(This is not my Kindle. Mine has the keyboard. Also, my hands never look that nice.)

I am not one of the technorati. I still don’t have an iPod, let alone an iPad. I got my first cell phone in 2006 and I’m still using the second one I got, a bare-bones pay-as-you-go model that allows talk and text and that’s it. When my cheap-ass phone falls to pieces,  I’d like one with an actual keyboard so I can text without cursing, but only if I can find one for under $49.95, with no commitment to a plan. About the only “gadget” I love unreservedly is my Hobart professional-grade mixer, which can turn an unruly mass of sticky, heavy dough into four loaves of bread without the slightest effort. I love that because it’s genuinely useful, helping me do something I’d do anyway—bake bread—far more easily, with results as good as doing it by hand if not better.

All this is a roundabout way of explaining why, despite writing ebooks, I didn’t give in to the lure of the Kindle until last summer.  I was worried that I wouldn’t use it, that it would sit unloved on my desk gathering dust, like the PalmPilot I never adapted to when they were big.

But I’m here to tell you now, I’ve joined the great Zombie Amazon.com Army. I love my Kindle. I love my Kindle so much I’m actually thinking I might upgrade to a fancy-pants color one with a touch screen before the old one actually belongs in the Smithsonian.

I’m sure I’m preaching to the perverted…that would be CONverted…here. As a late adapter, I’m not saying anything new. But I’m astonished by how much I love the thing. How do I love it? Let me count the ways.

The Kindle probably kept me from going postal one morning when, thanks to a snow squall and mechanical problems, we had commuters from three trains crammed into one. I’m claustrophobic and this was not a happy thing. But I whipped out my Kindle and read Cold Mountain Poems: Zen Poems of Han Shan and remained serene (well, serene enough not to start screaming uncontrollably, which is all I could ask) for my commute.

I can have a veritable library in my purse at all times. You never know when you might get a few minutes to read, or what you’ll be in the mood for, and my Kindle  holds everything from erotica to a biography of Galileo to the aforementioned Zen poetry. If you have an ebook reader, you already know this joy. If you don’t have one yet, give in and get one. If I can do it, so can you!

Thanks to the great selection of free books available for the Kindle, I’m reading more widely. Since getting my Kindle, I’ve read traditional, non-sexy Regencies (the best are witty and fun, a la Jane Austen), Amish romances (I love the descriptions of Amish life and the coziness), mysteries, thrillers, horror, children’s classics such as A Secret Garden, and a book on the international food crisis and possible agricultural and policy solutions, along with my usual paranormal romance, fantasy, and history selections.  I recently downloaded a couple of autobiographies of pioneer women, which tie in to my love of history and my fascination with crafting and homesteading.

And  I can learn things through my Kindle, which satisfies an oddly puritanical need I have to do useful things, to be useful. I’m not sure reading a random novel is intrinsically more virtuous than playing Angry Birds, but I feel my Scary Irish Grandmother would not disapprove of the novel, whereas she would turn up her nose at Angry Birds.

So I’ve finally found a gadget other than a computer I can love. I makes sense, because, like my beloved Hobart, t’s a gadget that I find genuinely useful, because it makes it easier to do something I love to do.

If only I could stick the Hobart in my bag for bread-baking emergencies…Unfortunately, it weighs about 40 pounds.

Actually, make that another story and three poems.

The story’s off to Alison Tyler’s Better Bondage Erotica.

Some folks I know have started a new lit-mag called Feather Lit and I just zipped them a few poems that are bit too…intense for many venues.  If you write poetry or micro fiction (500 words or fewer) and it’s of an erotic bent, even in an allusive way–maybe especially in an allusive way–you might want to check them out. They haven’t put out their first issue yet, but once they do, I think everyone should check them out.

Just because.

Here’s one I may send to Feather Lit for the next issue. I think it’s sexy. What about you?

Surfer

I wrap myself in the gorgeous terror of knowing

These silk-seeming waves can crush bones.

I ride the waves, but it’s not like riding a horse.

Even a wild horse can be broken,

But waves will only break me as they break,

Unless I give myself over to them, acknowledge

They have all the power. The surfer has only balance,

And I could lose that at any second and plunge head over destiny.

That’s why I do this. Otherwise I could stay on the beach

Like those girls in full make-up and dry bikinis

And never even get my hair mussed up.

But it’s the possibility of danger I crave,

The fact that as I ride the curl of a wave

I might be riding my own doom.

When I saw those videos of the tsumani devouring

Japanese villages and farmland, I was half-envious, half-wishing

I could have been there to be annihilated

By water reclaiming the land

It never wanted to let go in the first place.

I don’t actually surf. I didn’t move close to the ocean until I was in my thirties, and at that point I was too broke to get into a new sport. Now, in my late forties, I can afford the gear and lessons, but with several old spinal injuries, I’m not sure the pleasure would outweight the potential for nasty, aching, unfixable pain. The lure of the ocean, though, is strong, so I body-surf and walk by the water and dream of being reincarnated as an otter or a selkie.

(Yes, I am sipping Scotch and feeling rapturous. How did you know?)

We live in a relatively small town, but we’re twenty minutes from Providence, RI and about an hour from Boston. (I work, you guessed it, in Boston. Thank goodness for commuter trains!) Providence is known as a paradise for foodies, with many fine restaurants. It also boasts a remarkable winter farmers’ market, which has become part of our weekend routine. It’s astonishing how much farm-fresh food is available in New England in winter: meat, eggs, cheese, seafood, and an array of produce. The produce is especially impressive considering the snow that was falling outside on Saturday. A number of vendors didn’t even make it because of the inclement weather.

Greens and roots from a farm in Scituate, Rhode Island. They were also selling lamb and wool.

The market is in this great old industrial building. I want to go back sometime and just take pictures of the space.

It’s now an “artists’ village” with living space, studio space and shops, including a violin-maker. Fascinating!

We came home with greens, lamb sausage, and pasture-raised grass-fed beef ribs. Our friends got jams and cheese as well as veggies. We did not buy a few dozen oysters and a bag of slipper shells or mussels–this time! Nor did we buy a violin…but I came close to springing for some expensive but oh so soft alpaca yarn.

Check out my fancy new header picture. I am no longer trapped in what the theme designer thought looked spiffy. I can change at will!

The lovely blue water (my own photo) is in honor of a work in progress involving water witches and an otter shifter. You knew it had to happen eventually, didn’t you? Ocean-loving lass had to write an ocean-theme book.

Big, big thanks to my friend Heather, whose mad HTML skills helped me change out the picture, and whose teaching skills made me understand how she did it so I can do it again. Heather, by the way, makes fabulous jewelry and fun, geek-themed t-shirts. Check her out at her website, Rewondered.  Buy pretty shiny things for yourself or someone you love.

Just a quick note to say I’ve gotten a pub date of July 17, 2012 for Fox’s Folly.
And in honor of  Tag the fox shifter, whose weird sense of humor would appreciate it, I give you a picture from today’s visit from the winter farmer’s market, entitled “Carrot or Marital Aid?” The farmer, whose face is edited out since he didn’t sign a release or anything, was not a small man.

Pardon the weird black line. I had a tragic photo-editing accident and somehow managed to save it over the original. (I was too busy giggling maniacally like a fourth-grader who’s just said a naughty word to pay attention, I guess. While I’m sure there’s a way to fix it, it hardly seems worth the effort for a picture that’s really just a cheap joke.

A post about our amazing winter market will be posted shortly.

Just got word that Fox’s Folly has been accepted at Samhain. Yippee!

So far in the young new year, I’ve written and submitted a short story, started revisions on Shaman’s Sanctuary and (because I just can’t stop!) started another Duals and Donovans book.

No writing today, due to an unfortunate stomach bug that’s wiped me out completely. But things are looking up in that department too and I’m eating what may be the best scrambled eggs ever: brilliant golden yellow eggs from a local organic farm, salted and peppered lightly and sprinkled with dill (which, if I remember my herbal medicine, is supposed to be good for the tummy). Amazing how delicious such simple fare can be. I’ll have to try the same thing on a day when I’ve been able to eat normally. Usually I burden my scrambled eggs with cheese, leftovers of all sorts, the works. But with good fresh eggs, salt and pepper may be all I need.

I’m still feeling a bit soggy, though, so I’m signing off to go back to my comfy chair, look for a cat, and read. (The Name of the Wind, a nice, juicy, detailed fantasy.)

This picture has nothing to do with anything I’ve been writing about. The page just looked bland without a visual.

Leach Pond, Borderlands

The Cat-Herder and I spent a quiet New Year’s Eve. We puttered around the house, ate Guinness Beef Stew, and watched the entire extended version of the Lord of the Rings. We didn’t even open the lovely bottle of champagne we’d bought for the occasion, because we were both feeling so low-key and relaxed we wouldn’t have appreciated it properly.

Yesterday, we took a long walk through the state park park near our house. It was ridiculously warm* for New Year’s Day in Massachusetts; in the high 40s/low 50s, it was just cool enough to be pleasantly brisk as we walked. We stuck to the easy, relatively flat trail around the pond, but we’ve vowed to ourselves to get out for walks in the woods at least twice a month, so in time we’ll work our way up to more challenging trails.

One of my goals for this year is to get more outdoor time. It feeds me spiritually and emotionally. Even time that can’t count as “exercise” seems to improve my health, but for a good chunk of the year, it’s dark when I leave the house and/or get home, and it’s often hard to get away from my office to take a walk. (Actually there’s no good reason not to, other than my co-workers are the types who eat lunch while working and I feel like I’d “look bad.” Better that than feeling bad, and honestly I don’t think anyone cares as long as I get my work done!) Hence, the need to set outdoor time as a goal.

I don’t have specific resolutions for 2012, since “goals” work better for me than resolutions. I’m still working out, in my head, the best motivational wording for my broader goals before I set them down. I do have a short- term goal, which is to write daily, even it’s just a bit, during the month of January. It’s only January 2 and I’ve finished a story draft, so I’m feeling quite positive about this challenge. Let’s see if I can keep the rhythm up!

*It’s been crazy warm this winter so far. Dinner on New Year’s Day involved a salad from my garden, and I don’t have a cold frame. The weather is starting to shift toward more normal winter temperatures–we’ll see how long the lettuce and kale last under a floating row cover.

I’d vowed to myself that I would get at least one of the unfinished books on my hard drive whipped into shape and off to a publisher before 2011 took its bow and left the stage.

Today, I sent Fox’s Folly (working title) to my editor at Samhain, who’s probably forgotten I exist because it’s been over a year since my last Samhain title came out. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

This is a Duals and Donovans book. Chronologically, it’s actually the first story, though I imagine we’ll be calling it something like  “a Duals and Donovans adventure” rather than screwing up the numbering. It’s a prequel to Foxes’ Folly, showing how my heroes met and fell in love. “A fox’s folly is a witch’s fortune–and what happens in Vegas doesn’t always stay there.” Add a half-fae casino owner with a supernatural murder problem, and Grama Josie Donovan (who manages to interfere in the lives of her grandchildren even after she’s dead) to all the issues that can arise when people from very different cultures fall for each other, and Paul and Tag will be lucky to make it to the weekend, let alone to a happy ending.  (By the way, that link has nothing to do with the book. It’s just a cool image I found that might just be Tag’s distant ancestor.)

(This is a fennec from North Africa. I want to write a story that involves fennecs doing something magical because they’re insanely cute and look like little fairy foxes. However, since they weigh only about 5 pounds, I have a hard time seeing them as romance heroes or heroines. Maybe a charming sidekick?)

The year is winding to a close. I’m on vacation this week, and I’d love to say I’ve spent it writing madly, but I haven’t.

I think in some ways that’s a good thing.

For the past few months, I’ve been telling people, “my give-a-damn is broken.” I suppose it qualifies as mild depression, but being the kind of person I am, I fought it, ignored it, tried to keep on keeping on and got more and more exhausted.

Why have I been so tired? I kept beating myself over it, thinking I was doing something wrong.  Recently, though, the Cat-Herder calculated that I had at least a month and a half less available time in 2011 than I did in 2010 due to switching from a part-time day job to a full-time one with a commute. I know other writers also have outside jobs.  It’s possible, though, that they aren’t trying to do all the other things I am–or aren’t dealing with chronic illnesses made worse by stress–or just don’t need to sleep as much as I do in order to function! I really need to learn to give myself a break.

This vacation has been an attempt to recharge, to get back in touch with what gives me joy so I can feel joy again: joy in creating, joy in the taste of food, joy in the way the light touches the bare, sand-beige branches of the oak trees outside my office window.

And it’s working. I’ve made and eaten delicious food, mindfully. I’ve walked in the woods for the first time in ages, feeling wind on my face and the slight tug on my muscles. I’ve petted my cats, mindfully rather than absently, and reminded myself of the small miracles that are cats. (My 20-plus pound behemoths aren’t small miracles by feline standards, but you get the point.) I’ve cuddled with my beloved for hours, not impatient to be elsewhere, not impatient to Fool Around, or, if I was, able to enjoy the slow progress instead of feeling the need to rush because I had other things to do or worse yet, might fall asleep on him if we didn’t hurry it up. I’ve knitted. I’ve hung out with friends, sipping wine.

And today I wrote a poem.

It’s a start. I think I may actually be able to write today. I’m a bit foggy because I had to take a migraine pill last night, but we’ll see what I can do.

And if the answer is “not much,” that’s okay too.

(This artwork brought to you by LiveJournaler Unexpected_box)

I wasn’t able to post during the Thanksgiving holiday; my mom is one of the last people in America not hooked up to the Internet (she genuinely doesn’t want to be; we’ve offered to take care of it all for her multiple times and she keeps saying no) and I couldn’t be bothered to run around looking for wireless while I was there. Still, I have many things for which I’m thankful.

Although “things” is a loose and inaccurate word, since almost none of them are items or possessions, but people or states of being.

1) My darling Cat-herder. I’m blessed to be married to a wonderful, supportive man (who happens to be hot and a good cook to boot.)

2) My mom, seventy-eight and still sharper than most people. Her physical health isn’t that good, but honestly it never has been. That she’s still able to read, do crosswords, watch documentaries about recreating lost Native American languages and argue politics is a blessing.

3) Our home and little plot of land in which I can grow food.

4) Two adults in the household, two decent jobs. In our current economy, that’s a rarity.

5) My job, in itself. Sometimes it makes me crazy and the hours cut into writing more than I’d prefer, but it keeps my brain stimulated. Now, if I could only scale it back to part-time. Maybe someday!

6) Reasonable health. I have migraines and asthma and a few other niggling issues, and the C-H has arthritis in one knee, but overall we’re in decent shape.

7) Good friends. No, make that great friends.

More than enough food, plenty of books and yarn, and a well-stocked bar–and good jobs (see #5 and 6) to restock as needed.

10) One of my dear friends, our darling Housegeek, meeting a very special lady.

11) Freedom from fear.

12) Freedom to write, even to write wacky, blatantly sexual books that would have been censored not too long ago, and in many parts of the world still would be.

Yeah, I have my moments of bitching and complaining like most people, but overall I have to say I’m blessed. This list only scratches the surface.