Happy end-of-January!
Hello, lovely readers! It’s been a heck of a month for me; on top of all the madness in Washington, the fear for my country and loved ones, I also had to deal with a kidney stone so large it required surgery to remove.
Negative five stars, would not recommend.
Regardless, life continues on, and I am nowhere near giving up. So!
- Here are a ton of new pep-talk videos to help you through. (A lot of focus on hope this month. Gee, I wonder why?)
- I have removed myself completely from Twitter. I won’t even have my name associated with it anymore. You can find me most active on BlueSky, though I am marginally on Instagram (for NOW), and TikTok (for NOW).
- I’m working on a Discord server for us! The soft launch is going well, and it just needs a few more tweaks before it can go public.
Enough about me. You’re here for the story, and I won’t keep you waiting any longer.
SHORT STORY: SEPTEMBER BELLS
The dreams are the same. Merged, always, with memories congealing and woven thick, tightening into the weft and warp of me.
Present reality was ascetic. I was an orphan, and the Fey’s creche was all the world I’d known. Windowless, underground, surrounded by unhappy peers and unhappier adults who had to take care of us and distribute goods.
Dreams are odd, though. In my dreams, I am in a world did not exist by the time I came along. I dream of a South Africa I have never seen, lush and green with occasional rains, with flowers in the best season and arid land the rest, with animals creeping near, and the blooming of the September Bells outside my window.
In dreams and life, I knew darkness, scarcity, pain, bullying—I never gave the right answer, or asked the right questions. I looked wrong, or stood wrong, and was familiar with the pinch of alone, the scrape of torn knees and the throb of black eyes.
I didn’t know how be not alone, how to exist befriended. From the very beginning, it was clear that I was broken.
Solomon’s Choice will be coming this year! It’s my most ambitious book yet, and I can’t wait to share it with you.
If you have any questions, hit “reply” and let me know! see you on the written page!
