A Lovely Thing

I had a lovely thing happen today that’s just got me floating a bit. We’ll set aside the fact that the amazing people who work in my local medical lab thing (as I say, the vampire’s office) see me so often they know me by name and like me enough to support me. Today, my favorite of the women who work there (because she’s the only one who can get all my blood without having to stick me 8 to 10 times) asked me a question about one of my books. A really good question at that.

Generally speaking, I don’t really run into people who have read my books that didn’t buy it directly from me at any number of my local events and I don’t think anyone has ever really asked me where a particular element came from. I love questions like that and I thought maybe someone else might be interested in the response also.

The question was about Hunter’s Crossing – where did the gray road come from?

To my knowledge, there isn’t such an artifact in the real world mythology but the basis of it is sort of there, in a way. The foundation of it comes from Greek mythology. The River Styx forms the boundary between Earth and the Underworld. It seems to me, if there was a third plane, the Otherworld, a similar boundary would exist and thus, the Gray Road was born. It is not a place without cost or without danger. Because it was an artificial boundary, designed when magic stepped away from the regular world, it had to have rules. Because it was designed to keep the planes separate and humans are insatiably curious, it had to be hidden. It is a dead space between worlds but the things that lived there when it was created were accidentally granted immortality in the process. Being a dead space, there is no color, time is a bit weird, and death is ever-present. Not the sort of place where you want to vacation but an important place in the story (and later stories too).

Hunter’s Crossing can be found on Amazon, your local bookseller, or direct from the publisher.

Hunter’s Crossing by Sarah Wagner from Boroughs Publishing Group

End of Year Wrap Up

So, 2020 is just about done. I don’t much feel like celebrating, more like watching it leave from between my fingers, just in case it has something else up it’s sleeve. I’m pretty sure none of my goals for this year managed to get accomplished but that doesn’t mean this was a year without accomplishments. I did sort of start a business, after all. And I took a number of classes related to that. And I’m looking at more of them. Learning is fun!

I’m keeping my outlook lifted for 2021. There’s no sense in approaching a brand new year with doom and gloom. I might be being a little more cautious though. Would I like to get to do craft fairs and events again? Yes, yes I would but I’m also immunocompromised so I have to be cautious.

I had a couple of acceptances this year – though one project fell apart and I haven’t heard back on another one – I do have a serial coming… aliens and terraforming, a little bit of intrigue, and the opportunity to use a little bit of all the weird geological information that lives in my head.

I didn’t manage to win NaNoWriMo this year – there were too many things going on and nothing was cooperating. I’ll get back to the story though – it’s got some great potential. I am still working on my hedgewitch story’s rewrite. I am still working on finding the other books a good home. I did rerelease Guardian of the Gods and Hardwired Humanity so that they’re available again – HH has some new stories in it too.

Overall – instead of 2020 being a doing year, it was a learning year. In some ways, I learned more than I ever wanted to about humans and just how many out there lack empathy, common sense, and any sense of responsibility. I also learned that, while I am pretty much made for isolation as long as I have the internet, most people aren’t. I’ve always been a bit of an odd duck though. My house was very fortunate this year – there weren’t many upsets and only a few close calls. I know how lucky we are – so many others lost so much.

I am hoping to do more things outside my house in 2021 and I’m cautiously optimistic. I’m hoping to add new lines to my business (including perfumes!). I’m hoping to get another book written and one or two books sold to publishers. I’m hoping to see my youngest go back to in person school as we’ve done virtual this year. I’m not doing word count goals, weight goals, health goals or any of that. I don’t do resolutions. This year, I’m just going to hope I find new and interesting stories to tell, things to make, and things to learn.

I went in to 2020 with big plans. I’m going in to 2021 with big hope. Fortunately, hope isn’t something anyone can put in lockdown. So long as we can all just wear our masks and get our vaccines when we can and are advised to, we can move forward. I don’t think normal is a thing to aspire to at this point, we’ve all seen how broken normal is now.

I hope you have a bright, happy, and hopeful 2021 too.

Four Minutes at Every Day Fiction

New story published – it’s a bit outside my usual work as it isn’t genre but I like to stretch my wings sometimes.

Read it here: Every Day Fiction

A Little September Surprise

Gilded Scars cover

You might remember a short time back when I attended the Beaver County Bookfest. I noticed something over the course of that day, if I’d had a more literary book or a collection of my poetry, I’d have sold a number of copies of it. I did sell nearly all the poetry samplers I’d printed out. I happen to have a great deal of poetry both published and unpublished just sitting around on my hard drive. It doesn’t do me much good there.

If you’ve followed my blog long, you’ll notice I’m pretty open about my mental health struggles with anxiety and depression. I’m definitely open with my issues with grief and loss and my take on the joys and heartbreaks of parenthood. I don’t write much here about my husband but I’ve won a few contests over the years with poems he inspired. Poetry is my way of making my view of the world make more sense. Perhaps not all of my poems are true in the strictest sense but they are in the broader sense, as poems should be. What I’m getting at is that I did a thing. I’m giving KDP a try so I do have something a little less supernatural for people who love supporting authors but aren’t big genre fans. If this one goes well, I may do the same with my horror and fantasy poetry also as I also have a lot of that sitting around doing nothing.

Technically, my surprise has been live for a few days but I wasn’t going to shout it from the rooftops until I got a chance to see it first hand, in my hands.

Gilded Scars: Finding the Beauty in the Broken is a collection of poetry (and a few very short prose pieces) about learning to deal with, even appreciate, the scars that make us who were are, that serve as shining badges of strength and resilience. Especially those scars that are not on the surface. If you want to order but would really rather order a signed copy, follow my author page on Facebook and message me to let me know and we’ll work something out.

Christmas in Bear Ridge – Release Day!

Christmas in Bear Ridge by Sarah Wagner from Boroughs Publishing Group

It’s release day for Christmas in Bear Ridge – a little myth and a little magic, just in time for Christmas!

From the back cover:

Sometimes it takes a little magic, and a Christmas wish, to see beyond tomorrow, but it takes love to see forever.

SOMETIMES…

Bear Ridge is the cutest little town that no one can remember. It gathers magic like faerie dust to a wand, especially at Christmas. Toni Bell hasn’t believed in magic since her parents died. She’s been on her own for more than a decade, driving from town to town, job to job, gig to gig, living out of her truck turned tiny home, making a point to never get attached. She’s on her way to the West Coast for New Year’s Eve, and plans to be on the road for Christmas, hoping to avoid the heartache being reminded of how alone she is brings. But a wrong turn, a loose dog, and a bollard pole change her world.

IT TAKES A LITTLE MAGIC

Stuck in Bear Ridge until her truck can be fixed, Toni decides to make the best of it only to discover everything she’s ever wanted, and never dared to wish for, were all within her grasp. Nicodemus Panait makes her want to believe in magic, miracles, and Christmas, but she’s afraid that all he offers will prove too good to be true. Nico knows what his forever looks like, but he has only until Christmas to make Toni see it too. Fortunately, he has fate and love on his side.

You can get it a number of places:

Direct from Boroughs, from Amazon, on Smashwords. Barnes and Noble links take a few days longer for some reason but it’ll be there soon enough!

Big Week Ahead

I’ve got a big week coming up – Christmas in Bear Ridge is coming out (I’m SO excited about this book), I’m almost done with my making things for this year – all but the food, most of which has to be done closer to last minute anyhow, and this week marks my first plus one. It’s a little weird, it’s a little morbid, and I know this but I can’t actually help the counting of it. I’ve been counting down for more than 20 years. On the 13th, I’ll be one day older than my mom ever got to be. I’ve got nearly 30 years to go before I get my second plus one – dad was 68.

I think the approaching marked day may have factored into the upcoming book too – there’s a lot about grief in Bear Ridge. Don’t worry – it’s still very much a Christmas story but for me, Christmas has always come with more than a heavy dose of nostalgia. Most of my favorite parts of Christmas come from my own childhood and my mom – chocolate oranges, Dolly Parton & Kenny Rogers, butter rum coffee, and making things for the people who matter most. Hopefully, I’ve managed to pass on at least a few of those to my kids. I couldn’t have written a holiday story without touches of my parents – they’re there in the little things: the music, the food, the reluctance to believe in magic even when irrefutable evidence is right in your face, the ability to believe in magic despite all logic and reason.

I can’t get through this time of year without thinking about all the things my mom never got to do, never got to see, or how proud my dad would be, watching my oldest kid playing the villain in the school play and getting his first college acceptances or seeing my youngest get that hard fought for A in English this year or trying a freaking taquito (which sounds like a little thing but in our house it is HUGE – new food, new textures, and new flavors). Certain songs will come on and I’ll think of them, certain movies do the same. It’s never the same songs or movies – they were very rarely together in my life – but all the memories bring on the warm and fuzzies. Other times of the year, it feels more sad and sorrowful but this time of year, thinking about them makes me feel something else. I might cry a little and I probably look sad but it isn’t sad, it’s a warmer feeling than that, a less bleak or alone feeling. I might get a little taste of gray when the neverwills pop up and remind me that they are both gone now, but mostly, it’s just like wearing his jacket or her perfume: a little hug from the past that brings a smile rather than a sob.

This book may have done more for me in the writing of it than I knew when I was writing it. The thing about grief that no one tells you is that sometimes, even years later, you’ll find yourself going through most, if not all, of the stages again like it’s a new pain and not an old, scarred over book of memories.

Old Christmas Stories

I am a sucker for a fairytale. I always have been, I always will be. They’re kissing cousins to mythology so it really shouldn’t surprise anyone that I adore that sort of thing. As you may know (because I keep mentioning it), I have a Christmas story of my own coming out this year, Christmas In Bear Ridge.

In honor of its impending release, I would like to share one of my favorite Christmas stories. Honestly, it should be my least favorite story about this time of year. It has all the things I’m not fond of: house cleaning, cobwebs, and most especially spiders. I am not a fan of spiders. Why they keep coming up in my stories and being interesting, I have yet to understand. They just keep showing up – like my inventer/genius Spider in the first story in Hardwired Humanity or the Tinsel Spider that comes up a few times in Christmas in Bear Ridge or the too-big-for-my-comfort fuzzy black spider that lived in a hole in the support beam in my basement for months and who chased me up the stairs more than once. At least it’s not like the crows who show up in my real life everywhere – at least the spiders mostly stay in stories. There are at least two versions of this tale but I’m going with the first one I was exposed to and fell in love with. The other version is also adorable but contains far too little Santa Claus for me.

A long long time ago in a little house in a very large forest somewhere in Germany, there lived a family who didn’t have a great deal of anything but love and that which they tended or fabricated with their own hands. One Christmas eve, while her husband and young children were out searching for the perfect Christmas tree, the young wife and mother worked very hard to make her home shine in preparation for the coming holiday. As she swept and scrubbed, all the little house spiders fled into the attic to safety. One tiny spider peeked out from a tiny space between boards and watched as the family decorated their perfect tree. She thought it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen and it was made all that much more amazing when she heard the father tell the story of Santa Claus.

After everyone had finally gone to bed, the little spider dropped from her hiding place to see the tree. It was beautiful but not quite perfect. With great care, the little spider crafted threads of silk to drape along the branches. She wanted to thank the little family for bringing such joy to her first Christmas. She had just finished her present when Santa Claus arrived. Santa saw all the lovely weaving the little spider had done for the family and complimented the spider on her mastery but Santa was a wise man who knew that what he saw as beautiful would upset the young wife and mother who worked so hard to make her home beautiful. With a nod to the spider, he touched a thread of silk and turned it silver.

In the morning, the tree sparkled and glittered in the morning light, bringing great joy and prosperity to the family.

And that is the beginning of tinsel. And is also why there are tiny spider ornaments in some parts of the world. I’m giving away a couple of Tinsel Spiders this year that I had a crafty lady make for me – one through the Rafflecopter Winter Wonderland of Reading giveaway and the other two at very random times (when I decide the terms of the contests) between now and Christmas.

 

Inspiration from Life

The Scout (with bonus Joe McBride)

Every now and again, I’ll put something in a story that comes from things in my own life. I made an Instagram post about it yesterday but I had more to say than a little dinky paragraph. In my upcoming book, Christmas in Bear Ridge, Toni Bell drives an International Harvester, mostly because her favorite childhood memories all surround that truck with its camper top. My parents didn’t have an International Harvester but they did have an International Scout that they loved. I have zero recollection of that car but I heard a lot about it over the years and my dad always said if they’d had the Harvester (especially with the camper), it would still be in the family.

Sometimes we have things we can’t let go of because of the people we associate with those things. It’s especially hard when we lose those people. I have a lot of those things, especially things that belonged to my parents.

Sometimes, we have to go tripping down memory lane into the past before we can confidently move forward into the future. Christmas in Bear Ridge touches a little on it with Toni but it is sort of that for me too. Not in the story of it of course, but the book itself. This book is the first book in a long time that my dad didn’t take a look at first or even talk through it. For me, the process of writing the book was my memory lane but now I know I can still write a book without him pestering me for the next chapter or making sure I’ve plugged up any little holes in my plots. This book will always hold a special place in my heart because of it. There are a lot of tiny things in the background of the story that are nods to my parents that no one but me will ever notice but I know they’re there and that’s all that matters.

Christmas in Bear Ridge!

Christmas in Bear Ridge by Sarah Wagner from Boroughs Publishing Group

SOMETIMES…

Bear Ridge is the cutest little town that no one can remember. It gathers magic like faerie dust to a wand, especially at Christmas. Toni Bell hasn’t believed in magic since her parents died. She’s been on her own for more than a decade, driving from town to town, job to job, gig to gig, living out of her truck turned tiny home, making a point to never get attached. She’s on her way to the West Coast for New Year’s Eve, and plans to be on the road for Christmas, hoping to avoid the heartache being reminded of how alone she is brings. But a wrong turn, a loose dog, and a bollard pole change her world.

IT TAKES A LITTLE MAGIC

Stuck in Bear Ridge until her truck can be fixed, Toni decides to make the best of it only to discover everything she’s ever wanted, and never dared to wish for, were all within her grasp. Nicodemus Panait makes her want to believe in magic, miracles, and Christmas, but she’s afraid that all he offers will prove too good to be true. Nico knows what his forever looks like, but he has only until Christmas to make Toni see it too. Fortunately, he has fate and love on his side.

 

Christmas in Bear Ridge is coming very soon – just in time for an early Christmas present! I’m going to be doing a couple of giveaways and such soon too so, stay tuned!

Good things, Better Things

This past week has been pretty interesting and even mostly good. A couple weeks ago I pitched a story for a project that got accepted, written, revised, tweaked, submitted, accepted, and paid pro-rates all in the span of three weeks. Sure it was super short but I had a really great time with it (and I’ll be sharing it all over the place when release comes lemme tell you). I pitched a few things for some freelance type projects and ghostwriting things but I’m not so sure about those yet. I got a release date for Christmas in Bear Ridge (December 4th people – remember it well, I’ll be doing something special that day!). And yesterday, I was able to run around all over the strip district and nearly keep up with everyone. I’m paying for it today a bit but it was mostly worth it, all the way up until the last fifteen minutes anyway.

I’m a little worried about next month. It turns out edits will be happening in November but it doesn’t mean that I’m giving up on NaNoWrimo, it just means that I’ll have a lot fewer days to do it in or that I’ll have to steal an hour from edits every day anyway. I made a post the other day about NaNo and how it really is possible, even if you have a full-time job, kids, and responsibilities. Guess it’s time to put up or shut up. I sort of want to do something completely different this year but I’m not sure exactly what I want to do yet. I have far fewer days to figure it out than I would like!

I made a sale over at the etsy shop and there’s a little part of me that was sort of sad to see it go, even if I did make one for myself too. I’m definitely going to be doing one crafty fair in December hopefully with copies of Bear Ridge to celebrate with but I know it’s pushing the timeline kind of close so we’ll see on that one.

Basically, I’ve had a really good week. I don’t know why it’s so much easier to focus on the awful ones or why they seem to count more. I know I’ve got good things going on but sometimes it’s really hard to focus on that when I’m obsessing over the latest rejections or inactivity or weigh in. I’ll figure it out someday. In the meantime, I’m going to try a little harder to remember how much farther up the goal staircase I am now than I was ten years ago.