Combining mindless chatter with writing updates since 1982.

(That might be a slight hyperbole.)

APRIL - JUNE 2021

SO I'M HOPING you've all been insanely busy these past few months to the point that you didn't notice I failed to send a newsletter in April. Or in May. But hey, look! It's June now and here's a newsletter! Let's just call this one the "spring edition."

I do have a good excuse though. Or a mediocre excuse at the minimum. It has something to do with starting hybrid education in April, plus a couple of out-of-state trips (one to Alabama/Florida, another to Texas), plus four birthdays in April, plus Easter, plus other family obligations...

I know, "blah blah blah." Let's move on with newsletter stuff!

Over the weekend a friend of mine was telling me about her recent attempt to mow her lawn, an endeavor that took her three hours (to reach the halfway point) and required her to stave off existential crisises and meltdowns. I was giggling so hard at her story and told her how I, too, have a tendency to turn simple and mundane tasks into a spectacle, like how I blew up an egg last month, or that one time I tried to burn my kitchen down while cooking enchiladas. So sticking with this theme, here's a short and sweet post from my blog archives about how not to do a simple thing.

Feature Article

Why I Don't Grocery Shop

Still, I have to say I was impressed. Even though I made him put the watermelon back (which he had named "Melon-ie") a thousand times, every time I turned around for a fraction of a second, that damn watermelon was back in the basket. I couldn't figure out how he was doing it. Like, does he have some sort of large-fruit transportation device hidden away in his pockets? Later, when we were unloading our groceries--sans Melonie--somehow a giant jar of pickles dropped and exploded on the ground. By the time the kids and I got into the house, we were all bleeding from various spots (flip-flops don't provide much armor against projectile glass). At this point Trin says, "You know Mom, when we go grocery shopping with Dad, we don't usually end up bleeding."

See, this is why I don't grocery shop. 💮

~ ~ ~

(Anyone else have a story about a mundane task being taken to preposterous levels? I'd love to hear about it!)

Writing & Marketing News

And then of course I realized that it doesn't matter if I reached my target word count because the dang story isn't finished. I haven't even started writing the climax yet. (Though I am right there). Thus, as was the case with Chasing Echoes and Black Lilies, Spring of Crows is going to take another 25,000 words to wrap it up and will land somewhere around 100K. I can't seem to write a short book to save my life.

As you can see in the graphic above, the target date for my manuscript is July 1, 2021. I think I'm still on track to meet that deadline. 

This Month's Easter Egg

Bucky the Hermaphrodite Cat

Bucky, the kitten who made a brief appearance in Chasing Echoes, is both male and female.

This is probably more of a mishap (with a sprinkle of science) than an Easter egg, but I've gotta share it anyway. A couple of weeks ago we were reading chapter nineteen of Chasing Echoes in my reading class, which is the scene where Shelly Sanders brings little Grace into the animal shelter to choose a kitten for her fifth birthday. Stryder guides Grace through the kennels and she chooses a wild, monstrous kitten who she names Bucky. As Taz types Bucky's information into the receptionist's computer, we learn that he's a male calico mix.

Nothing wrong with that, right? Except...

There's no such thing as a calico "mix." But let's just move past that and deal with the bigger problem.

Which is, there's no such thing as a male calico, mixed or otherwise. I recently acquired a female calico kitten from one of my students (we named her Ms. Pickles; a thousand points if you know what obscure TV show that references), and while Googling information about my new kitty, I learned that "calico" is not a breed of cat, but rather a genetic color mutation that can occur in any breed of cats with two X chromosomes. Female cats have two X chromosomes, while male cats have an X and a Y chromosome. This means that calicos are female 99.99% of the time. When the calico pattern does show up in a male, it’s because the cat has three sex chromosomes: two X (female) and one Y (male). This is incredibly rare, occurring in only one of 3,000 calicos. While these extraordinary cats are still referred to as "males," in reality they are both sexes. When humans are born with an extra chromosome (XXY), it's called Klinefelter Syndrome.

For Bucky, a proclaimed male kitty, to be a calico, he must carry the chromosomes XXY, which means he has the feline version of Klinefelter Syndrome and is technically both a male and a female. He also can't be a calico "mix." The calico color mutation either happens in a cat, or it doesn't, so a cat that appears to be a calico mix is actually 100% calico.

I could have chosen any breed for Bucky. He could have been Siamese, or Persian, or Maine Coone. Instead, I have a five-year-old little girl adopting a feisty hermaphrodite cat who's probably suffering from an identity crisis. I should go back and fix this mistake, but there's something in the impossibility of Grace's kitten that appeals to me, so I think I'll leave Bucky the way s/he is.

Soundtrack Pick

One of my students suggested this song eons ago because she noticed its lyrics in the pre-chapter quotes of Black Lilies and thought it was cool, and liked the song's relaxed vibe. I personally love the line “I'm a long way from the land that I left; I've been running through life and cruising toward death” because it seems like something Kade would think/feel when he discovers he's a ghost.

Is there a song that reminds you of a scene from the Chasing Echoes series?

Email it to me and I'll feature it in a future newsletter.

Hope you enjoyed this month's tidbits. See you again next month!

Missed last month's newsletter? Click HERE to catch up and read the blurb for Once Upon a Trailer Park, a fairytale where princes and castles look an awful lot like rednecks and double-wides.