Tag: inspiration

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the editing hat

We are getting close to time to begin editing the short stories for the Sirens benefit anthology.  This is a book that comes from people who have attended a Sirens Conference, and who want to help support the work that the conference does, help provide scholarships to the event and otherwise support women in speculative fiction.

This will be my second year acting as editor for this collection and I’m excited to read and edit the wonderful stories that will come from this pool of talented writers.  The conference theme this year is Heroes and as always, we choose the title of the anthology, and thus the theme for the stories, based on that theme and a general consensus from the community.

reader_hero_logo
Sirens 2019 Logo

This year’s title is Heroes and Hellions…and I can already taste the reading goodness this will bring.

My own story takes me slightly out of my comfort zone, writing in present tense, but includes devils (for some value of devil), an old west style showdown and a little bit of magic in a post apocalyptic town on the edge of nowhere.

The anthology is open to any kind of speculative fiction, be it horror, sci-fi, fantasy…you name it.  This year we also kicked it open for poetry and flash fiction.

If you’re interested in seeing what last year’s anthology was like, check it out over on Amazon. The Title is Rebels & Revenants and it is filled with awesome stories from kickass female authors.  It is available in Paperback and Kindle.

rebels and revenants
Rebels and Revenants

Deadline for submission is in three days, and I already have one submission in.  This is going to be fun.  I really should make myself an actual editing hat.  I have lots of hats to chose from.  Maybe I’ll even take a picture of me in my editing hat.

But now it’s time for the day job and coffee. Happy Wednesday, Readers!  I hope your day is filled with happiness and sunshine.

 

Want more from me? Visit me!

Weight Loss: https://aweightyjourneysite.wordpress.com/
Current Events: https://myweightinwords.wordpress.com/
Poetry: https://weightywordspoetry.wordpress.com/
Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/nataliejcase

You can also find me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (be warned I post a lot pictures of my cats).

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to boldly go…

Among my earliest memories, there is Star Trek, you know, the original series that started the phenomenon.  I couldn’t tell you how old I was, but I can tell you about the ugly brown couch with the weird texture that we sat on to watch it, and that I watched it with my father.

I know it came before Star Wars, which came along when I was nine, and I know that it started my love of sci-fi, and more than that, my love of space.

The only thing that kept me from pursuing a life in the sciences was my extreme hatred of math, and the more advanced the math, the more I disliked it. So, I opted toward the science fiction side of space.

But, things like this…this image of a black hole a ridiculous distance from earth…a beautiful, amazing image that took a team of scientists working together for years…things like this make me dream of a different life a little bit.

katie-boumanAnd then there’s this picture of Katie Bouman, one of the scientists on the project as she sees all of that work coming to fruition.  Look at the joy and wonder on her face.  That is the face of someone who loves her work, who has passion for her work and is genuinely in awe of the universe at her fingertips.

Of course there are trolls out there set to destroy the legacy Katie’s accomplishments for little more than the fact that she is a woman, but forget them.  They can’t take that joy, that sense of wonder from this picture.  They can’t hold a candle to the work that she’s done in her young life.  Forget them and let their legacy be one of the silence that comes when one is ignored.

Look instead to this beautiful image, and recognize the scientists, all of them including women and gay men and straight men,  who made it possible.  Imagine what else they can show us!

And, while I’m here, Readers, a quick reminder that Where Shadows Fall is available for your Kindle for free today and tomorrow, so get yours now!

Want more from me? Visit me!

Weight Loss: https://aweightyjourneysite.wordpress.com/
Current Events: https://myweightinwords.wordpress.com/
Poetry: https://weightywordspoetry.wordpress.com/
Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/nataliejcase

You can also find me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (be warned I post a lot pictures of my cats).

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writing time

It’s early on a Saturday morning and I am up, showered and dressed (for some value of dressed anyway).  There is coffee sending up steam and the aroma of goodness on the desk next to me, most of my house is clean and I have a weekend stretched out in front of me.

Today I am going back to the short story I recently finished, having received feedback from my beta reader.  I have a much firmer idea of what happens before the story than I did when I began, and the characters are much more real to me than they were 5000 words ago, so it’s time to readdress and rewrite.

That’s the task for this weekend, to get that story up on its feet, so to speak, so that I can focus on editorial duties as we start to approach the deadline for submission.  I have to admit, I love playing editor for projects like this one.  I get to read a diverse set of stories, from a diverse set of female writers about a diverse group of characters.

I am also expecting my mother at some point today, she’s driving out to spend some time with me and we plan on hitting up the local nursery, and possibly some other fun places.

If you want to read more of my blog ramblings, I have two other blogs that I am actively attempting to maintain, one of them is chronicling my weight loss journey post-surgery, the other is mostly my take on current events, being fat in a world that rewards skinny, as well as philosophical ramblings on politics and religion, as seen from a point of view outside the mainstream. There is poetry blog too, if you’re into that sort of thing.  I also have a Patreon, if you’re interested in seeing some content from me before others, some exclusive content, etc.

You can find these here:

Weight Loss: https://aweightyjourneysite.wordpress.com/
Current Events: https://myweightinwords.wordpress.com/
Poetry: https://weightywordspoetry.wordpress.com/
Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/nataliejcase

You can also find me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram (be warned I post a lot pictures of my cats).

I should get to that whole writing thing.  Happy Saturday, Readers!  May it be filled with fun, silliness and a whole lot of love!

 

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spring is springing…I think

We have had one of the wettest winters I can remember since I moved to California in 2001.  I love the rain, and I often miss the big booming thunderstorms of my childhood.  Along with the rain, we’ve had a colder winter than I remember having in all that time…and for longer than I can remember.

Here we are, 3 days into April and it is finally, finally starting to warm up.  The wind is still cold in the mornings waiting for the train, but soon I should be able to shed my jacket and I really long for that.

Flowers are starting to bloom all around me, and my succulents are going bonkers.  I really need some new containers so that I can spread them out a bit.  The only thing I dislike about spring is the allergies.  I anticipate a miserable allergy season because of how wet our winter was.

I’m itching (no pun intended) to get out there with a camera, but I have a number of deadlines looming over my head preventing me from a long drive in the country to photograph flowers, so I’ll have to make do with the pictures taken by others.

Those first blooms of spring; the daffodils and tulips and such, have always given me hope.  Back when I was a kid, those first flowers would come up when there was still snow on the ground.  It was like nature letting us know that spring was on it’s way, the winter wouldn’t last forever.

I guess I still feel that when I see them.  It almost makes me wish I had a garden….almost.

Well, the coffee is done and the day job is calling.  I should get to that.  Happy Wednesday, Readers.

Remember, I’m running a special for new patrons over on Patreon.  Come join me!

PS:  Today through April 7th, my book Forever is available for Kindle for FREE!  Grab your copy!

Photo by Joshua Hoehne on Unsplash

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the road through 15 years

I have a confession to make, I love the television show Supernatural.  Sure, it has its faults.  Yes, it’s had some less than stellar story lines.  Or course, some of it is over the top outlandish.  Yep, the characters are all deeply flawed.  I think maybe that’s part of why I love it.  For all that it’s about the supernatural, it’s about the very human family at the center of it. And not just blood family.  It’s about that, but it’s also got a very strong understand of made family, the family you chose.

I’ve just finished a rewatch of the show from the beginning through the end of season 13.  When I started my rewatch, I didn’t know that they would soon be announcing that season 15 would be the end of it, but it made me glad I had decided to go back to the very beginning.

I can remember when we waited, heads bowed and praying for them to announce that we’d get another season…back before it became the juggernaut of fan-conventions, before the fandom rose up to perform some truly amazing acts of charity (despite all of ITS flaws and backbiting and judgement).

Marathoning through 13 seasons in the last few months gave me some insights I probably wouldn’t have gotten any other way.  It made me appreciate those flawed characters and the amazing actors that bring them to life even more.

I’ve never been to a Supernatural convention due to my agoraphobia and the cost it would involve to get me what I need to cope, but there’s a part of me that wishes I could.  I’ve come to love, not just the boys Jared and Jensen, but the entire family of actors who inhabit the Supernatural universe.

I’m glad they get to go into the final season knowing that it’s the final season, and I hope that it provides them to give us a fitting end to 15 years of hunting trips.  And if they wanted to give us another episode with Jeffery Dean Morgan popping by, I wouldn’t complain.

I’ve been mulling over what I might like that ending to be, and I have a few ideas, but I think I’ll keep them to myself for now.  Feel free to drop your ideas in the comments.  I’d love to know!

Now, the coffee is getting cold, so I best get to the drinking of it, and start putting some words to the page.

Photo lovingly borrowed from Entertainment Weekly.

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running against the clock

A bit of oatmeal, some coffee and we ease into the day.  Well, not so much.  By the time I got to the oatmeal and coffee, I had already walked 1.2 miles, with a train ride in the middle, plus the whole getting out of bed and getting dressed and all of that, including makeup and jewelry.

It’s a whole thing.

I have a Samsung Galaxy watch, and one of the programs on it allows me to set a “must wake up by” time, which is set to 4:30 am, and then it monitors my sleep cycle and wakes me at the end of an REM cycle closest to that time, provided that there isn’t time for another complete cycle.

For the last 3 days, it’s gone off at 4am.  It’s amazing to me how much better my mornings have been.  I’m up and out of bed, dressed and answering emails before my 4:30 alarm goes off.  If I had gone that extra half hour, I would have gotten up groggy and cranky and slow.

Time is a funny thing, really.  A human construct that lets us function within a society, a measurement of when rather than what.  At one point in my life, I was so addicted to knowing what time it was, that I looked at my watch about 20 million times a day (an estimate, of course, probably slightly overstated).  I had to stop wearing a watch to get past it.

In fact, I went without a watch for close to 8 years before I got my first fitbit.  I’d broken the addiction, and didn’t fall back into it, but I came to love having that fitbit.  I’ve only recently upgraded to the Galaxy watch as my Fitbit Charge HR 2 was on its last legs.  I love the versatility of it, I only wish the associated Samsung Health app was a little more robust, like the Fitbit app.

Speaking of time, it looks like I should get myself back to my work.  Emails to respond to, pages to write…you know, the usual.  And I don’t want my coffee to get cold.

Happy Wednesday, Readers!  I hope time is on your side today!

 

Photo by Jiyeon Park on Unsplash

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happy spring?

It’s another rainy, rainy day here in San Francisco.  Just walking from BART to the office has my legs soaked from the knees down.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the rain, and gods know we needed it, but after a solid month of the stuff, I find myself craving the sun.  My cats are also completely over the rain.  This morning, instead of getting up with me, they sat on the bed staring at the pet door.

The streets are turning into rivers and the ground everywhere is just saturated.  I am sure all of the plants are thrilled that we have escaped drought status, but I think I am quite over the rain at this point.

Enough of that, however.  Today is Ostara on the Pagan calendar, the spring equinox.  Today is the tipping point that dumps us out of winter and onward toward summer.  From here out the days start to get longer, at least until midsummer.

It is a time to plant intentions, to begin new things.  Get those seeds in some dirt and let’s grow something profound!

Of course, it’s also Wednesday, so here I am in the office like a good worker drone.  Lots to do, coffee to consume, etc, etc…

How about you, Readers?  What are you looking to grow this season?

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books, reading and inspiration

A few years back, a friend who is also an author, turned me on to a conference that takes place in Colorado in October. It isn’t a writing convention, but a lot of the people there are authors.  It isn’t a readers convention, though everyone there are readers.

I couldn’t go last year because I chose Italy (and do not regret that decision), but I’m all signed up for this year.

One of the things I love about Sirens, is that on top of all of the conversations, panels, and learning experiences, they provide you a reading list, filled with books written by strong women authors in genres where women are often overlooked.  It is a huge list of speculative fiction that hits multiple genres and sometimes mixes them together.

This year’s theme is Heroes, and the guests of Honor, on top of being kickass authors with heroes in their books, they are diverse and the words they offer bring you to new places.  I started at the top of the list and bought the first three books from our Guests of Honor.

The first one I read was The Bloodprint.  Bloodprint

A fantasy set in a world where religious extremists have taken over and twisted their holy text to keep women out of sight, with no voice or presence, and keeping the men in line with fear.  It’s easy to see the parallels to our own world.  The hero, in this case, is a woman who knows how to use the scripture of that religion to perform magic.  Her journey takes her far from home in search of a legend in hopes of freeing her world.

I loved how different this world was from the familiar fantasy story.

 

 

Trail of Lightning

 

Trail of Lightning was the second book I read, and I devoured it in a single day.

This falls into post-apocalyptic and dystopian type categories, and our hero is a Diné, a monster-slayer with a dark past and powers that burst out of her, giving her speed and the ability to kill.  The world is filled with old gods and monsters, and she needs to come to terms with her past before she can survive to see the future.

This book sucked me in and held me through the end and at the end, I really, really wanted more.  I have already ordered the next book.

 

I love books like these, that fill my head with ideas, that make me think and rethink.  Inspiration struck me yesterday and I spilled over 2000 words on a short story before 5am yesterday after finishing this book the night before.

Want to join me on this reading challenge?  Grab some books and get reading!  Better yet, want to join me at Sirens?  Denver, October.  Dive in.  You won’t regret it.

Photo by iam Se7en on Unsplash

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the elusive nature of unconditional love

Back in the day when I was an evangelical Christian (yes, really), I  spoke a lot about unconditional love.  I believed that I acted inside that love.  I believed that I understood what unconditional love really was.

The truth is, I was clueless.

It took a lot of changes in my life to realize that.  It took leaving behind everything I thought I knew, everything I believed.  It took discovering myself under all of the layers of learned behavior and belief/fear conditioning.  I often liken those days to days spent in a cult.

Unconditional love is something that springs from inside you and because of that, nothing external to you can change it.  Nothing someone does, nothing someone says can change that kind of love.

That’s a really powerful thing.  It’s the kind of thing that changes lives.  It changed mine.  I’m not saying I practice it perfectly, I am, after all, still human.  And I’m not aiming for sainthood here.  I still make snap judgments about people.  I still criticize things I know I shouldn’t.  But I try to embody unconditional love to all.

It’s what drives me to act with kindness.  To meet people where they are, as they are and try to be helpful without inserting my own prejudice and needs into their life.  It’s why I can be friends with people so very different to me. How I can give of myself where others won’t.

Sure, sometimes I miss the mark, but the longer I practice this idea, the longer I choose to put love and kindness ahead of judgement and fear, the better I get at it.   I just keep hoping to one day get it right.

I hope your Saturday is filled with the light of Love, Readers, and that you radiate that love back out into the world around you.  Let’s light this place up!

 

 

 

Photo by freestocks.org on Unsplash

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Gram’s Town

Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve had a love of horror novels.  I found a John Saul book at a garage sale when I was around 14, and having already cut my teeth on Steven King’s Salem’s Lot and Carrie, I was hungry for more.

That book was Comes the Blind Fury.

comes the blind fury

I’m not a huge fan of most horror movies, mostly because it’s the psychological horror that pulls me in, not none stop blood with no real story to induce the fear response.  But books?  Yes please.

It should come as no surprise then that I have had my own horror story floating about in the darker recesses of my brain since about the time I was 17.  It has never really made it to the page, because I had trouble finding my voice.

However, recently I wondered if I could condense it into a short story for an upcoming anthology, and words started to pour out.

Yes, this makes three novels currently in some stage of creation on my computer.  This is me, after all.

I doubt it will be short enough for the anthology, now that I’ve gotten into it, but that’s okay.  It’s fun to be writing something very different from my usual.  The constant rain here is very atmospheric as well.

Speaking of rain, I had to wade through rivers of run off to get into the office this morning, and I should probably dive into the ever present, ever growing pile of work.

Happy Wednesday, Readers!  I hope you find yourself someplace sunny and warm, with kindness as your companion.