And away we go

Having discovered CreateSpace and Amazon Kindle both have free, if rather generic, cover generators, I've got ahead and self-published some old pieces. Home Again, a romantic suspense, is now available as a print copy. Haven't done the ebook yet. Two sci fi novellas are now out at e-books. They are Like a Single Cell and Reb Dexter's Last Concert. If I can get enough short pieces together to fill up a book, I'll put them out in print. I can't decide what to do with three children's books - they're text for picture books, but I can't draw very well. Put them in with the 2 short stories?

My life's work doesn't look like much so far, but there's more to come. I've thrown out a lot of old crap that wasn't salvageable, and lost some pieces to assorted accidents, corrupted floppies, and dead computers. After NaNoWriMo, I've learned how to rough-draft a lot faster than I used to. Hopefully I'll be able to finish all the partial books, fragments, and ideas I've got. Whoops, sorry Sandy, there's a 'got.' You can take the girl out of Kansas, but the speech patterns are going to stick no matter what.

I want to earn enough to afford Digital Donna's magnificent work for the rest of the Phoenix trilogy. And I'd like to have it also for the Seven Kingdoms  and Grove Witches series. The first book in each series is ready to publish, and I've rough-drafted the second of the Phoenix books. I'll be rough-drafting the third one this November (NaNoWriMo).

And soon: Plague Scars.

The Children's Eyes

 

The weak ones and the wounded ones,

The ones frustration tears,

Pick helpless victims for their hate –

They make their children bear.

The children learn that love is pain,

And blows just show you care.

Even though the bruises heal,

The pain is always there;

And generations down the line,

The painful pattern grows.

Some survivors make it through –

The scars all may not show.

The twisted parents shift the blame

And tell their alibis,

The children hold their twisted love

Deep in their blackened eyes. 

In their eyes you see the future,

In their eyes you see the past.

In their eyes you’ll see how well we’ve done –

We’ve made the evil last

In the children’s eyes. 

For boundaries only in our minds,

For dogmas soon forgot,

For cold ambitious power plays:

The wars just never stop.

And from the rubble watch them come –

Survive’s too strong a word.

And though some of them live to grow,

They can’t outgrow the hurt.

The legacy of hate we’ve left –

We’ve taught them all we know,

And generations down the line,

The violence just grows.

From Ireland to Vietnam

The whole world’s heard their cries:

The price of war’s not cities, friend,

It’s in the children’s eyes.

In their eyes you see the future,

In their eyes you see the past.

In their eyes you’ll see how well we’ve done –

We’ve made the evil last

In the children’s eyes.

 

 

What I really want for Christmas

What do I want for Christmas? My mom asks this every year. This year, I honestly don’t know. Short of giving her a list of books and DVDs, there’s not much that I want that can actually be put in a box and wrapped up.

I want my husband’s health back. The medicines he has to take for his constant pain make him a different person. I miss the old him.

I want a place to live in a better part of town, and preferably over 1000 square feet.

I want our car paid off. It costs us nearly as much a month as our rent.

I want to be able to sell or self-publish the other four finished novels I’ve written.

I want the 20 pounds I’ve gained to GO AWAY.

I want my hairline back where it was.

I want to be able to pay all our bills each month without juggling.

I want energy.

I want my cats to stop pooping outside the box, and if they’d bury the poop they actually do in the box, it’d be lovely.

That’s my real Christmas list.