Archive for the ‘Writing’ Category
Got Past My Wedding Anniversary…Still Alive
Folks, I know that’s an odd title. But if you’ve read my blog for a while, you know that it’s incredibly difficult for me to handle each year’s observance of my wedding to Michael (to/with/for, however you want to say it). Every anniversary is another year without him. Every anniversary points out that I’m older than he was when he died, and that just seems wrong.
This year, I felt I should stay quiet until it was over. I felt raw inside. (I didn’t stay quiet with my good female friends and I did tell two male friends also. But I said nothing to my family, nothing openly, not here at my blog nor on X/Twitter, nor on my Facebook page.) I didn’t want to have to discuss anything until I got past this anniversary.
Now I’m past it (by about eight days). I’m still alive. Michael’s birthday (not that he’d have celebrated it) comes up later this month. My own birthday, which in some ways is very hard to celebrate (see above), is in August.
I’m doing what I can to look forward. I’ve restarted my version of Peter Welmsley’s novel. I’ll take some of what Michael had, surely, but a lot of it I’m writing on my own. My Peter has a different name, a different place of origin (though Michael really didn’t say in any of his stories, I’ve decided Peter was brought up on Lemuria and that his parents were ambassadors from Heligoland, which was the “first landing place” that started the Atlantean Union after the diaspora from Earth), is going to have a different love interest (some of the same characteristics, mind you, but not all), and the ship he’s on is going to do different things. I’ve made a point of space pirates being a problem in the stories I’ve written and/or thought of since Michael’s untimely death, and it seems to me to make sense to write about that.
Michael’s premise, mind you, in all of his SFnal stories was to show the quiet heroes and heroines who do the needful, without fanfare, without expecting anything except to live their lives and go after it again the next day. Peter W. is still a quiet hero, and he doesn’t really see himself heroically at all (if you’ve read “To Survive the Maelstrom,” you know that, and you know why). He’s not particularly comfortable with being alive when his best male friend and his fiancee are dead, and while his love interest (the one I’m writing) makes some sense for him, it’s not going to be an easy courtship. (Then again, the best things in life take a Hell of a lot of work.)
So, I’ve restarted work on that. I’m also 53,000 words into the “secret” project, which is in a fantasy setting (I can say that much). Plus, my co-written story with Gail Sanders, “Into the Night,” is available in the Tales of the E-4 Mafia anthology from Henchman Press. (It’s available in paperback now, too. Check it out!)
It’s good to be active as a writer, even if my progress is a ton slower than I’d prefer. I feel better when I write. I also believe more firmly in myself when I’m creative, as I’ve suffered a few blows in the past few years that were hard to get past. (Dad’s death last year is just the start of it, I’m afraid.)
Of course, I’m editing as well. Nothing new about that. I do my best to help my clients, as always, in every way I can.
My view of life is pretty simple, in short. Anything worth doing is worth doing well. But if you aren’t able to do it well, but can still do it, you can keep going and keep doing it. You can fix whatever isn’t right once you have your story on the page; you can learn more about the manuscripts you edit every day you have them, if you’re pondering this, that, or the other from a developmental standpoint. (Do I worry about grammatical things sometimes? Sure. But I worry most about the flow of the story and whether or not it makes sense. Great grammar won’t work if there’s no characterization, no definable plot, or no real reason to be reading along, in my not-so-humble opinion.)
So. I’m alive. Doing my best. Some days are better than others. Some are worse. But I’m doing my level best, and that’s going to have to be enough.
How are you all doing? Tell me in the comments…providing I’m not just shouting into the void again (and hoping it will shout back).
Paying Tribute to Willie Mays (dead at 93) #mlb #heroes #SFGiants
Tonight, baseball legend Willie Mays, who played most his career with first the New York Giants, then the San Francisco Giants after they moved coasts, has died at age 93.
Mays was a true original and one of the greatest men to ever play any variety of major league baseball. (I don’t know if everyone knows this, but many of the Negro Leagues now have major league status. It’s long overdue.) He played in the Negro Leagues for a little while, then played for the Giants for the vast majority of his career. Despite needing to take a few years out for military service in the United States Army, Mays amassed an impressive career.
Mays had 660 home runs, 3293 hits, a .301 batting average, 1909 runs batted in, 339 stolen bases, and 2068 runs scored. (Stats were pulled up via baseball-reference.com.) He also was a tremendously gifted center fielder, partly because he had such speed and partly because he had a very strong arm, winning twelve Gold Gloves for his defensive excellence.
The Encyclopedia Brittanica has a few pages about Willie Mays, saying that many people recognize Mays as the greatest all-around player in the history of Major League Baseball. The Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY, also has a page recognizing the greatness of Mays’s career. Mays was also given the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015 for his contributions to the United States as a whole and major league baseball in particular.
So, many people knew him and many people admired him. For example, my late husband Michael told me he’d met Mays, along with several other Giants greats over the years, because the Giants were one of the first teams to be known for their philanthropic efforts. Mays was a “special ambassador” for the Giants from 1986 to his death, and was well known in San Francisco due to his sunny and exuberant personality as well as his various duties with the Giants over the years, and I assume that’s how and why Michael would’ve met Mays. (He also met Barry Bonds, and said Bonds was far more gracious in person than Bonds had ever been given credit for. YMMV, of course.)
I never met Willie Mays, but I admired him. He was a brilliant player, a kind-hearted man by all accounts, loved baseball, and loved his life. He gave of his time often, especially if it would help children in any way, with much of that philanthropy being done quietly and with no fanfare. Mays was one of the first African-American superstar players to enter MLB after the pioneering efforts of Jackie Robinson (NL and MLB-wide) and Larry Doby (AL), and he always conducted himself with grace and class.
In short, Willie Mays was my type of guy. I mourn his death but am grateful for his well-lived life and for everything he accomplished in baseball.
Father’s Day Blues
Folks, this will be the first Father’s Day without my father. I am not looking forward to this whatsoever.
Granted, I’m fortunate that my father lived as long as he did. There were things he didn’t get to see, that he wanted to see again, such as watching the Milwaukee Brewers make it back to the World Series (they’ve only been there once), and eventually winning a WS. I know he wanted to see at least one of my books succeed and thrive, too…
The thing is, he did get to see a lot of excellent things. He got to see both of the Milwaukee Bucks championships on TV. (He liked watching better on TV. When he went to the arena, he didn’t enjoy it as much.) He got to see Brett Favre and the Packers win a Super Bowl, then a few years later Aaron Rodgers and the Packers win another Super Bowl. He got to see a lot of good college basketball, a lot of good WNBA basketball (Dad loved the WNBA; he thought they played better as a team than most NBA clubs), and he enjoyed watching Brewers games on Sundays (when Telemundo has a free broadcast providing it’s a home game) while listening every other day on the Brewers Radio Network.
He also got to see me at my best, worst, and everything in between. (I would dare to say that my sibs probably feel the same way.) Just as I saw him (and so did my sibs) in the same ways.
I also know that as long as I live, some of him remains in this world. (Same for my sibs.)
It’s not the same, though. And as it’s the first Father’s Day observance without him, I definitely am feeling the worse for wear.
Those of you whose fathers are alive, please hug them and make much of them. Life is so damned short. You don’t know how much time you two may have left to be together, so don’t waste whatever is left.
Also, play a game of cribbage, smear, or, I suppose, Scrabble in my father’s honor. (Those were his three favorite games.) If your father likes ’em, too, give yourself double bonus points.
Think you know Peter Welmsley? Think again…#milSF rules! Time for a #MFRWHooks Bloghop!
Folks, it’s been a while since I participated in the Marketing for Romance Writers BookHooks Bloghop. The main reasons for not doing so have been due to family illnesses, not to mention my father’s passing last year. But as I have a new story out, co-written with Gail Sanders as I’ve said before, in the Tales of the E4 Mafia military SF anthology, it seems prudent to actually write a blog post and take part this time.
Mind you, I have tried to help the other members of Marketing for Romance Writers (MFRW.org) whenever possible. Because I know how good this (absolutely free) organization is, and how helpful it is for writers, I wanted to make sure my fellow writers in the Tales of the E4 Mafia anthology knew about it.
So, before I get into my bit about Peter Welmsley (introduced in my and my late husband Michael B. Caffrey’s novella “To Survive the Maelstrom,” available on Kindle Unlimited), I wanted to say this about Marketing for Romance Writers: It’s for all writers. You do not, absolutely do not, need to have romance in your stories to be part of this wonderful group. All you have to do is decide you want to be part of it, and join. (There is an Io Group and a Facebook Group. You can be part of either or both, as I understand it. For whatever it’s worth, I am.)
So, let’s get to the #BookHooks part forthwith, shall we?
As I said, #milSF rules. It’s fun both to write and to read, and because Michael left behind the huge, sprawling Atlantean Union universe for me to play around in, I have been able to write some stories that Michael never conceived of (or at best, never got a chance to write for himself).
For example, I have been working on a novella about Ryann Creston, the XO of the HMS Wendigo, presumed dead like so many others due to a violent attack by pirates. Peter, who is a Sergeant-Major by that time (highest-ranking enlisted Marine on the Wendigo), must take command of the ship and fly it out of there, saving whoever is left from the pirates. He nearly loses his life, and does lose the love of his life, Lydia, one of the ship’s nurses. But the more I write about the young Ryann Creston (she’s fourteen in my work-in-progress novella), the more I realize she must’ve found a way to get to an escape pod. She just hasn’t found a way to report in yet, that’s all. (This doesn’t at all mean she’s not injured. But dead? Not likely, not from this young lady.)
Anyway, Ryann will have her day, and soon…but right now I want to talk more about Master Sergeant Peter Welmsley, on TDY to the HMS Hyperion, helping another Master Sergeant keep the young Marines busy as the Naval contingent charts stellar nebulae. Note that Peter is younger in this story; he hasn’t yet met, much less lost, Lydia; he is far more relaxed, far less haunted, and altogether was just a joy to write about.
He’s not the main character in “Into the Night.” The main character is a guy named Marcus MacGruder. He’s a member of the E4 Mafia…at least, he’s a member in training, as he’s a Lance Corporal. And he knows a guy who knows another guy…that resourcefulness, not to mention willingness to help troubled shipmates (or at least one troubled shipmate, only partly because he desperately wants to date her), is why Peter picked Marcus to take part in an important mission that’s not as it seems…
So, “Into the Night” starts with a legal inquiry. MacGruder was found in an area of an orbital habitat he shouldn’t have been, all because he was trying to find a guy Peter wanted him to find. For three days, he and his legal counsel have been doing their best to bamboozle everyone as to what he’d been doing there; all he’ll say is he’d wanted to find a nice, clean sex worker, as they’d spent eighteen months on the rim charting nebulae and he needed some sexual relief.
(If you’ve ever known young military members, male or female, you will understand this right off, even though as far as I know, none have been out doing what these folks were doing on the Hyperion…yet.)
So, why did Peter want MacGruder to find this man? What purpose did it serve? Who is this other guy, and why does he matter…and also, who’s the shipmate in serious trouble and how can this mysterious other guy help her?
…have I hooked you yet? (I sincerely hope so!)
And mine is just one of eleven different stories in the Tales from the E4 Mafia anthology. Think about it. There are eleven stories, all about various aspects of the (possibly mythical) brotherhood of E4s everywhere called the E4 Mafia.
Before I go, I want to say two more things. First, here’s another Tweet from my writer and friend Kayelle Allen that you can use if you wish to talk about the Tales from the E4 Mafia antho (and do, do talk about it! Tell everyone you know. Please?):
Mastered a niche and adopted the best wisdom out there: Work smarter, not harder. If you need to bend a few rules? Well, that’s just effective leadership 😏🚀 #SciFi #MilSF #Military
Second, please check out the other authors taking part in this blog hop. There are all sorts of different writers doing different, valuable things out there, and the best way to check out these writers is to go to this page.
So, let’s get to getting, or at least get to hopping!
#Updated# There’s a New Peter Welmsley Story…in a New #MilSF Anthology from Henchman Press
Folks, I should’ve been able to find some time to blog about this last week, when the anthology Tales of the E4 Mafia came out, but I was hip-deep in an edit and the bit I was able to carve out for writing I used on the “super-secret” project.
#Update: Here’s a banner for you that my friend Kayelle Allen, herself a proud U.S. Navy veteran, made for the new anthology. Use it widely, not to mention wisely…
Anyway, I am very proud to let you know that I have a new story, featuring Peter Welmsley as a secondary character, in the above anthology. The story’s called “Into the Night,” and was co-written by my good friend Gail Sanders. Gail is a Specialist in the Army Reserves, and as every story in the Tales of the E4 Mafia anthology must feature someone of that rank, Gail had the verisimilitude I needed, along with the experience, to fully flesh out this story.
In other words, her help was invaluable.
Anyway, for those of you who’ve wanted another story with Peter Welmsley, here is just a bit of that story in the hopes it’ll whet your interest:
“Please state your name, rank, and ship for the court record,” requested the JAG officer.
“Peter Thomas Zachariah Welmsley, Master Sargeant, of the HMS Wendigo, seconded to the HMS Hyperion for the duration of this crisis,” he said. “And by that, I don’t mean this inquiry.”
The room erupted in laughter yet again. The judge, looking most put upon, banged her large gavel again. “Order must be maintained,” she said, “even though I agree with Master Sergeant Welmsley’s sentiments.”
“And what is your role on the HMS Hyperion? How long have you been there?” Ryder asked.
“I’ve been with the Hyperion now for the last nine months, as Wendigo needed significant repairs after the last fight with the Bryan pirates. I’ve been told it will be at least six more months before the Wendigo will be fully repaired, and I can go back to my regular ship.” His face, usually merry, scowled.
So, do you want to know more? Such as, what is Peter doing there? Who is he helping? (I’ll give you a small hint; he is helping a Lance Corporal, AKA someone of the E4 rank.)
I can tell you that this is a younger version of Peter Welmsley, perhaps as much as fifteen years younger than the man we meet in the short novella “To Survive the Maelstrom.” I enjoyed seeing Peter in slightly less emotionally fraught days, and hope there will be many more stories ahead as time goes on.
Anyway, this is the first story I’ve written with someone else in my late husband Michael B. Caffrey’s Atlantean Union Universe, and I’m quite proud of it. I think Michael would like it. I also think he’d enjoy the humor of it, and of the anthology overall (as most of these stories are funny).
Mind you, it does feel weird to write in Michael’s universe with him being dead. But that hasn’t stopped me before, and I don’t think it’s going to stop me now either. (Picture me emphatically nodding, here.)
So, do go check out the story, will you? I hope you will enjoy it in the spirit intended, and the rest of the E4 Mafia anthology as well.
#Update: Kayelle also sent along some sample Tweets, and my favorite was this one:
Think you know the military? Think again. 11 E-4 Mafia stories mix sci-fi, humor, and mischief for a reading adventure that’ll keep you on your toes 🤖📚 #SciFi #MilSF #Military #PlotTwist
So, now you’ve got some help if you can’t think up a good Tweet. (And I’ll admit it; I couldn’t think up something this good, much less this pithy. But Kayelle could and I appreciate it.)
How Do We Go On?
Some days are better than others. Some nights, too.
Last night, I had one of the worst nights in recent memory. It seemed like everything was in an uproar — my physical pain was high, my grief level for my father (and, of course, for my husband) was very high, and I was yet again at the same point I often am: Is this all there is? Is there nothing more?
Not to mention the biggest question I ponder daily: Am I doing any good in this world at all?
I believe the unexamined life is not worth living. But my quest to find meaning and purpose in what I do, lately, has been ground down by life circumstances beyond my control. If I had the financial wherewithal, I might consider a vacation…just to get away, to clear my head, to give myself some chance to rest and recover.
But I don’t have the means.
So, I’m trying to give myself a break in other ways. I don’t know yet if what I’m doing is viable, even in the short term. But listening to more music, reading more for pleasure (even if it’s just a frothy romance, if it makes me smile or laugh, it’s worth whatever price I’ve had to pay to get it), and doing what I can to help others (or at least not to hinder them) has to at some point make a difference even if I can’t see it.
I was reminded a few days ago of something that happened when I was in my teens. I was in religious education — CCD class, as I was raised Catholic — and I was a bit older than most of the other students as I wanted to ponder for a few years whether or not to get officially confirmed in the religion. (This was a big deal at the time.) My parents were not happy together, and were on the road to divorce; worse, I felt like I never fit in, and my skills in music, writing, and teaching did not seem like they would ever lead me in a prosperous direction. (I guess prosperous is a matter of opinion.) I often felt like giving up, yet I couldn’t do that. I wouldn’t. But as the chaos around me continued to grow, my personal belief in myself faltered.
Then we had an exercise in CCD class. We had to pick names out of a hat, keep them secret, and write something positive to them for a few days to a few weeks. We could do anything we liked, so long as it was positive.
I can’t remember what I wrote to my correspondent that I’d picked out of a hat. I do remember what the young woman wrote to me, who’d picked my name out of a hat. She sent me pictures of rainbows, poems (not romantic ones, though I wouldn’t have known the difference back then!), and quotes of stuff I’d said when trying to be encouraging that had inspired her. I had no idea that anyone saw me that way, especially as I didn’t see myself that way whatsoever.
When the day came where our correspondent had to come up and introduce themselves, I still remember the young woman coming to me. She was fifteen, I think; I was seventeen. I’m going to call her “Alice,” here…anyway, Alice came up to me, and said she’d always appreciated me. She knew my situation was difficult. (I don’t know how, because while I did discuss some things, I was still deep in the “I don’t know what to say or how to say it” phase of adolescence; sometimes I wonder if I ever got out of that phase, in fact, but I digress.) She wanted me to know that at least one person saw me not only as worthy, but as inspirational…and she reminded me that God (as Catholics believe in a male deity, though some priests including writer and priest Andrew M. Greeley, believe in the Holy Spirit as Sophia, Goddess of Wisdom) loved us all.
I have never forgotten what she said, what she did, or the various ways in which she did it. I also remember how floored I was that she saw me that way.
So, when I think about having a rough night, or two, or twenty, I do my best to remember Alice and what she told me.
I do believe the spirit is eternal, I do believe the Goddess loves us all, and I also believe that we’re here for a reason even if we don’t know what that reason is.
I’ve struggled a lot in recent years with many things. But I’m not yet willing to give up on myself or my talents, no matter how difficult it may seem to use them.
Please wish me well as I continue on this quest to find a meaning, a purpose, a goal, or a decision that matters…not just to me, but to those I care about as well.
Easter Blessings…
Folks, it’s Easter. I usually try to write something, anything about the huge observance of Jesus Christ’s resurrection and assumption into Heaven as it’s one of the most interesting stories ever told.
I mean, really. Think about it. The Deity sent Jesus, the Deity’s child, to save the world. Jesus’s path was not easy. He was betrayed by one of his best friends and apostles, Judas. His death was treated as a type of spectator sport, and he died in agony. He really didn’t know why the Deity had seemingly forsaken him, and he had no idea of what his destiny truly was.
Why was this? I think it’s because life ground Jesus down somewhat. Jesus came into this world knowing he was special. His parents traveled to save his life, and his titular father, Joseph, was not Jesus’s actual father. Mary, Jesus’s mother, had been impregnated by the Deity, and was still virginal; she married Joseph, who by accounts was a kindly older man, to have some protection and some status while she carried the son of God/Deity.
So, you are told your whole life that you’re special. There were Wise Men who blessed your birth and gave your parents unusual and very expensive gifts. (Think about how difficult it was to get or pay for stuff like frankincense and myrrh back then. I don’t think it was something that just grew and could be harvested anywhere.) Your parents had more children, yet Joseph knew you were no part of him genetically…he was more like a foster Dad, or a Stepdad, and all of Joseph and Mary’s other children were Jesus’s half-sibs. Then he was trained by various scholars and legalists, something his half-sibs did not get and probably did not want. His rise was seen as almost assured.
Then, Jesus took up carpentry. This probably wasn’t what anyone had expected of him. He was not a rabbi at that point. He was instead a hard-working man, but at most he was probably lower-middle class as we see it today. He worked hard, he probably drank with his buddies, he may well have looked at women (he always liked women and did not look down on anyone who did what she did to survive, including prostitutes), and lived as close to a normal life as was possible.
Then Jesus was reminded of his special nature, and started to walk among people as a prophet of sorts. He gathered allies, many of whom were men; they gave up all their worldly possessions to follow him and help others.
Think about this for a moment. Our analogue for this would be something like hippies. Well-meaning, granola-crunching hippies. They wanted to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, treat the sick and comfort the elderly. Rabbis already did some of these things, but they weren’t doing enough and Jesus and his followers knew it.
Consider that, the next time you wonder why people didn’t listen to Jesus from the first.
Following what Jesus taught is not easy. Writer G.K. Chesterton once said something along the lines of “Christianity is the best religion that’s never been tried,” and there’s a lot of truth in that. Most of us are going to fall short in our observance of helping to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, treat the sick and comfort the elderly. The modern world — no matter what age we’re in — makes it tougher to have deep and meaningful relationships with people, and without such relationships, we as human beings tend to founder.
Anyway, it is Easter. If you are alive to read this, you are blessed.
If you want to help someone today, I think Jesus would like that. I also think that if it’s possible, you should pray for the Palestinians starving in Gaza, pray for the Ukrainians as they continue to fight a huge war against Mother Russia and Vladimir Putin, and do what you can to help those in your communities live better, healthier, and happier lives.
At bare minimum, though, remember this: Jesus said to love one another as he loved us.
This world needs a lot more of such selfless love, so try to give some today.
This Just In: Studebaker’s Gas Station Is a Wonderful Place…
Folks, in July of 2022, I wrote a blog called “A Requiem for Willkomm’s Mobil” about how my favorite place in Racine County, the Willkomm’s drive-thru gas station on Washington Avenue in Racine had closed. I was very frustrated, because I’d written to the owner and told him exactly what I thought: that the Willkomm’s had friendly people who remembered what I ordered and would go the extra mile, and who never treated me — a disabled woman — as anything other than a good human being.
Well, I have news.
In late January of this year — 2024 — I found out that Studebaker’s Mobil was coming to North Green Bay Road in Racine. This turned out to be true, and it’s been open since that time. The actual address is 1215 North Green Bay Road, Racine, WI, 53406. Studebaker’s is run by the same people who ran my favorite Willkomm’s, and it also features a drive-thru where it’s possible to get anything you’d normally find in a gas station through that same drive-thru.
I vowed to patronize it just as soon as I could. This wasn’t easy, as at the time there were some members of my family who were not feeling well. I was doing what I could to help in that regard, even though most of what I could do were small things…nevertheless, once they got better, I did indeed go to Studebaker’s.
I loved it.
The same people work there who worked at the Willkomm’s, along with a few new people I don’t know. They’re all friendly, knowledgeable (one of the clerks, Nick, remembered that I always liked a large diet Pepsi fountain drink, and brought me one right away the first time it was available; yes, I paid for it, but I didn’t ask for it), and very good people. There’s a large variety of soft drinks, liquor of most sorts (including some craft beer selections; I got one called “Dragon Milk” for my good friend Lika and her family as a late birthday present, and she said she enjoyed it), various types of foodstuffs like milk, bread, Snickers bars (I do love those, probably more than I should!), and much more.
I enjoy Studebaker’s gas station very much. (If they had a website up, I’d link to it, but they don’t as of yet.) As I said, they are extremely good people, friendly, knowledgeable, will remember you and will do their utmost to serve and help you in whatever ways they possibly can.
I’m very glad to let the readers of my blog know about Studebaker’s, even though I know most of my long-term readers don’t live in Wisconsin at all, much less Racine. But if you do ever come here, I hope that Studebaker’s will still be open so you can get a taste of what Wisconsin hospitality is all about.
Edited to add: Studebaker’s, like my old favorite Wilkomm store that closed in June of 2022, is the only drive-thru of its type in all of Racine County. It is an especially fine place to go if you are disabled because you do not have to get out of the car. (They will even pump your gas for you. How cool is that?)
Barb Caffrey's Blog 