Author: lleachie

I am an associate professor of human services at a regional Midwestern university. I am also a writer of fantasy and romance, hoping to get traditionally published. I have one husband and am owned by four cats.

Positive today

I find it miraculous at times that I am still writing, that I still consider myself a writer, despite all the rejections and the setbacks. Maybe this has become part of who I am, and getting published will just be, as they say, the whipped cream on top of my mug of hot chocolate.

(Note to readers: Tell me your favorite hot chocolate recipe. I will feature you in a future column.)
It’s Sunday, and I’m going out to write today. I’m finally done with the major revision of Apocalypse and all I need is a pass-through to send to my dev editor. My goal is to try to finish Whose Hearts are Mountains before NaNo time, so I can have fun writing a Santa-filled romance novel (more quirky and meet-cute than Hunky Santa in a G-String, if you know what I mean.)
I have not given up.

Happy National Coffee Day!

I am sitting in my usual table at the Board Game Cafe, drinking my first mug of coffee for the day and writing.

Coffee appears to be the favored drink of writers, and I don’t think it’s just because of the caffeine (although I’ll admit it’s part of the draw). Coffee has romance — whether this is because of the hard-boiled detective detective swilling black-as-sin cups, the dark thick cup of coffee with friends in a Turkish coffeehouse, the Parisian espresso or the cup of joe in a dingy city diner.

Coffee drinkers share an image that suits them well as writers. Coffee drinkers are facing their early mornings and lack of sleep with a bracing beverage that bolsters their courage to face the world. Armed with a computer and a cup of coffee, the writer can slay dragons.

I’ve finished my first cup of coffee. Time to write on my latest work, sitting in the Board Game Cafe on a cloudy, rainy early morning. The street sign reads “N. Main”, and the traffic sign says “Walk”, and at the moment, full of coffee, I think anything’s possible.

Happy Coffee Day!

what I needed to believe

So I thought I was going to quit writing for a little while. Too many rejections. Too much hard work with no payoff. Too much frustration about the process.

But yesterday in class, I was teaching my students a technique of getting clients to set goals. The method uses a simple question: “Tell me what  you want your life to be like five years from now.” I had the students try the question on themselves.

So, naturally, I turned the question on myself. And do you know what?

I still want to become a published author, even though I have been working on that goal for five years and it hasn’t happened yet.

I also finally figured out what I’m writing for NaNo.

A romance novel featuring the Secret Society of Santas. Novel #2 in that series. (Novel 1 needs a dev edit, but it’s somewhere down the line).

I’m not giving up yet.

Warning: Political Post

This is what I learned this week from the Republican Party about sexual assault:

It only counts if you weren’t drunk.
It only counts if you weren’t dressed attractively.
It only counts if you fought back.
It only counts if you reported it right away
It only counts if other men saw it and sided with you.
It only counts if the assailant was not white, powerful, and wealthy.
It only counts if it won’t ruin the man’s career by prosecuting it.

Otherwise, it’s not sexual assault.

****************

Sexual assault is assault. It’s violence. It’s being used to keep women “in their place”. It has to stop.

Old song today

There is music that goes with this:

Turn the corner
to a street beyond a map,
walk much further
till our feet forget the path.
We have walked here,
but only in our dreams;
then we wake up
never knowing what it means

Turn the handle,
slide back the creaking door
as I wonder
if you’ve been here before.
Weathered iron
is rusting in its sleep
as we sit here
in the silence that we keep

In the morning
if the snow has turned to gold
does it matter
in a story never told (2x)

Turn the corner
to a street beyond a map,
walk much further
till our feet forget the path.
We have walked here,
but only in our dreams;
then we wake up
never knowing what it means

In the morning
if the snow has turned to gold
does it matter
in a story never told (4x and fade)

I don’t know what to write!

NaNoWriMo is approaching, (November 1st)  and I don’t know what to write.

I’ve been in editing mode — Apocalypse is a good amount of the way done edit-wise, while I just got handed back my first novel, Gaia’s Hands, from the developmental editor. I have enough editing for the next couple months at least.

But NaNo is about writing, not editing.

I haven’t written new for a while because of my editing needs. Although I haven’t finished Whose Hearts are Mountains, there’s not enough material left to make the 50,000 word total for NaNo.

I need an idea for a new novel by November 1.

I have a couple on the back burner: the sequel to Voyageurs, where our two characters time travel to stop the end of the world due to climate change, but that doesn’t appeal to me. In fact, I feel like I’ve backed myself into a corner writing a book that obviously has a sequel. It’s not just the research I would have to do, but the fact that I don’t know if I have enough plot to support the 80,000 word minimum for whatever genre it is.

The other involves an Archetype war with hideous implications for humans. I am so far away from the Archetype universe right now that I don’t know if I can create this.

I need inspiration — help!

Muse, if you’re out there, inspire me!

Autumn

I woke this morning, and something in the air had changed. For one thing, a chill had appeared and I had clutched extra blankets to myself in the night. The sun shone with a subtle golden aura that presaged what would come — the glorious russets of maple leaves, the burnished brown of oaks, the golden rain of locust trees, the delicate yellow of gingkos.

Autumn will always be my favorite season. The pagans I know believe that it is ruled by Herne, a powerfully built, dark protector of the forest, the Horned God. It’s easy for me to believe, as autumn broods in its mists and rainstorms, in-between its golden sun and clear, cool nights.

Autumn, even in its fiery glory, whispers: This will end soon. This will end in white, and cold, and you will huddle in your homes waiting for the world to renew again, as it has before.