Today as it Begins
The morning irritation was brought on by the New York Times Crossword. Aside from the fact that so far this week with one exception all the puzzle builders were men, I felt instant revulsion to the answer to the clue: “Big name in green products”. Anyone other than suburban clones obsessed with dandelion-free water-guzzling expanses of invasive grasses surrounding their cookie-cutter houses would have tried to think up an eco-company for their six-letter answer. But no. This is New York, not Sonoma County. The answer for Jeff Stillman was “Scotts”. Among the many chemical fertilizers listed on the Scotts company website are those under the heading “lawn challenges”, and in case you need explication, the term “lawn challenges” is a corporate euphemism for poisons. These not-green items include toxins for every insect you could imagine who might notch your perfect grass blades. So a big NO for this clue and I never want to see it again.
Today it is 24 degrees outside in the Oregon Willamette valley, and the juncos are enjoying my front garden in spite of the cold. I do wonder, though, why so cold when experts everywhere inform me that we are entering an El Niño phase, which equals, they also tell me, warmer and wetter. I am waiting …
As I read the New Yorker Magazine, I thought about who the true enemy of the United States is. It is not the government establishment, as I used to believe in my 60’s childhood, because the scary thing about the US Government is its inherent ineptitude in handling anything. (Never give any project having to do with preserving the environment to the Army Corps of Engineers and never allow the Veterans Administration to manage mortgage-forgiveness programs.) No, our true enemy is Corporatism. Americans truly better wake up to the fact that Corporation operatives, or WMIS (White Men in Suits) really are working the game joy sticks of our country. Count on the continued loss of Constitutional freedoms like voting, personal choice in managing private health care (abortion, transgender options), environmental protections, speech, fair immigration, and a living wage (this includes housing for all). The current Supreme Court is already giving the WMIS a big hand up.
Authors Cook!
New from Book View Cafe: We share our recipes with the world. I’ve got a few here, along with super cooks such as Brenda Clough, Jennifer Stevenson, and Sherwood Smith.
I have a new book out, previously published in 2011 with some minor revisions-and brand new cover-for 2023…
Finding the body of girl who died over two centuries ago should be the hardest part of Louise’s job. Only things get a lot tougher when she finds out that her tall dark and grouchy ex is looking, too, if and if he succeeds first, Louise will be out the money and her reputation will take a hit. All too soon, both realize that there’s more going on here than meets the eye, and someone’s been lying to them, and someone else is out to make sure both Louise and Ely die before they succeed in their quests.
Just who was this dead girl? And why do so many people want to find her body?
In the end, finding the body may be Louise’s last, fatal regret.
Available at Amazon and Book View Cafe
New look for the Book View Cafe website and release of my new Historical Novel, The Last Dog in England:
Available here as ebook now and soon to be on other outlets.
February 11, 2022. Another new movie review. And a cat photo.
December 27, 2021. A new movie review, and snow
Look at my new Movie Reviews page as I join the likes of Anthony Lane and Richard Brody in offering my opinions.
September 22, 2021. Today in Yachats, Oregon
August, 2021: The garden: just before Heat Wave Part 2
May, 2021: Oregon Wild Horse Corral, Hines, Oregon
High Desert Entertainment, Burns, Oregon
Two redtails and one raven quarrel over a dead gopher.
The Garden this week, May, 2021
New Release!!
Short stories, some reprints, some brand new. Just out October 20, 2020 from Book View Cafe.
A new character in The Memory Book
I found her at Deposit Photos–downloaded the license, so no copying! Anyway, this is Beatrix’s winged mare. I don’t have a name for her yet.
And for added delight, I uploaded this cel replication. Love this sequence of Fantasia!
The promised garden photos
Forms of address
As I work on The Memory Book and since I am dealing with the bureaucracy of angel hierarchy, I’ve had to research forms of address. Mainly I’m drawn to the arcane forms used for clergy. Angels are of a religious class after all.
I’ve wavered with the titles for my choir characters; Beatrix, part seraphim, part cherubim, is on a level with the Patriarchs. But their form of address is His Beatitude So-and so. Too weird to write or read Her Beatitude Beatrix. So I dropped a little lower in the echelon and started using Her Excellency. I also really like Her Eminence, and I may, in editing, change to that form of address.
More on this later. The clock says I must get ready for an appointment.
Life in quarantine
I misspelled “quarantine” when I first wrote it down in my Book View Cafe blog. It was not a word I used much in my writing. In health care, the word was “isolation”. “Quarantine” was reserved for plagues such as small pox and typhoid. I imagine now that there is a newer term for isolating patients for the two major reasons of either protecting them from others, or protecting others from them.
So I write in quarantine, but I have always done so; writing is a solo experience. Even when in workshop mode one does one’s homework alone, isolated except for music or an old black and white movie.
However I am not technically alone. Three living beings of the five I share this house with are here now, and generally they are peaceful and leave me alone, except for the predictable cat on a keyboard, or a mastiff barking in my ear at the garbage truck outside.
So, here they are, in all their meditative, sleeping splendor, while I write alone.
The Memory Book updates
As I am writing my “into the dark” novella, or whatever it is, now and then I think I should comment about choices. Scene 1 is written in first person. Then I read through the first 3 scenes, and realized that this book needs to be in close 3rd person, so that I can get into the heads of key characters. Augustus and Beatrix, being primary characters will probably earn the majority of the narrative, but as characters walk in, such as Rosemary and Pretty Thing walk onto the stage, I like to inhabit them. Their perspective gives the reader a broader glimpse into the world I am building. And a broader glimpse for the writer–me–into the world and the conflict and how selfish motives will drive the narrative.
As the story develops, changes will and must be made along the way, including going back to either tweak or severely edit. “Writing into the dark”, however, necessitates leaving those adjustments and surgeries to the last, when the work is complete. Each post may contain conflicts in the writing, much less for the characters.
And, in case you are now thinking that is the reason I delete each prior scene from the website, my rationale is quite other.
1.) I want you to visit my website every Monday and leave a brief comment; a boo or a brava! will suffice. In this way I might even get a newsletter subscription going for my five fans, and give away a free short story now and then.
2.) Deleting each scene each week, leaving the scene available for only 7 days, may discourage piracy. One may hope.
The author.
Some very-much needed, and very-well written, political fantasy (by myself, of course, and others):
Alternative Theologies: Parables for a Modern World, (Alternatives Book 3)
New flash fiction out on Daily Science Fiction!
“All’s Quiet in the Robot Barn” is now available. Also find my flash piece “Variety” there. I hope you enjoy these little nibbles of science fiction and millennial wishful-thinking on the dark side.
Find more of my flash here: Flash Fiction Online.
The bio stuff
What do you want to know about me? I won’t tell you my age, but I will tell you about the books. Historical fiction is my current love, but for years I have written fantasy and science fiction short stories. Those stories that have become novels, and that I like to sell, are available at the links provided here.
Enjoy, read, explore.
Here is a photo of our two English mastiffs, just to give you a glimpse of me.
Jill Zeller 
Great story, all’s quiet in the robot barn, in daily science fiction! Really liked it!
I only know one of your short stories and I and still remember it!