Nan C Ballard's Blog

I am a writer and a lover of open spaces. Thank you for dropping by. On this site you can find out more about me and my writings, information on my science fiction western novels, and details about my fictional planet. If you are tired of dystopian worlds, visit Carico, a world of challenges and hope for the future.
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Leave a comment or ask me a question. I’d love to hear from you. You can also find me on FACEBOOK and INSTAGRAM.

 

Thank you for dropping by. On this site you can find out more about me and my writings, information on my science fiction western novels, and details about my fictional planet. If you are tired of dystopian worlds, visit Carico, a world of challenges and hope for the future.

Subscribe to my monthly newsletter to get blurbs about my life, original short writings, and reviews of other writers’ books. Those on my mailing list will also get advance notice of upcoming events and other news. Expect one mailing a month with rare extras. I won't share your email with anyone.
Leave a comment or ask me a question. I’d love to hear from you. You can also find me on Facebook and Instagram

April 18 is release day for my new book, TRICKY GROUND, Book 3 in my Under Carico Moons series of science fiction westerns.

Join me for a virtual celebration on Sunday, April 30 from 2:00 to 4:00 PM on Zoom. I'll read some excerpts, talk a little about Carico and why I write science fiction westerns, and do my best to answer some of your questions. Click here to get on the email list to receive the Zoom link. (That is the only thing I will use that list for. To sign up for my newsletter, click here) Bring your own beverages and join the conversation.

And there’s more. I am this week’s guest on the Writers Not Writing Show - Not a Pipe Publishing. Listen to Benjamin Gorman and I talk about hobbies, news, daydreams and other ways of procrastinating.

A book’s release day is like graduation day, commencement, the time for going out into the world. It’s exciting and scary for the author. I hope you’ll give my series a chance: DISTANT TRAILS, Book 1; DEEP CANYONS, Book 2; and now TRICKY GROUND, Book 3.

Join me for an online celebration of the release of TRICKY GROUND, Book 3 in my Under Carico Moons series on Sunday, April 30 from 2:00 to 4:00 PM on Zoom. I'll read some excerpts, talk a little about Carico and why I write science fiction westerns, and do my best to answer some of your questions.
Click here to get on the email list to receive the Zoom link. (That is the only thing I will use your email for. You can sign up for my newsletter in the sidebar at the left.) Bring your own beverages and join the conversation.

 TRICKY GROUND,  Book 3 of my Under Carico's Moons series is now available for pre-order. Go to  http://bit.ly/3Grq6af for links. It's also time to reveal the cover at full size. You might have seen its thumbnail on the back of the first two books. I hope you love Don Aguillo's wonderful artwork as much as I do.

 TRICKY GROUND, Book 3 of my Under Carico's Moons Series, launches on April 18, 2023. Here's a glimpse.

Seth Reilly looked back over his shoulder. To check on the two pack horses, he told himself. But he half-expected to see hawk-beaked, feather-crested, snake-tailed hunters coming after them, coming to stop them. He didn’t quite believe that Prime, the leader of the Kelok Gra’a Tral, would stand by the decision to send them back to their own people as messengers. She had only agreed when the head Kelok male had pushed her into it.

He turned his face ahead. They were free. No point in worrying over what ifs. The swinging walk of his roan horse carried him nearer and nearer the rising sweep of the hills, chartreuse with nutgrass flush from Carico’s summer rains. Lee Vawn-Cory rode beside him on her harlequin-faced gelding. She smiled, and he grinned back. They were going home.

All they had to do was deliver what amounted to a diplomatic pouch from the hidden colony of previously unknown aliens to the Planetary Administrative Officer of Carico before the planned satellite survey discovered them. And get to the PAO without giving away the secret villages first. And make sure the meeting proposed by the contents of the pouch actually happened. Then they could go back to their own lives. With luck.

“If we don’t hurry, we’re going to get wet.” Lee brought him back to the moment. A rumble of thunder reinforced her.

“Looks like a good spot up ahead,” he said. They were nearly across the flats to the hills where they wouldn’t be the highest thing in sight. He urged his gelding into a trot. The pack horses picked up their pace to stay with him.

 TRICKY GROUND, Book 3 of my Under Carico's Moons Series, will be available this spring. Here's a glimpse.

Seth Reilly looked back over his shoulder. To check on the two pack horses, he told himself. But he half-expected to see hawk-beaked, feather-crested, snake-tailed hunters coming after them, coming to stop them. He didn’t quite believe that Prime, the leader of the Kelok Gra’a Tral, would stand by the decision to send them back to their own people as messengers. She had only agreed when the head Kelok male had pushed her into it.

He turned his face ahead. They were free. No point in worrying over what ifs. The swinging walk of his roan horse carried him nearer and nearer the rising sweep of the hills, chartreuse with nutgrass flush from Carico’s summer rains. Lee Vawn-Cory rode beside him on her harlequin-faced gelding. She smiled, and he grinned back. They were going home.

All they had to do was deliver what amounted to a diplomatic pouch from the hidden colony of previously unknown aliens to the Planetary Administrative Officer of Carico before the planned satellite survey discovered them. And get to the PAO without giving away the secret villages first. And make sure the meeting proposed by the contents of the pouch actually happened. Then they could go back to their own lives. With luck.

“If we don’t hurry, we’re going to get wet.” Lee brought him back to the moment. A rumble of thunder reinforced her.

“Looks like a good spot up ahead,” he said. They were nearly across the flats to the hills where they wouldn’t be the highest thing in sight. He urged his gelding into a trot. The pack horses picked up their pace to stay with him.

Photos

Sepia with age

Carefully mounted

On thick cards

Studio names on the bottom

Handsome people

Dressed in finery

Carefully posed

Frozen in time

In places named Os and Bergen

In a box in Momma’s things

Some with names

Some in a little sack

“My Mother’s Family

In Norway”

1910 her mother left home

Photos older than that

The way to carry them

The kith and kin and friends

Across the wide water

And the vast plains

A strange land with strange people

So very far away

From the flesh and blood

Behind the little rectangles

Of cardboard

Sepia with age.

Dear Family,

I got your cards and package today. The camp tender brought them along with my supplies. He also brought me a canned ham for the holiday. I hung your cards up in my wagon to bring you all closer to me. I know it will be long after the holidays before this makes its way from me to you.

Although I miss you all, I feel something very special in solitude during this season. This evening blesses me with its beauty. The quiet surrounds me. So still and cold! Nothing lies between me and the heavens. The stars crowd the sky. The only other light is my poor lantern.

I am alone in these gray hills. From this camp I do not see a ranch or a mine or even a road except the dirt track leading down towards the valley. The trees that were golden in the fall are stark and bare. The few junipers look more black than green even in the daylight. The sagebrush stands gray above the snow with stems of dried-up summer grass clustered at its feet.

The snow is only a few inches deep. It is so light and fluffy that the cold eats it away. Each day a little more is gone even though it does not melt. The sheep and my horse easily nuzzle through it for food. My boots squeak on it when I walk.

The sheep are all bedded down in a sheltered hollow of the hills. The big dogs stand guard with them. I can hardly make them out, so white against the snow. The border collies stay close to me and to the stove. Our little wagon is cozy as long as I feed the fire.

I saw wild horses today. They came to drink at the springs where I water the sheep. My old gelding nickered at them, but they did not threaten to take him from me. I think he would come back anyway. They have no sweet grain for him, and he is fond of his treats.

The coyotes yip and howl from the distant ridge. I would like those sly hunters if they would leave my sheep alone. They will stand as still as a statue, head cocked to listen for some mouse beneath the snow, then spring up into the air and dive after their prey.

They say that pumas live here too but I have not seen one. They would go where the deer go. I do not see deer now although I often did in the summer. We have migrated in different directions I think.

For now, I will keep watch in these quiet hills as shepherds have since before the first Christmas. With the New Year, I will begin to move towards the ranch. The sheep will stay near there until the new lambs are born, and the ewes shorn of their wool.

Stay safe and, when you look at the night sky, think of me until spring when I will come home to you, so far away from the sheep and the desert.

Always my thoughts of you warm my heart,

Xavier

DAD: Get in the car, kids. We’re off to Grandmother’s. Jimmy, you and your sister in back and behave. Tom, in front. You can navigate. Where are those directions your mother left us?

TOM: Dad, what’s the address? I’ll put it in the navigation system.

DAD: Fine but I don’t trust that thing. Read me the start of the directions.

TOM: Okay—south out of town on the highway.

DAD: Great, we are off. Mom is sure we’ll get lost. We’ll show her and be there right on time. Okay, we’re out of town. What now?

TOM: Turn on River Road.

DAD: Which way on River Road?

TOM: Mom says right.

GPS: Take the next left

DAD: Darned machine distracted me. Which left? The one we just passed?

JIMMY: That was it!

DAD: Thanks, Jimmy. We’ll just turn around. And now Mom’s directions work. Right on River Road.

SIS: How much farther, Daddy?

TOM: Mom says over the river.

JIMMY: Where’s the river?

DAD: There’s the bridge and we are over the river. What’s next?

TOM: Through the woods? What woods? Dad, there’s not a tree anywhere.

GPS: Continue forty-seven miles.

DAD: Forty-seven miles? We might find some woods by then.

SIS: Are we there yet? How much longer?

TOM: Look, a tree.

DAD: No, that’s just a juniper.

TOM: Lots and lots of junipers.

SIS: Are we in the woods now, Daddy?

DAD: Tom, what now?

TOM: That’s all Mom wrote down. How far have we come?

JIMMY: No houses here, Daddy. Where’s Grandma’s?

DAD: It’s only been forty-two miles. We’re fine.

GPS: Proceed straight ahead

DAD: Forty-six . . . forty-seven . . . Anybody see anything?

GPS: Proceed thirty-one miles and turn right

DAD: What? No. We should be there. Tom, get that machine reset or something.

TOM: Okay, I’ll put the address in again.

GPS: Proceed thirty-one miles and turn right

GPS: Proceed five miles and turn right

GPS: Proceed nineteen miles and turn right

GPS: Proceed six miles and turn left

DAD: Wait a minute; wait a minute. That takes us in circles.

GPS: Proceed ten miles and turn left

DAD: No, no, that can’t be right. Try putting in the address again.

TOM: Okay, I'll try.

GPS: I am sorry; you cannot get there from here. Return to point of origin and begin again.

DAD: Shut that thing off! Over the river? Through the woods? I never should have let your mother go ahead.

JIMMY: Grandma’s house is green. That house is green.

DAD: Fifty-two miles; it’s been fifty-two miles.

TOM: That’s Mom’s car parked out front. We’re there!

DAD: So we are, no thanks to talking cars. At least we aren’t late. There’s your grandmother.

Grandma: Welcome, welcome – HAPPY THANKSGIVING, EVERYONE!