Finding Beauty in a World on Fire

Hi Friends!

I hope summer is treating you well. I know it is for us. On the fourth of August, my husband, Joey and I celebrated our twelfth wedding anniversary. We celebrated by getting a puppy—a Golden Retriever puppy, specifically. She's only eight weeks old and she's perfect. We named her Kira Nerys (just Kira for short).

​Bonus points to those who can tell me where the name came from. 

Teeny tiny Kira pokes out from the patio cushions.

​As you can see, she's perfect. 

But a new puppy isn't all that this summer has brought us. 

For my Pride blog in June, I mentioned a new project that I'd completed a first draft on. Well, I'm very excited to say that I'm almost done with the rewrite and I'll be sending that off to my amazing editor, Janel, soon. It was one of the most painful yet cathartic things I've ever written, at least Act I is. Think of it as 'gay kid who gets outed at conservative Christian school goes on to the bake off.'

It was strangely fun, cathartic, and painful, sometimes in the same paragraph. I hope you'll love it as much as I have.

I think it's also about time for Joshua and Benji to make a return, so I'm really excited that I've also received the second Opportunity book back from my editor. Oppy 2 is titled Perseverance and it's got more emotion, hard sci-fi, and adventure, and just as much spice as the first Oppy book. I've still got to do another few rounds of edits, but I hope to be able to announce it before the end of the year. 

For those of you who've purchased my books through Amazon, or have read them on Kindle Unlimited, I'm afraid you'll see some changes soon. I'm systematically going to be shifting to a different service for publishing. This means that KU won't be available for these books forever, but it will give me better control. (And honestly, it jives better with my personal ethics.) The timeline for that shift is still pretty rough and it won't happen to all my books at once, so I'll be sure to keep everyone updated as they shift. Keep an eye on my Facebook page to see when that transition happens. I'm actually really excited about it. 

As of right now, the plan is for either the new, gay kid/bake off story (title to be announced) or Percy to be the first things published on the new platform. If it looks like it will be Perseverance, Opportunity will make the migration first, that way both books are available, for those who haven't read Oppy yet.

I've also been giving some help to a writer friend, going through sections of their manuscript for comments and notes. They've done the same for me and I can only hope my own notes are a fraction as helpful as theirs have been for me. 

In a previous post, I mentioned that Joey and I moved out to Chester County, just outside of Philadelphia. When we were packing and preparing to move, some of his colleagues gifted us with a gift card for us to use at a winery that would be dangerously near to the new house (ten minutes), which suited us just fine!

It took us a few weeks to head up there. When we pulled in, a bright, open flag was waving. You know the kind I mean, the feather flags that are tall and flutter, with a rainbow background. Well as we walked from the parking lot to the winery door, I joked with Joey about the rainbow background of the feather flag. I made some comment like 'think the rainbow is for us?' He rolled his eyes and said something like it being unlikely in the middle of Chester County.

Well!  Turns out it was. The owners of Stargazer's Vineyard and Winery are an amazing couple, Jason and Michael, who've become amongst our very best friends, in short order.

The spot is a gorgeous place to head to to enjoy the beautiful area, a great glass, and great friends. In fact, I've even gone up there on the occasional Friday afternoon, when it's quiet, bought a bottle, and settled in to write. 

Spent a day working on the new project at Stargazer's.

​
​When we lived in Northeast Philadelphia we had an amazing community of friends, but never a queer community. It was surprising and beautiful to find queer friends in the middle of Chester County. 

I'm listing off these wonderful things that are happening in my life, both personally and professionally, because the world feels like it's on fire right now, doesn't it? It's a scary place to be and those good things, those positive things seem very difficult to find. We get far too caught up in the negative things that happen in our lives, or in the world, that the good things just seem like they get drowned. 

I think that's because we're conditioned to focus on the negative. Think about it, when you flip on the news, it's almost always negative things. There might be the occasional 'personal interest' story that is positive but the news is overwhelmingly negative. That's because negativity sells newspapers, or online news subscriptions, or keeps people tuned to your 24 hour news station. A lot of people prefer it that way; seeing other people's terrible days help us feel better about our own. 

But the positive stuff is out there. Yes, it's most often buried under loads and loads of shit, but it's there. We just have to remember to search for it.

I suggest you go to your friends, spend some time with them, escape the heat, have a refreshing glass of whatever wets your whistle, cuddle a puppy, and remember. There is good out there. There are people out there doing everything they can to make their little corner of the world more beautiful, either by telling stories, or sharing the love of a doggo, or planting lovely flowers or tending to gorgeous rows of grapes. 

It takes effort, sure, but if we remember to look for the everyday beauty, the world seems just a little less scary. 

So, look for the good, the beauty, and as always remember:

You are seen; you are loved; you matter!