Category Archives: family

Summer’s End

We are rapidly approaching what has been—for me—a whirlwind summer. Over the last month and a half, I have DMed at GenCon, gotten sick, sold at the Renaissance Fair, and hosted my brother’s family for their visit. While all this was happening, I have also been working on a significant career change.

After more than seventeen years in the corporate world, I want to explore being my own boss. While I would love for this to mean becoming a full-time author, I have nowhere near the backlist needed to make that a reality. Though, I’m working on it.

There are several options I’m exploring and putting effort into. I’m not sure where I will land, but I worked carefully for years to put myself in a secure enough position to make a change like this. It will work out. One way or another, I will do what it takes to move forward.

I also got a new “end of summer” haircut! Back to my bright red and trying out an undercut.

Reflection

If you had asked me a year ago where I would be today, my answer would have been incorrect. I was heading toward the publication date for my first book, hoping it would eventually reach and entertain fifty strangers. All the research and effort were coming together for that final deadline.

Not even a year later, I have already far surpassed my conservative goal of fifty readers. I met some amazing people at live events who are eager to read my work and excited to meet me. My goals for 2022 felt daring at the start of the year, and now I believe I will surpass them despite all my lingering doubts and imposter syndrome.

If there is one thing I would add to the list, it would be doing more short-length videos (Tik Tok, Reels, etc.). A kind marketing expert who stopped to chat with me at the Ren Faire suggested I just get in front of a camera and talk through some questions. The exercise would give me some video material with which to work. I might give it a try before the month is out.

Here’s to another beautiful summer!

Family Visit

My brother is in town this weekend with his family. Since they live in Florida, we don’t see them often. The time and cost of travel between the opposite corners of the contiguous USA are a bit prohibitive. Last summer, we went down in August to the heat and humidity. We fed a giraffe at the zoo, among other fun activities. This year, they are up here with us.

We went blackberry picking yesterday and will see if we can bake a pie with our haul tomorrow before the heat hits. My nephew ate his obligatory serving of berries along the way. While the pickings were not the best this year, I have seen them much worse. I estimate we have about two pies worth of filling in the refrigerator.

Today, my sister-in-law is casually running a half marathon. She was up early Friday morning to get in an eight-mile jaunt as a final preparation. I’m pretty sure I could walk a half marathon distance in one day. My legs would hurt the next day, but I could do it. I can’t imagine running that distance, though. Running the mile was unpleasant for me back in school, so I’m in awe of the drive it takes to complete these races.

She might have gone for the full marathon, but we have plans to attend the Sounders game tonight. We need to pick up a new Sounders shirt for my nephew, as he has grown out of his first one. Maybe I will get them to try some local brews along with the food trucks at tonight’s match. Unfortunately, the best beer place is all the way across the stadium from the food trucks, but maybe the new bar will be open and have some good selections.

Tomorrow we are having a BBQ with friends and family. My brother still plays online games regularly with a handful of the guys from our group. Most of them will be coming to do some catching up over burgers and brats. My parents are also bringing my grandmother, so she will get to spend some time with her other great-grandson on our side of the family. I hope they take some great memories with them when they leave.

Renaissance Faire Pt. 1

Despite precautions, I took ill after my trip last week. To ensure this did not pass beyond me, I remained home for rest and recovery this weekend. This post is a tribute to the massive efforts put forth by my husband and sister. When I could not attend, they stepped up on my behalf. 

Going into the Renaissance Faire, I had no idea what to expect for sales. At my first event, which was much smaller in scale, I sold seven copies. Hour-for-hour, that would put my book needs around seventy. General advice received would put the need closer to five hundred of each book, though I would need to do the math again on that. 

Either way, we all went into this with tempered expectations. Sanitized and wrapped in PPE, I pre-signed fifty-eight copies of book one and forty copies of book 2. It was not enough. 

The faire initially sold out, so they opened more capacity for Saturday. Roads were clogged, and people waited for hours to get in. Everyone crowded into the grounds excited for their next fantastical adventure. As they passed by, my husband called out to lovers of fantasy books. Then, he and my sister would introduce them to my stories. 

Family and friends stopped by to help out through the day, but it was the two of them who set up, tore down, and stood for nine hours two days in a row selling my works. They sold out both days and continued selling even after supplies ran out until the fair closed each day.

Take the kids for a day? Sure, Sis. You want to stay late to play D&D with other vendors next weekend? Of course, my darling husband. I know you both did all of this for family, partnership, and love and not for any exchange. My immense gratitude is yours.

New Readers

For all my new readers, welcome to my fantasy world! I hope you have as much fun with these characters as I do and look forward to the next installment. Rest assured, Hidden Promise is already with my wonderful alpha readers, and I’m about thirty thousand words into the final book rewrite!

See you at the faire on the 20th!

GenCon Indy 2022

Whooo! First time at GenCon Indy, my friends! August is a big event month for me, and this was just the start.

My favorite event we did was a bank heist escape room. We “got caught in the act” by not making it out in time. I always end up a handful of minutes away from escaping, but we get bogged down in the final room thinking we found all the hidden clues and only need to open one more box when there are about seven things left to locate. Despite that, I love escape rooms. I think they rank right behind ziplining for me. 

Ebony Bay is one of two True Dungeon events we participated in. This is the only one we survived. Despite a valiant effort in the other, we failed to defeat the boss.

My husband enjoyed the True Dungeon the most. These are half role-playing games, half escape room stories you do with a group. There were seven rooms in each of the two dungeons we were able to sign up for with shuffleboard combats and creative puzzles to solve. The item pucks do matter, so I appreciated that the experienced TDers did not push for hardcore mode with all of us noobs tagging along with only a handful of pucks on our cards. 

We also tried out the Artemis Bridge Simulator. This is a game where each person plays a role on a starship bridge on a separate computer screen. We only did the training version, so it was mostly us flying around, engaging poorly in battle, and running into docking stations. There were also two D&D games in which we participated. One was more role-play-focused, where you tried to play to your backstory. The other was a first edition game in which we did not do too poorly, avoiding horrific deaths at the hands of monsters and dangerous items. 

The dangerous Tower of Gaxx! My fighter/magic-user came away with a magic shield, while my husband’s paladin found an Ioun Stone! Not bad for first time AD&D players.

Early this year, my husband and I decided to volunteer as GMs for a company running some D&D games at GenCon. I think the games went pretty well. We each ran four separate 4.5-hour one-shots, deciding to do one a day and pack in other fun around them.

If I had to pick a couple of favorite parts from the games I ran, they would be: 

  1. My groups usually barred the doors the second time the ceremony was interrupted, thereby trapping themselves and the parishioners inside with the next monster to emerge. 
  2. One of my groups made an elaborate plan to distract the monsters while one party member snuck forward to rescue the high priest. The approach was very clever and unique, as most of my groups ignored him lying on the ground. 

Would I volunteer again? Maybe, but probably not for four games. We had little time to attend the convention center and had to scramble to get from one event to another. We volunteered to ensure we would not have large chunks of time without anything to do, but that would not have been a problem. There would also need to be some changes to the coordination up front for me to feel comfortable volunteering again. I had too much to carry around with me all day because of how much I needed to bring. I enjoyed running the games, and I hope my players had fun. 

For anyone concerned: Gen Con had fairly strict COVID restrictions (I fully support). My husband and I also double-masked the entire time and brought our hand sanitizer with us for liberal use throughout. We will monitor for symptoms and test before we head to the Renaissance Faire this coming weekend for more crowds of awesome nerds.

Stay safe, stay cool, and stay awesome everyone!

Heatwave

Western Washington had a late start to summer after a horribly long, cold, wet, and gray spring. But! As of this week, we officially crossed the 90-degree (Fahrenheit) threshold, joining the rest of the northern hemisphere in this epic heatwave.

I’m cold—think ice-cube toes and frigid ankles—about 80% of the year, so I generally avoid complaining about hot weather. Even before I had AC in my home, I did not start grumbling until day five. I love soaking in the heat and letting it relax my bones until I’m no longer a scrunched-up, shivering mass.

Summer is my favorite season. The sun. The growing vegetables. The grilling. Only one thing could improve summer, if—sorry twelve-year-old me—children were still in school! To be fair, I would give them two-week vacations periodically throughout the year in exchange. We could even stagger the school breaks between states, so no one has an overcrowded vacation spot.

All kidding aside, I would love to keep my summer heat without the global record high temperatures. Locally, several parks are turning on their sprinklers and setting up cooling stations for people to stop by. We have a low percentage of households in Western Washington with AC. I believe it is less than half, with a good portion of the rest only having a window AC. I know, from personal experience, that nights can get rough after a few days when even overnight temps and open windows will not cool down the house.

My pre-AC strategy: light clothes, hang out in cooler rooms, close off rooms getting the most sun, stay hydrated, use damp wash clothes, and take cold showers. It is also fortunate a main hobby of mine is reading because I can veg out with a book, unmoving, during the hottest parts of the day.

Whatever you do to stay cool, try to take some time to enjoy the great things about the summer season. Happy grilling!