Newsletter - August 30, 2022

We made it through the first full week of all the kids being back in school! I don't know why I found working out the parent-uber schedule so complicated this year, but it was rough. It is rough. Basketball, dance, art, gymnastics. Thankfully, two of the kids are at the same school this year, though that doesn't completely help, since their schedules don't match. I know, all you folks with more than three kids are just chuckling...

The next couple of weeks at work promise to be particularly bad, and I'm already losing sleep. I hate the feeling of waking in the night with stress and worry, knowing that being awake will make the next day even more painful. You'd think, with all the wisdom of experience, those reactions to stress would go away. And maybe they do diminish.

On the bright side, my wife and I took a day off (from worries) with friends, and used up accumulated credit card points to take a breather. We cut loose from schedules and diets and worries for a time (not quite a day) to recharge our batteries. Well done, wife!

Worked with my mapmaker, leidolfr on fiverr, on ancient AllForest. It enjoyed literally (and I used that word both properly and ironically, kiddos) mapping out my story. Our tale begins in a barely discernable town called E'anashys...

Here, I'll give you a chance to send some feedback. I've talked about problems like this before in writing - I'd like to have a song in the story, and there's two problems with that. One, my ability to write a tune is hitherto untested, and probably monumentally inadequate. (But I tend not to let those things stop me.) Two, they're not actually speaking English on the AllForest... it's an ancient land on another planet, after all... so what right do I have making up a rhyme (because I like songs that rhyme) in English? As a reader of fantasy, do you struggle with such questions? Or perhaps with my beginner's attempt at a song?

He picked up the tune where I had stopped, not singing loudly as he continued to roll the dice in their game of clans.

“River Queen, River Queen,

Dancing down the silver stream,

Fiery hailstones hissing steam,

She’ll not reach sea by morn’.

Rocky shores did stay her berth

The Queen plowed on, fer all she’s worth,

Longing for to lie on earth,

Her heartland did she mourn.”

As he repeated the chorus, I pondered how his version differed from the one my mother had taught me. Fiery trees stayed the River Queen’s birth in mine, not rocky shores. Had the Warders altered it to make sense for them? Had we? And then I wondered who I meant by we. Was I entirely a Wood Elf?

My mother jolted my meandering thoughts by joining in for the next refrain.

“Push and wail, cry and flail,

The Queen fled on through fiery hail,

And duet screams soon marked the tale,

Her baby girl was born.”

The Warder joined in the chorus, his tenor belying his size, though it was still the deepest of our group. Was it odd that we all knew the song, albeit with small differences?

"The silver vein in a fiery heart,

Led the Queen to her life's new start,

An island not on any chart,

For her heartland had been torn."

I joined them for the final chorus.

“River Queen, River Queen,

Dancing down the silver stream,

Fiery hailstones hissing steam,

She’ll not reach sea by morn’.”

Okay, enough. I hope everyone is having a good week and enjoying a good book, whether you're reading or writing it.

o To-Do list for writing last week:

~~Email updates~~
Plug away at Book 1 of Thaumatropic Roots - yellow, because I log-jammed this week, and progress slowed. I don't know how it goes for other writers, but I can get wrapped around the axle on aspects of the world-building.

o To-Do list for writing this week: