Skip to content

Author: Mary

Potato is eating The New Yorker

Published by Mary on March 18, 2019
Cat chewing on magazine

Here is Potato with the latest New Yorker, giving her opinion of the literary establishment. Unlike me, she and her sister consume magazines starting at the corners, leaving frilled and bitten edges like lettuce.

I incorporated my beta readers’ comments into book two. This has been a hard last bit. Snow stayed, hard-crusted on the ground—we still have icebergs of it dotted across my backyard. Winter also stayed, with short days, and Daylight Savings was just an insult. I am prone to seasonal affective depression, but usually not so bad as this year.

Continue readingPotato is eating The New Yorker

Snow

Published by Mary on February 3, 2019
Snow in my backyard

I have a bit of a religion about snow.

Even when I moved to Seattle, years ago, snow was rarer here than in the Midwest. I wrote three short stories in a row about snow. I’ve written a couple of stories about (not quite) freezing to death in the snow since. The second book in the septet, The Deer Stalker, has a significant set of scenes set near Snoqualmie Pass, in the snow.

This year, my neighborhood has gotten nearly no snow.

But this evening, it’s snowing.

It had to wait to Imbolc, but it’s snowing.

The stuff in the air in the photo is flying snowflakes.

Final stretch

Published by Mary on December 24, 2018
Calendar showing days checked off

I’ve now written 24,000 words, give or take a hundred, in four weeks.

I feel the arc of the book bending to a close, though there’s still a lot of scenes to write. I’m not a tight outliner; I keep a flow chart and notes, but I try to give the characters free rein if they want to take another path.

We’ve turned the wheel of the year past winter solstice. Today is a brilliantly sunny day: time out of time, definitely a December day and yet all sun.

Feet of clay

Published by Mary on December 15, 2018
Paper crown falling off pillow

It happens: Someone we thought highly of turns out to be all too human. A teacher or leader in a community, someone we looked up to, gets called out and reacts poorly. Or the thing they did proves too big to let pass, or they show up being their problematic self again. They lose their crown. Their community turns on them. I don’t have just one story in mind.

Sometimes in this merry-go-round I play authority figure too, and what I notice is that my faults (and I have many) get magnified. Probably my main problem is my short temper. I snap at points of stress. I often owe someone an apology. Others have pointed out I duck publicity. I like being a big frog in a tiny pond. I solve the problem of being called out by staying too small to bother with.

Continue readingFeet of clay

On track

Published by Mary on December 9, 2018
My computer

I wrote another 6,000 words this week. If that’s pretty much all I do, besides eat, sleep, and work my day job, I can hit my marks. At least, I have so far.

I did go to one holiday party. Don’t tell the writing gods I played hookey…

Hekate deipnon

Published by Mary on December 7, 2018

Hekate candle on my altar

Hekate deipnon, last night— I gave her some Fires of Hekate incense. Hekate has a place on my main altar with her key, sitting in front of Cernunnos, who you can see in the background.

The new moon is in Sagittarius. The astrologers I’ve read say it’s a sparkly one, as new moons go, full of hope.

Keep going, Hekate says. I keep going.

Beta readers

Published by Mary on December 5, 2018

Open book

I’m surprised and excited—all the people I asked to beta-read my second septet book agreed! I feel like a very lucky writer.

Now I have to finish a draft of the book. I hit my goal last week of 6,000 words. Now there’s this week, and then three more weeks to go.