June. It’s June. My birthday is soon. Can you do me a boon? Go take a gander at my book. I won’t rhyme anymore. It might make some of you darlings a bit sore.
I do believe the Kindle is $3.99.
THE ADVENTURES OF GRUMPY ODIN AND SEXY JESUS:
Odin knows better than to trust Newbie Jesus, in a borrowed flesh suit, but Jesus might actually deliver on getting back everyone Odin lost when God attacked the gods that came before him with holy fire. Maggie, head secretary to God, has a total crush on Odin, which lands her in unexpected very hot water with her rather smitey boss, as well as shove her down a path she never, ever saw coming. Poor Suzi finds out the very hard cost of loving a minion but there might be unexpected benefits that go along with her plight. Click and Clack might be holding onto some power that could come in handy during a batboy attack, and possibly useful to the only son of God. Add in some Karaoke Nites at the shared hangout of minions, secretaries and has-been magical riff-raff, along with secrets, betrayals, the Alvord Desert and a small stuffed rabbit, and you just might find yourself cheering for the Adventures of Grumpy Odin and Sexy Jesus.
“Why does it have to be tape?” Callie clutched the only picture she had of her mother as Xu kept a lookout for bears. The dead oak tree on the old Pearson property had not seen bears for twenty-three years, but one never knew.
“It can’t hurt the tree,” Xu answered, her face turning this way and that, the snow dancing past her suspicious eyes searching for objects to cover and change. It had not snowed for near three years. Not really. The sky seemed bloated and too gray-white for Callie’s comfort. “The tree’s magic won’t work. That’s the rules. What was that?”
Both peered toward the tilled field, where corn had stood in military precision until just a few days ago. A rather large blurry object bumbled toward them. “That’s the stray dog. The St. Bernard Mr. Kelly tried to shoot. Said it was eating his chickens. So I tape this to this magic tree and my mom comes back?”
“There’s words and stuff,” Xu offered, her crisp black hair covered with a raspberry beret. “It don’t always work. Like real magic. That’s how you know it’s real. When it doesn’t always work. That is a big dog. Tape it already. Duct tape, right?”
Callie pulled a long bit of scotch tape, heart beating too fast, eyes dazzled by tiny snowflakes waltzing past. “You didn’t say that. You never said that.” She stepped back, the picture of her mother in her high school cap and gown flapping, threatening to fly off. She heard panting. The St. Bernard, skinny as the old barn cat, Mrs. Mouse, looked at both with one mournful eye, the other gummed shut and leaking yellow matter. Matted auburn and ivory coat and one ear shredded, swollen. A more beat up, unhappy dog Callie had never seen. Xu backed away and it shadowed her. “It’s just an old dog.” The picture tore free, zoomed into the air, upheld by the growing wind. “Damn it!”
“No, let it go. Now say, dance dance, tree tree, come back to me. And your mom’s name.”
“What? Okay, whatever. Dance dance, tree tree, come back to me, Vivian Thomas. Oh her middle name was Jane.” Callie’s bare hand touched the back of the giant, emaciated dog. It leaned against her legs with a sigh. A collar? She removed it, the dog shook its entire body. Lady had been etched into the cracked leather. “Come on, Lady. You can live in the barn.”
“It’s probably got worms,” Xu trailed behind, always wary about bears but quite good with magic. Callie took the picture of her mother, put it in her coat pocket. “No! It has to remain near the tree. The dog stinks.”
The picture spiraled upward. Lady sniffed at a clump of weeds. Callie headed home, with her best friend Xu grumbling about it might not work now in her ears.
Hello from stormy Eastern Oregon. It’s cold. I have socks on.
66 Sunflower Street is a sort of ghost story. A mother and daughter house cleaning team return to the decrepit family house to ready it for buyers. However, the spirit of Grandmother Tru might be lurking yet in the basement.
Good mornin’! It’s chilly here in East Oregon. Wind’s blowin’. I am considering a run to town but I’d have to take a shower, find my town clothes, put on real shoes. Ugh! But we are out of lettuce.
Anyhoo.
Hey, Remarkable Women of Brokenheart Lane, my dystopian cannibal biker versus elderly sisters in what’s left of Fallon, Nevada novel, can be read for FREE ON KINDLE at the moment.
Basically– three elderly sisters, Lily, Violet and Laura, are squatting in Lily’s house in Fallon, Nevada. They’ve made the house look abandoned as there are human monsters roaming about in what’s left of the world and they’re just trying to survive another day, another day after that. The Werewolves, a cannibal biker gang that’s tangled with the Glitterbugs, yet another cannibal biker gang, limp into Fallon and possibly their Waterloo. It’s Laura, the silent sister who discovers her voice and then some, who pushes the other two into a possible showdown with the actual forces of the universe itself or maybe she’s gone completely crazy, cooped up in a moldering house living on boiled pee and deformed mice or whatever Violet can scrounge from the surrounding area. But the actual threat might very well arrive in the form of church ladies on bicycles– the legendary Snitty Ratballs. This apocalyptic threat has managed to make it over the booby-trapped Rockies, intent on law and ordering the remnants of the Old West. Who will survive??! Why is there a lion? Will the sisters join the Werewolves? Will Gut Bucket ever make it to Utah? Can Amy Octopus ever be believed?
Find out all this and more in THE REMARKABLE WOMEN OF BROKENHEART LANE
If you do read it, hey, leave a review.
Ain’t too proud to beg for reviews at this stage of my utterly barffling life. I added an ‘r’ to ‘baffling’. I think I’ll let it stand.
I have a short story included in Grandpa’s Deep Space Diner anthology.
The Americana Diner of Station 96 involves a family’s generational American-themed diner. It’s situated at the end of a strip of services and shops, a sort of truck stop for space folks. Missy Sue, suffering from a genetic malady, meets a space bad boy, who’s probably in love with a military woman who’s meeting him at the diner for some info. All of this as a rare ‘get off the planet now’ storm brews up that drives Missy Sue, her aunts and mom and their customers down into the storage space to try and survive if they can.
It’s rather sweet, a bit hopeful and even funny. There’s family dynamics, a bit of romance and some fun playing with how those trying to recreate a distant past tend to mess up details, motives and reasons why such and such was done that way.
It should be arriving soon for Kindle, as well as book form.
If you like sci fi, with different takes on food in outer space settings, hey, pick this one. I had a lot of fun writing my story, btw.
Monday. Here’s the blurb to go along with novel number five, the Adventures of Grumpy Odin and Sexy Jesus:
In The Adventures of Grumpy Odin and Sexy Jesus, Odin and Newbie Jesus team up, uneasily, to take on God in a power struggle that might rip the known universe apart. Click and Clack might be somethingother than your normal minion scum. Maggie, who has the hots for Odin, finds herself in the middle of an actual holy war. Zadkiel begins to think for himself a bit, which is rather rare for a batboy. Poor Suzi discovers that loving minion Minette lands her in strange places yet allows her to help everyone but herself. Swiss Charlie’s, under the stellar management of Stella Lou, seems the place to be for karaoke and intrigues gone very wrong!
The Adventures of Grumpy Odin and Sexy Jesus is a fantastical fantasy adventure story that has a lot more jokes in it than any holy scriptures and makes the bible seem like a fairy story!
Spring attempts a coup in my neck of the wilderness. Ukraine yet holds off Russian invaders. Gas prices continue to be used as a political hot button. Even considering adopting renewable energy sources to ween an entire country off fossil fuels brings on mass parades of screamy ‘patriots’ waving bald eagles and drinking oil milkshakes ‘to own the libs’.
I seem to be yet on a winning streak, writing-wise. A tiny one, but still. Cherry of Her Lips just got an acceptance for an anthology put out by Black Hare Press, on the theme of War. Lilith’s Arm got a nod for an anthology, too. Debuting this month will be Blood and Bread, in Toilet Zone 3, the Royal Flush. Seffi and Des will be in Musings of the Muses, a short story collection about the Greek Gods.
There’s also the flood of rejections. Don’t even worry about that, fellow babies.
Don’t know who wrote this. Seems apt and succinct, however.
I just saw an Idaho law that proposes going after librarians if they check out ‘obscene’ materials to kids. HB666. Idaho ledge. I have to think that numbering is a jest, a joke, an attempt at humor but no. And I have to ask…who gets to decide what’s ‘obscene’?
Rep. Skaug: “I would rather my six year old grandson start smoking cigarettes tomorrow” rather than view obscene materials in a library, he said.
What? Huh? Are Idaho librarians letting kids check out The Story of O or somethin’? Is Story of O obscene or artistic? Does it have ‘artistic merit’? Holy fuck, this really is the worst timeline, as wags have opined.
Are we bringing back smoking for kids in Idaho so they can have something to look forward to after working all day instead of going to school? Is that the goal here? Did Skaug give the game away??
Oh? That 666 thingie passed? Of course it did. America, the land of oppression, don’t say gay and targeting librarians, teachers, trans people and women’s reproductive organs, cause freedom eagles Jesus.
What does ‘mandate freedom’ actually mean? For? WTF seems inadequate here.
But hey, at least we still have ‘freedom’ convoys getting lost and mixed up on the DC Beltway to show them scary libs in Congress a thing or two! If you don’t know what this is, consider yourself a truly blessed and happy person. Remember the Canadian trucker fiasco there in Ottawa? Yeah, a breakaway group decided they would DRIVE ACROSS COUNTRY from California to DC, to protest…things that don’t exist or were never taken seriously, in America. Like mask mandates. Except the American tantrum league began to claim it wasn’t about mask mandates but about. Um. Not becoming robots of the state or something. And why didn’t they just drive into DC, shut down the Beltway, like they promised? Nancy Pelosi set traps and they were not falling for that! Um. Yeah, okay or the Beltway is about the most confusing snarl of roads ever invented by a sadistic pack of civil engineers.
Having lived in Maryland, and having avoided going anywhere near DC because frankly it made me cry to even think of trying to navigate that and get home again, I awaited to hear how the control the Beltway narrative would go. As I knew, deep in my black dead cold heart, it would go badly or not happen at all.
It went as expected. Stalling out, people got lost, people refused to try it at all…yep. No locals to help out, you tantrum-throwing darlings? There has to be locals sympathetic to ‘freedom from tyranny masks trying to turn us into robot sheeple’ sorts there in Maryland. The Old Line State would harbor reb-flag wavin’ collections galore. Some of them with trust funds. Nobody got in touch with the Maryland branch of trucker freedom fighters for eagles and Jesus?
I think this cross-country trek, sucking up gas as much as possible, imaginary joust against imaginary tyranny is America to a T right now. Just my humble opinion. That loud-mouthed, reactionary, emotional punching at made up villains while wasting time, resources, people and ideas. What if these truckers/assorted drivers of other vehicles had driven across country to protest…oh, low wages, vastly expensive bloated health care costs, human rights violations happening on American soil, student loan shackling so many people from having any sort of a future, education being dismantled by religious zealots and those eager to keep Americans stupid and…yeah.
Real stuff, in other words. Real stuff that would matter not only to the trucker bunch waving Trump and QAnon flags but to all Americans. I guess that’s commie shit?
Before I depress myself into a serious bout of eating everything in the house while watching Gilmore Girls for the 666th time, signing off on this storm-laden Tuesday. I will plant some actual seeds today, try to work outside and start a short story about a hidden garden. I will hope Ukraine holds on and Russia runs out of war steam.
An image taken from CPAC, conservative political action conference. Says it all, oh yes indeedy.
O this month, thou doth weary me to the gosh darn bone.
Drama queen set aside for now, I am starting a new job. It’s already stressing me out and we’ll see how it goes whoop de doo.
A poem of mine got nominated for an award. A tiny little poem, really, about an imaginary goblin that lives in my pumpkin patch. Yeah. I was surprised and gratified to find that email. I needed it. I needed some slight nudge that, yes, I should keep writing and sending out stuff. As the rejection tsunami is rather daunting at present. Ouch. Ouch! OUCH.
Might have some new and revised novels coming out this year. Malheur Baby, Owyhee Days, The Adventures of Grumpy Odin and Sexy Jesus are ready or almost ready for a publisher to go over. And, gasp, Oregon Gothic, a collection of short stories, might get a revamp and some stories added into the mix already there.
My cat is doing well.
Finished Peacemaker and enjoyed it thoroughly. Fun, raunchy, sad, action-packed and gets better and better as the series toots along. It might not be everyone’s cup of peppermint, but that
SPOILER, LOOK AWAY IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED THE LAST EP YET
[cameo from the Justice League made me snort and giggle. ]
Mrs. Maisel also started up again. I am not so charmed with it…for some reason. Mm. I dunno. Will I still watch it? You bet your best wild hat I will. I loved, loved, loved Imogene’s hat in ep one, with the pink flowers all over it. My grandmother wore such hats. I do love the clothes of that time period, they’re so gorgeous. I want Susie to win or have some sort of story beyond propping up Midge all the time. And I want season five to be where Midge doesn’t make it. Where she has to keep on doing standup for peanuts in shitty places. You know, like real life? Except real life seems tinged with actual blood and human screams anymore…yikes. Downer!
I need to go over Malheur Baby, again. It needs about ten thousand more words. It’s sitting at 48 thou. But it clicks along so well now as is. Maybe it’s a novella? Maybe I can pair it with Army of Flamingos. odd pairing but…! Found baby and man fighting back against the slowly awakening lawn ornaments of his mother. Mm?
It’s the holiday season. I posted a mournful scream a few days ago. Now I’ll balance that with something a bit more cheery.
We are expecting snow here along the floors of the Eastern Oregon/Western Idaho valleys. A covering of white over the mud. Yes, please! Even if I have to drive in it for work, it doesn’t seem right if the end of the year doesn’t have that blanket of snow or snow falling or some sort of snowy snow happening or already happened. If that makes sense. I have a bit of Fireball whiskey in my coffee. A droplet, really.
My cat goes in and out, restless as a mini tiger. What a joy she is. I am so very glad I decided to keep her. I am grateful for this loving little beast who seems to utterly adore me. She went from slowly dying homeless refugee to cosseted spoiled lovebug. Stop and help an animal if you see one in trouble or distress.
I have stories placed here and there. That’s a nice feeling. That my work is ‘getting out there’. That slowly, so slowly, but surely, I am making some inroads writing-wise. There’s City Full of Rain, Gladys, Pig Bait, Elbow and Bean, Seffi and Des, Blood and Bread, Witch of the Highway, the Fish Whisperer, Everything You Need, Jimmy’s Jar Collection, Let There Be No Memories…I am forgetting one or two or several, but what a list for 2021. Submit, submit! is my battle cry for 2022.
I also put a novel out– The Remarkable Women of Brokenheart Lane, which is 99 cents over on Amazon through tomorrow, btw. Ahem, hint. I loved writing this. I love those three sisters I created– Lily, Violet and Laura. I adore the bikers that took shape in my head and oh yes, on the page. From Gut Bucket and Rosecheese to Amy Octopus and poor doomed Bluebird. I think the version that made it to final edits is the version closest to the one originally in my head. Sort of lighthearted doomsday fairy tale fare. Whee, indeed. I did have a very heavy, dense, savage version, but I think this go-around works so much better as a story and as a reading experience.
I do have a novel from last year I’ll blip about as well. Aftermath: Boise, Idaho. Yeah, it’s zombies but they’re sentient ones. Most of them are, anyway. It’s also 99 cents over on Amazon through tomorrow!! Ahem, ahem. This is Hannah’s tale. She kills herself rather than succumb to the zombies about to break down the door of the place she’s trapped in. But she wakes up in an office setting, with zombies for bosses, in some parallel existence, where she’s at a loss and disadvantage. However, being scrappy, pragmatic and mostly realistic, Hannah navigates somewhat successfully until she doesn’t. Her alter ego, the Hannah of the world she now finds herself in, seems to be some sort of spy for the resistance. There’s always a resistance. She messes up by killing her for-show boyfriend/one of the leaders of the resistance and it all snowballs from there, until Hannah finds herself fleeing the scene of many crimes, heading off into the Idaho wilds to take her chances.
Again, another novel I had such fun writing. I enjoyed making up slang and inventing this NWO as run by conservative zombies in pearls and business attire. I also toyed with explaining why Hannah fell through the time cracks, so to speak, but…it got clunky and stopped the story colder than a bowl of congealed brains. I also fiddled with several endings but decided on the one now as it seemed fair to Hannah and true to her character of a tough person just trying to survive the unimaginable.
Okay, I’ll keep this short. Happy holidays, however you celebrate or don’t. Don’t let what’s happening in the world or on your doorstep rob you of any joy or hope. Not just yet. New year comin’. Gird the loins, sharpen the knives, battles are comin’, woot woot.
“Listen to the mustn’ts, child. Listen to the don’ts. Listen to the shouldn’ts, the impossibles, the won’ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me… Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.” ― Shel Silverstein
A rainy day here in Eastern Oregon. Everything is hushed. The tractors and harvesters are idle machines today, as the mud and goo of the ground promises to hold fast anything that dares roll with foolish confidence out into a field.
My cat has discovered the live trap. She cannot hurt anything caught within it. Or play with it, whatever her intent is here I cannot say. I keep her well fed but she is a cat. The dogs seem indifferent to any mice in the house. I’ve seen them ignore rodents as hard as possible if the rodents happen to dart across the floor. There are fields in all four directions, plus a rural setting. We has the mouses! However, once outside, the dogs are ferocious mouse hunters and will spend an hour digging a giant hole to go after one.
I have yet to make it through Dune. Space cocaine squabbles. Ugh. Is it okay to admit I just start snickering at the somber tone, at how ‘acty’ everyone is and hey, is that Jason Momoa?? I’ll just watch Aquaman, again. Yeah.
Blood and Bread, by Hellbound Books. It will be in Toilet Zone 3, The Royal Flush, due next year, I think.
And of course, if you have not already, go vote for my the Cherry of Her Lips. It’s a retelling of the Snow White tale, with the stepmother a witch in hiding, and the pretty daughter a demon/monster. The two are more allies than enemies, and both are forced to show their real faces to the world around them.
ANN WUEHLER 