An excerpt from The Kringle Conspiracy

This is an excerpt from The Kringle Conspiracy, debuting on Kindle November 1st:

*****

Santa Claus sat at the back of the café, drinking what appeared to be a large latte. Intrigued and amused, Marcia Wendt stepped into the coffee shop. Yes, she noted, that is indeed a Santa, and he is indeed drinking a large latte. The whimsy of the moment reminded her of why she chose to spend the last of her four-month sabbatical in the Denver metropolitan area.

As she glanced around, Marcia realized that the café served a dual purpose. An admixture of dusty tomes, glossy language and travel guides, and garishly lettered graphic novels jockeyed with each other for space on rustic pine planks. Coffee mugs hung from hooks over the squat, modern espresso machine, while footed glasses filled shelves behind the counter. Stairs led up the back of the café, presumably to bigger rooms and more books. The tables displayed an eclectic collection of clienteles – two young women smartly dressed in skirts and designer boots chatted with each other over steaming mugs, and a slight young man in faded brown flannel gazed out the window past her. And, of course, there was Santa Claus.

Marcia stepped into line behind a teen sporting a bleached-blond mohawk with burgundy tips. He looked rather like an exotic parrot to Marcia. The woman behind the counter, pleasantly plump with black curly hair and granny glasses, said in an unmistakably Brooklynese accent, “What’ll ya have?”

Marcia, pleased by the further absurdity of a Brooklyn accent in Denver, stifled a giggle. “Double cappuccino, skim milk, decaf espresso, for here.”

“Ok, a double-nothin’ for here,” the woman yelled to a buzzed-bald, gangly youngster with nerd glasses whose t-shirt proclaimed him a barista. She turned back to Marcia and smirked, “So, why bother if there’s no caffeine and no fat?”

“Because I’m over forty, I’ve had too much coffee already today, and I’ve got a great imagination – I can imagine that it’s the real thing,” Marcia mourned.

“Well, can’t argue with that,” Ms. Brooklyn nodded as she handed Marcia the double-nothing, topped with a cloud of whipped cream. “While you’re at it, pretend there’s no calories in the whipped cream, ok?”

Marcia snorted. “Gotcha. Actually, I figure I can live a little dangerously.” She fumbled in her pockets for a five, grabbed the “double-nothing” and the change, and strode right to Santa’s table, daring herself to trust. “May I sit here?” Santa’s snowy beard and eyebrows were definitely the real thing, she noted with approval.

“Be my guest,” Santa said in a low, but pleasant voice. Out of the corner of her eye, Marcia saw the man in flannel glance up briefly, then quickly bury himself back in his book.

“So, what brings Santa to a coffeehouse?”

“Well, I’m afraid it’s really prosaic. We had a meet-and-greet for some kids here that ended a half-hour ago. Not quite Thanksgiving yet, but the holiday calls get earlier and earlier every year, and Book Nook’s no exception.” Despite the “prosaic” mission, this Santa, whose snowy beard was real and whose blue eyes twinkled behind silver half-glasses, met with Marcia’s approval. He could have been the jolly old man himself.

“You’re surprisingly chipper for a Santa,” she ventured. “Or is it too early to get burnout?”

“Santa burnout?” Santa was taken aback, his eyebrows raised. “Never heard of that before. Those must not be real Santas you’re seeing, then.”

At this, the flannel man in the corner gave the Santa his own pointed, raised-eyebrow look, one that could have said, “You’re laying it on awful thick, aren’t you?” Santa merely grinned and winked back. Marcia caught the whole exchange and committed it to memory for the great story it would later make for her students.

“But the secret to being a Santa is …”

“What?” Marcia asked, breathlessly, after the pause stretched far into dramatic effect territory. She had fallen into a sort of hypnosis, she thought, but felt too comfortable to break free.

“The secret to being a Santa is to listen with a loving and non-judgmental heart.”

“Wow,” Marcia sighed after a long moment of thought.

The Santa took a sip of his nearly forgotten latte. “So, do you want to ask Santa for something for Christmas?”

It was a pure, simple question. How could she answer such a question?

“With the truth,” a small voice inside her responded. Marcia took a deep breath, and spoke. “I want the right man to come into my life.”

The Santa did not laugh. Instead, he leaned forward, patted her hand, and said softly, “A worthy wish. But I want you to do something for me.”

“What?”

“You must trust. Simply that.”

“Thank you.” Marcia stood up, bent forward, and threw her arms around the old man’s neck in a hug, then kissed his cheek. Smiling through sudden tears, she grabbed her coat and hastily left the shop, her “double-nothing” forgotten.

A few minutes later, she heard her inner dialogue chiding her for trusting a stranger.

Acedia

Staring at the blank page, wondering what I’m going to write …

I’ve felt a lot like that the past couple of days. Very undermotivated, at a time where I should be accomplishing a lot. I’m getting all the necessities done, but writing (and even promoting) seems to be slogging down in a morass of procrastination. I’m having trouble focusing on anything.

What I’ve read on the Internet suggests that this is a result of COVID and its resulting isolation. Acedia, according to one article, refers to this strange combination of lethargy and uneasiness.

My plans for Christmas and New Years are canceled, so I have nothing to look forward to except more isolation at home. The dread of being surrounded by an uptick in cases in the community takes hold. The days become a dreary routine: Work, home.

I need to find a way around this — more cafe time (the cafe is generally not crowded so I feel safe there), a change of scenery in the house, engineering something to look forward to.

I can’t make COVID go away, but I must be able to do something about these blues.

Stressful Times

These are stressful times.

The presidential election is looming, and there’s so much at stake. I do not exaggerate when I say I don’t know if our democracy can stand four more years of Trump. There’s been reported efforts of Russian interference through stirring up tensions and voter suppression in red states, and I fear that Trump will steal this election.

COVID cases are on an uptick again, and some of my fellow faculty members have had COVID in their families. I’m not in close enough contact with people so I haven’t gotten it yet. I worry about getting COVID; I worry more for my husband with Type 2 diabetes. Social distancing is starting to get to me. We have canceled both Thanksgiving and Christmas plans to socially isolate.

This is a time of tension. I need to find refuge. In the fiery leaves of the season. In the rain patter of my words. In the spicy scent of a candle. In the music of my childhood.

Within myself.

This Blog is Again Evolving

I don’t know who reads this blog.

I have an average readership of 27 people a day. Some of you, I know, are regular readers. How do I know this? Because a faithful few from other countries (I hope you’re not bots!) show up on my blog stats — Portugal, Germany, India. Rarely, someone comments on my blog, and that’s always enjoyable.

This blog is evolving. Because I’m personal about my struggles with writing, I have been advised not to advertise this as my professional writing blog anymore. This means that there’s less of an instrumental purpose for this blog, and it has become strictly personal. I suppose it has always been that.

But now I wonder why anyone would want to read it. It is rather personal, if well-written, given my tendency to practice my writing skills while composing it. It makes me feel cozy to write it. But do people want to read it? Moreover, do people who don’t know me want to read it?

I’m going to have to make some hard decisions about this blog. Drop me a line if you have any thoughts about this.

Everyday vs Writerly Stuff

It’s snowing thirty miles north of us.

Yes, it’s only halfway through the month of October, and southern Iowa is getting snow. We’re just getting the greyest skies imaginable, with a bit of fog and a touch of wind. I’m ready for snow — heck, I’m ready for anything with my cup of ginger tea and my cranking weather radio because I’m a Midwesterner.

I want to write about more than the weather, however. Because this blog is often a warm-up for my other writing (such as the novel I’ll be writing for NaNo), I tend to write off the top of my head, which involves:

1) Weather

2) Setting

3) Where my head is at

4) What I’ve been up to

Maybe that’s okay. I’ve put up a writers’ blog where I’m talking about more writerly stuff at lleachie.wixsite.com/laurenleachsteffens . I don’t write as often there because I don’t write writerly things every day. I will be mobilizing that as my writers’ website very soon.

But I should tell you that The Kringle Conspiracy is available for pre-order on Amazon. Type in my full name, and you should be able to find it!

Praying for a Change in Our Government

Less than a month before the US presidential elections, and I am praying.

I am a pretty sanguine person for the most part. I generally don’t threaten to leave the country if my candidate doesn’t win. I believe that the US cycles between Democrat and Republican naturally and that we slowly make progress.

That was, until this last election. I knew Trump was going to be bad by his campaign, which ridiculed, scapegoated, and threatened anyone he didn’t perceive as his base. His strategy worked — although Hillary won the popular vote, Trump won the electoral vote.*

Trump has been worse for the country than even I imagined. Eroding world regard for the US, making policy decisions out of spite or self-interest, the naked and self-aggrandizing emperor parades across the golf course of his reign. He courts the extreme right while denigrating those who have served in the military, and instead of decorum he rants on social media. The stock market explodes in volatility as he makes erratic decisions. His view of the country veers ever closer to fascism, with him as the ruler for life.

I don’t want him to have four more years. I want to see my country recover and prosper. I want the white supremacy to be driven like cockroaches into dark corners where they’ll starve. I want us to become equals to Europe instead of the laughing stock we’ve become.

And so I pray, and I cry for what this country has become.

*For those of you living in true or representative democracies, the electoral vote is an arcane peculiarity of the US. For those of you in the US, the electoral vote is an arcane peculiarity of the US.

Struggling with Time

This morning, I’m listening to Parliament-Funkadelic and drinking my coffee to wake me up. If this doesn’t work, I’m not sure what I’m going to do. The mornings are pretty dark now and getting colder.

I don’t feel like I’m 57 years old until I remember and then count the years from that point: twenty-nine years from the time I got hit by a car; forty years from my first boyfriend; fifteen years from when I got tenure. Fifty-two years from when I got my tonsils out.

I remember fixtures from my life that changed in the technological revolution. I remember my speech teacher recording me with a reel-to-reel tape recorder. I remember my first transistor radio. I remember the portable tape recorder roughly the size of a package of Chips Ahoy. The computer with the grey screen and the green letters, typing in commands at the prompt.

Still, I don’t feel 57. The number seems too high; its proximity to senior-citizenhood too close. I’m not resigned to go quietly into my twilight years. Expect me to make waves. Expect me to write.

Learning to self-promote

I spent yesterday getting my author’s presence on two websites that handle reviews: Goodreads and BookBub. This largely consisted of trying to figure out how to do it, which is not obvious by going to the page.

I’m discovering how much of promoting the book is learned by sitting in author’s groups on Facebook and asking questions. I don’t know what I would have done before Facebook groups. I certainly didn’t know how to find this information and my Google game is excellent.

One thing I’ve observed — I don’t think I need these connections with other professionals until I actually need information. This is a failing of mine, because it assumes that I can’t give back, and eventually I will be able to. But maybe it’s a common failing, especially for an introvert like I’ve become.

And now for a shameless self-promo moment:

This is what my author page looks like. If you want to see it bigger, look here:

Deep October

So, October’s a bit warm right now. We sat on the patio at the local steakhouse for dinner last night and it was only a tiny bit cold in my shirt sleeves. Even when the cold front comes in Thursday, our highs are going to be in the seventies.

Even though the days are gloriously warm even as the leaves turn, I strangely look forward to the snap in the air, the frost, the chill rain under black skies. Especially the rain.

I had a cloak, a heavy and billowy thing of burgundy tweed with a lining of velour. There was nothing better than that for an autumn evening, especially if it was misting. The cloak had a bonnet hood with it to keep off the rain. I still have the cloak, but it desperately needs cleaning from hanging on a basement rack and there’s rips in the lining. And I feel a little self-conscious wearing it now, to be honest. It’s a quite spectacular cloak.

I look forward to the withered grasses, the brown, sere roadsides, the grey skies. I await the chill evenings, the dreary rainstorms, the crisp orange and brown mornings, the touch of frost. Summer has been with us too long.

It’s Monday and I’m trying to stay positive.

It’s Monday, but I have a cup of marvelous, home-roasted and fresh ground coffee. I have at least seven reviewers for my book doing their reviews. I have character sheets (see yesterday’s post) for my two main characters in Kringle in the Dark.

I still don’t want to go to work today. No reason; it’s just Monday, and I’ve had too much time at home (not off; I worked Thursday and Friday and answered emails Saturday and Sunday). Class is going to be relatively simple this week, but still. It’s the idea of going back when I’ve been immersed in a couple relaxing days.

I don’t relax well, but this weekend I relaxed, probably because my brain just shut down and allowed me little more than some light reading. Maybe it will help me think.

I’ll do my work this week, masterminding some strategies for publicizing the novel this week. I want my ads to go outside the writers community (because otherwise it’s like multilevel marketing where we’re all selling to each other). I have problems to solve this week and blurbs to rewrite.

And I won’t complain about Monday.