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Mature Love Stories Are Where It’s At. Really.

THE GREATEST LOVE STORY EVER. THIS IS NOT HYPERBOLE.

I’ve been thinking about what makes me tick lately. And because I’m such a commoner, I figure this applies to other people all over the place. 

Like people everywhere find the same things alluring that I find alluring because I guess you could say I suspect that I’m quite boring and haven’t really enjoyed the privilege of developing any fetishes. I know. Right? How drab of me. 

I mean….don’t get me wrong. I’ve had some time to figure this out and if we’re being frank about it (which we are, it’s the only way to be, I’ve got no time for games), I’m a damn sapiosexual.

Now, I don’t really KNOW what that means, precisely, because I think it means a lot of things.  But now that I’ve written that—about me being a sapiosexual—I’m questioning it’s validity. 

I should look that up before I go swinging it around as a label that we can apply to me. 

Again, time. But, I think it means that what a person finds alluring and sexy and sexual is the mind.

To me this would explain why readers can develop crushes on characters in books. Because it’s about the story that exists in a person’s head and in the head of the author who has written the story (?). Not necessarily any function of reality. 

OK I just looked it up and it took me like 3 seconds. I don’t know why I was complaining about time four minutes ago, but it’s just like me to find an excuse for a simple task like that, meanwhile I can dig into writing a book that takes weeks if not months without even batting an eyelash.

Oh, by the way. Looking it up did confirm my suspicions–sapiosexual. It means a person finding intelligence sexually attractive or arousing. 

I know that this doesn’t necessarily bear pointing out, but I’m going to venture into the territory anyway, if for no other reason than that I find it hilarious to state and possibly reiterate if you already noticed it. The subtext in that definition is that this means there are people who don’t care about intelligence. Maybe that’s overstating the facts. But does that mean there are people who don’t give a shit about the intelligence of the people they’re attracted to? 

I find that weird. 

I dated a couple guys in college who were kinda gorgeous. In fact, I wondered what the hell they were doing with me they were such ideal physical specimens of male. I know that’s funny, because I know I should have potentially seen it as complimentary and that I could interpret it to mean that I was super hot. 

Instead, I simply assumed they thought I’d be easy because I was so beneath their actual level of attractiveness, so much that I’d be begging them to bed me. 

Is that, what? My religious upbringing pounding shame and modesty into me so much that I can’t even accept that perhaps on some foreign plane of existence I am somewhat attractive? 

I don’t know. I have no answers. I just know that the end of that story about the super hot guys was that they were dumb, I couldn’t respect them, and their brains at all, and so it lasted about a day, which is as long as a clever person can last with a person who has never managed to develop their mind or their personality. 

It’s not bad. It just is. And I don’t feel like a dick for pointing it out, because we are all free to choose what aspects of ourselves we develop. Yes, we are products of our environments and so some start out better off than others. But it’s also true that many people are never hot, and so they start off lower on the totem pole of blessings of pure awesomeness from day one.

All this was meant to lead into the central idea here, which is this SUBLIME concept that I had recently conjured up in my head that the BEST love stories have a sort of gravitas to them.

Not to diminish the Romeo and Juliet love stories out there—but those kinds of stories ARE based on something naive. At some point maturity pushes us past them. And at this point in my life, I think they kind of suck. I’m sorry if that’s a brutal proposition to put out there, but kids that naively commit suicide over love are damn morons (yes, this is a story. But….a story that we have idealized!).

There are other options. Use your head. Consider alternatives. Maybe, I don’t know, put on a disguise and leave town? You are, after all, living in medieval times when it would be super easy to go off grid (there was no grid) and just blend in with a village several serfdoms away.

Someone will likely school me on how wrong I am about what I just said. That’s fine. I’m here to learn even when I’m saying stuff like I have it all figured out.

I will admit that there’s something cool about that trust of youth that love will save you and save everything and that it is worth the pointless sacrifice of everything else to get it.

Here’s the crux of what I’ve been thinking about regarding love and love stories: these days, what I admire most is the mature love story—I don’t know what else to call it, so if you have a better term, let me know. This to me is the older person finding a fire in their heart, knowing better how long life is, but still letting the flames of hope and desire awaken within. They do it willingly, almost.

So, forgive me the examples, but take Cmdr Adama and President Roslin in Battlestar Galactica, or in the Stormlight Archives by Brandon Sanderson—Dalinar and Navani—and consider how different the choices they make are. Their love stories aren’t pure whimsy. They’re built from embers that have never gone out, fanned alive by layered emotions and mental realizations that aren’t solely dictated by instinct.

I trust these stories. The characters have survived hardship. The flames in their hearts are more like those embers I already mentioned, and not a quick bonfire that will burn itself out in a day. Their desire is borne of mutual respect as much as passion—they’re likely not just going to succumb to a whim and then wonder what drugs they were on the next day.

I know that youthful romance and sex are easily packaged and sold in books and film. They’re cake. Because beauty and ripe sexiness are easily transmitted through physical appearance as messages for everyone to understand quickly. So that is how love is communicated—sex and beauty. It’s harder to build something deep like that Roslin/Adama storyline. That takes four seasons or two 1200 page books, for Dalinar and Navani.

But I was just thinking how gorgeous it is to see stories like Adama’s and Roslin’s as a focal point in bigger stories that hammer their way into the halls of legend (possibly only the halls of legend in my own head) Was the Adama and Roslin story always meant to be a major plot point or did it grow over time, organically?

It seems that, almost as a culture, it is the youthful passions that form the template for what love is and how it’s represented in story. But I question that. I think in actuality it is the stamina and respect that the mature love story embodies that we have built the Love Story edifice upon.

Animal companions, loss, and grief.

orange tabby in the sun
This cat gets it. The sun IS life.

This post is heavy. And raw. And I’m sorry, in a way, to share it. But hopefully you’ll forgive me! Next week will be better.

You know me. I like to joke and have fun! It’s my favorite thing to do—approach the world with a sarcastic hilarity that makes me laugh all the painful stuff off. I’m like Terry Pratchett that way (I love his approach to life and death!).

But I need to tell you all about this. Just know that you are free to skip it and do what we all do to get by: pretend that life isn’t painful.

My cat died a few days before Thanksgiving. We’ve had him for 15 years. He’s been sick and suffering for a while, but I think we hoped eventually he’d recover and be ok for a few more years.

He continued to decline. We had to face the music. You know how hard this stuff is. You know that these are the Things About Life No One Wants to Deal With.

His name was Sobek and he passed away on Monday. We buried him near where my other cat is buried (and his surrogate mother), in my childhood home (my sister bought it a few years ago and is renting it to my cousin).

It was a warm day for November in northern Utah. My daughter, Zoe, played on the jungle gym. My son helped Stoker dig the hole.

There were ghosts everywhere there, for me. Remnant memories of my childhood. Of all the animals we’d ever had funerals for as children, of my many past cats, of my mom shouting at me from the deck to put my shirt on as I played outside with my BF cousin (male, the one living in the house now), as a five-year-old. I know. Yes. I played with my shirt off. The boys did it. Why couldn’t I?

Grief is such a strange thing. I don’t understand it.

The week passed like a rough old beast that can’t be tamed. I went to work. My son went to school and called me often from his 3rd grade classroom.

Yesterday, I sat in the car as Stoker ran into a store to grab a coffee. I thumbed through a workbook the school counselor sent home for our son to use to work through his grief. It helped me understand my own.

The song “Breakers Roar” started playing. It’s this old-style country song by Sturgill Simpson.

Stoker trained to become a recording engineer in Nashville (he’s really amazing at it!). That’s where we adopted Sobek. And it’s where I also grew to appreciate old school country.

The song. It’s just. Wow. Poignant. Moving. I don’t listen to country that much, but when I do, it’s generally older stuff like that.

It hit a nerve. I was crying, suddenly. Just overcome with the song, with the sublime nature of life. The pain that we must embrace or allow to ruin us, turn us into angry humans, afraid of empathy and love.

I saw the four of us as though in an out-of-body experience, my little family, in the room at the vet’s, holding Sobek before we released him and let him return to light and energy, before he slept what Mary Oliver calls the “unshakeable sleep,” (blog post featuring the whole poem).

It all hurt so much. I kept seeing my son’s little 8-year-old face crumpled into tears and anguish. I saw Stoker holding Sobek tight and weeping. And Corbet looking at me like he was going to explode, like he didn’t understand how something could hurt so much.

I know. I really get it too, Corbet.

And it was so, so beautiful, but so painful. It ached so much.

But within the ache and the pain and the immense sorrow that I can barely hold inside my body, is this respect and awe at the other side of all that—the joy.

Life is beautiful. If we let it be that. But we have to be dedicated to love, to never letting the anger take away the love and dearest parts of what we may have and hold.

I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to hurt again like I have been hurting for the cat that was such a good companion for so long.

But I will. Because it’s worth it. Besides, I’m already in this deep. What can I do now but face all of it with the aplomb and dedication that my ancestors gave me?

I hardly understand love and suffering and how in the blink of an eye we can be holding onto a warm, living body only to have it suddenly go cold. I don’t get any of that. But I will choose it all again and again.

I must be an idiot.

The Unshakeable Sleep

Sobek on my shoulder. Like sunshine, aka a John Denver song, but better. Because he purrs.

Do you ever have one of those moments where you wonder why you do anything?

Just what is the point?

I’m not sure there is one.

BUT.

This poem. By Mary Oliver.

I know what you’re thinking (totally not assuming, I CAN read minds), “She likes Mary Oliver? How pedestrian. She probably also loves Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals and drinks red table wine.” I do, actually. My taste in everything is very run-of-the-mill.

Yes. Mary Fucking Oliver. If someone wants to fight me about it, I’m down. I’m in a fighting mood, you see. This week has been challenging. Last week was also challenging in its own ways, but this week…

Not sure I’ll go into all the reasons, because confessional blogging isn’t my thing. Although, tonight I ran into this hardcore kick ass woman that I can’t help but admire the hell out of. She has six or seven kids and runs a vlog, somehow! A vlog, about parenting. And her husband is on a six week tour (musician). So I mean, I should be OK with being confessional, if other kick butt chicks are. Right? 

All right, I WILL tell you who it was. It was Julie Boye (Stoker worked with her husband, so I knew of her, though I’d never met her). Here’s her Youtube channel. I don’t watch it, but I know she’s just hardcore, bares it all, and doesn’t apologize for it. Meanwhile, I apologize for everything. If I even remotely think of being confessional, I apologize and back off.

In any case.

Normally I’d be all, “Yes, love, Mary Oliver. She’s grand, isn’t she? I can’t help but adore her poetry.” All calm. Meek and stuff. 

And if you wanted to tease me for loving popular contemporary poets rather than you know, digging through the slush pile to find a poet that no one has ever heard of, but who is clearly amazing, well, I would simply laugh and change the subject.

But this time. Tonight. I guess my dukes are up.

Someday in some random future scenario that I can kind of imagine, I’ll make a video of my books of poetry (like a video of me showing off my bookcase, nothing weird!), and then we can compare notes. But Mary Oliver. She’s something else and reading her poetry, which I discovered on my own during college, rocked my tiny world-view. 

And she has this poem that I’ve been thinking about for a few days. And I found it again tonight, and read it, and felt the words in my bones. Life is hard. We bury chunks of our hearts all the time on our little travelogues. Sometimes it’s humans we lose, sometimes it’s our pets. And it is never, ever easy. 

So, read this one. 

Read it (Nicole, I think to myself) and try not to be angry. 

Her Grave

She would come back, dripping thick water, from the green bog.
She would fall at my feet, she would draw the black skin
from her gums, in a hideous and wonderful smile–
and I would rub my hands over her pricked ears and her
cunning elbows,
and I would hug the barrel of her body, amazed at the unassuming
perfect arch of her neck.

*

It took four of us to carry her into the woods.
We did not think of music,
but, anyway, it began to rain
slowly.

*

Her wolfish, invitational, half-pounce.

Her great and lordly satisfaction at having chased something.

My great and lordly satisfaction at her splash
of happiness as she barged
through the pitch pines swiping my face with her
wild, slightly mossy tongue.

*

Does the hummingbird think he himself invented his crimson throat?
He is wiser than that, I think.

A dog lives fifteen years, if you’re lucky.

Do the cranes crying out in the high clouds
think it is all their own music?

A dog comes to you and lives with you in your own house, but you
do not therefore own her, as you do not own the rain, or the
trees, or the laws which pertain to them.

Does the bear wandering in the autumn up the side of the hill
think all by herself she has imagined the refuge and the refreshment
of her long slumber?

A dog can never tell you what she knows from the
smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know
almost nothing.

Does the water snake with his backbone of diamonds think
the black tunnel on the bank of the pond is a palace
of his own making?

*

She roved ahead of me through the fields, yet would come back, or
wait for me, or be somewhere.

Now she is buried under the pines.

Nor will I argue it, or pray for anything but modesty, and
not to be angry.

Through the trees there is the sound of the wind, palavering.

The smell of pine needles, what is it but a taste
of the infallible energies?

How strong was her dark body! How apt is her grave place.

How beautiful is her unshakeable sleep.

*

Finally,
the slick mountains of love
break over us. 

Mary Oliver

Kindle Paperwhite Giveaway for Feed 4: The Corporation

For the last leg of relaunching the Feed series with new covers, I’m doing a MASSIVE giveaway. I convinced a bunch of really REALLY good authors to help me load this Kindle Paperwhite up with their books, and I’m super pumped to share it with you.

Because I write space opera, steampunk, and dystopian, you’ll notice that a lot of the authors are from those genres. So I hope you don’t mind. In addition to their stuff, the winner will receive all of the Feed series, the Holly Drake series, and the 6 Moon Side Job books. So, you’re getting much more than just a reading device.

The true value of this prize? Priceless. 😉

Oh, and just one more thing, if you read and reviewed the previous iterations of the Feed books, please consider reviewing the new copies. I’d be ever so grateful and send you all the e-hugs I can.

xoxox,

Nicole

p.s. some of you have already done this! Thank you so much! <3

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Bazillion things to do. I do one. This one.

I’m  currently polishing up the final draft of “Shoulders of Giants.” Where the hell have I been of late?

Only a bazillion places and doing a trillion things, and taking care of a grillion tasks.

Here’s a sample.

Well, the one I already mentioned. Finishing up Shoulders of Giants, Odeon’s story, and I really love it.

I’m really into the 6 Moons universe and it’s been a blast to write from Odeon’s perspective.

My husband, who I’ve somehow suckered into staying THIS GD long with me, Stoker (remember him?), had a skin infection in his arm recently.

Let me explain. We went to Mexico with his family and one night we stayed in Long Beach. That’s when I remember seeing this random wound on his elbow. No idea where he got it. Four days later, it was puffy and swollen, but swear to Jupiter, it didn’t look infected.

We thought it was an old skateboarding injury flaring up. From a year ago. We started skateboarding recently. So when I say “old skateboarding injury” I mean last year. haha.

Anyway. Long story short. It didn’t respond to antibiotics for like 3-4 days. He finally went back to the doctor and they gave him a second line antibiotic. It finally began to heal. Thank Zeus!

But that’s some scary shit. You don’t think you’ve been selected to contract a super-bacteria or whatever until it happens. We were waiting for that. Maybe. We’re both hypochondriacs. Who knows?

I’m coaching my daughter’s pre-K soccer team (little known fact about me: I kill it at soccer–I should have been a soccer star! How much you wanna bet I could kick this ball over those mountains!).

I have always really identified with Uncle Rico. Glory days...

It’s so fun. But time consuming, especially since it has been the most rainy April/May in all of history in Utah. So there have been a lot of canceled games, which means, make up games. But you know, you plan for that original game and organize your day around it. So when it doesn’t happen…

My kids are growing up too goddamn fast. That’s just a thought I had. Has nothing to do with what I’ve been doing, unless we can say what I’ve been doing is biting my nails, watching time fly, feeling like there’s not enough of it, and crying in the shower that I’m not doing enough carpe diem when it comes to my sweet little cherubs

Safest place to cry.

Writing a lot of books. That’s another thing. It’s funny how writing blog posts takes a lot of time. Those 1000 awesome words I write in a blog post could be half a chapter of Odeon performing death-defying stunts on the Spireway. So, you know, I end up picking my battles.

I love the sound of my writing voice. So writing blog posts is really fun. But I’m a mom. And my husband works crazy hard and sometimes his hours are long and that means I’m momming it longer, until the kids are in bed, and usually, these days, I’m exhausted at that point. If I haven’t put my words in to finish a novel, then I’m almost too tired at that point to write.

I sometimes fall asleep at the keyboard. I end up writing whatever I’m beginning to dream about. Do I have to say that it’s really hilarious? The stuff I end up writing as I’m drifting off? It’s like college all over again.

I should keep track of them. Ah, what the hell. They’re probably only funny to me!

I don’t know what else I’ve been doing! Here’s what I HAVEN’T been doing:

Writing blog posts. Playing with my kids (enough). Having wine a lot with friends while we chat. Going on dates with Stoker. Playing with my cats or just cuddling them. Sleeping in. Remodeling my house. Hanging the pictures I have ready to hang (why the hell?…). Going to the Greek isles. Eating fine cheeses. Preventing my hair from going gray. Getting that shattered crown replaced (WTF? F-U life). Listening to records. Going to concerts. Reading that friend’s writing sample he sent me to see if it’s a decent UF story (sorry, bro! You sent it to me while I was driving and in the midst of my husbands health crisis! Getting to it…) I mean, it probably is, right? He’s the most picky writer I’ve ever met. That’s a compliment.

Maybe my next blog post will happen in a year! We’ll see! I might surprise you. I love surprises.

Did you see this one? Yeah, I've been super bad about posting cover reveals here! Follow me on FB because I'm a champion there!

Welcome to My Poetry Dictatorship

I’ve been writing poetry since I was eleven. I wasn’t very good then, and I’m still not very good. 

BUT one of my favorite things is to read poetry. I’ve gone through so many phases, being in love with this poet or that poet.

I went through a Richard Brautigan phase, a Billy Collins phase, and I went through another phase where I read a poem a day and collected the names of contemporary poets and became their fan. Eleanor Lerman, Matthew Ryan, Robert Hass, Czeslaw Milosz, Hayden Caruth. 

During college I felt pretty lucky to be invited to participate in a poetry group that included several of my professors and writing instructors, people who I respected as mentors. 

Still, I never got very good. 

But I’ve never relinquished my love for reading poetry.

I fell deeply in love with the Frost verses from which Wallace Stegner pulled a stanza for his semi-autobiographical memoir, “Crossing to Safety,” partially because I’m so madly in love with the story. I pinned the poem up in my room during college and memorized it.

The verse that Stegner used as his epigraph:  

“I could give all to Time except–except
What I myself have held. But why declare
The Things forbidden that while the Customs slept
I have crossed to Safety with? For I am There,
And what I would not part with I have kept.”

Honestly, I am not as smitten with poetry that rhymes or sticks fiercely to meter than other forms. 

I look to poetry to feel the breath pulled from my lungs in a sigh of contentment over the perfection of imagery and word choice. Reading it trains me to see the world differently, if only for a few minutes. And I find the most complex language there, which informs my own writing. 

All this talk of phases. For years most of my books have been in boxes. We never settled anywhere long enough for me to take ownership and unpack them. 

And then I realized, recently, that I will never be anywhere that feels permanent. Life IS impermanence. 

That is the point of the Frost poem. And Stegner quoting it for his semi-memoir. 

So I set up my “office” recently, in the basement of our modest home (by American standards…please). And I pulled out and organized my poetry collections and put them on the shelf. 

And now I can read poetry without searching through ragged boxes that have seen too many moves, too many miles. 

And now I can shove poetry down the throats of unwilling participants and attempt to force them to enjoy and appreciate it, because that’s the sort of dictatorship I run. 

After writing in the 4th Holly Drake book this morning, I pulled out my Selected Works of Mary Oliver, looking for my breath to be stolen, searching for something that lit my soul on fire. 

Of course I found something because she is a master. 

Here it is, my first time reading this one (second, now). More meaningful because of this post about my cat, Bastet. 

I won’t write anything at the end of this poem, the post will end, because 1) I’ll be speechless again; 2) I’m typing it out for you from my actual book like some kind of old world scrivener, and I’ll likely be in tears (poems rarely make me cry); and 3) the poem is perfection and I don’t want to mess it up with blah blah blah from me.

The contrast in the lines about her dark body and her sleep…just, I swoon and sob. I’m not sure there have ever been more apt lines written on the subject. 

Her Grave

She would come back, dripping thick water, from the green bog.
She would fall at my feet, she would draw the black skin
from her gums, in a hideous and wonderful smile–
and I would rub my hands over her pricked ears and her
     cunning elbows,
and I would hug the barrel of her body, amazed at the unassuming
     perfect arch of her neck. 

*

It took four of us to carry her into the woods.
We did not think of music,
but, anyway, it began to rain
slowly.

*

Her wolfish, invitational, half-pounce.

Her great and lordly satisfaction at having chased something.

My great and lordly satisfaction at her splash
of happiness as she barged
through the pitch pines swiping my face with her 
wild, slightly mossy tongue.

*

Does the hummingbird think he himself invented his crimson throat? 
He is wiser than that, I think.

A dog lives fifteen years, if you’re lucky. 

Do the cranes crying out in the high clouds
think it is all their own music?

A dog comes to you and lives with you in your own house, but you
do not therefore own her, as you do not own the rain, or the 
trees, or the laws which pertain to them. 

Does the bear wandering in the autumn up the side of the hill 
think all by herself she has imagined the refuge and the refreshment 
of her long slumber?

A dog can never tell you what she knows from the 
smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know 
almost nothing. 

Does the water snake with his backbone of diamonds think
the black tunnel on the bank of the pond is a palace 
of his own making?

* 

She roved ahead of me through the fields, yet would come back, or
wait for me, or be somewhere.

Now she is buried under the pines. 

Nor will I argue it, or pray for anything but modesty, and 
not to be angry. 

Through the trees there is the sound of the wind, palavering.

The smell of the pine needles, what is it but a taste 
of the infallible energies? 

How strong was her dark body! 
How apt is her grave place. 

How beautiful is her unshakable sleep. 

*

Finally, 
the slick mountains of love break
over us. 

–Mary Oliver

Cover Reveal: Shadow of the Colossus, Holly Drake #4

I took a hiatus for half of July and August, but I’m back now, and stronger than ever. You know how it works . . . with breaks and such. How they rejuvenate . . . 

I went a few places. Saw a few things. Expanded my mind, not with Zen or drugs, but with brutal, unrelenting exposure to the freeway, the chilly clime of Northern California, and my kids.

With no breaks. 

To be fair, my amazing cousins were there to help out. And I wasn’t necessarily doing it for myself, although it was epic and I came away from the adventure with the knowledge that I’m a warrior who can do anything I set my mind to (like break a stack of bricks with my forehead . . . I totally did that! heh) and if I want it bad enough. 

So that’s why I’m here, again, and I’m not stopping until I rule the world . . . with my mind . . . and uh, my books. And the characters in my books! We’ll dominate together! 

I don’t know what that means, really. But I know that I’m pumped to do this cover reveal. The colors look fabulous. And I’m excited to say that this has a tentative release date for the end of September. 

 

Daedalus and Icarus Finally Make Sense: Area Woman Has Realization Everyone Else Had Ages Ago

Parenting fail: dad ignored his son's actual personality, thinking his boy would mind. Uh, seriously, dad. Know your son. He needed stealth wings. Not wax!

There’s a lot on my mind. 

Chicks in 5-inch heels walking around me nearby (maybe 6 inches? I’m not an expert at this weird, female ritualistic stuff. This is happening right now, in case that wasn’t clear). If you’re a chick in today’s world, in this beautiful, modern world which consists of a plethora of footwear options, why do this to yourself? 

Why? 

People in heels of that height literally walk like how a satyr would walk, if a satyr was a literal thing and not some abomination that sprung from the minds of weird men (you know what I mean). 

Ok, no one wants to think about that stuff. But I’m sorry. That’s how these half-human mythological creatures came about.

Anyway. Speaking of myth…I drive a lot in the summer to take my kids to their cousin’s houses where they can play with the wild abandon of kids in summer. That sounds like a movie title. 

I’ll sell it to the highest bidder….AAAAND sold, to Ron Howard (it sounds like a Ron Howard film, doesn’t it?)

So on today’s drive to my sister’s house (she lets me take naps on her sofa while the kids play, after I’ve exhausted my mental reserves thinking super hard about plot and clever film titles to sell to Ron Howard), I had the most beautiful realization: 

Daedulus and Icarus is REALLY about raising your child. 

Wait, does everyone already know this and I was just the slow kid in the back of the room taking the story for merely one about naming geological features? 

Hmm. Well. So everyone else is more clever than I am. Stop reading, if that’s the case. Because all my realizations will be massively boring to you. 

So yeah, it’s a story about being trapped in a fun-house type labyrinth with a minotaur breathing down your neck (will these creatures ever stop being everywhere in my life today?), but… 

The labyrinth is a metaphor for life. Because let’s be honest, we’re all adult enough here to realize that life is pure shit. Unless you’re the 1%, it’s basically total drudgery one hundred percent of the time. Once in a while, maybe a person gets a momentary vacation on a beach with margaritas. 

Yay, you. 

And save one for me. 

Where’s my margarita? Did you…*sniffle*…did you drink it? 

Guess what? While you were drinking my margarita, I fashioned you these wings made of wax and feathers, for parasailing. Yeah, it’s a super fun beachy past-time! Try them out! *snaps on built-to-fail wax-wings*

Just don’t go too close to the sun…(you’ll defy me, I know it, because that’s what you did with my margarita bahahaha, sweet vengeance!) 

Now then. Back to my soap-box rant…

The beach. Yeah. That is the rare moment. The rest of the time we’ve all got the hot, smelly breath of a minotaur on our necks, chasing us through blind twists and turns, stealing all our joy, robbing us of our peace. Taxing us. Being whatever monster is most popular at the moment. 

So look. I don’t know. I was just thinking. I was thinking about my kids in the back seat reading books, and how the goal is, finally, for me to give them their own set of wings. 

You do what you can, you know? You, the parent. You try hard not to destroy their spirits, but give them enough of a taste of boundaries so that they feel safe and loved. 

You also love them, unconditionally, and you do whatever mode of parenting is most popular at the moment (right now it’s NEVER tell your kid they’re bad, er, or something like that, I’m failing aren’t I? Oh god. They’re going to end up in jail!). 

But there are no guarantees. This is the shit the wings are made of. And hopefully it isn’t shit. Hopefully it isn’t wax and feathers. Let’s hope that we’re both giving our kids wings that are made of something much stronger and resilient than that. 

So that when the world heats up, when Facebook bullies gang up on them or the Twitter-verse decides to rain down hellfire and damnation on them for a minor slip up, they don’t fall into a sea of self-loathing and doubt and drown in it. 

When I realized that tidbit (which may not even be true, but I like it for me) about the meta-metaphor, I was like, oh man. That’s fucking beautiful. 

Then I got a bit sad, thinking of how shitty it is to feel like a failure as a parent. But that’s all we do. We build these wings for our kids and hope they can take flight and not meet an untimely demise through their own hubris and unwillingness to listen. 

I mean, perhaps the flaw is in the parent who believes that their kid is a copy of themself. Maybe, maybe buried beneath the idea of what Daedalus did is that he failed as a parent. He thought Icarus would listen. He thought Icaraus was wise like him. 

Oh hell no. By the by, I never talk like that. I never say “Oh hell no.” That just takes too much panache. I don’t have that IRL. It fit here. But don’t imagine ME saying it. Imagine fictional me saying it. 

Anyway. Oh hell no. 

Kids. Not wise. Well, at least, I wasn’t. I had to learn everything the hard way. 

Icarus was probably that sort of idiotic kid. Which means: Daedalus, WTF? You should know this about your child. You should have known that he needed wings made out of carbon fiber. So that they didn’t fucking melt.  

Here’s to us: parents who are building their kids their own set of wings. Wings without limitations. Daedalus made the mistake of thinking that his son would follow perfectly in his footsteps. What an idiot, right? 

Our kids are not copies of us. I hope my kids have enough stories about who they are, where they come from, the strength their ancestors had to fight against the odds and survive, to not give up if the wings I fasten to their shoulders melt a bit. 

I’m not a moron though, I’m making my kids wings made out of carbon fiber and stealth fighter materials. 

This metaphor? It’s off the chain. Or the rails. I lost it a while ago and I don’t have the strength to rein it in. 

How about if you try?

 

Heart of the Colossus Launch Day Giveaway

Wow, look at that! A launch AND a giveaway!

Welcome to the 3rd book in the Holly Drake series. This is the “everyone liked the steampunk gun” giveaway (and not so much the other steampunk swag) wherein the intrepid author reverts back to what WAS working, rather than trying something new and interesting.

If it’s not broke, don’t fix it as they say. They also say “guns kill people, people don’t kill people” (or do I have that backwards? That depends, I think, on your politics, but let’s leave those at the door and do a giveaway together!). This gun will kill no one, because it’s just a cool NERF gun made to look wickedly awesome.

And it can be yours if you’re the lucky chap or chappette whose name gets drawn at the end of July. So you’ve got to ask yourself, do you feel lucky? . . . I mean, really, do you? I wasn’t trying to reference a popular film or anything. This gun isn’t a 44 magnum and your name isn’t Gladstone Gander is it? Because he’s the luckiest duck alive. And…*pulls herself out of weird pop culture reference vortex*

Damn…

Just enter. Just do it.

And remember, you can enter by tweeting EVERY day!

➔Amazon U.S. https://amzn.to/2tjPKHo
➔Amazon universal link: http://mybook.to/HeartoftheColossus

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