F Is For… Fun!!!

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#AtoZChallenge 2025 letter F

Okay. So life is what happens when you’re making other plans. Or, as our friend Nicole says, “If you want to make the gods laugh, tell them your plans.”

I’ll catch up with our missing letters, but for today, I’m just going to keep going. It’s like when you’re losing weight. Yeah, you ate the piece of cake. Or you skipped the gym. Or you had the fettuccine alfredo. (I’m making myself hungry.)

So I’m going to do something completely different. We’re known for talking about food in our books. In Chicagoland Shifters, Neal Harrison and his former Marines run a restaurant in Chicago. In the Persis Chronicles, we have lots and lots of food and our main character Teeka talks about it a lot.

Safe to say, I love to talk about cooking and even took part in a cookbook, Cook Like a Writer. I also have anorexia. My relationship with food is intellectual, because my emotional connection is all wonky with it due to childhood trauma. Eating disorders are one of the basket of symptoms from Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I like to read cookbooks and even watch cooking classes, because it’s a safe way to interact with it, but it’s like I’m waiting through glass as people enjoy food. I don’t have that experience.

Which brings me to comedian Matteo Lane. He has an enormously funny riff on fettucine alfredo which I learned, to my utter shock, is not, in fact, authentic Italian food. I even verified it with my somatic coach, who lives in Italy.

Say it ain’t so!

Apparently, Americans love the stuff so much that some restaurants in Italy put it on their menus just to shut us up.

Here, then, without further ado, is Matteo Lane:

 

C Is For… Caden!

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#AtoZChallenge 2025 letter C

C Is For Caden!

Caden Meadows is a dormant crow shifter and shaman. He’s the one that brought me back from a multiple-year drought with writing. I fell in love with him very early on. He’s got a combination of strength and gentleness, and a bit of whimsical playfulness.

When writing characters, it’s helpful to explore hobbies they might be interested in. We decided that Caden is really good with juggling. He grew up on the carnival circuit, traveling up and down the west coast from Oregon to Southern California. We have a small scene in Book 1, As the Crow Flies, where Caden starts to juggle casually. It’s a very tiny scene, all things considered, but it’s the normalization of his abilities that makes him a ‘real’ person.

What are your favorite characters, who seem like real people to you?

B Is For… Bram Archer!

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B Is For… Bram Archer

Instructor Abraham Archer is a newer instructor to Snow Ridge Mage College. He is based on John Cena. He is one of the professors of magic, and teaches the class Grounding, Centering & Shielding as well as the next level of Mediation & Visualization. His Familiar is a silver fox vixen named Wanda.

My favorite thing about him is that he’s huge, a tall and muscular man. He is gentle, articulate, and calm. Above all, that’s what you notice about him, is the calm.

There are a lot of ways to develop a character. I like to start from an image or a feeling. Rachel is very visual and likes to find images to write from.  She uses our Pinterest board extensively, to find actors, set locations, and even knickknacks that characters like. You check it out, here: https://www.pinterest.com/noonandwilder/_created/.

The A to Z of the Foundlings Series!

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#AtoZChallenge 2025 badge A

Greetings from the rainy Pacific Northwest! I’m Noony, and I’ll be your host this month for the A to Z Blog Challenge here on our blog.

First, though, I want to share something of critical importance. Now, more than ever, it’s critical for creatives to stand together and support each other. To that end, those of you here in the States, we are rallying this coming Saturday, April 5th. On this single day, four groups have come together: 50501, Indivisible, Hands Off, and Women’s March. They are organizing on two websites: Hands Off and See you in the Streets.

NOTE: As of Saturday night, 885 protests have been logged. Protests are being added daily. These are *non-violent* protests. Hope to see you there! If you can’t come in person, please help spread the word, either on social media or with your local press. Let’s show these billionaire oligarchs that America is not for sale.

Second, on to our theme, which is,

The A to Z of the Foundlings Series!

Guess what, peeps! We are writing again! That’s write, Dear Reader, we have some new books coming for you! So I figured I’d use the A to Z Challenge to challenge myself to share with you about our new series, our writing process, and the upcoming events Author Nation and Reader Nation which take place in November. As part of our participation in Author Nation, we have signed up to be part of a Kickstarter cohort so we can learn all about Kickstarter, and even met with the founder and CEO of Curios, a platform where you can buy direct from artists, musicians, and writers – without supporting online platforms that take the lion’s share of the profits from creators.

The Foundlings Series

We have finished three of the first four books in our new series, The Foundlings. They follow the stories of crow shifters, mages, magical and shifter academies, and even feature the cute creatures you’ve come to know and love from us. We’ll give you some sneak peeks into our characters, our Pinterest board, the inspiration for locations and even actors we’d cast if we had unlimited budgets.

Writing Process

We are both very different in our approach to creating and writing. I’m very right-brained, and an ENFP on the Myers-Briggs. Rachel is very left-brained sequential, and an ISTJ. Together, we balance each other and round each other out. We’ll share what that looks like and even give you some prompts to try so you can have some fun writing on your own if you’d like.

Author Nation and Reader Nation

Author Nation is in Las Vegas this year, November 3rd to the 7th, with Keynote Speaker James Patterson! You can find out more on their website, Author Nation. Rachel and I will have a table at the book signing event, Reader Nation, and we can’t wait to meet you there! We’ll talk about some of what we’re learning as part of Author Nation – they have a ton of educational content for authors in advance of the event, including an active Discord server.

Kickstarter and Curios

We are ecstatic to get to learn about Kickstarter and Curios, and how they can help us reach YOU better. We’ll share a bit of what we’re learning and hope you’ll bear with us as we get up to speed as we go along.

In short, Dear Reader, we are so pleased your here. The world is a challenging place right now, particularly for the LGBTQIA+ community, and one of the most important ways we can resist is to keep on creating art, taking time for joy, and connecting with friends and others in the community. And THAT is why we’re participating in the A to Z challenge this year. We’re glad you’re here! Leave us a comment and tell us where in the world you are. We’d love to know!

Statement on the Events of 11/5/24

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I wrote this for my weekly craft salon, and wanted to share it here as well.

Statement on the Events of 11/5/24

I know we’ve seen the news by now, and that the results are not what we wanted. I wanted to say a few words and provide, if I can, some measure of solace for the times that are ahead of us.
Plenty of words will be written and spoken in the coming days about what happened, why it occurred, and what to do about it. But my focus is, and must be, closer to home. What is relevant for our purposes is this: the foundation of our personal wellness comes down to at least three things: mindfulness, community, and creativity. It is by exercising those three things, which are entirely in our control, that we garner the strength to heal, the resilience to act, and the strength to respond to adverse circumstances.
Mindfulness:
Mindfulness doesn’t only mean meditation, and meditation doesn’t only mean stillness. As trauma specialist Molly Birkholm points out, there are three key questions we can ask ourselves whenever we need to come back to our home ground:
1. What is present?
2. Where am I feeling it in my body?
3. Is this information asking me to take some action in the world?
If you, like me, are experiencing a flood of emotions and anxiety, that first question is where our focus will have the most impact. As we learn to sit with our discomfort, to hold the hurt parts, the anxiety, the fear, and the rage, we come into coherence: coherence with our emotions, with our bodies, and with our minds. It is in coherence that we can act from our best and most enlightened selves. This is not comfortable work. It is not easy work. It IS work. It is THE work.
Stay with the emotions as you can, and remember that they tend to come in 90 second waves, like labor pains. Breathe. Practice good self care. Eat well, sleep well, hydrate. If we fall off the wagon and binge on junk food or drugs and alcohol, give ourselves grace to realize that’s a trauma response. We are trying to self-medicate. Get back on the wagon. Follow your program. I’ve got some resources below if you need them.
Community:
A Good Yarn: Makerspace and Crafting Salon is not going anywhere. We will continue our “politics-free zone,” and for the same reason that I put that in place when we started this. It’s not to white-wash what’s happening. It’s not to make nice. It’s not because there are good people on both sides. It’s because, plain and simple, we need a fucking break. We need a break from the vitriol, the division, and the very real fear for ourselves, our families, our community, and our world. Do not think for a moment that I am blind to any of these things. It is precisely because I see them and feel them so keenly that I need to stake out a place where I say, this place, this sacred space, this liminal space is a space out of space and a time out of time and is inviolate to the forces of confusion that seek to destroy it. It is, quite simply, a radical act.
Remember our communities. We are not alone, and there is nothing we cannot accomplish when we work together. I know that it might not feel like that right now, and that you, like me, are feeling bruised. That’s why these steps are chronological. Go back to the beginning. Go back to the breath. What is present. Where are you feeling it. Is the information asking you to take some action in the world.:
Act. Join your local Indivisible chapter. Cure ballots. (Ask me privately what that is if you haven’t heard of it.) Join Red, Wine, and Blue. Follow Heather Cox Richardson and Dan Rather. Talk to flesh and blood humans and stay the fuck off social media when you want to connect, and really connect with other humans. Come to craft circle. You don’t even have to say a word, just sit there and soak up the energy. Remember: Winnie the Pooh and friends didn’t kick Piglet out when he was feeling down. They sat with him.
Creativity:
I’ve said this many times before: all writing is a radical act. I would expand that to all acts of creativity are radical acts. Our power is in our hands and our voices, and in our ability to play. Audre Lorde said it best: “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation and that is an act of political warfare.”
Child-like pursuits are also radical acts. It takes balls to color as an adult. It takes balls to stand up and say, I like to knit. It takes balls to make something, to have the temerity to declare ourselves “artist” in a world that is fueled by monetization.
Do it anyway.
Stay strong. Keep the faith. Write.

Resources:

Mindfulness:
Yoga Nidra:
Molly Birkholm has a number of resources. There are quite a few, but the ones I like are a series she did during the pandemic:
Community:
Saturday studio time: Saturdays, noon to 2 Pacific on Zoom (leave me a comment to discuss if you’re not already on the list)

Indivisible: https://indivisible.org/

Red, Wine, and Blue: https://redwine.blue/
Heather Cox Richardson: https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/ (there is a free version of her daily newsletter; she also puts up an audio version the next day. Letters come out daily in the evening. She’s a professor on the East Coast of the U.S.; non-partisan.)
Dan Rather: https://steady.substack.com/ (there is a free version; he’s a retired U.S. reporter, non-partisan)

 

Creativity:
The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron
Seattle Writers Group on Discord (leave a comment and we can discuss privately if you would like to join; open joins are paused for the moment for the safety of the community)
Monday Write-ins with Writer Zen Garden (leave a comment and we can discuss privately)
I will have more info and thoughts in the coming days, but like you, I’m reeling from the news. Be gentle with each other. And above all, remember you are loved.

Guess What? We’re Included in a Multi-Author Post! Join Us!

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Image of Bestselling Author Allie Rich's blog where our multi-author post is located.Dear Reader! It’s been a minute, hasn’t it? We have several pieces of terrific news, which I’ll be sharing, but for today I have a real treat for you!

The amazing Allie Rich invited us to participate in a multi-author post with other bestselling authors. There are some terrific folx in here with lots to keep you busy with your summer TBR pile (that’s “To Be Read” for those of you not into acronyms!).

Participating authors include Kayelle Allen, Charlie Cochrane, Susanna Eastman, PG Forte, Ann Gimpel, Treva Harte, Jenna Ives, Becca Jameson, Regina Kammer, Gail Koger, Christina Lynn Lambert, Theodora Lane, Rosanna Leo, Tami Lund, A. Catherine Noon, Neil S. Plakcy, Emery Quinn, Laurel Richards, Cynthia Sax, Megan Slayer, Errin Stevens, Jessica E. Subject, Rachel Wilder, Cynthia Woolf, and Wendi Zwaduk.

Our section features the first book in our Chicagoland Shifters series, and I realized that Goodreads still has the original cover from the now out-of-print edition. So you get to see a blast from the past! I get to figure out how to change it – the amazing J. Scott Coatsworth is hooking me up. (If you haven’t checked out his stuff, do so now; he’s fantastic!!)

Above all, be kind to each other and remember to READ!

Cheers!

Aunt Noony

J Is For… Jawboning!

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Well okay then! It’s already April 12th! How did that happen?

I suppose this is a good object lesson in the affects of stress on writing. 🙂 Any time we go under a major stressor, it has an impact on our creativity. This is normal. Rather than beating ourselves up about it, and I’m talking to myself here as much as to you, it’s more effective to just get moving in the direction we want to go. Recriminations don’t work, being “hard on ourselves” doesn’t work, and giving up doesn’t get us where we want to go. It’s kind of like when you’re working to lose weight and eat a giant slice of cake in the middle of it. You can either shrug and move on, or give up and eat the rest of the cake. And eating the rest of the cake isn’t going to get you where you want to go.

Which leads me to my inspiration for today’s post: jawboning.

Now, get your mind out of the gutter.

Jawboning, for those of you who don’t already know and aren’t trying to figure out if it’s an obscure sexual position, means talking – as in, spending time with a friend shooting the breeze, talking about whatever, hanging out, or whatever they call it in your part of the world. But today, I’m going to propose that the point of this conversation is this:

Pick yourself up and keep going.

Rather than complain about how you didn’t get where you wanted to, talk about how you are going to move forward today, now, with where you are. Rather than “crying over spilled milk,” and luxuriating in a good complaint session, why not try brainstorming with your friend about all the ways you could work toward your goal in baby steps?

After all, baby steps are still steps, and all forward motion is forward motion.

I’m following my own advice today, and posting for you, Dear Reader.

What’s some great advice you’ve been given on how to move forward?

A Is For… The A To Z Challenge, and Our Theme Is Thawing!

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It’s Spring, for one thing. For another thing, the A to Z Challenge is here, and it felt like the right time to do something. Right? Right.

So what IS the challenge? So glad you asked!

Every day in the month of April, write a blog post – except on Sundays. If you count, you’ll find that gives you 26 days. In the English language alphabet, there are 26 letters. Voila. A to Z.

Some folx use a theme, some don’t. I’ve done years where I’ve had a theme, and years where I didn’t. This year, I decided on a theme:

Thawing

Why?

Therein lies the story.

(You had to know that was coming…)

It’s been a rough few years. Between the pandemic, the rise of Christo-fascism around the world, an illegal war of aggression in Ukraine, and the climate emergency, it’s hard to stay focused on anything much less keep up any consistent creative effort (and to the creators out there that have done it, my hat is off to you, truly).

Rachel and I are feeling the thaw this year, and 2023 is the first year we’ve both felt a bit of honest optimism. Like any flame, one needs to blow gently on a spark to get it to catch. This challenge is our effort to do that. By focusing on something all month, it will give us something to talk about, and hopefully get our fingers used to being back on the keyboard so we can get back to what we’re really good at – and finish the damned book (as Cherry Adair says!).

We are hard at work on Sapphire Dream and getting closer to the finish line. Cheula and Sami are…

Well, that would be telling. Check back on Monday for the letter B, and see if we tell you some more.

We’re glad you’re here!

Welcome!

Happy Holidays!

Noon and Wilder Posted on by

It’s official! We’re in the last month of 2019! It’s December – finally! I don’t know about you, Dear Reader, but I am very glad we are here. And the site is ready to go! Thank you so much to Crystal Jordan, who is amazing to work with and got us back on our feet web-wise. And heart-felt gratitude goes out to J. Scott Coatsworth, who helped us format our books and get them back into production. If it weren’t for you two, we’d still be pouting in our pajamas on the couch. (Well, okay, I’m still wearing pajamas but I’m in the office instead of the couch, so there.)

2019 has been an interesting year. There’s a lot of great news – the site is live! the books are up! – and some less good news – some vacations end up as disasters and no I won’t tell that story right now but man we’re glad it’s over. And now, as the year comes to a close and we settle in to enjoy the holidays, I’m pleased to say that we have holidays to enjoy. Last year at this time I was deep in day-job Hell and I’m so pleased to be able to say that’s OVER.

Sometimes, getting to the end of a chapter is the best thing that could ever happen.

So what’s new?

Noony’s on the left, Rachel’s on the right. She came for a visit in October and we got to hang out and mostly relax. (I say mostly because our Vacation Curse was working and she got ill with a fever of 103 her last day here, but I digress. She’s fine now, thankfully, but NEXT year we are NOT DOING THE VACATION CURSE, kthxbi. Just’ sayin’.) We visited the Woodland Park Zoo and the Bellevue Botanical Garden, did some writing stuffs, and some craft stuffs, and mostly reflected on the vagaries of life.

No, really, We reflected. It was epic.

We saw a lovely dragonfly at the botanical garden, which is the logo of Writer Zen Garden, so we both took that to be a good omen. He even let me get really close to snap his portrait.

Our books are back up and available at your favorite retailer or library, and I’ll get Six Geese Laid up shortly as well. That felt like Sisyphus and the Rock, but it’s done now and we can go back to doing what we do best – stories!

We’re hosting Coach Jonni over at our Writer Zen Garden Creative Cluster on Facebook for a free one hour Masterclass, “Journaling Courage.” I’m super excited for this one because I want to get better at tapping into my own inner courage as I work to bring about the positive change in my life like more books, more art, and more relaxation/mindfulness. I hope you’ll join us!

I’m still working on topic ideas for the blogs and we’re not done with the site redesigns, so that will keep me occupied for a while longer. But I’m looking forward to the new year and starting fresh, writing more, and making stuff. What about you, Dear Reader? What are you looking forward to?

So then there’s this…

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I’m sure if you are an editor reading this, you’re hitting your head on the desk because I used a bunch of bridge words in my title, sometimes referred to as “garbage words,” but I don’t care. I’m using them anyway. Why?

Because I can.

Can you tell that I’m editing?

But I decided to take a break from editing to look up why the images are showing up twice on our blog and discovered something.

It’s because I’m doing featured image wrong.

Sigh.

So I now have to go back and fix that, and I don’t think there’s a super-quick way to do that. But in the meantime, I figured I’d give you an update on what I’ve been doing, since I’m supposed to be doing editing:

  • 7 loads of laundry (no, really. 7.)
  • Two dishwashers full of dishes
  • Cooked lunch
  • Edited for 30 mins
  • Did morning pages
  • Made coffee
  • Went for a walk with a friend
  • Did some manifestation work/play
  • Did several calligraphy pieces before finally getting the sizing right for the site banner that I needed
  • Fought with the cat
  • Ate dinner while watching a Netflix show
  • Cleaned the litter boxes while watching the Netflix show
  • Ate berries and pineapple for dessert
  • Took my vitamins
  • Brushed my teeth

No new words are in that list.

Which is why, Dear Reader, I’m doing this blog post.

GAH.

~typity~