bits and books

 I have studied the extra Japanese lessons on wanikani for three days now, as well as Japanese on both of my Duolingos (and a bit of Czech, why? it's me).  The little car did a scary thing this morning and now I have the mechanic picking it up and have rented something to drive for the week until we find out what that was.  We are looking over our budget more to see if we can afford another car payment.  I showed Esme the budget style that I use and explained to her what all the things were to know.

comment Mark made to me tonight : you know you probably drink more coffee grounds than most people, that might have a high lead content or something in it.  You were talking about your diet (seaweed and cucumber mineral contents) and have you considered that?  If it was a problem though, you'd probably already know by now, considering how long you have been drinking coffee (he drinks tea).  Me: Yes that makes you either an idiot, or insane.  And I don't think I'm doing too bad, I found my abstract algebra textbook on the shelf the other day and I was really happy about it.  Mark : You're not convincing me on the not-insane part there.  Me : What, I've been looking for it for a couple of years now, and it is red, but I was thinking it was a much thicker book because of the remembered difficulty level.  Mark : When you need a librarian for your own collection to say 'it's red, can you find it for me', then yes, you have a problem.  Me: Well, I've found it now, it was between a French textbook and that history book about corn.  Mark : Still not convincing me... *all in good fun banter*

 I need to kick my tail and put up more of my kindle books - which requires actually sitting down and editing them and getting them ready to format.  I was happy to see the 'Salt Magic' book had sold some copies.  That one was supposed to be just tucked into an anthology but I had thought it was good enough to go by itself and I had published it at the same time as Mikki Mack.

 These are the ones that I have finished and put up so far: 

 Salt Magic : The tale of an exhausted mage who rediscovers themselves.

Mikki Mack  : The quite pretty small grey cat with the gloriously long fluffy tail

 Unspoken Things Made Words : Poetry anthology with a few philosophy things

Time in December : Magic realism fiction.  Summary: "Bran exists but only in apathy. Isobel doesn't exist, but wants to. Paul, caught between the worlds, is prisoner to the watch. Ingrid, a tiger with her claws the wrong way in, blames herself for surviving her brother's death. To save them all, Bran must learn to fly."

 

And I have more in the wings waiting for me to actually get my tail in gear and make them ready. 

bits again

Here are the links to the books I finished editing  this week. I'm glad I've gotten these two short books out in a little under a week, as they were waiting with just bits and pieces that needed to be finished.  I know I won't have that sort of rapid-fire on anything I might try to write from scratch - so I'm using up my stack while I can.   

Mikki Mack book : 

Kindle link 3.29 (with color illustrations)  -- Paperback link 4.99

"Mikki Mack is a little cat with a lot of attitude, and a lot of heart. She tells the story, from a particularly cat point of view, of how she came to be living at the little house at 67 Maple Street and how things look from the viewpoint of a quite pretty small grey cat (with a gloriously long fluffy tail). Mikki recalls how she was found on the Lost Day, adventures with the mechanical mouse, smiling ceramic duck, a perfect sock and the very special thing she did to help when Mr. Mack got a cold."

 

Salt Magic book : 

Kindle link 2.99 (with b/w illustrations) -- Paperback link 4.99

"Day after day was exhausting. The future was so bright, graduating from Divination school. We were supposed to have all the answers, right? Hindsight is all 20-20, and even those that study the Future don't always get it right. But it takes years and the realization that this magic is not what it seems - it is tearing every cell in your body apart, because you are not built the same way everyone else is. In fact, very few of your kind ever survive. This, is salt magic. And knowing that, makes all the difference. A thinly veiled fantasy story of my experience having Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, otherwise known as POTS"

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I went to sleep last night knowing I had to be up early today to go cover a postal route.  But then, I woke up way too early, and decided not to go back to bed, got ready instead.  I made my thermos of coffee.  I planned what I was supposed to do, in what order, to get the day done.  And then, at 5:30 am, the carrier texted me saying she is 'going to go in anyways'... so now I don't actually NEED to go anywhere.  I did water the garden, and take one bag of trash up to the road in the sled.  *blows air up forehead*

 

So I was left a bit hanging.  I went and edited a twelve page story into a thirty-four page book, and got it ready for publication.  It probably won't be available for purchase until tomorrow.  

 

Then, I sort of fell out on going to town.  And here I am writing this, a drop in a puddle far from any river that will take it to the ocean.  Caught between wanting to curl into a ball because of the economy and knowing that I need to keep doing things and getting things out and taking chances and it isn't going to get better by itself.

Did some Japanese, and some Swedish.  Put out a promotion post for my little cat book.  The books I brought to the gallery are slowly selling now, and the rest of the toys that I made a few years ago.  I do mean slowly.  I got a check in the mail yesterday that will help a little bit with gas, but I haven't knit more toys, and I'm not sure if/when I will order new copies of these two small books to put in the basket there.  The cat book is cute, has illustrations, and might do well.

I'm just trying to stay optimistic but all of that uses social energy, too.

 

Later : we made dinner,  finished the rest of my Japanese lessons, and drew some more digital illustrations that might be used in my novela. 

 

Mikki Mack book released for sale

Mikki Mack!

 I released this book on Amazon today, It is available for sale in paperback and in Kindle.  

I had been working on it since last November, but mostly in fits and starts.  Esme made the beautiful cover image, which continues to the back of the paperback with a glorious long fluffy tail, just like the description says.  I didn't feel, at first, that I could do anything to match her talent on the digital images - but I pushed myself to go out there and do something, so that the story could get out.  Mikki is a very sassy little cat - and she tells the stories of several cats of our own, and of friends, all wrapped up in one fluffy gray ball.

I am spurring myself to put out more of my stories just to get them OUT - I have so many just sitting here that I don't feel are good enough, or were waiting for some larger anthology... but in this day and age... getting it out and into the world is more important.  You never know when 'someday' isn't going to happen at all, for one reason or another.  Especially when you have social anxiety in general.

*sigh*  so yes, today is an 'oh my introvert' day.  I'm going to have to drink a lot more coffee and finish my Japanese and see where my brain is at before continuing with either : the little pig story, loosely based on a story Esme told me when she was a toddler, or setting up one of the House of Sunlight stories to edit separately and see where that gets me for page count.

I could comb through the Pinocchio's Grandniece is a Dachshund story sometime soon.. but as I said, I have so many things piled up that I freewheeled and had a great time writing, and then put in the drawer and said no one will like it.  They won't get a chance to like it or not like it if it never goes anywhere other than the drawer.  (That's easy to say, not easy to do).

And I did a video interview for online tutoring.  Another 'oh my introvert'.. but I just went and did it - because I do feel the experience was important and that I did have something to say about what I could do to teach words and reading.  I have a lot of experience with learning not only English, but other languages - and with having the kind of brain that doesn't immediately get it from the regular perspectives, so I can see lots of ways other people might get lost, and try to help them get to the goal.

1.)  Duolingo Japanese profile on level 20 : done

2.)  Duolingo Japanese profile on level 11 : did some but then I fell over for a nap

3.)  babadum to 50 cards at least : done

4.)  Baltoslav to 25 or more : 90 done

5.)  Clozemaster Japanese and Chinese 10 sentences each (that is their free daily limit)    : done

//I went and did some WaniKani - it's been such a time since I did that.. and I've forgotten so much of the onyomi and konyomi spellings but not doing it isn't going to help me get them right.

6.)  work on some more book stuff

:: started a Kindle Vella.... based on a writing prompt I have in a file.  It's called 'Tiger Stories' and it says it will take up to 72 hours for the first chapter to become live online

And I made lasagna - I'm about to go check on it in the oven right now.

Recipe at Patreon Neurodivergent Cooking : warning, it's leftover meatloaf in there... but you use what you got, use what you keep, keep what you use, that's one of the mantras of this style of cooking

poems for the first week of April

 

Grow and Be Happy : Heron on Nest

inks and colored pencil

Illustrated poetry book : Unspoken Things Made Words 

available to order in print here at Amazon

'Acorns'

 

Acorns

Someday we will walk together

along this path in wonder

at the same leaves on the ground

that small oak

which neither of us trod upon

instead allowing it to put down roots

for years, there in the soil

it has now grown tall

and we can sit in the shade of it

well before we thought was possible

rest our heads against the bark

and say how lovely is the day?

 

 

 my little cat, Minion

Tortoiseshell

Little black cat

with the one orange paw

curled tightly in a ball

on top of a shirt in the laundry basket

that I wore yesterday

discarded there on my way in from outside

no longer with the warmth

but perhaps still the smell of me

this is one reason she has chosen it

She tries to ride the bow of my hip

at night, while I sleep

but my ship it rocks too much

while I am dreaming

turning over and over and over

she tries to cling with claws

then we disagree

and the tossing turns to Neptune

she has to admit -it makes her a bit seasick

so the laundry basket, it is

begrudgingly

 

 

And the other day - when I was feeling a bit up and down over social anxiety.. It's a strange feature of that - that I will reach out to someone and it will be very good - or I will attempt a hard task or lesson on something and it will also be very good - but then the next moment I often feel even more anxiety that has to calm down, like a fire that has burned too hot and now everything is boiling to the top of the pan. So, I've learned that feature and now work to dig myself out of those feelings as soon as I recognize them. I congratulated myself, that night, which is a necessary part of reflecting on it all, for how many times I pick myself back up, ten times in an hour it feels like sometimes, no really, it was good, you are doing well, just get out of this feeling, it's an emotion, and one we have to keep working on...

and this flowed out:

Pompeii

When I fall down unseen,
within these hallways, inside my head
I get back up, ten times in an hour
over and over, or perhaps just one
handspring that was barely noticed
but each time I work my way up
and ask which way the wind blows
that makes me feel so light
such glass in my bones
but at least glass has weight to it
this is more like volcanic ash
reduced to ghosts and fragile shells
from fires too hot to handle
ready to blow away unless I capture it
in my palms and carry it to a safe place
so gently, where it may perhaps
against all reason - become rock again
I must take them, these fires, in small pinpoints
where they rush through the surface
needing to take a few moments to cool down
so that is what I am doing
when I am inspecting the ground like this
with my fingertips, furiously sketching, seeking
looking for a place cool enough to take grip again
and hoist myself up

When is it too much and too little

When it is too much, and too little, and everything in between.

So, there is a project I was asked to do before Thanksgiving, and it has stretched out through what was inarguably a very long, dismal and stressful winter, which could have been worse, and we were so glad that it wasn't.

And I have not done the project.  There have been several small attempts, one large attempt - and a lot of thinking about it and being tangentially frustrated about not doing much on it at all, and not feeling like I wanted to, either.

So, when is too much.  I tend to be a tenacious person about some things, and not at all - at all - about others.  I did try to say I wanted to pass the project on to some other person before - but the project's owner said they still wanted me to do it.  So I kept it, and Mark says it is just too much worry and frustration.  Perhaps, it is, for there will be no return benefit except saying that I actually got it done - it is not for money or for fame, but just what to someone else might be a few turns of the wrist and there - you're done.  

It would be so much simpler if it was like the first project I did for them (perhaps)... that was 'I'd like something like this - it doesn't exist - can you make it?'  This is : Here is the item, go make something exactly like it, the same size, the same look, I know you'll do a good job.  I find, that specifically, is something I'm not good at.  I am not one to replicate something, my perfectionism says I'll never do it.

So I procrastinate.  I attempt and fail.  I get frustrated and then it colors all of my other projects with the feelings.  And of course, I know if I did succeed it would do the same - color the rest with accomplishment... if I do not, and give up, it will remain in the back of my mind.  It is a skeleton I can do not enough good with, and even as a success it would be a three penny postage stamp.  What does that even mean?  I'm not sure.  I've been reading a lot lately, but in tiny pieces here and there and everywhere, and it is like a thousand birds in my air, lyrics, thoughts half-flown, and coming down in the field around me hoping to make some sense as I walk through picking up sheaves.

See what I mean?

Oh look, a rock I found, on a walk in the sun yesterday.  It looks like the ocean.

 

And poems too hot and fresh to have been trimmed yet, just because.  

 

Unspilled

the dark green ink

it beckons

with a swirl in the bowl

but only in my mind’s eye

because the darkness

is beset upon the morning still

and the sunrise, when it comes

will be full of bustling

and the dark green ink

will have to wait again

in it’s bottle, unspilled

like my thoughts, unspilled

Thermal

I’m not the only one who used to

lie out in the snow as a child

after pulling some sled up the hill

and coming back down

leaning back and throwing out my arms

there in the cold and the snow

staring up at the big wide sky, feeling alone

and wondering how long it would take

to freeze to death

I know I’m not the only one who did this

how many do this more than once or twice...

And I think I do it in my life with other things

we lie for a time out in the cold

against all natural instincts, it would seem

until that thing within us clicks over, urging

that we get up, and seek our homes

whether they be of body, mind, or soul

that place our feathered things retreat to

to sit by the fire and revive

and then – we appreciate the warmth all the more

Tides

You’re such a good girl, she said

you never want anything

but oh, how I wanted things

sometimes so hard that they tasted like the blood

from biting my tongue

but they were not things I could ask for

few of them could ever fit in my hand

and always, always, they would be taken away

somehow or another, I learned early

that nothing is forever

everything is always changing

and those things I truly wanted seemed

just beyond my grasp – intangible

until I learned, through much effort

to hold them in my eyes, and my heart

to weave them into those inner webs

and labyrinths that defy space and time

..and then, the tides rose and carried me away

and I was the boat, and the waters, and the moon

Echoes

There are always echoes in here

words to string together, this way or that

all the things said, and unsaid

from this morning, from three years ago,

there is little rhyme or reason

I try to connect the dots,

draw stars and equations around them

not enough paper, not enough ink

not enough thread, to sew it together

I turn on music, to try to drown it out

hum along, sing familiar words

but other words, other times, other places

continue to vibrate

in the in-between places of Memory

where Time is not the rule

one box always opening twenty more

a million scattered keyholes

and so few keys

I try to pick them up like tiny beads

that get stuck under my fingernails

I try to line them up like thin steel pins

to stick them all in place, but into what?

They continue to tumble loose, and rattle

against this box that is my brain

Heart Take Wing

There is only so much

you can choose to say

the rest is up to the heart

may it take wing

and sing to you

Downpours

And when all your years

you believed that the overload

of your senses meant

that you could not handle it

that you must run from it

put on your flat mask

pretend it was not there

like trying to ignore the rain

you can do it – stand there drenched

and be miserable for all to see

run for shelter each time it starts

or you can dance in the downpour

look for the rainbows – prismatic glories

and feel your limbs swimming

watch the drops fall from your fingers

and trace the holes in space as it

bounces off of everyone’s umbrellas

built-in for them – but not for you

perhaps, you are a fish out of water

that swims in the air

and without such rainstorms

where you would be?

I am amazed, also, and grateful - my book has sold nearly two dozen copies in something like a week.  Thank you.  I hope you are enjoying it.  Unspoken Things, Made Words poetry book by Marie Lamb

The Random Light

 

The Random Light

“Step out of your comfort zone, before it steps out of you…”

story by Marie Lamb

 

I have sat in the same seat on the subway, give or take, for the past three years. I sit with my shopping bag held defensively in front of me and watch the crowd pass in and out of the automatic doors. I listen to the familiar voice of the driver and count the stops until home. I know what every stop looks like, through the wet and the dry, with people in their coats and Christmas decorations, tourists and schoolchildren and elderly people and guide dogs alike trying to stay cool in the baking heat of summer. So, this last week, I knew that the random light I was seeing on Drake Street was not normal. I would have seen it before. And I could not remember, in any of the times having passed that stop, having seen it before.

It wasn’t really random. But, it shouldn’t be there. As far as I could ever tell that wall was solid brick. Beyond it was probably machinery or compacted dirt - definitely nothing of notice. The first few times I mostly ignored it. But, it wasn’t really very easy to ignore. It reached out with fingers across the subway station even at speed, and yanked at my awareness. Now, this light had my full attention. I could almost hear it, almost feel it, almost taste it. It was like remembering tea - herbal and citrus. Even though I denied it, there was something there calling to me. Tonight, I had been looking for it ever since I got onto the train. I had been telling myself it wasn’t really there. Deep down, there was a hope within me that it actually was.

   

My shopping bag shook and rattled. It was vibrating as if something with tiny feet was running back and forth at the bottom of it. I was just about to open it up and take a look with my cell phone camera when a lady with a red jacket brushed by me. As I looked up the random light was shining through the windows with such intensity it took my breath away. The urge to go see it was so strong that, even though this was not my stop, when the driver called ‘Drake Street’ I found myself rising with the small crowd, bag in hand, edging towards the doors. I thought hard about calling Alec and telling him I would be delayed, but I was just too absorbed. My eyes were on the light.

I stepped down from the car onto the platform and looked around. The few passengers that had exited with me were already on their way, down the side trail, up the stairs, waiting for another train. I felt silly, and more than a bit worried about breaking my routine. What would Alec say, when I finally arrived home? Would he not even wait that long, but call me a few minutes after six, worried to death? But even as I thought these thoughts, the amber pink light seemed to glow more intensely. I could see it stretching out golden tendrils like I have only ever seen before in fairy tale books. I was encountering magic. It had to be. And I could not even gather up a third of me to run away from it.

My feet were moving without my head telling them to. I stood in front of the wall and stared hard at the glowing light. I dropped my shopping bag to the ground. It rocked and swayed before coming to a balance. My jacket and hat were discarded next, untidily onto the ground. There was no common sense to this. My very shoes started to be too binding, but the ground was fading away and it no longer mattered. I tried to lean my hand upon the wall but it seemed to melt into it like warm frosting. I had one shoe on and one off. I should be mortified, worried about who was watching, but I couldn’t even turn my head to look around.

I leaned in further and began to taste the joy radiating off the threshold. The glow was intense and surrounded me like peach ice cream on the hottest beach vacation with caramel sauce and brandy. The air had grown hushed and close, like cotton around my ears. I held my breath and did not feel the need to breathe again. The brick surface turned to warm sand under my fingers and then broke away in a crystalline surface, thin like brittle wax, melting around me and pulling me through the soft silk of summer.

There was a cascading of feathers and soft grasses that came down around my face. The golden light was everywhere and piercing my very skin to share in its glowing. I swam through honeyed sound and silken waves like a child’s timeworn blanket on a safe warm bed. I remember the light turning from gold to white, and the air solidified around me like a grid. The warmth melted away to rest only within myself, pooling down into my center like a warm glut of rich and satisfying soup. I felt myself slowly released from the pull to rest upon the ground, clear and open and relaxed. I did not even have the energy to pull my head up on my shoulders. I lay there, listening to the sifting of the sands and the crackling of the air.

It took a moment for my vision to focus. I was looking at a pair of shoes. My own shoes, on legs wearing my hose, and a hand carrying my bag. I looked all the way up to a mass of brown curls that were conveniently looking the other direction. I wondered if I was imagining myself in two places at once? The other me turned and reached for me. Things were happening so quickly. I tried to twist and turn limbs that were not responding, and ended up only turning in circles three times over. I could not fathom how she picked me up with one hand and dropped me, small and fuzzy, into the white shopping bag.

She opened the bag and stared at me for a long moment. I froze completely still, a tiny yowl caught in my throat. My whiskers were twitching, and I wanted to scratch her with a vengeance. Her eyes were too green, but they began to equalize, less catlike and more like I remembered my own human eyes. As she closed the bag and began to walk in a rhythmic swaying, I heard my phone snap open. She said ‘Yes Alec, don’t worry. I just got off at the wrong stop. No, I don’t know how, it was all in a rush. I even lost a shoe! I’ll be home soon, love, there’s a little someone you should meet…. I think you’ll be the best of friends.”

Admittance

 I published that one book, Time in December, several years ago now, and sort of just threw it out into the Universe and said 'here, no backsies'... nearly unedited, raw and full of emotion - some of it was my own, some belonging to others and borrowed in a cup of milk and sugar to wash the story together into one cohesive mess...

I said to someone today - or almost did, that I feel like I've been avoiding doing more because of imposter syndrome, and because well.. just to say it, I have five - yes FIVE - others that I know I need to do work on.  But it's an echo chamber that simply seems too unimportant in light of everything else that needs to be done.  But for admittance  - here they are.

The House of Sunlight, is a book of short stories, each with a twist that makes them not what they started as, but something else, something strange with a philosophical message almost Twilight-Zoney, some twenty to twenty-five stories, and it is about 80% done unless I look at it too hard, then it stretches out to Infinity. 

Unspoken Things, Made Words, is a book of mostly poetry and prose, very emotional, very personal...deals with grief and identity and Time... and it is about 90% done, but I it's in the 'I don't wanna' stage, mostly, I don't want to throw open that curtain because there's really just a little man in there in a green suit pretending to be the Wizard etc...

Cat in the Forest - a young adult book, stalled about 1/2 way through, I have ideas to shake it together into a finished story, but have failed to get back into it.

Ruby's story (title redacted, because it tells a lot about the story) - I love this one too much, and I don't want to ruin it, because she is such a feisty little dachshund and I don't want to admit I like her more than anyone else will.  I've got about ten chapters written on this one?  And I'm laughing at my own jokes too much, because Ruby thinks she's funny, and so do I.

Sam the cat and his Stripes - illustration work.. did about twelve images, it deserves more... and yet, the story itself is something I am not sure others will approve of, that the cat gets in trouble for leaving so much of himself on everything he encounters, it is my own commentary on society and what it is like to be creative in a world that just wants to work nine to five, have dinner and go to bed sort of thing