Looking for Joy

How does the time get away?  It was Wednesday when I posted last, and now it's Sunday. I posted about Under the Ember Star being published.  I did some promoting for it on facebook and sent some emails, but not that much.  I haven’t had a lot of energy.  Lana is starting to feel the full effects of the radiation and is not eating well.  Her saliva gland on the tumor side is no longer producing saliva and everything tastes bad to her, and her throat is so dry it often hurts her to swallow.  I think yesterday she ate a bite of scrambled egg, a little rice, and some Italian Ices.  She is drinking a lot of milk, and they gave her some prescriptions to help with the saliva issue.  So far they have not helped much, but maybe it will take time to build.

In other health news, my blood tests came back with my cholesterol at 210 and my triglycerides at 496.  I am now on my second prescription medicine, this one for triglycerides. I was already on high blood pressure medicine.  I knew it was coming but didn’t really want to end up on two. Anyway, pretty minor compared to Lana’s issues.

But enough of the less joyful stuff.  I’m gonna try to find a good book and loose myself in it.  There are worlds of adventure and joy out there, and if I can’t find much inside myself at the moment, maybe I can take some in second hand.  Maybe I’ll read Under the Ember Star again. It’s been a while, and the days when I was writing it were quite full of joy. 

Here’s a little excerpt from the end of chapter 2 and the start of chapter 3, which is called “Smoking Blasters.”  To set the stage, Ginn had a rough night and wakes up to find that a veiled stranger has broken in and wants to talk to her. But there are others looking for the stranger to, and they are ready to kill to get him. Ginn hears a sound in her home that she shouldn’t hear.  And…action:

“Who’d you bring with you right now?” she demanded suddenly.

“No one. I mean, they did not come into town.”

Ginn surged to her feet, the apple dropped and forgotten, the kaftee spilling to the desk. She filled her free hand with her second blaster. Her visitor recoiled, hands going up toward its veiled face.

“Then you were followed,” she snarled.

From below, in the abandoned factory, a door shished open. From the street outside came a sound like a sheet of paper tearing—a pulse weapon powering up.

Ginn hurled herself forward, one arm sweeping her robed companion with her to the floor.

The wall at her back exploded.

Shrapnel sleeted. Echoes hammered.

A burning flake of metal furrowed Ginn’s left shoulder. She heard the sudden grunt of the being beneath her but couldn’t tell if or how bad it had been hurt. Dust and ash roiled and the already dim Kelmerian sun did little to cut it.

Lurching into a crouch, Ginn hacked up some of the swirling grit, tried to draw shallow breathes to keep the rest out of her lungs. The light-lenses provided a quick catalog of what was left of her apartment. It wasn’t pretty. Her roof sagged, smoldering. Half of it was gone. The remaining walls bulged outward. She wasn’t living here anymore.

The floor beneath Ginn creaked, as if about to collapse. Her enemies weren’t waiting on that. From below in the abandoned factory, running footsteps sounded. They’d expect her to try and escape that way—if she lived. But the stairs down would not belong to her anymore. Her options were narrowing.

“Follow or die,” Ginn growled toward her strange visitor.
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