Blog

What do you get when you have two foot snowbanks along the roads and then it rains all day?

The roads turn into rivers. Well, the main roads, that is. The side roads become tributaries. Driving home today was a bit like white water canoeing, the rapids being the potholes. Until I turned onto our dirt road. What do you get when you put water on a snow-packed road? Ice. Hence, driving to my house was like a bobsled run. Going uphill.

(“She rounds the bend, look at the height she gets on the side! Now she’s straightening out, really feeling the track! It’s a clean run! Her best time yet! It’s a gold medal for M. Raiya!”)

I mean, really! Who needs to go to Sochi when you can white water canoe and bobsled on your way home from work?

Okay, I’m losing it a little. But it’s Friday and I’ve got a whole week and two days off from school, so I’m entitled! Plus, I’ve got a new story idea. I think it’s going to be called Natural Instincts. Two pages into it and it’s fun so far!

The book trailer is now posted on YouTube! Follow the link below:

ANOTHER HEALING BOOK TRAILER

Another Healing can be pre-ordered now from my author page at Dreamspinner press HERE

It will be available March 10th in paperback or eBook formats, and the first twenty paperback copies will be autographed!

And here it is — the cover!

I have to say, this is pretty darn amazing. It was created by Brooke Albrecht, who actually made three based on my suggestions, and I picked this one, after a little doctoring. It really captures the mystery and mood of the book and I couldn’t be more excited about it.

And for a link to my page at Dreamspinner Press, where you can read all about me and preorder your copy of Another Healing, either as a paperback or an ebook, click HERE

Release day is March 10, less than a month away!

I’m very pleased to announce that I just signed a contract for The Dragon and the Palm Tree with Torquere Press. I’m quite in love with this Varian and Josh tale. It will be released on May 28, 2014. If you have a fear of flying or are freaked out by airports (like me) this story is for you!

And I signed a renewal contract for The Dragon and His Knight. So now’s the chance to catch up on all the titles in the Notice Series — they’re all available.

They should be read in this order:

Notice
The Dragon and the Mistletoe
The Dragon and His Knight
Origins (in the Shifting Steam Anthology)
A Sky Full of Wings
Night of Ceremony

Then you’ll be ready for The Dragon and the Palm Tree. So excited!

You know, it’s a really cool feeling to get a stack of vellum sheets in the mail with the instructions to autograph them for inclusion in the first twenty copies of my novel to sell. My novel, in print. Next month.

So why do I burst into tears?

Lots of reasons.

In the last six months, I’ve been to three funerals for members of my family. Two of them were children.

How can I understand why one man lives to be over eighty, and one doesn’t quite make it to eighteen, and one only lives for one hour? Yes, one hour!  All three touched me deeply. One was like a father to me, one was a young man whom love for my daughter had brought into my family, and one was a great nephew whom I only knew as a wiggle in my niece’s tummy.

And my mother is fading into the grasp of Alzheimer’s and my real father has incurable cancer.

So that’s probably why my next two releases are all about death and pain and ghosts. But they’re also about healing and love and peace.

I’m going to sign those twenty copies: M. Raiya. May healing always surround you.

But I’ll probably keep crying for a long time.

Busy working on the book trailer for Another Healing. It’s looking good.

Finished a rough draft of The Dragon and the Palm Tree. Varian and Josh at their best.

Renewed my contract for The Dragon and the Mistletoe for another year.

Vermont is having a heat wave. Up to fourteen degrees above zero right now. Ice everywhere. I just want to hibernate…

Usually to celebrate the solstice, I go for a long walk and reflect on the last time the planet was in this position, but if I tried to do that today, I’d break my neck. We are in the midst of an ice storm predicted to rival the once we had in the late nineties that crippled the state for days. I had to put spiky things on my boots to go to my bird feeders, and that was as far as I went. The trees are already coated in ice, which is breathtakingly beautiful despite its danger. How often things work that way.

I’ve had a rough year, especially the second half, with too much death and sadness, both expected and unexpected. I don’t like change. But there have been lots of hugs and chocolate from family and friends, and that helps so much.

My writing life has been great, though. I’ve published four pieces — Night of Ceremony, which is a Varian and Josh story in the Notice series, about what happens when the dragons are caught in an earthquake. Silver Pearl, my tale of a young man recovering from the violence of his past with the help of a unicorn, Finaly Awakening, which is my charity short story offering for this year. And Webs, a story about the commander of a space ship who finds out how much he enjoys not being in charge of everything once in a while. All of my stories have gotten some wonderful reviews and I couldn’t be prouder of all of them.

I also had two stories accepted for next year — Haunted Halls, which is about a freshman who falls for the college ghost, and Another Healing, a novel which has been in the works for a long, long time and I am thrilled that it will finally be published.

I have worked with some wonderful familar editors and some wonderful new ones from three different presses, and I’ve learned a whole lot from all of them. I’ve been interviewed, I’ve been a guest on websites, I’ve hosted conversations, and I’ve made book trailers. And being published just gets more and more awesome.

Right now, I’m working on The Dragon and the Palm Tree, which is the next in the Notice series. Guess who’s going to Florida? It’s going to be hot!

Have a wonderful Solstice everyone! And thanks so much for reading my stories, and my blog, and inspiring me to write more.

I went for a walk alone this afternoon in gray, quiet falling snow. The only sound was a pair of hairy woodpeckers working the bark of a maple, high overhead. Until I heard, high above them, geese. It was a big flock, flying in a V, heading north through the falling snow. I know that they are hardy ones who have decided to stay here for the winter, and they are just moving toward the broad lake, away from smaller ponds that have now frozen in last week’s below zero temperatures. It was good to see them and know that they’re still here, that they think it’s worth staying in Vermont through the cold and darkness.

 I feel as though I haven’t seen sunlight for weeks. Winter has caught me by surprise this year. A lot has caught me by surprise.

My parents have grown old.
A teenager has died
Now two dogs I love have passed on
Winter comes unexpectedly.

I wonder if the geese, too, have been caught by surprise, if even wild things suddenly become adrift, unaware, and find themselves startled, wondering how they could possibly be where they are now.

We search for safer water.

Whew! Just finished a serious bit of intense rewriting and I’m feeling really good about how this novel is looking. Now it’s back in the publisher’s hands for the next round. I’ve also filled out the cover art form, as well as the marketing form. A lot is going on and I feel like sometimes just keeping my head above water is quite a feat. Dealing with lots of issues around aging relatives, at the same time I’m still very much a parent.

How do people who aren’t writers cope? What do you do if you can’t dive into a novel to get away from it all? I think I would go totally insane. When I tell people everything I’m dealing with, and then tell them that I’m editing a novel and a novella at the same time at night, they look at me as though I’m likely to implode. They don’t see that the final straw is actually the life jacket.

I’m looking forward to being able to concentrate on The Dragon and the Palm Tree. It’s going to be fun!