Considerations that happen to fall on Easter Sunday

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For a week I've been mulling over how to write this post; rejuvenating or restarting a blog after so many years away deserves careful thought, although in the long run this entry will be way down the list. Yet after a nearly four-year hiatus of musing about the work, here I am on Easter Sunday. Not sure of the connection, but I'm certain it's meaningful.

In the meantime, where do I begin? Maybe I'll note why a blog that has been around for over fourteen years only has two entries as of now. I started on Blogger in 2007, wrote A LOT, then switched to WordPress in 2013, where I blogged until 2018. All those entries are saved, but not everything needs to reposted; in addition to writing plenty of novels and publishing some of them, I became a grandmother during that time. Both of my parents also died, Mom's passing in 2018 the impetus for closing the WordPress site. No longer did a career as an author appeal; all I wanted was to shut down, attempting to fathom how both of my parental units were gone, Dad at seventy, Mom just sixty-seven.

Yet my role as a wife, mother, and abuela carried on, and in those guises I found that life continues even after one's parents are no longer. Thankfully I had finished writing The Hawk right before Mom passed, so revising that behemoth kept me busy on the noveling end. Yet thinking about starting anything new was so difficult. Then came the pandemic. Dude.... Yet I muddled on through, making and wearing masks in 2020 while trying to write. After two failed attempts, I wondered if the muse was gone; had I buried it alongside my folks? But no, a determined cast of characters knew the third time was the charm. So began a series That Which Can Be Remembered, the first installment the appropriately titled The Possibility of What If. I'm hoping to release that book in the next couple of months; fantasy in genre, which I've never written, also with one foot in the here and now. A plague takes from my heroine her beloved, although things are not as they seem. A road trip ensues, a formidable crew of women traversing hostile territory in search of new lives, old friends, and a missing spouse. And with them I'm hauled from the depths, back onto the indie publishing bandwagon.

Full disclosure; I have queried this series, but no bites. Unless an agent clamors for a look-see in the next couple of weeks, I'll release the first installment in early June. Need to get some covers sorted, a little tricky when the protagonist, Brynn Dahl, has blue hair. We'll see what I can manage, yet it feels very good to be harnessing this energy once again. Four years ago Mom was complaining of back pain and less than two months later she was dead of cancer. It's striking how quickly time passes, although Dad warned me when he was my age (mid-fifties) that time sped along at an unbelievable rate and that heads-up was from a good twenty years ago. He wasn't lying; my grandkids range in age from seven to three, what? My husband recently retired, seriously? We moved from the San Francisco Bay Area up the California coastline and while we're farther away from family, we're in a good place for cool weather and peace of mind. Yet peace is relative; war in Europe and the lingering effects of Covid aren't going anyway, while a dear member of our family is battling cancer. Man, it's like when you think life is getting back to normal, shite again hits the fan.

Maybe this is where writing this on Easter Sunday becomes relevant. Faith remains an integral part of my makeup, the belief that not only is there life after death, but that good overcomes what seems so blatantly awful. That Love is stronger than hate, that grace is given freely. That for as inconsequential is one more blog written by just another indie author, stories of hope MATTER. Notions like the better angels of our natures triumphing are VITAL. That fighting the good fight EVENTUALLY wins out despite numerous setbacks. One man killed over two thousand years ago is still considered by many as saviour of the world. That's the crux of my journey, a cross changed from defeat to redemption. Despite all subsequent attempts at crushing dreams and squelching existences, this human race continues. My little part of it is writing and releasing novels. And so here I go again....

One lone poppy from last year's plot; I only noticed it yesterday amid weeds I had planned to pull. Kind of indicative of today's post.

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