Green Lakes State Park, Manlius, New York

14 Tuesday Aug 2018

Posted by wyndes in Anxiety, Campground, R, Travel

Post our lovely time in Grand Isle, R and I had no specific plans, but he needs to be back in Toronto by Wednesday. Originally, I’d thought we’d wander slowly through Ontario, but after much discussion, we went for a slight change of plans and decided to take the southern route back to Toronto instead. It’s longer, because we’re swinging pretty far south to get below Lake Ontario and then go up the other side of the lake and around to get to Toronto, but it offered several advantages.

First, gas is enough cheaper in the US that the cost was probably close to the same. Second, R needs a cheap mattress for his new living situation and we’d like to buy it on the last day possible before arriving at his new place, ie Wednesday. US prices might be cheaper, so being in the US on Wednesday could be handy. Third, driving through the south opened up the possibility of driving by several places where I used to live — this area of upstate New York is where I mostly grew up and I haven’t really been back in decades. And fourth, Niagara Falls! Classic Americana road trip sight — the kind of thing that belongs on a list with the Grand Canyon and Mount Rushmore.

But along the way is Green Lakes State Park, a gorgeous park, very green and lush, beautiful lakes, pleasant treed campsites and really nice showers — the single room kind, where you have a door, plus control over the water temperature. The weather, typical of this oh-so-familiar area, is gray and gloomy, but we drove around for a while, passing by my old high school, three of the houses I lived in (one of which I couldn’t identify — best I could do was say, “sort of somewhere around here and now we must have passed it”), and the site of every bookstore and library that I loved. In fact, R’s impression of my childhood is probably that I did nothing but go to school and read books, because those are the only things that I remember. Although that said, I do vaguely remember this park as a place where we sometimes came to swim in the summertime.

Our site at Green Lakes. Very green.

Perhaps it’s because I vaguely remember it that I’ve been feeling utterly phobic about poison ivy. I swear, every random leaf looks like a poison ivy leaf to me. Did I once get poison ivy in this park? Is that why I’m so paranoid?

That’s probably not it, though. Sometimes anxiety manifests as semi-irrational fears in order to shield our mind from less-irrational fears. In this case, I think I am struggling not to let last week’s attack turn into a serious dog phobia on my part. It was so fast, so out-of-nowhere, so aggressive and so brutal. My head still knows that dogs are our friends, but the back of my neck seems to be experiencing some post-traumatic stress, and while I try to talk myself out of it, I worry about poison ivy. Now that I’ve figured that out, maybe I’ll stop. Or maybe I’m actually right that all these random leaves are poison ivy and I’ll be hunting for remedies by the time we get to Canada.

Meanwhile, today is release day for A Gift of Grace. I’m trying not to let that stress me out — Niagara Falls, way better thing to think about! — but I’m not that zen. But I checked and double-checked the files, and I do know that it’s time to let go. So I’ll be working on that while I admire the big waterfall today. But I do hope that all of you reading Grace today enjoy yourselves!

Grand Isle State Park, Grand Isle, Vermont

13 Monday Aug 2018

Posted by wyndes in Campground, Food, R, Zelda

≈ 8 Comments

a beautiful Jack Russell terrier next to a tent

Zelda is healing well — eager to go for walks again and happy to greet the dogs we encounter on the way. Still limping a little, but not yelping when she jumps any more.

I made my reservations for Grand Isle State Park in Vermont several weeks ago. It’s the most popular state park in Vermont, on an island in Lake Champlain, and in my imaginary visit, there was much kayaking, some swimming, some hiking — several days of actual nature adventure. Real camping, not just living in a van.

My imagination did not include a limping dog.

Nor did it include human companions, in the form of my delightful son and my favorite cousin.

So things sort of balanced out, some bad, some good. I’m sorry to say that my kayak never touched the water, and neither did Zelda or I. R walked down to the beach and went swimming but it was too long a walk for Zelda.

We did, however, have a campfire one night and cook sausages over the fire, which was fun, and we went to a farmer’s market where I bought maple syrup, which felt very Vermont.

And the campground was as beautiful as I’d expected it to be. Vermont is gorgeous. This was my second visit, not nearly long enough, and it’s so green and hilly. I suspect that I wouldn’t like it nearly as much in winter, when I would be admiring the hills and wishing to be somewhere warmer, but in August, it’s lovely.

The campground was great, too. I wasn’t in love with our site (#96, for future reference) which was packed dirt, but it was huge and felt quite secluded, because it was surrounded and sheltered by trees. Total shade, with only tiny patches of sunlight. Z wandered from one sunlit patch to another as the day wore on. Some of the other sites are grassy and sunnier, so if I ever go back, I’ll aim for one of those (on the outside, for my own future reference).

The only real negative for me was the showers: coin-operated, no control over water pressure or temperature. Not my favorite and on our last day, the shower stole R’s coins and neglected to give him any water. He was not a happy camper.

Despite being less energetic than I’d planned, we had a very pleasant three days there. No electricity, so lots of reading and relaxing, and for me, lots of cooking fun food. We ate blueberry pancakes and bacon for breakfast one morning, scrambled eggs with avocado and cilantro and sausage another. I braved the fish smells and did sockeye salmon for dinner one night, with salads of mixed greens, avocado, pea pods, radishes, sunflower seeds, and lemon vinaigrette.

On one of the other days, I ate a nameless food — ground beef and rice cooked with turmeric, cinnamon, parsley, garlic, cilantro, chili sauce, and fresh cherry tomatoes. My description of it to R was so poor that he passed and ate leftover salmon, but he did take a bite after I’d cooked it and agreed that it was better than he’d been imagining. It actually was pretty delicious, although it felt like an ideal mid-winter food, rather than a deep summer food — rich and spicy and satisfying.

After five days, R is now my longest van companion. He says that he’s tired of hitting his head, which I sympathize with. I don’t know that he would ever want to drive around exploring the country anyway, but I am pretty sure if he did, he would like a taller vehicle. And I just asked him and he agrees, he would rather not spend a lot of time in this vehicle this size. The perils of being 6’4”!

But we’ve done pretty well together, I think — I was worried that after a few days of tripping over each other, I’d be getting cranky about having extra stuff in the way and he’d be getting cranky about me being cranky, but so far, so good. A second (and, briefly, third) person does mean a lot more dishes to wash, though, and that’s meant some minor tragedies. Yesterday I broke two of my favorite bowls, because I didn’t stow them properly when we were on the road, and I’ve been surprisingly sad about that. When you own almost nothing, the things that you own that you love become much more important, I guess. But I’m trying to remind myself that the universe has plenty of bowls, and maybe I’ll find some new ones that I love just as much.

Tomorrow is the release day for A Gift of Grace, and I’ve been meaning to write about that — some more about the book itself, maybe some about the things I learned writing it, some self-publishing thoughts about how the release has gone and what I’ve done, that kind of thing. But I spent a solid twenty minutes staring at a blank document and writing and re-writing some words and then decided that maybe that wasn’t going to happen. At least not yet. I’m doing a pretty good job of letting go of the anxiety and stress and tension that comes with releasing a creative baby into the world and I think I’d like to keep it that way. So instead, R and I are going to go do laundry. Exciting days!

Cedar Beach Campground

06 Monday Aug 2018

Posted by wyndes in Campground, Grace, Marketing and promotion, Mom, Personal, Zelda

≈ 5 Comments

In the distance — not so very far away at all, but obscured by trees and campers and people stuff — I can see a glimmer of blue. A lake. And I assume it has a nice beach, because this campground was, over the weekend, absolutely filled with families and kids having fun.

I, however, haven’t looked at it, because Zelda can’t really walk and she makes bad choices when left alone. Bad choices! I used to tell R, when I sent him off to do things with his friends as an early and then late-teenager, “Make good choices,” and eventually he said the same thing to me whenever I left the house. It always made me smile.

But I would scold Zelda with that phrase if I could. Alas, she wouldn’t understand. But if I leave her on the floor, she jumps onto the seats to look out the windows, and if I leave her on a seat, she jumps to the floor so that she can go try a different window. She wants to be able to see my return. So no walks for me, because every jump for her causes a yelp of agony and yet she refuses to not jump if I’m not immediately available to stop her.

I like my campsite, though. The campground is very much a seasonal place, a mix of permanent installations and trailers that look like they’ve been here for a while with some short-term spots. But there was a grassy row — I’d guess four campers could get squeezed in if necessary — that I had all to myself. With a cute family kitty-corner to me with three small kids and a brand-new trailer and very Canadian accents. They made me smile, too.

Today is seven years since my mom died. I’ve been thinking about her a lot lately, about why she is the only person I want when I need to cry. She was a brisk mother. My ex once described her as “austere” to me, which I thought was totally wrong, but she did not suffer fools gladly and his experience of her was undoubtedly different than mine. But she could be quite dispassionate. I could cry to her and she would be warm and loving and sympathetic, but she wasn’t going to take on any of my pain and she was going to stop me as soon as she decided I was wallowing.

It occurs to me that maybe I said it best in my eulogy for her, so I’ll link to that: my eulogy for my mother.

But I didn’t need to be a grown-up with her. It wasn’t about love, it was about her endless ocean of calm. She was extremely good at pulling small children’s loose teeth, because she didn’t particularly care how much you fussed. If you were ready to have the tooth out, she was going to yank it. If you weren’t ready, she was going to shrug and leave you alone. I think she was probably an excellent nurse.

There’s a line in Grace — oh, a paragraph. I’ll quote it:

She wished she could talk to her mom. Just for half an hour. To hear her mom’s voice, to let herself be folded into her mother’s hug. She could imagine the sharp, searching look her mother would give her, followed by the, “Chin up, darlin’. That’s my girl,” words of approval.

Pretty sure my mother never, in my entire life, said those words to me or would have said those words to me. That wasn’t her language, and she wasn’t a southerner. But a look, a nod, a “You’ll be fine,” the confidence in me, but the hug, too. That was my mom. I miss her.

But no wallowing! Moving on, I’m on the road today, headed to a provincial park. Did I mention that I’m in Canada? I’m in Canada. It was fun being confused by the distances on the road signs — 88 miles to Ottawa? How did I get that so wrong! Oh, right, kilometers. Sigh of relief...

And today I’m looking forward to trying out a Canadian grocery store. I’ve eaten only snacks for the past two days — healthy-ish snacks, carrots and nuts and dried fruit and jerky and turkey slices — but I am ready to buy some ingredients and cook some real food.

So those are my goals for the day: get moving, go to a grocery store, eat some real food, and enjoy Canada. And not let Zelda hurt herself anymore. I’m not happy with how the stitches look, but I’m not yet so worried that I am searching for Canadian vets. And she’s putting weight on her foot now, so that’s a good sign.

Eight days until Grace releases. I’m trying not to be anxious about it, but I am. I try to avoid reading reviews, but you have to read the first few in case there are issues with the file or problems with the download. I’m going to bet myself a container of Sanders dark chocolate caramels with sea salt — extremely delicious, not at all good for me — that at least one of the first five complains about pronouns and Avery. If two or more do, I’m going to buy myself something even nicer, although I’m not sure what yet. Maybe a sushi dinner at a good sushi place. A win! (Although if you’re reading this, planning on reading Grace, and willing to write a review, don’t let this influence you, please. I know that people are going to complain about Avery, just the way people complained about not knowing that Henry was black in A Gift of Ghosts, but that doesn’t mean I’m looking forward to it.)

Ooh, after 10 already, so time for me to get going. More about Grace soon! I’ve got some fun bookmarks to give away, so I need to think about how to do that. But check it out:

spine of book

That is one ridiculously thick book. By my standards, anyway. My sister-in-law’s review: “Oh, it’s so pretty!!!”

Van Buren State Park

25 Monday Jun 2018

Posted by wyndes in Campground, Personal, Randomness, Serenity, Travel

≈ 6 Comments

moon over a campground

Yesterday, I was midway through an entirely reasonable drive — three hours or so — when I decided I was too tired to keep going. So I didn’t.

I stopped at a rest stop, took a quick nap, then looked for a different, closer campground. I told myself that stopping early meant that I would have plenty of time to do useful things: work on Grace, write a blog post, sort my photos from the past several (busy) days, clean the van, wash the dishes, plan my next week’s destinations, walk Z, talk to R…

On that list of things, I walked the dog. That, I assume, is because she’s the only one of those things capable of nudging me in the leg and saying, “seriously, get moving now.”

Apart from that, I… honestly, I don’t know. Used up my time, anyway. I think I finished a jigsaw puzzle that took me far longer than it should have, and I know I made guacamole and salad dressing for my dinner. Oh, and I defrosted my freezer, which was urgent, because it had frosted over so heavily that I couldn’t get my chicken out. I then didn’t wind up eating the chicken, because it was so very frozen, but hey, it’s good to remember that I did something useful, however minor it was.

I did want to sort my photos, so I could post some pictures of the weekend, but I’ve used up my data plan for the month, so it would have been tedious to try to post pictures anyway. That’s to make me feel better about the failure. 🙂

But Tuesday of last week, I left my brother’s house and headed to my aunt and uncle’s. We had a nice visit — good walks, delicious food, ice cream at the famous State College Creamery, lots of conversation — and then on Thursday, I started on my way to Ohio.

My plans for Thursday/Friday were pretty vague: I’d been planning to maybe try to meet up with a stepsister and her family for kayaking and outdoor adventures. But the rain was torrential, so instead I camped for a night at Barkcamp State Park, right over the West Virginia border into Ohio.

I have absolutely nothing to say about Barkcamp. I got there in the evening, at almost 7, and it was raining. I left there around noon the next day, and it was raining. In between, I didn’t check out the trails, the bathrooms, the views, the utilities — I sat in the van and watched the rain. It was nice rain and a cozy day, but my opinion of Barkcamp is that it was very wet. I’m sure I’d have a different opinion under different circumstances. I should have taken a picture of the two inch deep puddle around my electricity pole, because it would have been an appropriate representation of my experience there. But I didn’t, because it was raining and I was wet and not interested in getting my phone wet.

After I left Barkcamp, I goofed around. Target, CostCo, parking lot adventures. I was headed to my stepbrother’s house for my stepmother’s 80th birthday party, planning to spend the night in their driveway, but I didn’t want to get there until after my dad and stepmom arrived, because my stepbrother doesn’t know me from Adam. Well, didn’t — I’ve now spent most of a weekend at his house, and he and his wife were warm and welcoming, so I’d feel a lot better about showing up alone at their house if I was doing it today. But on Friday, I didn’t want to do that. Alas, best-laid plans, and all that: C and my dad were delayed in a cell phone dead zone, so I had a chance to get to know my (warm, welcoming) stepbrother and his wife on my own.

Saturday was C’s birthday party. I really would love to post some pictures, because it was gorgeous. Pinterest-worthy in a major way. J, my stepsister-in-law, obviously worked really hard and has an eye for beautiful details, plus a green thumb. Or at least an ability to keep a lovely garden thriving and blossoming — the number of different flowers all in bloom was very impressive to me.

Fifty-some people came, including C’s brothers and a cousin and maybe a couple of their kids, plus seven of her children & stepchildren and some spouses, approximately thirteen of her grandchildren plus some spouses, and maybe seven great-grandchildren. Lots of food, lots of kids playing in the yard, and a day that after threatening more rain turned out to be beautiful.

Trying to think of the moments I would like to remember: a cousin of sorts (technically, I suppose, some sort of nephew) brought a drone and the whole party gathering on the porch for aerial photos. Sitting around the dinner table in the evening laughing about gout/misheard phrases. Stumbling across one of the kids who’d retreated to the house and was playing quietly by herself, and admiring her self-care instincts. Showing off Serenity to various people and wishing I’d washed the dishes and swept the floor. Helping M with flowers and later getting a chance to tell her how much I love her mom and how grateful I am for her presence in my life.

One of my stepbrothers — step-step brother, maybe? one of my stepmom’s first set of step-kids, anyway — and his wife managed to convince me that I really shouldn’t miss my chance to drive along the north shore of Lake Huron so I might be changing my travel plans to spend more time in Canada. I need to figure that out soon, I suppose, but it doesn’t have to be today. Fortunately, because somehow I am still really tired, far more tired than I ought to be.

And today is not going to be the day I would like it to be, because I need to get back on the road. Z has a vet appointment this afternoon — just for shots, not because her health has taken a downturn — so I’ve got some driving to do. And no set destination for the next few days. On Friday I’ll be in Michigan and all the people that I thought I was visiting there are either busy or non-responsive, so it’s probably going to be a much less sociable month than I anticipated, but that’s feeling sort of okay. Despite not being able to write for a few days and having spent far more time in PA playing video games than I should have, I’m feeling good about my progress on Grace. And looking forward to a few quiet days with nothing to do but focus on Noah and Grace and Dillon and Rose and bringing them all to their happy endings.

Oh, but I meant to write about Van Buren. I like it. I suspect it makes people driving big rigs and hauling big trailers sad, because the sites are not the biggest, but tent campers probably adore it. My own site has a nook — there is no other word for it — a little path into the woods and a space under a big tree that feels like wilderness, even though it is so not. It would be a fantastic place to place a tent. Or even a chair for some quiet time spent breathing in the green. Although given my current state of allergies and Ohio’s current state of bugs (soooo many flies!), I probably wouldn’t really enjoy it. There also seem to be plenty of trails, but all that rain has made them very muddy trails. I’ve walked a few steps into them and looked down at my little white dog, considered how excited I am about having a muddy little white dog (not) and not taken advantage of them, but if I was here for a few days, I definitely would appreciate all the places to wander. I don’t think there are showers, though, and no water hook-ups, so it’s probably not a place I’d want to stay for more than a few days anyway, even if I didn’t have to get on the road to bring Z to the vet.

And the other thing I wanted to at least mention is that today is the 2nd anniversary of Serenity’s arrival in my life. Later, maybe I’ll write some profound things about what I think as Year 2 draws to a close, and maybe a month from now, when it’s actually my second anniversary of being on the road, I’ll write more of a summary of the year, but today… well, it’s been a ride, that’s for sure.

Random memories

19 Tuesday Jun 2018

Posted by wyndes in Personal, Randomness, Zelda

≈ 5 Comments

Zelda under a blueberry bush

In another week, there will be so many ripe blueberries on the bushes that picking them will start to feel like an exhausting, never-ending chore. But I have basically missed them. Yesterday, my brother and I picked one small leftover container’s worth of the first ripe berries, just before a nicely torrential thunderstorm hit. Today, I’m headed off. I’m trying to remind myself of all the things that I’m looking forward to in the next week — family, friends, a birthday celebration, a state that I’ve never visited before. I know once I’m on the road, I’ll feel more excited. But it’s hard to say good-bye. It’s been a lovely few weeks in PA, perfect weather, great company.

Random memories that will make me smile:

Last night, we all played Exploding Kittens. Each of us, upon going out, made some sort of melodramatic sound of despair/explosion noise, and when my SIL lost, leaving my brother as the winner, she said to him, “I hope you’re happy, sitting there all covered in cat guts.”

One night last week, at the dinner table, we somehow wound up in a discussion of bears, and my brother told my niece that if she was ever trapped in a corner with baby bears and the mom bear was charging her, she should just pick up the baby bear and throw it. Just remembering the look she gave him — half serious consideration, half “what??” — makes me want to laugh. I don’t think she was worried about the impossibility of picking up a real baby bear, I think she thought throwing an animal would be cruel. But hey, she’s got a plan in the event she’s ever hanging out with some random baby bears and their mom gets upset.

My nephew invited me to play a video game and said he’d watch. It was a game about droids and Detroit and within the first twenty minutes, it had me cleaning a bathroom. I only lasted a few more minutes before saying, “yeah, no, I can do this in real life if I want to,” and went back to playing a game that let me shoot kobolds in a sewer instead.

In other news, not as much progress on Grace as I wanted to make. But! On a day when I was writing myself notes that included such constructive criticism as “abysmal,” instead of starting major revisions, I walked away. In some sense, I think I can call that progress. I actually wound up reverting to the previous day’s version that day (minus mean notes, therefore) before leaving it alone for a couple of days. But today I am going to try to get at least a few hundred words written before I start driving. I hope they won’t be words that I later label “abysmal.”

Not quite ripe

13 Wednesday Jun 2018

Posted by wyndes in Grace, Pennsylvania, Personal

≈ 3 Comments

unripe blueberries

In 2017, June 13th was the first day of picking blueberries and by June 19th, they were getting ripe faster than we could eat them. Much, much faster!

Alas, this winter was colder so the blueberries are slower. I’m counting the days and watching the calendar — I’m going to be seriously dismayed if I miss them entirely. Not so much so that I would change my plans: I’ve got campground reservations already paid for until after the 4th of July, so I’m going to be doing the things I’m planning on doing. But I do love blueberries right off the bush, warm from the sun, and specifically, from the fifth bush in the first row in my brother’s blueberry patch. I will be sad if I miss them this year.

Meanwhile, though, I’m having a lovely time with my niece and nephew.

My nephew’s playing PS4 games with me: we’re spending a lot of time in a game called Monster Hunter, which has both a story and much wandering around an interesting environment. I’m never going to be good at PS4 controls — the days of building that kind of fine-tuned muscle memory are probably long gone for me — but I’ve been having fun anyway, and he’s very tolerant of my incompetence.

My niece is walking the dogs with me and talking about books, friends, stories, words. On our most recent walk, we searched for synonyms for “walk.” I started us off with “stroll” and “saunter” and “mosey” — her dog likes to mosey while Zelda strides. My favorite was one of hers, “amble.” So we ambled along, building memories.

And when they’re at school, I’ve been writing. I suspect my first draft of the ending — the only part of the book that is going to be a true first draft, given how many revisions the first 2/3rd of the book have gone through — is going to be seriously underwritten. Every time I open my file and read my previous day’s words, I shake my head and spend the first hour of my writing time adding some context and setting, tweaking my descriptions and re-organizing chaotic dialogue.

But I really am in the ending and it really is pretty close. The scene I’m currently writing is turning out much longer than I expected it to be — despite or maybe because of the underwriting. But after this… two more scenes? Given that I’m not going anywhere for a week, if you don’t hear from me for a few days, it’s because I’m writing Grace and picking blueberries, with nothing much to blog about besides those two things.

A Gift of Ghosts available as an audiobook

04 Monday Jun 2018

Posted by wyndes in Audiobooks, R

≈ 4 Comments

A square cover equals an audiobook!

I made the appropriate professional(-ish) announcement about the audiobook of A Gift of Ghosts on my business blog last week, but I wanted to share some of the background details about it in my less professional(-ish) space. (I admit, I don’t consider myself terribly businesslike, even in my official business space. My former employers would not have been impressed by the low-key, un-marketing-speak nature of the announcement. :))

I’ve wanted to make an audiobook for a while. I think the first time I considered it seriously was probably sometime in 2013, so five years ago. At that point, I looked into doing a royalty share production. That’s when an audiobook producer creates the book for 50% of the proceeds rather than being paid upfront. At the time, I listened to some auditions, but I just wasn’t sold on it.

One of the problems I’ve had with creating an audiobook is that I really don’t like audiobooks. I sometimes think the one life-skill I learned in high school was the ability to tune out completely when someone is talking at me. Audiobooks trigger that ability for me. I find it very hard to pay attention to them, even when I want to.

But back in 2013, I listened to some auditions and I just didn’t feel it. I wound up abandoning the idea.

In 2014, I decided to take a different approach and I invested a few hundred dollars and several weeks of my time trying to create a home studio and do it myself. The folks at Audible were nice enough to tell me that my delivery was great, but unfortunately, I couldn’t get rid of the air-conditioning noise in the background of my recordings. The guy I worked with suggested turning it off… in July, in Florida, in a closet with no ventilation. Yeah, no. I thought maybe I’d try again in winter, but I was busy with other things and it never happened.

Last year, I again looked into the possibility of doing an audiobook and I listened to a bunch of auditions. Somehow none of them quite did it for me. The thought of having to listen to any of the probably perfectly adequate narrators read my own words aloud just seemed torturous. I wanted the end product, but I didn’t want to go through the process of making it happen.

Then, this year, I got a tax refund. I’ll skip the details — no one wants to read about taxes! — but for Reasons, I felt like I wanted to do something for R with part of my refund. About the same time, he was deciding on graduate school, so I decided I would invest in an audiobook and split the proceeds of said audiobook with R.

Logical decision, right? Ha. I’m sure it makes no sense to anyone who hasn’t experienced the unexpected delight of small amounts of passive income. But one of the projects I did, the wedding anthology, seemed like an entirely quixotic, pure marketing investment when I first did it. I didn’t expect to earn any money from it. For a while, though, it made $20-25/month, and it was awesome. It wasn’t money that I counted on, it was just an unexpected small windfall every time. I almost always moved it straight to a Starbucks card and turned it into treat money. Obviously, I have no idea if the audiobook will earn anything — reports vary wildly about the profitability of audiobooks and I know people who don’t make much of anything from theirs — but I liked the idea of giving R at least a chance of windfalls.

Still, making the decision didn’t mean that I would be able to bring myself to act on it. But I went back to Audible and posted my project, this time not as a royalty share arrangement, but paying upfront, Screen Actors Guild rates.

Wow. I received over fifty auditions. It was a really surreal experience. I spent a weekend in Arkansas listening to various people read the same section of Ghosts over and over again. After about the first ten, I noticed every mistake. But some of them were really good. Others were really good, but not at all what I’d imagined for the characters. And some were not so good, of course, but really, there were at least a solid dozen that were better than anyone I’d heard before, maybe even more than that.

It was not an easy decision.

But I kept coming back to one of my early favorites. I think she was the third narrator I’d listened to and the first one where my eyes widened and I thought, “Oh, yes, this could work.” Not just that I could get an audiobook made, but that I could listen to someone read Ghosts aloud without cringing inside. I actually laughed out loud when she was reading Rose’s lines.

And I sort of felt like the universe had drawn a big red arrow pointing toward her, and lit it up with shiny neon: her name is Sarah Grace, and the name of her company is GraceWright Productions. Ha. Given that I’ve spent three years trying to write a book with Grace in the name… well, it’s superstitious of me, but I did feel like the universe was all but jumping up and down, saying “this one, this one, this one.”

Since I don’t entirely trust the universe, eventually I made several friends (thank you, A, J, L & T!) listen to my top five candidates. All of them approved, and so GraceWright Productions it was.

And the process was not torturous! I chose to have Sarah team up with her partner, Tristan, to do the narration so Zane’s POV sections and all the male dialogue are in a male voice, and Akira’s POV and all the female dialogue are in a woman’s voice. I think it works really well. I admit to both laughing and probably blushing during the seduction scene, but I also started to cry when Zane talks to his mom and didn’t stop until that chapter finished. I was surprised at how moved I was.

If you’re an Audible subscriber, I hope you’ll take a chance on Ghosts and let me know what you think. If you’re not an Audible subscriber, but have considered trying the service, I should let you know that I (and by extension, R) get a bounty of $50 if Ghosts is the first audiobook you try and then you stick with the service for two paid months. The service costs $14.95/month, so you’d eventually get three ebooks for $30, which is a pretty good deal, but obviously not worth it at all if you don’t think you’d want three audiobooks.

And you can also, of course, just buy the audiobook directly either from Amazon or from iTunes.

Of course, if you hate audiobooks, don’t feel obligated. But I will say that I, an affirmed audiobook hater, really quite enjoyed this one.

PS Privacy? Europe? Something-something mysterious abbreviations, crazy expensive laws? I guess I will write a privacy policy and add it to my site, but the only information I “collect” is whatever you enter when you comment. And I use the term “collect” quite loosely, because even though it’s probably sitting in the backend of the database somewhere, I would have no idea how to get it out, nor would I have any interest in doing so. I don’t use that information for anything, I don’t plan to ever use it for anything, and the only emails you’ll ever get from me, unless you’ve signed up for my mailing list, are entirely personal and individual. I was going to say that I’d never email you, but that would be silly, because I can think of half a dozen people offhand that I’ve emailed directly who will read this. But yeah, privacy — I respect it?

Commencement and other things

23 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by wyndes in Personal, R, Self-publishing, Translations, Zelda

≈ 8 Comments

This morning, I knelt on the floor at my dad’s house to rub noses with his dog, Gizmo. Gizmo is, I think, a mix of cocker spaniel and poodle* — golden, soft, fluffy, with an extremely endearing underbite, and a passionate devotion to his person, my dad. With his person out of the room, he was willing to come be loved up by me and maybe even play a little.

When Zelda saw what we were doing, she decided to come play, too. Within minutes, she and Giz were both chasing after a squeaky skunk, racing down the hallway after it, shoving one another out of the way, even playing tug as they were bringing it back to me. Zelda was play bowing, batting at the toy with her paws, even mock growling, and Giz’s tail was wagging a hundred beats a minute.

If I’d had a tail, it would have been wagging even faster than Giz’s.

So Sunday before last, Z was sick and getting sicker. Not eating, hiding under the table, lethargic, no energy. Not even interested in going for walks. I’d been bracing myself for the worst and it felt like the worst was coming even faster than I could have imagined. Last Monday, I decided to stop the medication she was on. On Thursday, I got the news that she had no signs of a UTI and so I also stopped the antibiotic she was on. She started getting better immediately. Yesterday, at my dad’s suggestion, I took her to his vet. Instead of recommending an ultrasound and x-rays, which was where I was at with my vet, his vet put her on estrogen.

Wow. Just wow, wow, wow, wow.

The vet said it would take a couple weeks before we’d know whether it was going to help with the peeing problem, but watching her play with Gizmo; having her almost drag me out of the van to go for a walk in the rain; seeing her lick every last speck of food out of her dinner bowl, then nose me and look expectantly for more… I will buy stock in doggie diapers, I will plan on doing laundry as often as it takes, but oh, it’s so nice to have my energetic dog back!

a cute Jack Russell terrier in the grass

Zelda, attending R’s commencement ceremony. She listened about as well as some of the students around us did and was much less chatty. But it was a very festive atmosphere!

In other news, R’s graduation was lovely. New College students treat commencement as a combination costume party and picnic. It took place at sunset, by the water, and while there were appropriate speeches, suggestions to go out and change the world, and professors attired with dignity in their academic robes, the students were celebrating.

New College commencement

R had been torn earlier in the day whether he was going costume-party or dignity, but he went with the costume and I got to watch — with immense pride — my six-foot four, bearded son accept his diploma while dressed as a lobster. I’d been thinking prior to the moment that despite the whistles and cheers and yelling of the audience, I’d probably only be able to bring myself to applaud until my hands hurt, but as it happened, I yelled and whooped for him with the best of them. I’d worried that I might cry, but I think it is actually impossible to cry when watching a lobster graduate. There was much beaming with pride, though. He told me later that his favorite part of the evening was all the parents of the kids he works with coming up to him and asking to take his picture to show their kids.

And then another nice thing happened this week: I was taking care of some basic business stuff, including checking to see whether the Italian translation was finally available, and I remembered that I’d scheduled free promotions for the other translations. Instead of going to Amazon and looking for the German translation, I used Google and it took to me Amazon-Germany, where I discovered…

A German best given-away-er

I could have used Google translate to read the reviews, but I didn’t — I just enjoy knowing that they exist. And that for a brief moment in time, Ghosts — or rather, Die Gabe der Geister — was an international best-given-away-er.

*edited to add a message received in my email:

The Giz is pissed at you. He is not in any way genetically related to any Cocker Spaniel. He is a ferocious peek-a-poo, a descendent of a fierce line of savage Pekingese who mauled Cocker Spaniels every day. He will probably bite you the next time he sees you.

Roses

17 Thursday May 2018

Posted by wyndes in Personal, Zelda

≈ 6 Comments

roses

My dad gave me roses for Mother’s Day and I have been appreciating them all week. They’re perfect roses — they opened nicely, they look lovely, and they smell beautiful.

This morning I found a trail map of Oscar Scherer State Park — the place where I’m staying, and where I’ve stayed several times before — and I realized that there was a long trail that I’ve never been on. It leads to another lake, one that I’ve never seen. I’m leaving today, so I don’t have time to do it on this visit, but I mentally noted it for the next time we’re here.

And then I wondered whether Z would be with me the next time I’m here. She’s not doing great. She ate breakfast a couple of days ago, but now she’s pretty much turning up her nose at any food unless I hand-feed her, and even then, she eats a few bites and then turns her head away. The one exception was beef with sweet potatoes yesterday afternoon — she nosed out almost all the pieces of beef on her own, avoiding all the sweet potato, but at least she ate.

This morning, she was restless at 5AM, so I took her out, but she seemed confused: she just stood in the campsite and trembled, no peeing, no walking, no sniffing. I brought her back in again and put her up on the bed with me (she’s been sleeping on the floor, her choice) and by 7AM, she’d pretty much covered the sheets with pee. So today will be another laundry day, which is fine. But then instead of telling me at 6:30 that it was time to go out, she had to be persuaded to come for a walk. She did walk, eventually, with lots of very normal sniffing, but her walks are getting slower and shorter.

All of that added up to me being very sad when I thought about the trail that we’ve never seen and wondered whether I’d ever see it with her — and then I remembered: R is graduating tomorrow. My frequent visits to Oscar Scherer are coming to an end, because I’ll no longer have a reason to visit Sarasota. Maybe I’ll come back someday — it’s a great park and I love it here– but it’s not like I’m looking at a guaranteed return in three months or six months or even ever. So yeah, maybe I won’t have Z with me when I come back and maybe she’ll never see that trail, but life is change. Sometimes that means it hurts, but I wouldn’t want time to be frozen.

And meanwhile, we have today. It’s going to include — well, laundry, obviously. But also some good work on Grace, I hope; some texting with friends; some family time with my son and dad and stepmom; some delicious food, including a celebratory restaurant meal at a place where Z gets to come join us on the patio; and maybe even a movie.

Also, some appreciation of some lovely roses. They won’t last forever, because nothing does. But today they are beautiful and I am grateful to have them in my life.

Miscellany

14 Monday May 2018

Posted by wyndes in Cover design, Grace, Personal, Zelda

≈ 12 Comments

R told me a very funny story about love bugs yesterday (while we were having a nice Mother’s Day brunch) and it almost made me feel kindly toward them. For a minute or two. It didn’t last.

For those not from Florida, the bugs colloquially called “love bugs” — I have no idea what their real name is — have a brief mating season in spring and in fall. Every few years, their mating season is insanely crazy and there are bugs everywhere. You can’t go outside without breathing them in, because there are so many of them. They will crawl on you, they will get in your hair, they will fly in your face, and they will cover your vehicle. Yesterday, during my drive to Sarasota, I probably killed hundreds of them, maybe thousands. It does not make for a cheerful drive. So, so, so gross.

Fortunately (?), it’s also really rainy. Enough so that I checked the weather this morning with a wary eye. I’m not leaving Florida until R graduates from college and there’s no way I’m missing his graduation, but we actually might be looking at the first named storm of the 2018 hurricane season. About three weeks too early, but Al Gore warned us a long time ago about changing weather systems. It’s not a surprise. And it is handy for rinsing off dead love bugs.

I’m waiting on test results for Z, but she is unchanged. Yesterday afternoon, she peed on both beds, so I spent the afternoon and early evening doing laundry. The campground (Oscar Scherer Stat Park) has a nice washer and dryer, so I managed to get clean sheets on the beds, but it cost me $7 total. That’s going to be an expensive daily habit.

Meanwhile, she rejected fresh Atlantic salmon and rice for breakfast. I ate some and it was quite delicious. But she seemed hungry before I gave her the pills she’s supposed to take and it finally occurred to me to wonder whether the medication — which is not doing anything for the peeing problem — is making her nauseous. Turns out the side effects are restlessness, irritability and loss of appetite. I’m thinking we are going to stop those pills. I’ll continue with the antibiotics, at least until we get the test results. Eventually I will become nonchalant about the peeing, I suppose, if the other options are starving dog and/or dying dog. Peeing dog is fine in comparison.

I actually really wanted to make some cute flow chart graphics for this post. The first would ask, “Has Zelda peed inside?” and the answers would be, “No,” leading to “Of course not, what a bizarre idea, why would she do that?” and “Yes,” leading to “Seriously? WTF?”. The second chart would ask, “Has Zelda peed inside?” and the “Yes” response would lead to a bunch of variants, like “Did she pee on me?” and “Did it wake me up?” and “Did she pee on so many things that I must immediately do multiple loads of laundry?” and so on, with answers that would include “Great!” and “No problem,” for the lesser pee issues. Honestly, pee on the floor only bothers me now if I step in it.

However, creating a flow chart turned out to be a lot more work than one would expect. I wound up having lots of fun playing with book cover designs instead. I’m a long way away from needing any new book covers, but it was fun to try out some variations. (I was using free templates from Canva and my own photographs.)

possible new covers for A Lonely Magic

Of course, the book I’m really working on is Grace, so I should get back to it. No progress this weekend, unsurprisingly, and this week — given the graduation and the distractions inherent in being in the same town as R — is probably not going to be my most productive, but I’m really pretty close to finishing a draft for the first time ever. And I have no current impulse to start over from the beginning, which is a good sign.

I’ve got one other distraction happening this week, though, which is pretty fun. When I was walking Z this morning, I was wondering why it felt sort of like Christmas Eve. You know the feeling, that slightly magical sense of anticipation? And then I remembered that it’s because The Penderwicks at Last releases tomorrow. Yes, it feels like Christmas Eve because of a book. But I love the Penderwicks and I’m so looking forward to getting lost in their world again for a few hours.

First, though, some Grace!

Wynded Words

~ Home of author Sarah Wynde

Category Archives: Personal