I got a new, amazing job (more on that later), I got into a little fender bender that is taking a ton of time to remedy (stupid old ladies driving too-big SUVs and stupid insurance companies), and I have had some personal-life storminess (more on that way later, after things calm down).
But--and here is where I think you will forgive my absence a bit--I've been writing. And writing. And to the phase in my writing where I have to stop writing for a moment and be read.
Which scares the shit out of me. So I am going to go ahead and take the plunge by offering this piece for you to (hopefully) enjoy.
As a little background: Two Novembers ago, I participated in my first NaNoWriMo in which I produced 50,000 words that could be only charitably described as a hot mess. I titled it Trapped in the Badlands and Other Natural Disasters.
The title is the only thing about that "novel" that hasn't changed. It has evolved into a collection of linked short stories, where each story can both stand alone and enhance the over-arching narrative. Those very embryonic stories are what I took with me to the writing retreat in Ireland this last March. And it was there that they started to bloom.
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| The Hag of Beara |
The Anam Cara retreat focused on writing women as heroes and the mythology that surrounds female warriors and deities. And that was what Badlands was missing. A warrior.
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| Brigid, Irish goddess of fire, poetry, arts, and crafts |
Wildfire
