Happy New Year!
First of all, let me thank you for being a fan of my writing. I really appreciate you. The writing journey is very isolating—you create a story in your head that you think you love, but then you worry about your self-perception of your work. Thank you for subscribing to my newsletter.
I’m two weeks out from my hernia surgery and other than a scar above my belly button, I have no evidence that I ever had surgery. I’ve laid off lifting heavy things and running and jumping per the doctor’s instructions, but I admit I felt like a weakling when I asked a random man at Costco to move my 33 pound bag of dog food from my cart to my car. I did volunteer that I was a week out from hernia surgery, and he smiled and lifted the bag. It was so tempting to move it myself, but I heard the echo of the surgeon’s warning, “We’re closing up the hole in your abdominal wall with mesh and you need to give your tissue time to grow around it.” Alrighty then, I’ll try and take it easy.
In a few weeks, I’ll have Witch’s Medicine completed and off to my editor. You can pre-order it here. As the story has continued, I’ve added additional characters including “Michael”, a half fae prisoner, that the king has pardoned and now he’s helping Gormon and Stephanie collect prisoners. I’ve also added Stephanie’s daughter, a student at UC Berkeley (my alma mater) who joins the quest to round up the prisoners. Stephanie schedules a lunch with her daughter (Amelia) to introduce Gormon. She’s worried that her daughter is going to think she’s nuts, but Amelia buys into Gormon and magic with a brief demonstration. Amelia cancels her social engagements for the weekend and insists on returning to her home to help and learn more. So the three of them are riding in a car toward Sacramento. Here’s an unedited excerpt:
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“Why doesn’t the fae realm send more warriors to help? This sounds like overwhelming odds,” Amelia asked.
“Earth doesn’t believe in magic, and we need to keep it this way. So, it’s just Michael and I, and your mother until we are down to the final battle with Ramsey,” Gormon said. “Likely, we’ll need additional help to deal with him.”
“Who’s Michael?”
“It’s a long story, just know he’s on our side.”
“Okay. I’m on my semester break after Thursday. I’ll return home and help. It seems like you need it.”
“I want you to stay in Berkeley. This is dangerous work,” Stephanie said.
“I’ll be back on Thursday. You need my help.”
“We’ll see,” mumbled Stephanie.
Amelia looked over the seat into the back and asked Gormon, “Tell me about you. How old are you? Are you married, have kids? Are you in good standing with your king? What kind of magical things can you do besides healing and portals?”
Stephanie gave another brief glance at her daughter and said, “Is this how you meet new people? You barrage them with questions?”
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Cheers and here’s wishing you a healthy and happy 2024!
Alec