Triumphant Return

After a long chain of side-quests, hiatus is tentatively over.
Over the last few months, my life has resembled a redneck soap opera. I did NOT suffer writer's block for my blog or my WIP Don't Fireball the Neighbors. (My muse has had the equivalent of Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings.) Time to write, however, was another matter.

When most people say, "I didn't have time to write," they mean that they didn't manage their time and played video games or binged a new show. Unfortunately, the latest Zelda game didn't cause my hiatus.

My medical history is complicated. When the weather changes, the joints in my fingers and wrists feel ten years older than the rest of me. 

If I'm too sore for video games, I'm too sore to type. (Typing is actually more challenging because there aren't pretty sounds and lights to distract you from the 'ouch' every fourth time you hit a key.)

Now, a hard-core writer would switch to voice dictation software. I, however, have a strong "Okie" accent. I once asked Siri, "What does the fox say?" Siri got onto me for swearing. If I want working software, free-ware isn't going to cut it.

Speaking of money, did you know that the keyboard in most laptops is not replaceable? If, let's say, a coffee shorts it out, techs can't even get to the sensors to clean it. A Bluetooth keyboard is a cheap, portable stopgap. However, if you forget either the keyboard, dongle, or spare battery, you better hope tablet mode works.

Hiatus started because I had sore hands and a half-dead computer. It ran long because I also had a large medical bill.

With my overly complicated medical history, I was technically due for a colonoscopy in 2020. I said, "Ha Ha, no, there's a plague going on." 2021 rolled around. I clenched my teeth and spread open my bank account. Recovery from the procedure was easy. Recovering my savings, not as easy.

Like most aspiring writers, I have a 'day job.' House and pet sitting is not glamorous or stable work. However, when you have a complicated medical situation, a salaried position can be impossible to find and hold. (I've been turned down from volunteer positions - so much for padding my resume.)

I jumped into the summer rush feet first. I barely remember being home in June. No, I'm not gonna post the details of those jobs online. My clients have a right to privacy. If they skip on the bills, though, they become fair game.

However, I will say this. People hire pet-sitters when they have special needs animals. Like with babysitting, you're lucky to get a few hours to yourself every day. Unlike babysitting, there's no diaper to catch things.

Finally, in July, I bought a new laptop. My old one had continued to die and was literally bolted together. (Screen hinges are another non-replaceable feature.) My internet still sucks, but I can now type. The hiatus is tentatively over.

Tentatively, because Mom just sold the house. Let's hope my new compression gloves keep my fingers in typing shape during the move.

Do Centaurs Wear Mittens?

 

Despite my best efforts, "Don't Fireball the Neighbors" wasn't edited by March. The reason was a late Oklahoma winter storm. I dealt with frozen pipes, a cracked drain, a broken heater, and multiple injured family members. I burned the candle at both ends.

My brain, however, doesn't come with an off-switch. The bitter cold jarred loose a thought.

Do centaurs wear mittens? This question became yet another exercise in overthinking. 

You see, most fantasy worlds do not have functional climates. Take the centaur's origin tales, Greek and Roman myths. The typical weather is pastoral, perfect for partying in the vineyards with no shirt. Bad weather means some monster or deity is having a tantrum.

My world, working name Mundus, however, is a bit more complex. It has a cycle of seasons, and I actually have the landmasses mapped out by distance to the equator. Weather and climate are dynamic, global forces. (The infamous 'Always winter, never Christmas curse of the White Witch gets a lot scarier when you study environmental engineering. That lady packed some serious power.)

Mundus has weather. Mundus has centaurs. How do centaurs deal with the cold?

To make a sensible answer, I looked into what humans and horses need for winter weather.

Horses have a much easier time than humans. Hard protected hooves versus easily frost-nipped toes. A coat of winter hair. Most importantly, their highly adapted metabolism.

In Oklahoma, the wind chill is more dangerous than our dusting of snow; It steals your body heat. Horses have an advantage. They are walking furnaces. With enough food and a windbreak, horses can keep their body temperature in a safe range. No blankets, no fireplace.

On the flip side, humans don't deal with cold well. Fingers, toes, ears will quickly become numb as blood pulls away to protect the torso. What little body hair we have is for pulling sweat away from the body. Our metabolisms work well at helping us stalk animals until they collapse from exhaustion. Great at shedding heat, not so much at keeping it.

Humans need wind cover, more calories, insulation plus water-proofing, and an external heat source if we want to keep our thumbs. Frost-bite and following gangrene can happen in clear day conditions. We make clothes and build fires.

So what does this mean for a being that's half-horse half-human? It's all comes down to which metabolism they have. The more horse-like means hotter body temperature but higher caloric intake. More human-like means heavy layers, light a fire and stay indoors.

However, there's more to consider than just body temperature.

One of the lesser-known risks of an Oklahoma winter is 'windburn.' It's technically a form of sunburn. However, the cold air tricks you into missing the warning signs. This risk of this burn is greater around snow and ice because of the reflected sunlight.

Covering up in winter gives multiple types of protection. Walking around 'topless' isn't a smart move. Centaurs may not need a fleece parka and a horsy-coat, but a lovely poncho would keep the human-half snug. 

There is also the problem of skin' sticking.' The expansion of "Never lick a lamppost in winter" is don't grab a pump handle if your hands are damp. Sweat or melted snow will let that metal sap the heat from your skin and tack it in place with ice crystals. You jerk back in pain and leave a layer of yourself behind.

Centaurs have fingers. Centaurs are tool users. They'll need working hands. That means mittens.

I shared this thought process with Kid Bro, and we wondered if in "The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe," there was a tent filling with mittens and hats as the Aslan's army stopped needing them. Then I turned my eye onto J.K. Rowling's centaurs.

Hogwarts is in Scotland. That place is cold and damp. The reader never 'sees' the centaurs for more than a few hundred words as they are highly isolationist and self-contained. Naturally, my next thought was.

"Harry Potter centaurs making mittens."

It took a bit of explaining. However, Kid Bro and I both had a good chuckle about the xeno-phobic soothsayers working with yarn. That led to another question, which I haven't yet answered,

Crochet, knitting, or nalbinding?

Imprinting on Dragons

 

Image by AlviaAlcedo
DeviantArt 2021

They say 'write about your passions.' So, it should be no shock that I write about dragons.

Like many things in life, you can blame my dad. He wasn't a sporty father. His talents lay in bedtime stories, giving each character an expressive voice. Dad was also a die-hard Tolkien fanatic. 

Several weeks into The Hobbit, I meet Smaug. Dad's voice went low and gravely, smirking as the dragon tried to catch Bilbo with his magic eye and voice. I'd meet dragons before, but none this terrifying or enchanting. Smaug was evil. He had that deliberate wrongness that comes from hurting others for the fun of it. He had power and reveled in using it.

Sadly, Smaug only got two, maybe three nights of reading. The Hobbit soon became our most requested read-aloud. However, Middle-Earth wasn't the only nightly destination.

I watched in awe as poor Eustace became a dragon from sleeping on dragon gold, thinking dragon thoughts.

I giggled as the clever Farmer Giles fast talked the dragon into carrying his baggage.

I found book after book of folktales, watching heroes trick, fight, and tame forces of nature.

I decided, with all the surety of a child, the best sort of stories had dragons. Fantasy became my go-to genre.

Unfortunately for Smaug, he quickly found himself sharing the spotlight. He was still 'The Scariest Dragon' in my mind. However, I found room for more than one type of dragon.

Pete's Magic Dragon introduced me to Elliot, who because 'The Surprising Dragon.' He was shy, a bit naïve - I nearly hyperventilated laughing when he mistakenly drank liquor and belched a fireball. However, when his friend Pete is in danger, there's no doubt Elliot is a fire-breathing, building-smashing dragon.

Coming from Patrica C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles, Kazul quietly took her place as the 'The Best Fanged Friend.” I envied Princess Cimorene. Move-in with a dragon, study Latin, sort treasures, and tell pushy boys to shove off.

Finally, there was Draco, voiced by Sean Connery. Dragonheart was one of the first PG-13 movies I was allowed to watch. The ending broke my heart and firmly titled Draco as 'The Heroic Dragon.'

All these stories distilled into one idea - dragons can be anything. Villains, heroes, friends, pranksters. Of course, when I went to write my own stories, my overthinking took it a step farther. Dragons can be anything.

In Mundus, dragons don't have a single body type or attitude. Celebramar walks like a quaruped, and also had a massive set of wings. Mentality, he is a young adult who just moved out from his parent's nest – self-confident, branching out, enjoying life.

Madam Vircroc, on the other hand, comes off as a mature, professional business lady. She walks on her back legs like a raptor, can't fly, but has an impressive vertical jump and a venomous bite.

(Also in my notes, is an Asian “Lung” Princess, who may or may not come 'a courting' in a later story.)

All this diversity makes writing an interesting exercise in world-building. How does dragon culture work? How you make a written language when half your population lacks thumbs? What about raising a family? If the mother breathes fire and the father spits hail, what will their offspring do?

A wiser author might prune back the details (or try to stop overthinking everything). Unfortunately, imprinting on dragons means I have several of their habits. When it comes to shiny trinkets or ideas, I can't make myself let go. 

 In the end, I just adopted the attitude that if a bumblebee can bend aerodynamics' known laws, Mundus dragons will gleefully twist the laws of genetics into Non-Euclidean shapes.

Why do I write about dragons?

Dragons can be anything; that gives me the freedom to tell whatever kind of story I want.

Survived 2020

Warning: Real Life Issues with No Magical Fix

This blog isn't gonna be a witty one. It's not about dragons or RP gaming antics. This is the highlight reel from 2020.

So... why am I posting this? To inspire my readers? To tug your heart with yet another round of Hallmark channel 'pity porn.' (In that most infamous year of the twenty-first century, a disabled adult grapples with the question of mortality and overcomes depression with the power of family.)

Hah, hah, nope. I'm writing this for myself - to vent. Last year mauled me mentally and emotionally. 

However, the first step of proper wound care is being honest about damage.

All Aboard the Trauma Train

2020 wasn't the worst year of my life. Despite plague, political unrest, and continual panic attack triggers, it didn't shatter my world. My secret? I come pre-traumatized due to my overly-complicated backstory. I've had practice with surviving.

None of that changes the fact that 2020 was a horrible ordeal. Dismissing the pain because 'I've had worse' is NOT healthily coping. It devalues the sorrow and struggles.

Spoiler: None of the Main Characters Died...

My sister caught the plague, developed post-COVID syndrome, and lost her job. Her life is definitely shattered. There's even been talk of her and the husband moving into the spare bedroom.

This was a BIG DEAL. People have died from this. My sister was the 'healthily' one in our family. She's now frailer than me. I had to go without seeing her for four months, and we're still hyper-vigilant about flu and weaker viruses.

Yet, all I can think is “Thank God she's still's here.”

You know who else is at risk from the plague? Elderly people, like say... my last surviving grandparent.

I was, and still am, keeping a close eye on my Gran. She's developed short-term memory loss and mobility issues. Yet somehow, she managed to avoid the plague. We celebrated her eighty-sixth birthday with carry-out pizza.

Gran was not a major source of stress last year. Watching my Mom and Aunt trying to plan out all the logistics of caring for her during outbreak and lock-down? It's been like living in a Redneck Soap Opera.

...except the dog didn't make it, and the cat, and then dog again T-T

If you read my earlier posts, you should know that my thirtieth birthday featured a kitty euthanasia. What I left out was that it was the second pet death that year. My beloved poodle Blackberrie had died earlier in June.

That was rough. I'm still unpacking my grief bit by painful bit. It hasn't helped that 2020 had one final kick-to-the-fork. I found my other dog Gavin dead in the yard on the 28^th.

(I don't know if/when I'll get another dog. My sister and Gran's housing situation is too unstable. Being an adult isn't easy sometimes, and I still have a cat or two.)

Yet More Stressors

Lock-down was rough - not just because we have crappy internet. Our household's income went down by about twenty-five percent. We went to the food pantry. We turned down the heater. Christmas and birthdays were a bit leaner (but no less thoughtful).

Mercifully, we never lost power, water or went without prescription medications. Between a debt-free lifestyle and disability income, we made it. However, things like book launches, replacing the laundry machine, and medical follow-up just have to wait.

Money doesn't make the world go 'round. But things definitely squeak and rasp without it.

The Year Has Gone. Observe its Path

My personal journals tell a tale of stress and uncertainty. However, the fact there is a record at all is a good thing. When I am truly and deeply hurt, words leave me. I think in raw feelings, living on pure routine and reflex.

In 2020, I was safe enough to write out my thoughts. I was safe enough to heal and rest instead of pushing onward for the sake of survival. I was safe enough to scream, “It hurts!”

2020 left deep scars. Just hanging up a new calendar won't magically make the hurt stop.

However, it's 2021, and battered isn't broken. I'm still alive.