Notes from Maine - 2020/12/27
We had a wet Christmas this year. Rain washed away all the snow. Mud season has come early. It’s beginning to look a lot like early April. At least the days are getting longer now. It’s always tough when the sun finally rises sometime after 7am and disappears around 4pm. Everything that requires sunlight, like picking up all the branches that came down in the storm, has to be done at a sprint.
Yesterday, my chores were interrupted by a terrible task. The bathroom in my hall hasn’t been used since my father went home, and I made the mistake of trying to flush the toilet. It backed up immediately. I suspected a clog in the toilet itself, but I was wrong. Removing the cleanup in the basement, I discovered gallons and gallons of backed up “water.” Fortunately, I was clever enough to be standing right in the path of the gushing “water” as I tried to position a big trash can to catch it. Using my body as a backboard, I managed to direct most of it into the can before I discovered that the trash can wasn’t exactly watertight.
Once everything was flowing properly and cleaned up, I washed all my clothes and took a two-hour shower.
An experience like that is helpful to maintain proper perspective, I suppose. No matter what happens today, I guarantee it will be delightful compared to yesterday!
A bunch of years ago, I wrote a book called Lies of the Prophet. For me, writing that book was a wonderful escape from my normal life. I was miserable in a lot of ways, so I conjured characters who were embroiled in misery. I granted them enormous untapped strength that they used to lift themselves out of misery. They solved their own problems and conquered their foes. The title isn’t very good. It doesn’t convey any of that.
I’m making that book free today if you want to check it out. If you’ve already read that one, I have a brand new book called Incarnation. It’s set in the same world as Lies of the Prophet and it touches on some of the same themes. In this new book, our main character is very much aware of her strengths. She trusts her instincts and abilities. Everybody has a weakness though. I had fun finding and exploiting that weakness.
I hope you’re having a good holiday (if you have a holiday), and you’re looking forward to the upcoming year as much as I am. Years like 2020 are helpful to maintain proper perspective, I think. Hopefully, whatever comes in the future will be delightful in comparison.
