Category: Current Events

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international womens day

So, today is International Women’s Day and it makes me wonder what exactly that means and what is the best way to celebrate it?

I mean, some of the stuff I’ve read this morning sounds good: we’ve got women walkouts in Spain, shutting down major commute options, we’ve got protests and such all over as women demand equal pay for equal work and other such things.

I know I’ve been pretty lucky as a woman.  I haven’t dealt with sexual harassment or discrimination, I have always received pay equal to the job I do.  For a long time, that blinded me to the fact that these things happen to other women.  But, here we are in 2018 and we’re still fighting something that should have been defeated years ago.

Can you imagine if women just stepped out, really stepped out…all over the world, for one day, not a single woman did anything to benefit anyone but themselves.  Every woman: every government official, every female on any board, every C-level executive, every manager, supervisor, every garment worker, every transportation worker, every teacher, nurse, doctor, lawyer, judge, every line cook, chef, waitress, receptionist, administrator, every janitor, cashier, delivery person, every wife, mother, sister, daughter…can you picture that?

Look around you for a minute, and imagine your world without women.  We are everywhere. We work hard.  We play hard.  We rise to the occasion.

So ladies, let us rise.  Let us lift up our sisters instead of tearing them down.  Let us fight with them, not against them. Let us rejoice in their victories.  Let us demand, with one voice, that we receive our due: equal pay, equal protections, equal education, adequate healthcare by doctors who will not dismiss our pain because we are women, equal protection from crime and equal investigative power when we are victims of crimes, equal representation.

Power is not give, ladies.  Power is taken.

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dystopia

When I was a teenager I loved dystopian fiction.  I was obsessed with the idea of the end of the world as we know it and how the people left after catastrophe would survive. I wanted to visit all kinds of different worlds with different types of societies and different means of living.

Part of that, for certain, was caught up in my religious outlook and my internal self doubt that I would slip up somehow and miss the rapture so as to be stuck behind on an earth that was living in the tribulation period, but aside from that, I was drawn to the plucky upriser, the person who stood up to the dystopia they found themselves in and rather than submitting to their fate, they fought back, they carved out their own place or stood up to an unjust system, rebelled against a corrupt government.

I guess I still am.  I just never suspected that dystopia would be so easy to establish.  No global calamity was needed, just a government run by people more concerned with money than the well being of its citizens.

Heh, when I first wrote the first draft of Through Shade and Shadow almost six years ago now, I considered it’s political plot to be too far fetched.  No one would believe America could be torn apart that fast, even with an outside influence at work behind the scenes.

Now, here we are in a land where the president and congress are more concerned with corporate welfare and the well being of millionaires and billionaires than they are for the rest of the citizens, where safety regulations are swiftly becoming a thing of the past, where cities can poison their own people with lead with no consequences, where children can be mowed down with guns no other civilized country allows in the hands of its citizens and over the grieving of their mothers we as a nation shout about our rights to own these death machines.

But, just liked in all of those dystopian stories I read as a teenager, someone is rising up. Heroes are emerging. Resistance is beginning.

And just like in those stories, those heroes are teenagers.  I know this plot.

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happy new year

Happy New Year Readers!

As I said in my previous post, I’ve had a friend visiting from England this week, and we’ve been off doing a bit of site seeing.

My friend has been wanting to get to the Winchester Mystery House for the last 13 years, so of course I had to make sure she got there.  We had a really pleasant afternoon there, starting with the regular mansion tour, then taking the new “Explore More” tour, which takes you to a number of rooms that had previously been closed to the public.  Of course, they’ve done some refurbishing since I was last there, and they’ve had a movie shooting in the house this last year, which will be coming out in February.

After that we drove down to Monterey and wandered around the aquarium.  We were scheduled to go whale watching the next day, but were both in enough physical pain to scrub that plan.  Instead, we drove up the coast toward home, pausing here and there to get out and look at the shoreline.  My camera loved it.

We had a quiet new year’s eve, staying home and watching movies.  Instead of going out and partying, we stayed in and planned our shenanigans for next year.  I turn fifty in September this year, and have decided I want to tour Italy!  I am super excited! We will start in Rome and end in Paris where we will spend a few days at Disneyland Paris and visiting the various sites.

We were in bed by 10pm. Party animals we are!

Yesterday, we ventured someplace I’ve wanted to go for a while, the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park.  The science geek in me LOVED it!  We visited the rain forest and the aquarium, the earthquake zone, the swamp and it’s amazing albino alligator, then there were penguins! All in all, it was an amazing day, even if we were both exhausted when it was over.

Cal Academy of Science -68

We’re now on the wind down of our vacation time.  My friend leaves to go home tomorrow, so today, we are watching favorite episodes of Star Gate and doing laundry so that she doesn’t have to do laundry when she gets home.

All in all, it was a wonderful way to start a new year!  I hope all of you were having a wonderful start to an amazing year to come!

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a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…

Do you remember where you were when those words first crawled across the screen?  I was a very young child, but I remember it well.  At six years old, Star Wars is probably the first movie I can remember.

I’ve written before about my love for Carrie Fisher and for Princess/Senator/General Leia Organa, which has only grown since her death.  My love extends beyond her, of course.  I grew up watching the original trilogy come to life on the screen.  I’ve stood in those lines, though I never camped out for tickets.

I’ve gone to opening night shows, the ones that would start at 11:59pm…and called in sick the following day, or tried to crawl through the day on two hours of sleep.

I remember falling in love with Han Solo, while all my friends pined for Luke.  There were long discussions about the physics of lightsabers and whether or not you could hear explosions in space.

Of course, everyone panned the prequels, though they followed the Star Wars formula with big space battles and large explosions, the comic relief was too comical and some of the casting choices were not great. I won’t go into the way they made Padme mere window dressing after giving us a glimpse of her badassery.

But, then along came The Force Awakens, where we came back to familiar faces and new ones that seemed well suited to the Star Wars universe.  I can only imagine that there are millions of stories that could exist in that universe, so many characters we have yet to see.

In Rey we got to see those things we saw in Leia.  We get a scared girl who won’t let fate drive her, and when the time comes, she grabs on and runs with it, even though it terrifies her.  I know that there are a lot of theories and what not out there, about Rey and her parentage, her background.  I’ve avoided them all, because I have my own ideas and I’m hesitantly trusting the powers that be that the reveal of those things won’t suck.

Then, we got Jyn Erso in Rogue One.  We got SO MUCH amazing in Rogue One, but for me, Jyn was the character I wanted to write if I wrote in that world.  She was smart and she was capable, she took care of herself and she didn’t want to join the rebellion, she just wanted to live her life.  But when it came to it, she came through.

For millions of little girls, they suddenly had scifi heroines to look up to the way my generation had Leia, maybe even more so.  I only hope they can continue to carry the story forward without marginalizing Rey the way they did Padme.

And yes, of course I already have my tickets for The Last Jedi. I’ll be at the first showing at my local theater, at 6pm on Thursday.  I treated myself to their “fan experience” showing with it’s extras because I am a proper geek.  I won’t be cosplaying, but I will likely be in one of my many, many Star Wars T-shirts.

And I’ll have a box of kleenex, because no matter how they handle Leia’s story line, I’m going to bawl.

Happy Monday, Readers.  Happy Star wars week.  I hope it treats you well.

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giving thanks

I realized this morning that it’s been a while since I posted here.  The reasons are many: the continued issue with the pinched nerve, getting back to work full time, taking on an editing job, plus working on a new anthology, plus two novels currently in progress…all of which means I haven’t really had much free time to do promo work or write up blog posts!

When you’re surrounded by what feels like insurmountable debt, it’s hard to find your way to being thankful about much.  It is insane that a grown woman with a good job and decent insurance should be this deep in medical debt, but it is what it is.  You either suck it up and get the work done, or you continue to suffer. (I have a fundraiser set up to help me cope with the unexpected medical bills, if you’re interested: You Caring Fundraiser)

But, even with all of the doctor visits and the pain and the physical therapy, and the bills and prescriptions that come with that, I am blessed.  I’m living a dream I have had since I was pretty young, I’m a published author!  And I get to make a living working with words.

Not everyone gets to live their dream.  You can’t help but be thankful when you see a lifetime of learning and crafting become an actual reality.  My first book, Forever, took me years to bring to fruition and I learned a lot along the way.

Currently I am working on two different novels, the ending of the Shades and Shadows series and a new one that jumped up out of the abyss that is my mind a few weeks ago and took up residence in the front part of my Brain where it will not leave me alone.

And do you remember the anthology we published a few months ago? Once Upon a Broken Dream was the first in a series of anthologies from Creativia Publishing.  Each anthology begins with a prompt and writers are invited to submit stories using that prompt.  Well, the next one should be ready in December, so keep your eyes open.

So yeah, I’m pretty blessed and living a life that’s pretty amazing.  Even if I’m struggling in some areas.  I hope you can say the same.

Oh, yeah, and if you want autographed copies of my books this holiday season, hit up my facebook page or email me at natalie@nataliejcase.com.

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othering others

When I first started writing the story that would become the Shades and Shadows series, I began with the idea that as a nation, the United States had a tendency to not only other people, but to foist our fears and anger onto those others and I followed it through to what I thought could be the outcome, if ever it were discovered that there were people who could heal and kill with some kind of power that we normal folk didn’t have.

But once I’d gotten the story written, albeit in a much shorter form than it exists today, I looked at where the political aspect of the story had gone as a result of that original premise and I considered it to be too unbelievable.  I looked at where we were at the time, where we had a person of color in our highest office and we had abolished (in theory at least) the othering of LGBT people and women were making gains politically and otherwise.  I thought to myself, who is going to believe a story that takes all of that away now, shoves it into a dark corner and returns us to the darkness of our own past?

I set the story aside, and went on to work on other things.

It wasn’t until the election in 2016 that I realized I was wrong, and that the othering hadn’t stopped at all, in fact for some of our US citizens, othering was still the lens through which they saw the world and those others were where they laid the blame for everything that they thought was wrong with their lives.

Since the release of Through Shade and Shadow, so much has happened that makes the politics in this series nearly pale in comparison.  This saddens me in many ways.

I hope we, as a nation, can navigate our way through this hurricane and come out stronger and better on the other side.

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not all inspiration is inspirational

Image by PETEWILL VIA GETTY IMAGES

Today, as  I was walking to work I was noticing that there were a larger number of homeless than I am accustomed to seeing.  All of the “regulars” were around, and I checked in with those I’ve been friendly with, at least by eye contact, as I generally do.

When I heard yelling across the street, I looked up, slowed my steps.  I wasn’t alone in wanting to know what was causing the ruckus, several other pedestrians slowed their steps or stopped, necks craning to try to see around the large truck blocking the view.

The truck had a sign on the side that said something like “The Clean Team” and there were about ten men (I couldn’t tell their ages from my vantage point) who seemed to be trying to roust a homeless couple who had been sleeping in a store doorway.  The woman was very upset and yelling.  The men made fun of her, and she got angrier (obviously).

I watched for a long few minutes, phone in hand, prepared to call for help if things got physical, which seemed likely when the male half of the couple stood up and tried to intervene.  I couldn’t tell for sure, but it seemed as if he calmed her enough and convinced her that they should just gather their belongings and move on.

A few blocks up the road, one of the regular street cleaner guys was using a far gentler approach with one of the regulars that I’ve offered coffee and breakfast to on occasion.  Down every side street and alley, in doorways and on the curbs, homeless people were being forced to get up and move, as if there was anywhere else for them to go.

It made me wonder when we turned our street cleaning people away from picking up trash and cleaning graffiti and started tasking them with homeless duty…when did we decide that our homeless were little more than garbage, with no more value than a cigarette butt or empty food container?

I felt a little hopeless as I climbed the hill toward my office, a little stifled under the privilege of who I am.

As with all things, the whole scene is already percolating in the back of my brain, trying to decide where it fits in current writing projects, or how it might inspire a new one to come.

Until then, remember that Forever is only 99 cents on Kindle, through July 16th.

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and just like that, it’s June

I’m not really sure where January, February, March, April and May have all gotten themselves off to, but I hope they’re having fun.  It seems like just a day or two ago I was struggling to remember to write 2017 on things instead of 2016 (or the inexplicable occasions where I wrote 1996….what?), and here we are on the first of June.

We sent May out with a bang though.  My niece graduated high school on Tuesday.  She is the youngest of my brother’s kids, and I couldn’t be more proud of the woman she is becoming.  The school she graduated from is one of the top 1% of schools in the country and her classmates are all amazing students, most of whom will be attending four year universities and colleges in the fall.

I got back from all of that frivolity last night, and when I woke up this morning it was June.  Already, my calendar is jam packed for the month.

babf_logoStarting this weekend when I will be at the Bay Area Book Festival in Berkeley, California signing (and selling) books.  I will have copies of my two novels, Forever and Through Shade and Shadow as well as my small collection of poetry.  Sale pricing is $12 each for the novels and $2.50 for the poetry collection.

I can take cash, credit cards and paypal.  It should be a fun day for the whole family.  With all of the vendors and authors, there should be something for everyone!

San Francisco Pride is at the end of the month, for a completely different festival to bookend the month.  Pride likewise has something for just about everyone.  If you come out to one or both days of Pride remember to wear sunscreen, dress in layers, wear comfortable shoes, and please consider dropping a dollar (or more) into one of those pink buckets.  Every penny goes to support the organization that creates the festival and/or the organizations that take care of our community.

Somewhere between those bookends, I will be taking a couple of days to head out to Yosemite with my mother, to enjoy some nature and some truly breathtaking views, like this one, which I took on my last trip to Yosemite in 2010.

4795598576_4edc53f518_o

But for now, I should go pour my second cup of coffee and get to working the day job.  Hope you all have a pleasant day!

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be the future

I love my weekend mornings.  They start with coffee and words.  It’s my time to write, or in some cases, edit.  The first few hours of the day are peaceful and quiet and I get to step out of the world I live in to inhabit some place filled with magic…well, mayhem as well.  What good is a story that doesn’t shake things up a bit?

Anyway, I’m enjoying that part of my Sunday morning, working on the closing chapters of In Shades of Sage, the second book in the Shades and Shadows series.  It feels good to be writing again.  I’ve been stuck on the same chapter for weeks. Yesterday I worked out where it was going wrong and re-worked it, so I get to write fresh material today.

But, my time is short today because in a few hours I need to leave to head out to Stockton, CA to spend time with family.  Not only is it Memorial Day weekend, but my niece is graduating from High School on Tuesday.

On the one hand, it doesn’t seem possible that she’s even old enough (forget that she turned 18 in January), on the other it’s kind of amazing to see the person she turned out to be.  I vaguely remember my own high school graduation. For the most part, I was just glad to be done with it.

I was a very different person then, and I really didn’t see much future for myself, if I’m honest.  I was surviving.  For Vae, I’m hoping she sees a brighter future for herself.  I hope she has dreams and ambitions beyond just surviving high school.  I hope to see her shine as she moves into the life she creates for herself.

No matter what that future is, no matter what roadblocks get in the way.  Don’t let anyone else tell you what your future is meant to be.  Make it your own way.  Be the future you want to see.

I’ll be over here with my pompoms cheering you on.

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when our hearts hurt

I saw the news last night, just as I was going to bed.  I couldn’t process it.  The idea that someone targeted children, that someone hated with such violence that they would purposely walk into a crowd of children to detonate a device that would maim and kill seemed impossible, not believable.

So much of our “news” these days is filled with hyperbole and false fire, used as a tactic to win the attention of our click-baited fingers and eyes, that something like this gives you pause.  You have to read and re-read to be sure that what you’re seeing is true and not another exaggerated half-story filled with half-truths and creative lies.

But then, when you get past the shock, get past the disbelief, what is left?

Pain.  Heartbreak.  And if those of us who were not there, those of us who don’t know anyone who was there feel these things, how much worse must it be for those who survived, those who were there and somehow walked out on their own two feet, those who dropped off their children earlier in the evening, only to never see them again?

This is what comes when our governments foster hatred and subsidize xenophobia. The hate spreads out, like a disease.  It foments and ferments.  It grows and eats into the hearts of those who incubate it.

My heart burns with the loss.