Looking Towards The New Year…..

….and looking back over this year.

All in all, it’s been a good one.  January brought the publication of “A Seasoning of Lust”, my first book.  This was unexpected actually, but I wrote a lot of poetry and some short stories and decided…what the hell.  When is it ever the best time to publish anything?  I guess you do it and hope for the best.  I don’t know about ‘the best’, but I am very grateful to those who have brought this book. I hope it entertains.

I faced a lot of challenges this last year:  health concerns were up there, but finally that seems to be under some control.  A change of doctors and some radical ruptures with old ways of doing things has seemed to help. Early on here, but I am more confident.

I went through a lot of things:  BDSM issues, D/s issues, trying on different things and finding that there was no magic bullet.  Also finding out that some things that ‘looked good’ weren’t.  In fact, some things were straight out poison.  But you have to swallow at times and see what it does to the system.

There were some sharp lessons  this year.  You just have to buck up your courage and pass through the experience and decide that you are going to live through it.  I do think it’s a matter of resolve.  There are some very nasty characters you meet in life and they can overwhelm for a while.  You can’t save everyone.  You can barely save yourself.  Discernment is a good word, and it can be applied to many things.  Perhaps it is ‘the’ word  to learn.

Trifling….that’s another good word.

The blog is up a year and a half now.  I had no idea how this was going to go, but so far it remains of  interest.  The readership ebbs and flows, but  grows.  I have worked out some issues in uncomfortable ways on this blog, but in many ways, these things seem to have resonance in other lives.  I am grateful to all who read and comment.  We learn life together.

Two men have stood by me for three years and I have nothing but gratitude for their support.  Nick Nicholson and Bill Penrose have been the greatest and gentlest of writing  mentors…and friends. Three years ago Nick and I joined the list of writers on ERWA, and Bill Penrose grabbed us both for a very small (the three of us) writing group.  Sometimes we ignored our little group, and sometimes we headed there for solace.  I am glad to say  throughout these three years we have maintained it, and right now, it’s a lifeline again.

And on that writing…well, I didn’t start out to be a writer. There were other interests for many years.  But for some reason, I have jumped in body and soul, and over the past few years I have learned a great deal about writing.  Not enough, but I’m on the road.

I just sent “The Zar Tales” to Bill Penrose for formatting.  Bill did “A Seasoning of Lust” and has graciously stood for this new book.  I’ve talked a bit about “The Zar Tales” already on the blog, so I won’t go into it.  It should be published and available on lulu.com and amazon.com after the first of the year.  I am not pushing because life has its own rhythm.

I am looking forward to something very different soon.  I have fallen to the Demon of Poetry, and will publish (this spring) another book:  “White Cranes of Heaven”.  Only poetry this time, and I am having a ball getting it together.  In the past three years I have written so much of it.  At one period, thought it had dried up.  I just needed a seasonal change  and the poetry started to form again.

The  plan is to get back to “The Kimono” after the New Year.  This is a novel I started two years ago and put aside for other things. It begins in the 21st century,  zaps back to  16th century Japan.  Looking over the writing, I think this is where I started to write a lot of poetry.  I put the novel aside with lots of notes and research, and got stuck around Japanese battles.  This issue figures in because the time was treacherous with fights between the daimyos for territory and the manipulations by the Shogun (and court).  There were so many layers of intrigue on different levels and knowing this  well  can only be helpful in completing this novel.

(And “Kimono” is where the Lady Nyo was formed.)

My husband laughs at me because I am a strange creature of habit.  I have set up my art table for writing longhand, staring out at the winter landscape, the black trees and the gray skies of winter. (We’ll see how long “longhand” will last.)  That sharp, harsh light  known in winter and the stillness and solitude makes conditions for writing.   At least for me.

I have the kimono I wrote the novel about.  It’s a black, heavy winter silk, with a river of silver running around the hem and up the left panel.  There is a curious tattoo of embroidery running into the inside tan (silk lining) and I run my hand over it like Braille.

This kimono became ‘magical’ :  what if the bumps  of the embroidery were  ‘code’?  It became one in my imagination and it was a catalyst to transport the main character from the 21st to the 16th century.

It’s a bother when you have the beginning and the ending of a novel and the problem is the middle.  This is where I am.

I intend to don that kimono and see if it gets me out of the usual ruts of writing.  A lot is riding on that piece of cloth.

Life has been good and interesting this past year.  Challenging, too. My friends have stayed the course, even when I looked like I was flying off the map.   In all of the changes of the past year, I am blessed, blessed, blessed.

And Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, etc.

And as my 97 year old Aunt Jean who is the  Hungarian head of my family says:

“May the New Year bring Good Health and Great Blessings!”

Lady Nyo