First Week of the New Year, Cat and Weather Dramas, and Prepping for the New Book in a New Year

New Year’s Day photo, pre-cat-trauma

First Week of the New Year!

This is a photo Glenn took on New Year’s Day. He always tries to take a writer photo of me on New Year’s Day. Well, we definitely had enough sparkles to do it, and the hyacinths smelled amazing. I had moderately high goals for the first month of the new year—a daily Tai Chi practice, writing a poem a day, and submitting once a day.

Much of this was thrown into chaos, first by weather drama (power outages with wind and rainstorms and flooding, which was worse in California than here) and then by kitty drama. The new kitten started acting really strange on Thursday, shaking her head and growling. After $1000 of vet bills, we figured out she’d eaten litter and now she’s back to normal. Immediately after that, my sweet six-year-old cat Sylvia stopped eating, and it turned out she’d eaten new kitten food she was violently allergic to, and after two days at the Emergency Vet, she’s almost back to normal now. So now we are poorer and I was so stressed out—hey, when I go to the ER and get nausea meds, blood work and IV fluids, it’s actually cheaper than the cats! And it’s less stressful when it’s me! I just go to pieces when Glenn has health problems, and it turns out, the cats too. So I am genuinely exhausted emotionally. But still managed to write a few poems and send out a couple of submissions! (Tai chi, I’ll see you again this afternoon.)

So here are a few pictures of the baby kitten Charlotte home from the vet, and another pic of me on New Year’s day (more pics of little Sylvia to come next week):

Prepping for the New Book in a New Year

So, it’s January and that means it’s almost March and the Seattle AWP, and almost May and my book’s official launch! I am setting up readings and (ahem) birthday parties in May, AWP is almost all filled up with book signings and panels and of course I have to build in some time to do the bookfair.
So, what can I do at this point for the book? Given that I have a great team at BOA that does some of the publicity for me?

Well, for one, I can (and did) order the book cards I send out by hand every time I have a book come out. I think of it like a personal invite to read the book. I can send out an e-mail newsletter.  I can start thinking about booking local readings. (I already have! Stay tuned!) I bought an ad in Poets & Writers, and I even hired an outside PR person from the Pacific Northwest—Heather Brown, at Mind the Bird media, who a couple of friends had good experiences with—to help me throughout the launch of the book. Because even though I literally wrote a book on doing PR for your own book, it can be exhausting to do everything on your own, especially if you (or your husband, or family, or even pets) have health problems that suck up a lot of time and energy. I hope it’s worth it, but the best thing about it is that it’s a learning experience for me—what is the difference between doing everything yourself and having help? I interviewed a lot of PR people for the book, but it’s different actually working with people who do PR for a living on the regular. And of course, I have my PR person at BOA too. So it’s a big difference than the last five books. I’ll be interested to see how it affects sales and reviews. Maybe it won’t? Maybe it will? I hope so!

Things I could be doing: I could be writing articles to place in magazines, though I haven’t yet. I could be putting out some calls on social media to see if people want an ARC or e-galley of the book (which I have done once!) How can you be sure you’re doing enough for your book? The answer is, even with a team, you can never be sure. If you’re a workaholic and achievement oriented, it can be overwhelming. I’m hoping not to have that stress this time around. I hope that I’ll have info after this that will help me write an update to my PR for Poets book! Will Twitter still exist when I publish the next version of the book? Will all book promotion be done on a platform that doesn’t exist yet? Stay tuned!

Anyway, if you are like me and in the middle of getting ready to launch a book during a pandemic, please leave your comments, complaints, and helpful tips. It’s been some years since my last book, and it’s a totally different world!

Happy New Year! Holiday Lights, Setting Intentions and Dates, Ad in Poets & Writers, Kitten Charlotte, Brother Visits and Kelly Davio’s The Unreal Woman

Dewi Plass’s New Year art with stoats and snow leopards

Happy New Year! Holiday Lights, Setting Intentions, and More

Happy New Year everyone! Tonight we’re celebrating with my brother and sister-in-law. This week we tried to get out and about a bit, despite the rain, and see the holiday lights at the Bellevue Botanical Garden. I received the “Inspiration” issue of Poets & Writers and it has my little book ad in it.

The kitten Charlotte is getting used to her new human and kitty companions, and even posed with my friend Kelly Davio’s new book. I’ll post that along with a mini-review later on in the post.

What are your New Year traditions? Do you make resolutions? Goals? Set intentions? Make a vision board with cut-outs? Do you think about the year past, things you’ve accomplished, things you missed out on? Do you think about what you’re looking forward to in 2023? I can tell you I am already planning my book launch/50th birthday party in April, looking forward to seeing friends at AWP, and hopefully doing some virtual visits with friends and campuses in other states. I think it will be the most social year for me since the pandemic started, and that will be good for my mental health (we’ll see about the physical.) I’m hopeful for a kinder, gentler year, a happier, friendlier populace, even though that might be a stretch.

Holiday Lights

One of my traditions – that had been thwarted by bomb cyclones, ice storms, record-breaking cold, snow storms, and heavy rain since Thanksgiving – is going to see the holiday lights around town. So we finally found a brief (and I mean, thirty minutes brief) break in the rain to go to the Bellevue Botanical Gardens to see their terrific Garden d’Lights display, which is all animal and plant figures, and takes volunteers months to set up. It was cold, and a little more crowded than is ideal, but it was still fun and made me feel like we got to enjoy the holidays during our break a little bit. Here are some shots of undersea creatures, a field of sunflowers with the city of Bellevue in the background, and a dragon.

Kitten Charlotte in Solstice tree

New Literary Kittens and Kelly Davio’s Unreal Woman

Kitten Charlotte is definitely starting to feel more comfortable with us; Sylvia is starting to feel (slightly) more comfortable with the new kitten. But she’s already making her debut as a literary kitten!

Here she poses with Kelly Davio’s new poetry book from Broken Sleep Press, The Book of the Unreal Woman. It’s a sharp, funny portrait of disability and chronic illness, a rebuke to the ad logo of the “real woman,” poems which feature an action hero facing surgeons instead of supervillains, praise songs to disinfectants. This book shimmers with energy, with anger, with the desire to keep living despite odds against her. Kitten Charlotte, our newest literary kitten review, loved it and quoted that it was “delicious.” Get your copy! They ship direct to the US! 

Ad in Poets & Writer and a Small New Year’s Eve Party

Very excited to have a small ad in the “Inspiration” issue of Poets & Writers – usually my favorite issue of the year, as I could always use more inspiration in gray January.

I also signed up to write a poem a day in January with some friends, which hopefully will be good for my creative brain. Tonight we have cherry upside down cake, salmon to grill, champagne, frozen grapes and balloons and New Year’s crowns for our little celebration tonight with my little brother and his wife – since the pandemic, we haven’t done much to celebrate New Year’s, and I wanted to feel like it was really a holiday this year. (Along with the traditional watching of When Harry Met Sally.) We’re ready to celebrate the end of another pretty hard year, and hopefully the beginning of a slightly easier one. What about you? A sigh of relief at this year’s end?  Are you feeling anxious or anticipatory about 2023? Wishing all my readers a healthy, happy, and surprisingly delightful New Year!

Happy Holidays: Solstice and Christmas Traditions, Flare, Corona Full Cover Reveal, New Kittens, Winter Storms, and Planning for 2023 Already!

One of my fave Curly Girl Holiday Cards

Happy Holidays! Winter Storms and More

Happy Solstice, Hannukah, Christmas, and Yule time to all! How are you all doing? I’ve been waiting out a winter storm for three days in my house, with the latest being an ice storm that makes my metal ramp too treacherous to traverse safely. I hope to report on more holiday lights next week, when I’ll be able to safely leave the house!

Snow and cold we’ve about had enough of for the whole winter—we had a coldest day in ten years on the first day of Winter! I know the rest of the country will be facing this soon. For all those traveling—be safe. Stay safe and warm you all! Keep yourself warm with hot chocolate and tinsel, as suggested by the card at left.
In the meantime, here are a few holidayish scenes – snow in Woodinville, Woodinville holiday lights, and Molbak’s Nutcracker-inspired scene.

Photo by Anastasiya Dobrovolskaya

Solstice, Christmas, and Other Holiday Traditions

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about where the traditions for this time of year come from. Many we practice are far older than Christmas—exchanging gifts, having a feast, and setting intentions for the new year were practiced in many cultures as part of the solstice. Bringing in greenery, lighting candles. For practical reasons, we gathered together and shared what we had – probably to keep us earlier humans from starving or dying from cold or sadness! It’s different this year, with illnesses packing the hospitals, showing us maybe we shouldn’t do be doing big family and friend get-togethers just yet. But maybe we can incorporate some older traditions to bring us joy instead.

I listened to a beautiful carol which I found out was a Christina Rossetti poem, “In the Bleak Midwinter” that brought this idea home. On the Solstice, we had duck and potatoes and carrots (very winter appropriate), Glenn and I lit candles, thought about what we wanted to leave behind and embrace in the new year, and listened to the old prom themes we could remember late into the night. It was really nice! So anyway, in America there’s a weird idea someone is trying to steal Christmas, when in actuality, Christmas borrowed a lot of its stuff from other older religious and cultural traditions—and early Americans, like the Pilgrims, considered celebrating Christmas sinful! It’s also worth noting historians think Jesus was actually born in April! (My birthday month! Just a coincidence. Celebrating Easter and Christmas together would be a lot, I suppose.) And it does seem like we need to celebrate this time of year, to ward off SAD (as we call it now), to practice kindness (always in short supply but especially needed this time of year), and to try to find joy in the things we can.

Speaking of which, I have a few things to celebrate in this post!

Full Cover Reveal of Flare, Corona! Hot Pink!

I’m proud to reveal the full cover design of Flare, Corona, which should be coming out in just a few months! Look at that back cover, with the hot pinks and the fractal neurons! I love it. And I’m really loving my blurbs and blurb-ers. It seems things are moving fast already in the book direction—people are already writing about dates for readings! Eek! How is my calendar going to be full through May! Starting at AWP, this is the most social events I will have had in over three years! I hope I remember how to dress, socialize, speak correctly, and navigate crowds with my cane!

P.S. You can pre-order your own copy of Flare, Corona from BOA Editions here..

Me with Christmas kitten Charlotte

New Kitten!

You didn’t think I would forget this part of our year-end celebrating, did you? We are welcoming home Charlotte (her mother was named Jane Austen—this name is from Charlotte Bronte, as well as Elizabeth’s best friend in Pride and Prejudice and also my dear Aunt Charlotte who passed away a few years ago, who was a very fancy (and kind) lady. Charlotte is a little too small to breed so she joins our latest in a series of very cute ragdoll cats who were in some way not exactly perfect in the cat/human eye, perhaps, but perfect for us. (Remember Sylvia was re-homed for behavioral problems, such as fighting with dogs and breaking plates? We had no dogs and no plates in kitten-reach, so easy choice.) I love animals and, in my opinion, the more the better. Did you know I studied Zoology at the Cincinnati Zoo, thinking that might be a good career for me? Then I found out they made $26,000 a year, and a female zoo worker at the Cincinnati Zoo had her arm bitten off by a polar bear. So that’s why I don’t work with red pandas and otters for a living. What do you think? It could have been a better career for me! Anyway, we are celebrating our holiday with our new baby, and so far she’s gotten along okay with Sylvia, so now we have a pair of literary kittens again!

Another photo by Anastasiya, this time with a new year symbol: baby fox!

Planning for 2023

So, what are you throwing out from 2022 and embracing for 2023? Personally, I am hoping for better health, more energy, more friends, and less fear, less insecurity, and maybe some other good things too, specifically around the new book. Hey, I can dream!

Have you started making plans yet, as I find myself doing? Can I book a birthday party/book launch the same day? How many readings can I realistically do in a three-month period? Am I looking forward to seeing other writers again but also am nervous?

As I look back on the past year, at first I felt as if I didn’t get as much accomplished as I wanted to—as I could say of all the pandemic years—and was weighted down with too many doctor’s appointments and not enough fun stuff. But productivity is only one way—and a narrow one—to measure a year. I made new friends at a beautiful new farm in Woodinville – where I spent a lot of time wondering through lavender fields – and started a book club at a winery—where I hope to make more local friends. I got to go to La Conner for the Tulip Festival AND the Poetry Festival, and caught up with old friends, and did my first live reading at Hugo House since the pandemic with wonderful poets. I did podcasts for Writer’s Digest and Rattle. And of course, I worked this year with BOA Editions for the first time, on copyedits, covers, blurbs, and putting together all kinds of information. So in some ways I accomplished important things. So I guess I’m hoping for more time in flower fields, more time with friends, and more time away from doctor’s offices.

Wishing you a Happy Holiday, whatever tradition you celebrate, and a Merry Christmas to those who celebrate what turns out to be a pretty strangely ancient tradition. And if you don’t stop by the blog next week, have a happy and healthy New Year!

Holiday Happenings and Lights, New Book (and New Kitten), and the Big 50 on the Horizon…

Glenn and I with Carillon Point Holiday tree

Holiday Happenings and Lights

Still struggling to get out of the hole the MS mini-flare of last week put me in, but starting to feel more normal and ready to catch up on all the things I’m behind on (Manuscript reading? Holiday cards? AWP outline I’m supposed to turn in early January? Book promotion? Probably other things I’ve forgotten?)

This week, I got out a little bit to enjoy a little bit of holiday spirit, like these pictures on a rare sunny day in Kirkland, WA, where we got to watch the sunset. I’m missing my family, but I’ve gotten good phone visits in. I’m hoping to see some friends before the end of the year and do some holiday celebrating. I even got a nice poetry acceptance—possibly the last of the year.

Which leads me to the new things that are ahead….

New Book, New Kitten, and the Big 5-0 on the Horizon

See this post from BOA on Instagram? A reminder my new book, Flare, Corona is going to launch in just a few months! So, excitement is on the horizon, along with Seattle’s AWP, where I’ll be doing readings, signings, and two panels—hopefully not too much! But I am so looking forward to hanging out with writers again. I miss them! I am a social animal that’s been in isolation way too long. And speaking of animals…

Another new thing to look forward to? We’ve decided to adopt a new kitten. Since Shakespeare’s death, my husband and my other cat Sylvia have been a little mopey, and maybe me too. So we are going to introduce a new member to the family. I haven’t met her yet but I’m looking forward to it. Would you like a sneak peek? I won’t name her until I meet her, because personality always plays a part, you know? She’s supposed to come home with us Christmas Eve. Here she is:

New kitten

And, I have to admit, turning 50 at the end of April is weighing on me a bit too. Do I look old? Do I feel old? 50 seems like such a significant number, but my mother got her PhD after 50, and my middle brother got married for the first time after 50, so maybe it really is just the beginning of new things. I get the midlife crisis thing though; I have the urge to change things—move to Paris, become a blonde, or through caution to the wind and have a big party. (I probably will have a birthday party! Hopefully the triple-demic will be over by end of April…)

It’s Solstice season, and I’m thinking harder about my life, what I want to keep and what I want to let go, about my relationships too, with my family, with Glenn, with my friends, what I want n my life as a writer, how I can help my health, both mental and physical…envisioning what’s been problematic in the last few years (besides the pandemic), and how to envision a better, more satisfying life. I had a dream in which Santa (yep, that Santa) told me “You always plan for the worst. Why not plan for the best?” And for a minute, this familiar positivity mantra made sense to this admitted skeptic. I’m hoping that the year ahead will have positive things in it to surprise me, rather than negative things, but I have to admit it’s hard to be optimistic right now, especially after the last couple of weeks which have been pretty challenging physically and emotionally. I’m even trying to write different poetry, in a new voice, with a new energy than I’ve been working with the last few years. Wishing you as happy and bright a Solstice and Holiday season as possible.

AI Self-Portraits and When Robots Take Creative Jobs; When Things Aren’t Merry and Bright at the Holidays: MS Flares and More

AI Self-Portraits and Are the Robots Taking Creative Jobs?

Sure, they say robots are taking all the good jobs. I know I don’t want them taking over poetry. Now there are programs that take pictures of you and turn them into surreal portraiture, often with elements of the bizarre and disturbing. I still recommend buying your art from humans. But this was a fun way to spend an hour or two while I was sick in bed this week…Me as warrior elf, cosmic self, anime self, and flower fairy. I’ve only ever had one artist attempt to do a portrait of me, and it was better than the AI. I also worry about feeding your face to some nameless AI program, and now the TSA wants face scans too? In most of the AI pics, they seem to get my ethnicity wrong (can you guess how?), and I end up pretty unrecognizable—just like my fingerprints (which the TSA couldn’t read despite repeat tries when I got my TSA Precheck in a moment of optimism some years ago.) Maybe I am actually an AI-thwarting ghost. Anyway, an interesting experiment, and as someone who’s been talking to AI programs since she was a kid (hi, ELIZA!) I’m interested in how they’re getting smarter, and also not any smarter. (Still: #payrealhumanartistsfortheirwork)

Downy woodpecker in cherry

When Things Aren’t Merry and Bright at the Holidays

Hello my friends! Usually, we sing and talk about an idealized holiday season, but it’s not always great, especially not the last few years. I know lots of friends struggling with families full of flu, another round of covid, relatives in the hospital, or dealing with seasonal depression and anxiety. It’s been colder than usual here and wet so it hasn’t seemed bright in the Northwest at all. No full moons, no stars, not even driving around to see the lights, as is our usual custom this time of year.

As for me, I’ve been struck with the first bad MS flare I’ve had in a long time. I’ve barely been able to get out of bed, slammed with fatigue, vertigo when I try to move, nausea, and nerve pain. I had to cancel everything this week (and this weekend) and just stay in bed (doctor’s literal orders). I’ve been prescribed meds, and now just have to wait for the spinning, weakness and fatigue to subside. There’s really nothing else you can do. I know a lot of people are in the same situation as me, feeling frustrated than things aren’t as merry and bright as we think they should be.

I’d been planning to get Christmas cards written, gifts bought, manuscripts read (for the manuscript contest I’m reading for this year), and trying to get an AWP panel outline ready. Unfortunately, none of those things happened. Writing and submitting? No. And sometimes, you have to let that be okay.

I have friends who are struggling, and I struggle to give them the encouragement and cheer they need. Charities need more money as layoffs proliferate in our area. If you believe in the original Christmas story, it was really about two poor kids who couldn’t find food and shelter during a winter in a strange town, a baby born among people who didn’t care enough to make sure he was born safely, who had nothing. It’s a reminder to take care of each other in a world than can seem cruel, cold, and uncaring, especially to the unhomed, the unwealthy, the unpowerful.

So if your holiday isn’t going exactly as you planned, you’re not alone. Be kind to yourself. Not everything is within our control, and the holidays can bring up extra family stress and expectations that can’t possibly be met. Do the things that feel important to you, like watching your favorite holiday movies (whether that’s the extended Lord of the Rings series or Shop Around the Corner or the Holiday), maybe eating the way you want for a change, and cancelling the things that aren’t really actually necessary. “Christmas magic” often falls disproportionately on women’s – often mothers’ – shoulders. But maybe it’s okay to have a little less magic, and a little more mental health.

Sometimes family can have unrealistic expectations for those of us with disabilities and chronic illness. We’re not able to fly out across country during a plague or visit when others are sick. When siblings/parents/extended family/friends ask why we didn’t make the trip, they don’t really care to know the answer, or the difficulties of living with food allergies, disabilities AND a crap immune system (insert your own things here). You should not accept any guilt trips of this kind, especially when you’re struggling just to stay alive and awake, barely able to do the bare minimum of showering, eating, or even reading a book. That’s the privilege of ableism; people who don’t have these problems don’t have to think about them, and definitely don’t think about how other people with these problems have to navigate a world that’s not built for wheelchairs, chronic illness, or the burden of ten doctors’ appointments a week. Stress can and does make people with immune system problems sick; the best thing you can do for yourself is not let yourself get stressed out about the expectations of others. (And if you’re lucky enough to be abled? Please don’t hassle people who aren’t, especially this time of year.)

This season, a season we do try to celebrate in the darkest coldest part of the year, is also a season we need to survive the best we can. And cut others a break as well—they could probably use it and some extra kindness too.  So, maybe this isn’t yet the best year for a big family reunion or extra big party with friends, with so many hospitals overtaxed with the pandemic, a terrible flu year, and worse RSV than usual too. Maybe it’s okay to be quiet this time of year, to sleep an extra amount, to take the time you need to heal and recover from whatever it is you have to real and recover from. Like I said, it’s been a tough few years, and though I’m optimistic things will get better, no scientist or specialist has been able to give me a timetable for when exactly that will be. As an SNL skit said last night, “Covid never left, and also it’s back?”

I just want to send those of you struggling a hug of understanding and support. I’m a type-A control freak who wants to overperform but whose body sometimes throws a few curves in the way of plans. But you know what? Sometimes we have to let go and be okay with not being okay. And those of you having a great time? Just remember that those around might need a little extra love. Wishing you a happy holiday season (but it’s also okay if you’re not.)