Update and Review

Let me first point you to a review of The Adventures of an Arkansawyer over at Erik's Choice. Erik is a first rate observer of culture. He usually reviews books and movies that have far more literary merit than my own efforts. But I really appreciated his insightful comments on my stuff. Check it out.

As for updates, we got mostly very good news last week concerning Lana's PET Fusion scan. The cyst that she had removed from her ovary did have cancerous elements but it looks like from the scan that removing the cyst got everything and she will not need any chemotherapy. We were both very relieved by that, as you might imagine. They did find in the scan that she has an umbilical hernia, and that will probably need to be dealt with.

Lana also has another rhizotomy scheduled for this Wednesday, on the other side of her back. We're hoping the combination of these two will get her walking and moving well again. We've been able to get out for short walks after her first one but the pain is still pretty bad. Plus, it has been very hot here most days so we walk only early or late. I know we're both hoping for some cooler weather.

Looks like I'm not going to have football to distract me this year. Both my beloved Arkansas Razorbacks, and the New Orleans Saints, have lost two games in a row. Well, there's always next year. In the meantime, I've started replaying Skyrim again for the umpteenth time.

In writing, I'm about three or four chapters away from finishing Gods of Talera. I have not worked much on it for the past few weeks, though. Just trying to keep my head above water at school.

A Louisiana Boat Ride

To revise a line from one of my favorite movies, “Well, Mister, we’ve got something in this country called a Louisiana Boat Ride.”  Sunday morning, June 7, Lana and I left the house around 4:50 AM to go and join Scott Schexnaydre, a local photographer who graciously offered to take us out in his boat. We went out to an area of marsh lands called Lake Boeuf, and had a great time. Scott took us to several rookeries where we saw hundreds of adults and young herons and egrets of various species. There were numerous grackles as well, and these were some of the biggest I’ve ever seen. Many of the dark black males were nearly as large as crows. Lana got a picture of a female grackle with a mouthful of dinner. “Yum! Yum!”

 

Lana also captured an Eagle in flight, and got pictures under a bridge of some baby barn swallows still in the nest. 

At that same bridge, I spotted some Lubber grasshoppers. We watched one of these complete a molt. These are a huge variety of local grasshopper. The babies are young and mostly black with stripes of red. They are found in large numbers together and look almost like crickets. The adults, though, are yellow and black and easily stretch the length of a man’s palm.

 

Most insects, and other normally small critters, grow big in Louisiana, which has close to a tropical environment. As we were going out toward the lake this morning I noted masses of pink slime on many tree trunks and on the reedier grasses. Scott and Lana knew what this was, the eggs of a type of invasive snail species called the Red Apple Snail. Pictures will be forthcoming. I found one emptied snail shell, which was about the size of a golf ball, and later saw a live snail on a tree extruding its eggs. It was much bigger, about the size of a tennis ball. Scott got us close to get pictures, and almost put his hand on a normally unseen denizen of the marsh area, a very large water spider about the size of a baby’s fist.

Nature simply can’t be touched as a provider of beauty and entertainment. (All photos courtesy of Lana Gramlich)

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Skyrim Victory

I’ve posted here before about my favorite video game, which is Skyrim. This is an heroic fantasy game, in which one can play various types of heroes in a fantasy setting full of demi-gods, assassins, wizards and dragons. I’ve chosen to be a Nord warrior, although you can also take the thief’s route, the assassin’s route, or the mage’s route. The Nord are a hardy Northern race akin roughly to Vikings. My character’s name is Ruane.

There is an overall story arch to the game in which the player becomes the Dovakin, meaning kin to dragons. Dragons had disappeared from the land but something is now bringing them back to life, and the Dovakin has to solve that mystery and defeat the enemy causing it. Along the way there are lots of side entanglements, including having to choose between the southern empire (basically Rome) that rules the land or a local uprising that hopes to throw the empire out of Skyrim. You also have to deal with vampires and werewolves along the way, or become one, and explore many caves, grottos, and ruins that contain monsters.

I’ve now solved the major mystery of the game but am still playing some side quests. I really like the exploration part of the game, and there’s a couple of other elements that I like very much that Lana laughs at me about. First, you get to smith up your own weapons and armor from materials you find in your journeys. Then you can add enchantments such as fire or frost resistance, enhanced archery skill, added shock damage etc to the weapons and armor you make.  I’ve had tremendous fun doing this, and have continued it after the main quest is over.

Second, books exist in the Skyrim universe--all kinds of books, such as spell tomes, history texts, explorer’s journals and so on. And you can acquire houses in the game that have bookshelves in them where you can add or take away books. I’ve steadily been acquiring all the books I can find as I’ve gone through the game, and now that the major part is over I’ve started filling my bookshelves. In this aspect the game is much like my real life. And I take joy in it.

I’ll mention one more fun element of the game to end this post. A skill that players develop as they move through the game is the ability to “shout.” Shout is a magical attack and there are shouts that can freeze things, set things on fire, slow down time and many others. My favorite shout is one called “Unrelenting Force,” which hits the enemy with a intense blast of air that can send them flying. Lana also gets a kick out of this shout and has actually put up a video on You Tube of me using this shout on various targets. The music she set it to really makes the vid. If you’d like to check it out, it’s HERE.  (The horse you see in some of the clips is Shadow Mere, a pretty cool companion beast that you can get in the game.)

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2013 is Here

It seems weird in a way that I woke up this morning with such a lift in my mood of late. Rationally, the change to the new year is a completely arbitrary one that has nothing to do with actual reality. Yet, the lift is there, and I know it’s related to leaving 2012 behind and moving into a new year, no matter how arbitrary those designations are.

I’ve noticed in the past that something about the changing year initiates feelings of hope and reignites dreams in me. This year the feelings are even stronger, which is no doubt a tribute to how rough 2012 was. Psychologically, I think all humans need on occasion to experience a sense of rebirth, a sense of cleansing of the past and looking forward to the future. Or maybe it’s just us sinners that feel that way. J

I hope you all have a great year. I hope we have a great one together! The picture was taken by the incomparable Lana Gramlich at the Abita Springs Fireworks display last night. We had fun. 

Happy 2013.

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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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The Toad

I've started a new story. It's called "The Toad." One piece of common writing advice I've generally ignored has been to "write what you know." Certainly, I use my life and experiences as the basis for characters and settings in my tales, but I typically veer far afield after that. Talera, Thanos, Kelmer. These aren't towns I've lived in. "The Toad" is going to be a little different. The story takes place at my house in Abita Springs. It involves myself and Lana. Pretty much everything except the 'toad' itself will be absolutely real. In fact, maybe the 'toad' is real too. I'll have to let you decide. Below is the opening few paragraphs of the story.

By the way, what do you think of the advice to "write what you know?"


THE TOAD

After Hurricane Katrina tore up New Orleans, my wife and I decided to get out of the city and find a place further north without so much noise and so many people. Lana discovered the perfect hermitage for us just outside the small town of Abita Springs, Louisiana. The house sat along a dirt road with pine forests on three sides. Our only neighbor kept entirely to himself, which Lana and I both appreciated.

We had a deck with a tin roof put on the back of the house so we could sit with ease and enjoy a big back yard shaded by oaks and magnolias. Bird feeders brought us cardinals, blue jays, doves, woodpeckers, nuthatches, chickadees, and a brazen little thing we called Wrenny Wrenerson. In season, the yard swarmed with goldfinches and chipping sparrows. Occasionally even a few crows dropped by. In the evening, we threw our table scraps into the backyard for the birds or whatever critters might come. Soon, the local raccoons and possums began nightly visits.

The location was so pleasant, I decided to take off our first summer in the new place and try to write a novel. I’d wanted to for a long time. The deck became my office. A laptop and a cool drink was all I needed. The drone of cicadas and the flash of bird wings kept me company.

It wasn’t until a week had passed that I first saw the toad.
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Gramlich Family Books, and Contest Winners

I am so pleased to announce that my very talented wife, Lana Gramlich, has had a book of her photography published. It’s called Eye Candy Photography: Scenes from the American South. The link is HERE, and you can get a preview of the images if you’d like. I’m happy to say I was present when many of the photos were taken. Most are in the general area around Abita Springs, although there are some from our trip last summer to Mississippi. You’ll see many of the wild critters that live around us here, from gators, to raccoons, to birds of many kinds. And there are some gorgeous pictures of sunsets through the massive old oaks. Treat yourself to some Eye Candy for sure.

And now for the drawing for the Killing Trail launch party. The first name out of the hat, picked by the Lovely Lana, was X-Dell. X will have a choice of whatever one of my books he might be interested in getting. The next name out of the hat was Ron Scheer, who will win a signed and framed copy of the cover photo for the book. I will be in contact with X and Ron shortly. Congrats to the winners. It might be as long as a week before I can get the framed cover done but the book I can send out right away.

Thanks to everyone who visited and commented on the Launch Party blog, and for those who bought Killing Trail. Sales were very good for almost a week, although they seem to be falling off rapidly since the weekend.

By the way, I'm finally updating and organizing all my blog links, so if you'd have a look and see whether I've put you in an appropriate place or not. Let me know if not, and if you are a frequent visitor to this blog but not on the list, let me know. I am trying not to forget anyone.
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