. I figured that grammar and spell checks factored in, but beyond that, I wasn’t sure, and those checks don’t catch everything. Thus, I developed a system for myself, and this list of words is a big part of that.
How I started my list: After I sent my mother the first novel I ever wrote, she called me and said, “I am sick and tired of Mr. Chuckles.” I had used that word over 50 times in 300 pages. No one chuckles that much. Because of that, I did some searching <ctrl+f> and came up with a list of words that I abuse. I always search these when editing. For the overused words, I don’t remove all of them, just enough to spread it out so you don’t notice it. (The book I am currently reading has “diffidently” 20 times in 400 pages. That is too much for an adverb!) The others are words that are abused – used incorrectly or typed in error.
My List:
Those last two are often used incorrectly, so it’s best to avoid them if you can. If you have more suggestions, please share!
–Dr. Martin Evans
Shadow stood on the edge where the dormant grass met the rip-rap-covered bank. In the bay, the water gently lapped against grayish rocks. Rusty water, made less inviting by the bright sunlight. Through oval glasses he didn’t need, he stared at the ferry as it approached the docks. He’d been compelled to wear them, putting on the face of an intellectual. People stereotyped glasses-wearers as geeks, nerds, and squares long before Velma began single-handedly solving mysteries for the gang. He could play off that for the day.
Looking to his left, Shadow recognized the teenaged boy sitting on a tripod stool in front of an easel. He knew that the boy painted ocean scenes in watercolor, all the same shade of blue but with different concentrations of the color. Several empty tubes of acrylic lay scattered around the boy’s feet and on the easel two cups – one for water, one for paint.
The boy moved the brush over the paper with inhuman speed, starting in the upper left and working his way to the lower right. He didn’t wait for it to dry. As soon as one was finished, he flipped the paper over the top of the pad to reveal a fresh, white sheet. Always intrigued, Shadow walked over to stand behind him and watch as the boy transferred the world onto paper.
“Sea, sea, sea, sea,” the boy murmured over and over as his arm jerked and hitched.
Shadow couldn’t understand how such uncontrolled movements made something so beautiful. The result was a surprisingly realistic rendering with exquisite detail to the tiny crests of waves. For only a moment, he took the pad from the boy and flipped through the paintings. As he flipped, Shadow saw the nebulous blob that marked the position of the ferry make steady progress toward the dock.
“Sea, sea, SEA, SEA.” The boy grew increasingly agitated.
“Yes, I know,” Shadow said to him and returned the pad. “It’s the only thing you see clearly.”
“Sea,” the boy sighed and resumed painting.
Shadow took the ferry to the island. It was a small boat, and the waves were rough, but since the trip was uneventful, he tuned out for a while. He never noticed the young woman, no more than twenty, staring at him with large blue eyes rimmed with black liner. She longed for a hat as she fought to keep her pageboy-cut hair out of her eyes. Eventually, she settled for holding each side of her hair in her fists.
Beyond the draw of a handsome face, she marveled that Shadow’s hair hardly moved. The wind picked up only a few strands and twice saw him scratch at the stubble on his face. Other than that, he didn’t move, and she wondered how anyone could be so still for so long. She thought that, if he embraced her, her ear would rest just over his heart.
On the island, Shadow stared into the forest while the others set up camp. The young woman spoke to him, and he greeted her, letting his eyes pass over her face to record it for future reference. Her eyes, hope and good will seemed to arrow out of them, and he wondered if other things – hate, fear, lust – would also come through them, not only transparently but forcefully so. He gave her a half-smile and a half-laugh, which she returned with a wide, guileless grin. Clingy, he thought and walked away from her to the main tent.
Fourteen feet-by-fourteen feet, the tent stood in a patch of evergreen needles just large enough to contain it. Two adjacent sides had both the flaps and screens unzipped and tied open to allow easy access. A long table and several camp chairs were already set up, along with two laptops, a scanner, and a printer. Shadow gave the equipment the same treatment he’d given the young woman.
“You can try,” he said quietly and left to set up his own tent.
He was up, sitting in a chair in the main tent and listening to the night. A man’s scream cut off abruptly. Snapping, snapping, rending, gurgling growls of satiation. More screaming. His lantern was on, and soon, the surviving five people clustered in the center of the tent, looking to him to know what to do.
“Did you see it?” one horrified man asked of Shadow. “It was eight feet tall!”
“Furry, too?” Shadow asked, his smile haunting his face again. He stood and turned up the lantern. “With lower tusks, large black eyes, and a nose that’s almost comically human.”
The man poked his head out of the flap of the tent and never had the chance to scream before the snarling thing outside batted his head off his shoulders. His body dropped to the ground, and the young woman, beyond terror, darted to Shadow’s side. She tucked her head under his arm and dug her fingers into his shirt.
“What are they?” Her skin was cold, and she quivered with the rush of adrenaline.
“Wild,” Shadow answered. When the beast poked its head into the tent, the young woman looked up at him, searching for an answer, for deliverance. Shadow passed a hand over her short, soft hair and removed his glasses. “Hungry,” he added. As he breathed warm air onto the lenses, the beast leapt.
Beth Bishop 