Two Kinds of Vacations

Having just returned from a vacation, I've temporarily become an expert on vacations. I've come to the conclusion that there are two types of vacations:

1. The Exciting Vacation: Where you go somewhere exotic or exciting and you get a tan and go swimming and generally spend way more money then you should. At these sort of vacations you exhaust yourself everyday and get far too little sleep. When the vacation is finally over, you feel rather sure that you now need a vacation from a vacation, or a pain killer and a seriously long nap.
   
   
2. The Relaxing Vacation: You go somewhere scenic and peaceful and plant yourself like a fern. You don't go anywhere, you sleep in and and take naps and read books and generally do nothing. Maybe you're like me and you visit family, or maybe you just stay at home, or maybe you rent a yurt by the the ocean and teach us all how it's done. Whatever way you choose, you're relaxing and escaping for a week. You put off your obligations and focus on yourself. You ignore you email box, you catch up on games and you don't think about the mound of things you have waiting for you at the end of the week.

So those are your options, but either way coming back from a vacation is a shock. Either because you're suffering from sunburn, jet lag, and exhaustion, or because you're suffering from the shock of having to once more face responsibly.

I have a serious case of the latter. My email box has exploded, my house has exploded (we're having a garage sale this weekend, so that hasn't exactly helped), and now my head feels like it's exploding. I've been back from vacation for two days and already I want to crawl back to bed and coffee and Colin Firth in Mr. Darcy's hosiery (You might wonder at this point what the hell I've been up to this last week and a half, and I'll hint that it has a lot too do with sleeping, caffeine, grandparents, shopping, and Jane Austen.)

So while I recover from vacation system-shock, here's Chapter Two of Sulfur ready to read!

Love,

Arreana

Sulfur Kick-off

True to my word, I have posted the first chapter of Sulfur for everyone to check out. I'll try to make the updates a weekly event, I'm really looking forward to receiving your feedback.

Click here to read Chapter One

Now, I'm posting this from my vacation hide-a-hole. I'm going to get off quick and try to enjoy the sunshine and the coffee!

Until next week!

Love,

Arreana

Vacation is a Comin'

Wow, I haven't posted anything in... too long. I've been so absorbed in Sulfur I guess I've let myself fall off the map. I've been working extra hours the last couple months and that, coupled with a mid-July sinus infection and getting myself enrolled for Fall Quarter, have compounded to make me something like a zombie. I mumble to myself a lot more, and I sit doing nothing a lot more. What I call, "thinking," my husband calls, "freaking me out."

Good news? Writing's going great. I've gotten to what I think will be my favorite part of this story, and writing it, though emotionally difficult , has been incredibly rewarding. I have approximately eight more chapters to go; I could be done in the next couple weeks! Phew!

I will be posting the first chapter -- fingers crossed -- on July 29th, the first day of my vacation.

Ah, vacation. When I get myself a week of work off to flee my house. Where am I going? My grandparents, which may astonish some of you but not me. To me it's the best sort of vacation anyone can have. They have a wonderful house full of memories, a fragrant garden, coffee in the morning, and an altogether awesome appreciation for ethnic food. It means naps in the afternoon and talking politics in the evening. It's relaxing, which is more than I can say for some other vacations, and an annual tradition.

I'll keep writing even while my husband and I are staying there. After all, I need no vacation from writing, as it in itself is a stress-relieving escape!

I hope all of you are having a similarly wonderful summer. I hope you're finding ways to keep cool. Moment of bragging: I live in the PNW and it's been raining here every other day or so, I call that a good thing!

See you again on July 29th!

Half Way Mark

So how did I end up sitting here in the middle of the night, red as a lobster and manically exhausted?

First last night I got too little sleep. Three hours. I went to bed late only to wake early and go crabbing with my Troll Dad out on the Sound. I was excited, it's opening weekend and it was supposed to be a gorgeous day.

Gorgeous day. One of the first we've had in the Seattle area in a while, and the first over 80 degree day we've had in a dog's age. For a pale-fleshed Washingtonian with little tolerance for anything that isn't rain, flannel, and mold, this was a disaster.

Double disaster: I was wearing a grungy t-shirt, and now not only are my arms burnt, it's a farmer's tan burn. It's not even either. I have these splotchy pale spots where I'd obviously touched my arms with my sun-screened fingers. (Yes, despite stupidly forgetting to lather my arms, I had coated my face, thank the Gods!) I look like a spotted monster, and after getting home, cleaning the crab, cooking the crab, and showering, I was ready to nap. I laid down, fully ready to embrace my pillowing exhaustion, only to find that my body, first burnt and tired, was now feverish. I couldn't get myself warm. It was eighty-something degrees outside and I was shivering. Some nap that was.

Now I think, "Fine, be that way, Lobster Arms, I'll just go to bed early tonight."

To which Lobster Arms reply, "Nope. You will toss and turn and ache and writhe until you can't take it anymore."

Well fine, Lobster Arms. FINE. If I can't sleep then I shall stay awake and write. Misery loves company after all, and I have characters enough to torture.

So tonight, as Sulfur approaches its final climax, I charge ahead smelling of aloe-vera lotion and coffee! Today I have finished the estimated first half of Sulfur. Huzzah!

(Today I also caught my limit of crab. Come the Fourth of July I shall eat it with a vengeance.)

Dear Troll Dad,

Today is a day to honor you.

For your imagination, creativity, and persistence I offer you a hearty round of applause. Many dads are known for being steady and firm, others for being kind and nurturing, but you, troll dad, shall forever be known as the trickster and prankster.

As I reflect upon today and celebrate with the rest of America the brilliant awesomeness of father's day, a random memory comes to mind:

I'm lying on the couch. It's Sunday afternoon and I'm watching TV like a lazy lump on a log. You walk in from the kitchen and, seeing nowhere to sit, promptly sit on top of me. I whine and complain and thrash and all you do is laugh and laugh and laugh. Suddenly, when I think it can't get any worse, I feel the rumble of one of your mighty farts reverberating through the throw blanket. I scream, and you cackle.

But in all seriousness, dad, thank you for imparting in me a sense of justice, fairness, and -- of course -- humor. Thanks for crafting that lazy lump taking up your couch into a responsible adult. Dad, I tried finding a picture of you to share with the world (you know, one that would reflect all your badassness) but alas, I failed. I had a really good one too, of you in track shorts and a white t-shirt, complete with a mustache and a 80's hair cut, but I couldn't find it. Then I remembered this, a site dedicated to honoring dads just like you: the definition of cool. (Notice my rhyme?)

Thank you for all your paternal support, and I hope you have a wonderful father's day!

Love,

Arreana

Sleep, what? What?

My schedule is hitting "critical mass". I'm shifting gears slowly, moving from Farro's marketing phase into writing Sulfur. Yesterday I had a book dream. The kind where you "dream out" the scene you're currently working on. Sulfur is a book of climaxes, so my dreams invariably end up with me running somewhere, screaming at someone, or trying to punch someone. My husband, who must endure me mumbling and kicking in my sleep, is understandably frightened. Little does he know how bad it'll get. Soon the boundaries between fiction and reality will blend together and I'll start talking to my characters. ("What kind of hot sauce should I use, Bomani?", "Hmm... how much garlic did we have at home, Khensa?", etc, etc.) While writing Farro, I had one such fictional conversation that has become something of an embarrassing story.

Setting: at the grocery store, in the aisle with the soda bottles.

In my voice, "What do you think I should get, Bomani? Pepsi or Pepsi cherry?"

In a low, gravelly voice meant to sound like Bomani's, "Pepsi."

This would have been all well and good, nothing out of the ordinary, if a woman and her son hadn't been standing right next to me. I wanted to crawl under a rock never to emerge again. I can only imagine the picture I painted -- top ramen in my basket, hair disheveled, baggy sweat pants, holding up soda bottles and talking to myself in manish voices. Crazy, crazy, crazy. I didn't look to see their reaction; I put both soda bottles back on the shelf and bolted for the register.

The worst part? Bomani never got his Pepsi.

And now, for reading, I present to you a teaser from Sulfur (not published/polished and therefore subject to change):

The ice breaks with the sound of a branch snapping. I drop like a stone. I hit the torrential water.

It burns!

It squeezes my lungs, pulls me down. The current slams into me, sweeping me downstream. I can’t think, can’t breathe. So cold. I can think only of the water and the ice and how I shall die down here and freeze. My skin like white porcelain, my arms shriveled and as fragile as glass, I’ll sink to the bottom where the tiny fish and the snails will chip away at my corpse for the many years to come.

It’s as dark as night. I can see nothing but the shimmer of my limbs flailing in the water, as heavy as lead. I lift them up, searching for air and escape, but my fingers find only ice. The hole through which I fell is gone, the river carries me away. My fingernails carve deep scratches into the icy roof as I fight against the current.

I shall die down here. I am numb to the pain, numb to everything. It’s just like Chike’s ice baths. First I was cold. Then I was numb. Then I was warm.

Where is the warmth, where is that release?

My lungs are empty but I cannot feel the pain. They burn but I cannot feel it.

A shadow above, movement, Bomani. I dig my fingers into the ice, but still the current drags me downstream, my body stretched parallel to the river bottom. My clothes are heavy, my hair, my legs, all so heavy, all working against me.

Above me the world shakes. The noise reverberates in my ears, the sound of a gong, the sound of a hammer striking bronze.

Again. It’s Bomani.

The Tip Jar

I've been meaning to do this for a while. I've added a small feature, a "tip jar". No more offensive (hopefully) than the jars baristas put out on their windowsills. You know the ones I'm talking about? The large mason jars with the words "Tips" written in big, bubble letters and surrounded by hearts and shooting stars and smiley faces? Yeah, that's my tip jar.

Why do I need a tip jar at all if I'm selling my novel? Easy! Unlike many indie authors, I've made Farro available to read online for free. If you want to, you could read Farro, lurk on my blog (I see you!), and then disappear forever. Well, that's fine, I shouldn't have my book available for free if I didn't expect otherwise. But hey, maybe if you've liked what you've read and you'd like to support an author who is anti-DRM, creative commons friendly, and who will try to always have her work up for free perusal, then maybe you'll consider throwing a couple coins at that big flashy button over there.

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Each donation will mean something. Fifty cents is a ear of corn for me to barbecue (thanks!). Two bucks is a cup of coffee on a cold morning (thanks!). Five bucks is a movie from a discount bin at Target (I love those things!).

This is for my younger readers, who maybe can't afford a e-reader or a trade paper copy but who have still read and liked Farro. Thank you ma'am or sir, keep reading, and keep supporting the authors who in turn support you.

(Sulfur Update: Eight chapters, going strong. I just got to an exciting part, so I'm having fun!)