Anne B. Walsh's Blog

Please visit my brand new blog, still called Anne's Randomness, at https://annesrandomnessblog.wordpress.com/ -- all the old posts will remain here, but I'm trying for a fresh start! See you there!

Well, that was unexpected. Please do pardon the VERY long gap between posts, O readers! An awful lot of things happened, most of which you already know if you're a follower of my Facebook page, so I won't bore you, but yes, here I am again, ready to charm and delight you (or startle and fright you) on the blog of Anne's Randomness! 
Among the things that happened were some medical issues, which seem to be (slooowwly) resolving themselves, and, at last, some WRITING! Not just writing, but writing of new originals! No, it's not the continuation of the two series you've all been hoping for, which I know will disappoint many of you, and disappoints me to some extent. I would really like to write Playing with Fire or Snowball for you guys, but they don't want to come out and play just yet. However, what I do have seems intriguing in its own right. 
The title of the first book is And One Shall Cry. It falls between Killdeer and Homecoming in length, and is definitely fantasy, though it has a bit of a soft sci-fi or steampunk feel as well. Many of my common themes are present--dreams, family, friendship, art, food, music, nature--but the story itself is drawn from my experiences over the past few years. It's a fictional musing on power and powerlessness, hope and hopelessness, and what you do, or where you turn, when you feel like you have nothing left. Its sequel, To Follow Dreams, is getting started on my desktop right now, or was until I started blogging instead. 
As for when you can buy it... well, I don't know, O readers. This may be the book where I cross my fingers, swallow my fears, and send it off to an actual traditional publisher. Scary, but it may be the best move for me. And if it gets rejected, oh well. There's always Kindle. Thoughts, as ever, are welcome! 
But now to the more important part of the blog. Vacation! As mentioned on the Book of Face earlier today, the other human and I took some time off recently. After quick visits to both sets of families, during which we both exercised great patience towards certain family members who shall remain nameless, we came home, set up the auto-feeder for the cats, took the dogs to the kennel, and took ourselves south to lovely Williamsburg, Virginia. 
For anyone not from the US, the city of Williamsburg is best known for the section which has been preserved and/or restored to its appearance from colonial times, where there are historical demonstrations of all kinds going on seven days a week. There's also an amusement park and a water park nearby, and Jamestown, the earliest English settlement in America, and Yorktown, where the American Revolution ended, are very close at hand as well (the "historical triangle"). Great place to visit. 
We had purchased what are called "bounce passes", which let us go to Busch Gardens, the amusement park, Water Country USA, the water park, and Colonial Williamsburg as much as we wanted for seven days. One level up and we could also have gone to the attractions in Jamestown and Yorktown, but we didn't have time for that this vacation. Maybe next time. 
Now, I want you all to understand something. We had a really fantastic time. This was a great trip and we are already plotting and planning how to get my family to come along next year. With that said -- I swear this vacation was under a mild curse. Little things kept going wrong. 
We forgot our beach towels. (Bought new ones at the drugstore. Cheap.) Krystal stepped off a curb wrong before we even got into the water park the first day and jarred her ankle and knee. (Painful but not horrible, and she had to take it slow the next couple days but we weren't in a hurry anyway.) It kept threatening to rain. (Never actually rained, and that kept the crowds away from all the parks.) We kept making wrong turns on the roads. (Never got more than about three minutes' worth of lost.) We lost our printed bounce passes, which meant we had to pay for the parking that should have been included, and it took three amusement park employees to figure out how to get us new ones. (But they did get us new ones, reimbursed the parking, and then we ended up finding the old passes in the hotel room that night.) And so on, and so on. 
To counterbalance all the little annoyances, we have the great fun. The wolf at Busch Gardens who did not want to perform his behaviors for his trainer, instead being interested in scent-marking the stage every possible place he could (and yes, that does mean peeing on everything). The heron who flapped into sight just in time for the start of our little boat cruise. The "lazy rivers" at Water Country USA that went so fast my abs were sore for days. The waterslides that went a LOT faster than I anticipated and dumped me out into the splash pool with my hair over my eyes. Getting mistaken for college students, and history majors at that, at Colonial Williamsburg because we were following the guide's lecture so well. Being able to name most of the herbs in the kitchen gardens without the signs. Finding my favorite scent of soap, natural bayberry, which has been really hard to find lately, at an excellent price. And the list goes on... 
The most traumatic moment of the vacation happened after we got home. Those of you who are Facebook friends with Krystal probably already know about it. We had been home a couple hours, the cats were glaring at us ("how dare you go away so long, these litterboxes were DIRTY"), we'd put in a load of laundry, and I went to the top of the stairs to check on it. 
For a moment, I thought I was looking at a big dust bunny, caught in an air current that made it blow around in circles. Then I realized it had a tail. One or both of the cats had caught and wounded a mouse, rendering it unable to run in a straight line, and left it in the basement as a "welcome-home" present for us. And yes, we do occasionally have mice getting into the house here. Usually the cats simply remove them for us. In this case, I think Starsky and Hutch decided the humans needed to be put in their place. 
Krystal managed to get downstairs and upend a Mason jar over the mouse, but she then came upstairs and had a bit of a squick fit, which I totally understand. Unexpected, injured, small furry things in one's house are not pleasant. I have, however, had a bit of practice with this (my family had at least one free-roaming cat for my entire life), so I got some cardboard under the jar, scooped it up, and removed the mouse to the back yard. It has not been seen since, so either it made its escape or something snacked on it. 
So, this post ended up being rather long. I'm hoping it makes up for some of the time I haven't been posting. Just know that I am still here and still alive, O readers, and I shall try to make blogging a regular thing once more. Thank you, as always, for reading, and I shall see you next time! 

Good day to you, O readers. You might be expecting a usual Why Do I Work Here Wednesday blog post, but today is going to be a little different. I'm not quite sure where to start on this topic, so why don't I just take the advice of the esteemed Lewis Carroll, and begin at the beginning, go on until I reach the end, and then stop.
The beginning is my day job, which, as most of you know, is that of an administrative assistant at the financial services firm I am pleased to call Glass Bathroom Bank. The managers and employees I support are mostly very nice people, who like me a lot, and for the most part I like them. The work is not terribly difficult, well within my capabilities, and the pay and benefits are pretty good.
However, over the last few months, the stress of being out in public, coupled with office-style fluorescent lights, has started to trigger the light-sensitive migraines hereditary in my family more and more often, until they're pretty much happening every day I'm at the office. I can do a fair bit of my work from home, and fortunately my boss is very understanding and is allowing me to take most of my afternoons and one full day a week from home, but that's not ideal for the people I support.
Obviously, if you're reading this blog, you know that I would love to make my living by selling my writing. Sadly, there are an awful lot of other people who can say the same thing, and a limited number of people out there who will pay money for writing. I've also been dealing with some writer's block, emotional issues, the whole nine yards, but the biggest problem is simply that my work, right now, doesn't sell.
I've been thinking of taking a step which might be seen by some as a very smart, career-advancing move, and by others as selling out or giving in to a monopoly. I've been thinking of writing a piece which I will release solely through Kindle, and therefore be able to take advantage of such things as the Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Lending Library programs.
One of the biggest reasons that I'm not sure I want to do this, O readers, is you. I know there are some of you who either won't or can't purchase books through Amazon, and I don't want to write something that you can't read. But I also don't want to have to keep on working a job that makes me sick and miserable just to pay my bills, and I think it's possible that taking advantage of some of the Kindle-exclusive functions might make it more likely that I can start paying my bills with my writing instead. Besides, to be perfectly honest, Amazon already accounts for the vast majority of my sales.
So, I suppose that's the end of it. I'm thinking of doing this, and my Lenten devotion this year is going to be writing the work that I will release this way, if I decide to do so. Just my usual AnneNoWriLent, which, if I keep up the pace of 1667 words per day, would put me at right about 75,000 words come Easter. I would appreciate your thoughts on the subject, O readers, though obviously I will make my own decision. Thanks, as always, for reading.

Happy February, O readers! Did the groundhog see his shadow yesterday? I didn't check. Things are rather quiet around here, although I do have a few funny work-related stories to relate on this Why Do I Work Here Wednesday, but overall life is going smoothly. Cross my fingers, knock on wood, click my heels, and all the rest of it.
I'm by myself in the house for the next few days, as the roommate has to go visit her family, but it's not like that is going to pose any huge problems. The dogs go out, the dogs come in, the dogs get loved, the dogs get fed, repeat. The cats get fed, the cats get their box cleaned, the cats curl up on any available soft surfaces, the cats purr extremely loudly, repeat. The food gets cooked, the dishes get washed, the floor gets swept, the laundry gets done, repeat. Oh, and there's that whole work thing too. I'll manage.
Some of you have been wondering if there is any writing going on. There is, but it's still very tentative and probably won't be readable for a while yet. I'll keep you posted as best I can, but don't expect anything right away. Sorry. That's just the way it seems to be going right now.
As for work stories, this morning there was a guy who felt that the best way to handle an overflowing toilet in the men's room was to send me an email. I'm working from home. While I did see the email, and was able to call the maintenance people and have them send a plumber upstairs, it wasn't until nearly ten minutes later. I have a binder of important phone numbers sitting right on the ledge of my desk, in plain sight, clearly labeled. You can also look up the maintenance number in several places on our company's internal website. Brains, people. Use them.
Then there's the assistant who expects me to magically know that the block of time which looks open on her manager's internal calendar, which is visible to me and to anyone else who cares to look, is in fact not available and the meeting I scheduled for that time cannot go forward. If you don't want me to use this feature, please either block the calendar entirely or block out the time that is not available, would you? It's kind of annoying otherwise. But that's just my take on it.
And finally, this week is the week of performance reviews here at Glass Bathroom Bank. Performance reviews are supposed to be done in person, which means that everybody, but everybody, is descending on our central hub here in Pittsburgh, and everybody, but everybody, wants me to get them a desk (if they're an employee) or an office or conference room (if they are a manager who will need to hold several performance reviews). I was able to accommodate them all with a little bit of juggling, but it's just a bit frustrating that apparently none of them can think ahead even enough to do it one week in advance. Or maybe that's against policy. I don't know.
In any case, despite the occasional work-related frustration, life is pretty good. I have mangoes and kiwifruit to cut up later, and my own performance review is tomorrow (and I happen to think it's going to be pretty good, at least I hope so), and I've already knocked an item off my list for today. Yes, Mom, if you're reading this, I've finally started keeping lists. You knew it would happen eventually. I'm turning into you. At least I don't use a yellow legal pad. I know, I know, you don't either anymore. But you used to.
All right, enough silliness. If anyone's interested, I'm posting 29 Days of Dangerverse Trivia on the Dangerverse Facebook group throughout February, so why not stop over and have a look? As ever, thanks for reading, have a great day, and I might just have an entry for Fiction Friday this week, so send some encouragement and I'll try to make that happen!

So it's been a while since I blogged, O readers. I suppose I really should toss another entry onto the old Anne's Randomness, if only to ensure that January of 2016 doesn't pass without a few words from me. Hey look, an entry! And it has words in it! Well, that wraps that up. I'm done, O readers, th-th-th-that's all folks, see you next time...
No, I'm kidding. There's going to be more than that. And given that it's Wednesday, there really should be a rant on the subject of Why Do I Work Here. However, given that I am dictating rather than typing this blog entry, and given that my workspace for today includes such amenities as a private bathroom and a cat in a bag, this is really more of a Why I Do Work Here Wednesday. (And if that's not interesting to you, here's a cat in a bag anyway. It's Hutch, if you're curious.)


That's right, I'm working from home again today. Granted, I'm doing so mainly because going into work feels like being assaulted by florescent lights, but it's still being permitted by an awesome and very understanding manager. He's under no obligation to do this kind of thing for me. There's even a possibility that it might get him into a certain amount of trouble, since we haven't, strictly speaking, jumped through all the paperwork hoops that Glass Bathroom Bank requires for a situation like mine. But I'm logging my eight hours a day of work time, I'm making myself available at all times while I work from home, and I've even got hold of software that allows me to send faxes through my email. So one of the major things that I had to be in the office to do, sending faxes to finish expense reports and invoices, can now be done remotely.
In other news, if you didn't see it on Facebook, last night I took the online test for Jeopardy! This is the first step towards possibly being a contestant on the program. I've done it twice before, and have scored well enough that I was invited to the in-person auditions both times. This should not surprise anyone who knows me, as I am what my father calls a "garbagehead", meaning that I hold on to all kinds of ridiculous and useless trivia, often in preference to anything actually relevant to the subject at hand. It used to annoy my teachers no end, because I wouldn't remember the important dates and names but I could recite back almost verbatim the silly little details about their lessons.
The first audition was extremely convenient for me because Pittsburgh was one of the audition cities that year, so I came in early to work, worked through my lunch, and got a full day in before I had to trot my little self down the street to the hotel where auditions were being held. The second time, auditions were in Cleveland, so I did have to take a day off work, but only one. That time, too, was relatively stress-free, if you don't count getting lost three times trying to get back onto the highway to go home. (And they say Pittsburgh roads are badly marked...)
This year, unless there's a change at the last minute, the best audition city for me would be Washington DC. That's going to be a little more difficult to manage, and will probably require me taking two days off work instead of one, always assuming I get through again. Here's hoping. A nice little two-day vacation, complete with the excitement of my third in-person audition for my favorite game show, might be just the thing to turn around my current emotional slump.
I haven't talked a lot about the way I'm feeling lately, if only because I'm getting sick of it myself. I'm due to start a different medication in a couple of days, since one of the ones I was taking caused me annoying side effects (fatigue, lightheadedness, and shortness of breath when I did anything so vigorous as climb a single flight of stairs) before it even got to a therapeutic level in my bloodstream. We'll see if the new one works any differently.
There's not much more to report. My youngest brother, whom longtime readers may know as Mr. Latvian Door, the teenage super-spy, was stuck on that mess on the Pennsylvania Turnpike over the weekend, coming back from a trip to Washington DC with a bunch of kids from some local high schools. They survived it with no particularly horrible effects, as far as I'm aware. I'm slowly piecing together my tax return, and grumbling under my breath about why I have to be all honest and stuff, though lying (omitting the income I made from book sales and Patreon pledges) would only get me a little more money, and could easily get me in a whole lot of trouble. And my refrigerator is very full of food, which I suppose is better than the alternative. Otherwise, life is just life.
So, if you will excuse me, I'll get back to it now. Answering emails while petting cats. It could always be worse.
Will there be a Fiction Friday post this week? Who knows? I certainly don't, not yet. We'll have to wait and see.

Today is the very first Wednesday of 2016, and you know what that means, don't you, O readers? That's right! It's Why Do I Work Here Wednesday on the blog of Anne B. Walsh! In which, if you're wondering what that's about, I report the latest shenanigans of my "beloved" employer, which I call Glass Bathroom Bank, and my reaction thereto.
Management at GBB recently decided that too much money is being spent on custodial services. So starting next month, all desk trash cans will be removed. Employees are now going to be expected to take their garbage to a "centralized location" on the floor to dispose of it there, so that we will only have to pay somebody to empty the centralized garbage cans and not eighty or ninety individual ones.
Now I grant you, this plan is definitely cheaper for GBB. But now envision somebody coming in for their first day working for a bank. And not just any bank. I've deliberately never given my employer's real name or any truly identifying details, but we are not a small operation. In any case, imagine it. This new employee for our department meeting me (it would be me, since I do all the employee orientation for our area), being shown to their desk, sitting down, and looking around.
"Um, can I get a trash can?"
"Oh, I'm sorry. We don't provide those anymore. There's a trash can in the break room, down the hall, or one in the little coffee nook right there. Or if you really want one in your cube, you can bring one from home, but you'll have to empty it yourself at night."
Yes, that's right. A multi-million-dollar purveyor of financial services which expects its employees, many of whom have more college degrees than I can spell, to take out their own garbage. Can anybody say "not the best use of their time"?
I don't know. Maybe I'm making too much fuss about this. But I just really do think it's a stupid policy, and an even stupider place to try to save money. And if any of the upper management team try that "our employees are our most valued asset" line on me any time soon, I am going to be awfully tempted to stand up and ask if they empty their own trash cans every night.
Of course, I already know the answer. They get their assistants to do it.
But that is a post for another day.
Thanks for reading, all, and I'll see you soon! Possibly another story on Fiction Friday, if my head will cooperate with me!

Throughout time, across cultures, the idea of sisters has always been an important one. In mythology, groups of sisters often hold great power. Think of the Muses and the Fates, or the Furies and the Sirens, in Greek mythology. In more recent terms, many fairy tales revolve around sisters, or even more often, stepsisters.
The tellers of tales knew, long before the modern soap opera was ever dreamed of, that families make for drama, and blended families more than most. Just consider Cinderella, and her Wicked Stepmother and Ugly Stepsisters. There's also another common fairy tale beginning which has to do with stepsisters, and with which of them will be favored over the other when one's mother and the other's father get married. In these stories, one sister is usually sweet and good and the other cruel and nasty, and naturally they end up as bitter enemies.
But there is one tale of stepsisters which does not take this route. I know it best in its Scottish form, variously called "Kate Crackernuts" or "The Two Katherines", but I would imagine it has other tellings as well. In this story, sister is not set against sister. Instead, the girls actually band together against a different antagonist...
But I'll let you read my take on it for yourself. That's right, O readers, Made-Up Monday is back! And you thought this post was just going to be me blathering on forever. Nope, not today!
In other news, before I give you the story (sorry, but this won't take long), my own sister gave me a very beautiful present for Christmas. She does wrapped canvas quotation paintings as a hobby, and did three of them for me, with a quote on them I love a lot, because it speaks about the power of genre fiction.
Any writer of fantasy, sci-fi, romance, mystery, thriller, etc. who has ever taken a standard college-level writing class has probably encountered the scorn with which most literary writers talk about genre fiction. The textbook in my single class of this type mentioned genre fiction only in an appendix, in which it scathingly declared that all such stories were formulaic dreck, unworthy of being considered real writing. Only literary fiction, to the textbook author's mind, could ever be worthy of a writer's time or a reader's attention, and only literary fiction could truly convey the important messages a writer wanted to get across to a reader.
To that I say, as did Dorothy Sayers and Jill Paton Walsh, from whose book Thrones, Dominations this quote (slightly paraphrased) is taken:
"If they thought they were being preached at they would stop their ears. If they thought you were bent on improving their minds they would probably never pick up the book. But you offer to divert them, and you show them by stealth the orderly world in which we all should be living."
Here, then, is your stealth missile for today. Happy 2016, O readers. Let's make it a good one, and change the world sneakily, one story at a time.
****
Once upon a time there lived a man and a woman, who each had a daughter but no spouse, for the man's wife had died of an illness and the woman's husband had died in a war. Now the woman went to the man and said to him, "Your daughter should have a mother, and your household a wise woman at its head. If you will marry me, your daughter will have the best of everything, and your household will prosper and grow."
The woman's daughter now stepped forward for herself, and smiled at the daughter of the man. "My name is Katherine," she said, "but I am called Kate always. If you will be my sister, every morning you will drink wine and wash in milk, while I shall drink water and wash in it too."
The man's daughter returned Kate's smile. "My name is also Katherine," she said quietly, "and I think I would like to have you for a sister. But���"
"Not now, Katherine," said the man, who was looking at the woman. She was still beautiful, and he had heard much of her skill in holding household. As well, her daughter was comely enough, but a rough-edged girl who had spent her life running wild through the forests and mountains of their land. His own Katherine was gentle and mild, a girl to sit and spin all the day while she listened to old tales, or tend a garden of herbs and oversee their drying for medicines. The two girls, the man thought, might be good for one another.
"If you will have me, madam," he said aloud at last, "I will indeed marry you."
So it was done. The wedding was celebrated with joy, and Kate and Katherine sat together at the high table and shared one plate and one cup. When they grew tired of the ribaldry in hall, they withdrew to Katherine's chamber, where they climbed into the broad, soft bed and slept. And when they wakened in the morning, just as Kate had said, water stood ready for her to drink and water for her to wash in, while Katherine had fresh milk to wash in and a goblet of wine to drink.
Now Katherine looked over at Kate and smiled her gentle smile. "I do not like to drink so heavy a wine in the morning, my sister," she said. "If you will spare me some of your water to add to the cup, we can share it between us."

Kate returned the smile and poured some of her water into the goblet, and they took turns drinking until the wine was gone, and then each took a long drink of water to cleanse her mouth.
"Now to wash," said Katherine, drawing back her sleeves. "But I will need to rinse myself when I am finished washing in milk, for otherwise it will cling to my skin and I will begin to smell of cheese."
Kate laughed aloud, and tapped her basin. "If I may wash in your milk when you are finished," she said, "you may have some water to rinse yourself, and welcome."
"So it shall be," said Katherine promptly, "and this I like right well. For if we are to be sisters, we should share what we have, rather than one being favored over the other."

To this Kate assented, and the two girls washed themselves first in milk and then in water, and helped one another to dress. And so the first day passed pleasantly, for Katherine showed Kate all the ins and outs of her home, and plucked herbs with which to flavor the meat for dinner, and Kate took Katherine to one of her favorite spots in the woods, and chose mushrooms with which to make a tasty dish to add to the table that night.
On the second morning, when the girls awoke, water was standing for both of them to drink, and water for both of them to wash in. Kate frowned at this, but Katherine only laughed. "This makes matters so much the simpler, my sister," she said. "Perhaps your mother has seen that we shared what we were given, and decided that we shall be treated equally from henceforth."
"Perhaps," said Kate, but she made no other comment. The two girls drank their drafts of water and washed themselves in the basins, reserving a few drops each for splashing at the other in play, and the second day passed much as the first had done. First Katherine spun in the solar while Kate told her a tale of long ago, and then Kate led Katherine to a grove where a certain plant grew, which had roots to dye Katherine's thread a beautiful russet.

So the third morning dawned, and the two girls arose from their sleep. And there to greet them, standing innocently in goblet and basin, was water for Katherine to wash in and water for her to drink, while Kate had milk to wash in and wine for her to drink.
Kate's hands closed into fists, but Katherine shook her head. "It matters not, my sister," she said. "If we share what we have, how can it make any difference which of us was given what?"
"It matters to me," said Kate tightly. "I promised your father that you would have the best of everything, and my mother has made me a liar."
"And yet, if you share with me, I will know that I have the love of my sister, which is more to me than the best wine or milk could ever be," Katherine returned.
To this, grudgingly, Kate agreed, and so the sisters did on that day as they had done on the first, and every day thereafter was the same. But still Kate harbored anger in her heart for being made to break her word, and from that day onward, though the woman did not know it, her daughter was an enemy to her...

Hello again, O readers! I know it must be surprising, getting two blog posts from me within a week, after such a long silence. Consider it either something extra to be thankful for, since Thanksgiving is celebrated this Thursday in the United States, or Christmas (or other wintry holiday of your choice) coming early, as you please.
Two-parter today, first a refresher course on where and how you can find books by Anne, in all their various formats, and then a Made-Up Monday story for you as well! It���ll serve as another warm-up act for Masters in This Hall, and solve a little problem of mine which isn���t really one. Just a quirk of mine. More about that later.
I sell e-books on Amazon, Apple���s iBooks, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and subscription services Oyster and Scribd. Except for Amazon, where I upload directly, all of these retailers get my books from independent e-publisher Smashwords. As mentioned above, the 2015 holiday collection is entitled Masters in This Hall, and if you would like to pre-order it, which I would love for you to do if you���re able, Amazon is already live, as is Kobo and iBooks (can't link to that one, sorry, but it shouldn't be hard to find). B&N should be updating soon!
Sadly, you cannot preorder on Smashwords, but the information is still there. Pre-ordered copies will be loaded to your account or device on December 1, at which time your means of payment will also be charged. If you prefer to buy your e-books directly from Smashwords, that will also become possible on December 1.
Print copies of my books are available through Amazon���s Createspace, while signed copies can be purchased at my Etsy store. However, please note that I ship the Etsy books myself, so if you live outside the US, the shipping costs are going to be pretty hefty. If you want a signed copy but can���t swing the shipping costs, you might consider buying a print copy through your local Amazon, if you have one, and purchasing a signed bookplate on Etsy. Note also that I have my books enrolled in Kindle���s Matchbook program, so if you buy a print copy of one of my books directly from Amazon, you���re going to get a discounted price on a Kindle copy���and as a special thank you for the 2015 holiday season, that discounted price is FREE for all books.

Also, since I put it in the endnotes for Masters, I may as well go ahead and announce it here too. I will be indeed compiling this year���s Fiction Friday and Made-Up Monday blog posts into Week in Review 2 , now available for pre-order on Etsy. E-books and print copies should be on sale at all other retailers mentioned above by December 1, when Masters in This Hall goes live.

Readers often ask me where they should buy their books if they want to give me the biggest profit. While I do get a slightly bigger cut of the purchase price from certain storefronts and formats, the difference is minimal, pennies or nickels at most. If you really want to benefit me, buy an extra copy or two for a friend (if you���re able), or read the stories and leave me a review! A good one, if at all possible. But hey, if it���s not what you wanted or expected, let me know that too. I���ll thank you for it someday, when I���m done crying and hiding under the bed. (Joke. Mostly.)

Now, on to what you're really all here for: the story. As I mentioned, this solves a slight problem for me. Namely, I wrote only one Fiction Friday post in the Killdeer universe this year, and I didn't want to have a category in Week in Review 2 which had only one story in it. So, obviously, I had to write another one. A bit rambling, perhaps, but I think it gives you an idea of this particular character. Please enjoy, and let me know if you have any questions!
*****
Question: What do you believe is the biggest difference between primitive societies, such as we have been reading about, and our own society today in the greater galaxy? Support your opinion with facts and make a strong, convincing argument why this is true. Then provide illustrative examples of what your life is like, living in the greater galaxy today, and what it would have been like in a primitive society like the ones we have been reading about. How would it be the same? How would it be different?
I believe that the biggest difference between primitive societies and our society today is that in our society today, people know how to be bored. In a society like the ones we have been reading about, nobody knew anything about being bored. Everyone had to be busy all the time, working very hard to hunt food, or grow food, or watch the animals they used for food, or do lots and lots of other things that now we have machines to do for us. This is good because it means not so many people have to do things that are hard and take a long time, but it is also bad because it means we have a lot of time to fill up, and a lot of people fill up their time with trying to find new things to see and hear and do, and sometimes the new things they find aren���t good things.
On the ship where I live, we have the little robots called wallies to do a lot of the chores for us, but my mother and my aunt and my sisters, and the other mothers and aunts and sisters in the clan, still come together almost every day to work with thread and talk their thread talk. They don���t need to make thread or yarn for clothing anymore, because we can get clothing at a store, but now they like to make thread and yarn because it is a way to remember how things were once upon a time, and because it gives their fingers something to do while they are talking about the important things. Remembering helps to keep them from getting bored.
My father taught me how to work with a computer, but he also taught me how to stay very still and watch and listen to things, and how to figure out what people aren���t saying by watching their eyes and their bodies, and how to hurt someone who wants to hurt me or help a person who is hurt, no matter what I have or don���t have. So if I ever start to get bored when I am shipside, I can sit still and watch and listen, because I am never in the same place twice, and there are always new people and new things I can use for my imaginings.
My uncle taught me how to play the instrument he plays, which is called a timban in my family���s language and a dulcimer in the greater galaxy���s language, but he also taught me how to make a snare for a rabbit or a bird, and how to build a shelter that would keep me warm and dry in the woods, and how to tell (at least in the terraformed parts of a planet) which plants are good to eat and which ones aren���t. So if I ever start to get bored when I am planetside, I can look around for the nearest wilderness, and start to imagine how I would stay alive if I were all alone there and had to get home.
If I lived in a primitive society, I think I would have a life that is both a lot the same and a lot different from the one I have now. It would be the same because I would still have a mother and a father and a sister, and we would all still love each other, but it would be different because I would not have an aunt or one of my sisters, and my uncle would be just my mother���s cousin (he is my uncle because he is married to my aunt, who is my father���s sister). I would miss them, except that I wouldn���t know that they were missing, but I think I would miss them all the same.
My life in a primitive society would be the same as it is now because I would still be learning the things I needed to know to be a man someday. It would be different because if I did not learn those things well, people I loved might get hungry or cold or hurt or sick or even dead. I don���t want the people I love to have those things happen to them, but in the greater galaxy, there are more ways that they can keep from having those things happen. I am very glad that we have good medicine to help people who get sick and hurt, and money saved up so that we never have to be hungry or cold. And we will all be dead eventually, but we all want eventually to be as far away as possible, whether we live in a primitive society or in the greater galaxy.
I do not think I would want to live in a primitive society all the time. My mother and father say I would not, and they ought to know. But it is fun sometimes to imagine that I am growing up all the time as a wild rover of the plains, herding trison and hunting for ducks and trading meat and leather and music for grain and salt and woven cloth. It keeps me from getting bored, and it helps me to learn things I will need to know when I am a man in the greater galaxy.
Stefan Xiao, age 12, resident of the self-registered ship Wild Rover(Shadowcrest, twelve harvests old, of the Free Sky clan of the people called the Aelur)

We being, of course, Fiction Friday and I. Take a bow, Friday. And now me. Greetings, O readers! It's been an exciting month since last I blogged, featuring such delights as plumbing disasters, falling pieces of ceiling, dogs who need pills (cream cheese helps), humans who need pills (just some water, thanks), and... wait for it... writing.
Now, by writing, I don't mean only the silly, all-for-me stuff I tend to crank out during NaNoWriMo. Though I'm doing that too. No, I mean actual readable writing. In this case, the 2015 holiday special, Masters in This Hall. It is finished, and in less than two weeks, on Tuesday, December 1, you'll be able to purchase it!
If you'd like to pre-order the e-book of Masters in This Hall, well, guess what? You can. Not this exact second, as I'm blogging, but very soon now. It will be available for preorder on Amazon within the next few hours, and on Apple's iBooks, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo probably by about this time tomorrow. The link on the title will take you to the Smashwords page, where you may not be able to preorder but you can definitely have a look at the sample.
If you would like to preorder a hard copy (and incidentally, get it both signed and cheaper than Amazon), well, you can do that too, at my Etsy store. And while you're there, why not have a look around? You might find a couple other things you didn't know you were missing. Like signed bookplates for your print DV books (see the Useful Links page if you didn't know there were such things as print DV books).
As for the contents, Masters in This Hall features three stories, like most of my holiday collections. The two shorter stories are "The Christmas Cat", an invented folktale with a Chronicles of Glenscar frame, and "The Twelve Signs of Christmas", a lightly fictionalized depiction of various moments in my childhood Christmases. The longest piece, just over 20,000 words, is this year's Killdeer universe entry, "Sun and Moon and Stars of Light".
"Sun and Moon" intermingles a fairy tale with a science fiction narrative. Does that make sense? It will when you read it. And you get to read the first part of the fairy tale, at least, right here and right now. Or as soon as you scroll down to it, at any rate.
I do need to take one second and thank everyone who has sent me words of helpfulness and encouragement over the past month. I could not have gotten through this time without all of you. Now if you would care to purchase this collection or become a Patreon patron and thereby also send me money, so that I can pay for fixing the holes in the bedroom ceiling and bathroom floor...
But first things first. Story. Here is the first part of the tale of the Winter Princess, which is itself half of "Sun and Moon and Stars of Light". Please enjoy!
*****
Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there lived the King and Queen of Winter and their beloved daughter, the Winter Princess. Although she had everything her heart should have desired, still the Princess was troubled, for at night her sleep was disturbed by her dreams, nor did they allow her any peace during the day. Time and again her mind wandered away from the business of the kingdom, to hide within her dream life.
For in the dreams of the Princess, she was not a Princess at all, but an ordinary young woman with a home of her very own. Where the Princess was required to sit in dignified silence to listen to petitioners who prolonged their time in the royal presence by repeating their points five times over, the young woman of the dreams could whistle with the birds in the trees or raise her own voice in song whenever she pleased. The Princess spent hours every day fighting back yawns during meetings of her father's council, as interminable as they were incomprehensible, but the young woman of the dreams had a task to fill her every hour, tasks which belonged solely to her, and which challenged both her mind and body without overwhelming either.
Most of all, the Princess's evenings were filled with formal welcomes to foreign lords, until her knees ached with curtseying and her voice trembled with fatigue, but the young woman of the dreams watched eagerly for the lord of her own home each night, and greeted him at the door with an embrace and a kiss. His hands might be rough from work, but his eyes were filled with laughter, and the young woman loved nothing better than to laugh with him, for the joy they shared brought new strength to both of them when it seemed all strength was gone. The Princess often woke weeping from these dreams, and reaching out for a hand which melted beneath her fingers, even as she grasped it tight.
Once the Princess tried to tell her mother about the dreams, but was sharply scolded for her foolishness. "How dare you lower yourself to be dependent upon some common working man, even in a dream?" the Queen demanded. "A Princess stands alone, sufficient unto herself! She must never ask for help, no, nor accept it either, for needing help is a sign of weakness, and weakness is not to be tolerated! Shame upon you, my daughter!"
The Princess went away abashed, and later approached her father to try to tell him about the dreams instead, but he only laughed and chucked her under the chin. "I think you must be moonstruck, my dear, to weave such pretty fantasies for yourself," said the King. "Domestic bliss and true love are well enough in fairy tales, but they wouldn't last long in the full light of day. Why not turn your mind to something a bit more real?"
But still the Princess dreamed, and grew thin and pale with longing for the life she could not have and the man who did not exist. Her stomach roiled, her muscles cramped, her sight dimmed and misted over with pain, forcing her to neglect both her duties and her pleasures in search of ease for her suffering. At last, early in the final month of the year, gazing out her window at the stables of the Ice Dragons who pulled her father's chariot, the Princess made up her mind.
"If I am moonstruck," she said, "I must have done something to offend the Lady Moon. I will leave my home tonight and travel to her Palace of the Night, and ask her why she afflicts me so, and if I can somehow make amends. Perhaps I shall never be truly happy in this life, but there is no need for me to be as miserable as I am."
And so the Princess garbed herself for a journey and set out, carrying only a small pack of provisions and wearing sturdy shoes upon her feet. She traveled a weary while, by day and by night, over hill and through vale, and often she longed to turn back, but every time she thought better of it and set her face forward once more, until at last she came to the black-walled Palace of the Night and entered in.
"What can I do for the Princess of Winter?" asked the Lady Moon where she stood in her palace hall. Her features and figure were those of a queenly woman, and her skin as dark as a new-moon's night, but her softly curling hair, her bright and steady eyes, and the flowing gown she wore were as silver as the moon in all its fullness. "What brings you here in your worn-out shoes, with your eyes so tired and heavy?"
The Princess gathered her courage and spoke. "O Lady Moon," she said, "please tell me in what way I have offended you, for my dreams trouble me greatly, and my father says I am moonstruck. If I have done you wrong, it was without my intent, and I will do whatever lies within my power to make it right."
"Moonstruck, does he say?" The Moon pursed her lips together, her eyes narrowing in thought. "I would be loath to call any man a liar, least of all a King, but you have not offended me in the least, lovely Princess, and therefore I have sent no dreams to trouble you. Come, sit by my fire, and tell me more about these dreams, for it may be that some enemy to us both has cast this sorrow upon you, and seen to it that I am blamed."
Gladly the Princess sat down by the fire, for her journey had been long and cold, and stretched out her feet in their tattered shoes to the flames. The Lady Moon brewed tea with her own hands, and toasted bread and cheese together, while the Princess spoke of the dreams which left her longing so for a creation of fantasy that she could find no joy in her waking life. At length her tale was done, and she accepted the meal her hostess offered with thanks and began to eat and drink, while the Moon gazed into the flames in thought.
When the tea had been drunk to the dregs, when only crumbs remained of the toasted bread and cheese, the Lady Moon spoke again. "These dreams are none of my making, Princess," she said. "So I have said before, and so I say again. But I will say also that I know of no other than myself who can maze a mind to make it desire so deeply something which is not real." She steepled her fingers together and gazed calmly into the Princess's startled eyes. "More than this I cannot say, by the laws which govern us all. But a bed for the night I can give you, and new shoes and provisions when you waken, and then I shall put you on your way to the Palace of the Morning, for Lord Sun and his daughter see much that is hidden from me..."

Happy Halloween, O readers. One year ago today, I posted the last installment of the main Dangerverse. Who would have thought that one year later, I'd be... well, pretty much just where I was last year at this time, except more so. Things have changed, certainly, but mainly they have not changed for the better, I'm afraid. Let me explain.
As most of you know, I inherited from my father a tendency to light-sensitive migraines. What I did not know until recently is my mother's contribution. From her side of the family, I seem to have inherited a higher probability of depression and/or anxiety. The little qualifier is there because I've never been thoroughly examined and diagnosed, so I can't really say what's wrong. Just that, as many of you know all too well, I tend to talk myself into downward spirals, which get deeper and faster the more people try to pull me out of them. It's frustrating, to me and to the people who care about me.
Lately, the two conditions have decided to play feedback loop. I walk into my workplace in the morning, and the brilliant white fluorescent lights, reflecting off the brilliant white tile floors, touch off my migraines. The computer screen at my desk, and the screen on my cell phone and tablet, only make things worse. I begin to get angry with myself for being so "weak" as to have this problem, and then I get upset with myself for being angry with myself, and the stress makes the migraine worse, and... well, you get the picture. It isn't fun. I end up spending a lot of time in the nearest coat closet, which is the darkest and quietest place available to me on a regular basis.
Up to this point in my life, my migraines have always been occasional. They would sometimes last a couple days, up to six or seven at the longest, but they would only strike once every couple months. This latest one has lasted two weeks, and it is not going away. I am typing this with my eyes mostly on my fingers, because every time I look up at my screen, that nasty dull ache starts above both my eyebrows. And while I do have medication, it works only for a short time, and only if I can get out of the triggering environment... which means if I take it at work, it will only help if I go home, and as mentioned, I've been having migraines every time I walk into the office. Not a particularly sustainable situation.
I've also started experiencing fun little anxiety episodes (that sounds so much nicer than "panic attack", don't you think?) when I try to do what used to be very ordinary things. Drive on the highway, for instance. Sing with my choir at church. So when I had a doctor's appointment last week, I told the physician's assistant that I thought I might be having trouble with anxiety, and he prescribed a certain drug which he said would probably help. I was told to take it once a day, and that it might take a couple weeks to fully kick in and relieve my anxiety, so he wanted me to come back in a month for a checkup to see how well it was helping.
Would this drug have helped my anxiety? I can't say. The side effects, which hit pretty much instantly and included being snapped out of a sound sleep at 3 o'clock every morning and constant agitation while awake, were so disturbing to me that I had to stop taking this drug after less than a week. I then proceeded to have such severe withdrawal symptoms that I had to work from home on Friday, because my head was spinning so much that I would not have been able to drive safely. Ever so much fun.
So what is my greatest fear? Well, it's multifaceted, but really it comes down to what do I do now? Now that looking at a computer screen, which is necessary both for the work that earns me money and for the writing I love to do, is causing me pain that doesn't seem to respond to anything I can do? Now that things that I used to do casually, things I still need to do on a regular basis if I'm going to live any kind of normal life, cause me to shiver in fear and gasp for breath, and the first cure I tried turned out to be worse than the disease?
I know there are other medicines out there, medicines that work differently and might be better for me. I know there are people I can talk to, people who might have ideas that could help me. But finding those medicines and letting them take effect, finding those people and getting slots on their calendars, all that takes time, and time is the one thing I just don't have. Literally -- I'm out of paid time off at the office, so I either go in Monday and try to cope with the pain or I'll have to call off unpaid. And bills don't stop coming just because the person who pays them is sick.
You probably didn't need to know all this. But I suppose I just needed to tell someone. So now I've told the universe. Go me. Oh well. *shrug* Thanks for reading, if anyone still is, and sorry to be a downer. I'll try to have something a bit more cheerful for next time.