Cause you all don’t want my actual writing to suffer, right? Right!

A person at any given time is in a state defined both by who she is and who she wants to be.

This definition is everything. We can either let other people and actions or even the actions that we cause that we do not wish, define us. In order to move to where we want to be, we must let go of the things that currently define us that are negative in nature.

Losing focus is one way to do this. Growing up, the wise told us  to not let others define us. The hard slog, however, is to recognize when our definition of who and what we are is the wrong one. We often focus on the wrong things. Perhaps this thing consumes us because it is painful and needs attention. Perhaps it is unavoidable. Perhaps it is a habit.

It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t deserve focus. It may need attention, sometimes lots of attention, but it’s not who we are.

We are not pain.

We are not heartache.

We are not loneliness.

We have felt all these things. Sometimes we can’t let them go, but we can turn from them. Adversity is either a cup to hold the raindrop or the raindrop that falls into the lake. Focus is our choice.

Choose wisely.

— Dr. Martin Luther King

It never occurs to them. They stand in the eye of the storm for so long they become the eye. They will always be there, it is a quantum certainty, their resolve woven directly in their reality.

A friend disappears. Sometimes another. They leave on clouds of bleak or simply fade away. It does not matter, though, as a man reaches out his hand and plunges it into the maelstrom. Grab on, friend. Grab on.

Sometimes a hand claps his. It is usually a feminine hand.

The man pulls. Sometimes the hand lets go in fear of the eye, but he never will. Sometimes he pulls and draws the person into his calm existence.

“I’m sorry I went away,” her eyes will say.

The man will smile, for the wind apologizing to the rock for blowing is amusing to him.

Sometimes, her eyes are bittersweet.

The man will still smile.

Here, in the center, there is the now, never the past, only the future. Regrets are for the wind.

1. I have bad eyes that surgeons repaired over the course of three eye operations. I am thankful it worked, but there are some of my childhood I can’t remember, at all, because of not being able to see and being in pain. With glasses, my eyes are fine now.

2. My first kiss was at a Girl Scout dance. I was a Boy Scout. The cute girl I danced with had no intention of talking. She dragged me to a dark corner and smooched me. Ho-Boy, that was awesome. When I asked for her name, she responded with more smooches. I never saw her again.

3. I took ten years of wine classes, and then developed an allergy to about 90% if the wine on the market. That sucked.

4. I met my wife at work. She was the cutie-pie new hire playing volleyball. She introduced me to her friend saying we should go out. About six months of this everyone realized all the wrong people were going out with the wrong people. And here we are.

5. After my parents divorced when I was a teen, I was homeless for a while. That really sucked.

6. I watched Mt. St. Helens blow up from 28 miles away. We were so close, the sound wave went over our heads and I only heard it after it had circled the Earth. I got sick from the over-pressurization. That really sucked too. I still have nightmares, sometimes.

7. I have a speech problem and an associated learning disability. I spent a long time in therapy, which corrected most of the problems. In many ways, English is like a second language to me.

8. My love of books came from Victoria, my first girlfriend. I was an avid reader before then, but Victoria introduced me to so many good books, it was awesome.

9. I grew up in Battle Ground, WA, named for a battle that never took place. That still cracks me up.

10. I lived in India for six weeks. Other than the getting sick part, it was awesome.

For anyone new to Rehabilitated Hack Writer Recommends, I target my book reviews towards novelists (you can find my prior reviews here). I also need to point out that this is a review of the first book of a series, not the series itself.

Before we dive headfirst into the fantasy pool of epic goodness that is Tara Mara’s The Unfinished Song: Initiate, we need to take a step back and formally define what epic fantasy is in the novel landscape of 2012. The classic definition of epic or high fantasy is it’s a sub-genre of fantasy set in invented worlds.

I hate that definition.

To me, epic fantasy needs to be, well, epic. Epic. This is fun, but not epic, fantasy:

A mysterious, sexy pale-skinned sword dancer hires an infamous mercenary to find her kidnapped brother. The mercenary learns there is more to women than bedding them, while the sister learns that if she lets her quest define her life, she becomes defeated before the rescue of her brother ever begins.

Bonus points if you can guess that book, by the way.

Now this, this is epic:

The good peoples, it seemed, never defeated the evil that threatened to consume them all, only delayed the final battle. The dark and vile lord who threaten freedom everywhere wrapped his essence into a ring, and now a band of unlikely heroes must cast the ring into the fiery pit of its creation or see it reunited with its maker. Setting out on their quest with the best intentions, the task soon falls to the smallest and unlikeliest hero while the armies of evil marshal to crush everything in its path. If the hero doesn’t destroy the ring and thus the dark lord in time, there won’t be anything left to save.

Epic fantasy is ambitious. Epic fantasy is grandiose. Epic fantasy is bigger than the sum of its parts. It’s heroic, it’s classic, it’s is all-encompassing and all-consuming fantasy. There are stakes. The stakes are high. You could say that the stakes are (wait for it!) epic.

And Mara’s Unfinished Song: Initiate is an introduction into 21st century epic fantasy. Here’s the teaser:

Dindi can’t do anything right, maybe because she spends more time dancing with pixies than doing her chores. Her clan hopes to marry her off and settle her down, but she dreams of becoming a Tavaedi, one of the powerful warrior-dancers whose secret magics are revealed only to those who pass a mysterious Test during the Initiation ceremony. The problem? No-one in Dindi’s clan has ever passed the Test. Her grandmother died trying. But Dindi has a plan.

Kavio is the most powerful warrior-dancer in Faearth, but when he is exiled from the tribehold for a crime he didn’t commit, he decides to shed his old life. If roving cannibals and hexers don’t kill him first, this is his chance to escape the shadow of his father’s wars and his mother’s curse. But when he rescues a young Initiate girl, he finds himself drawn into as deadly a plot as any he left behind. He must decide whether to walk away or fight for her… assuming she would even accept the help of an exile.

Now I know what you are thinking. You’re thinking, wow, that sounds cool, but um, that doesn’t sound too epic to me.

Oh, my friends, pour a cup of hot tea and wait for it. Don’t let the girly frou-frou cover and character-driven teaser fool you. Behind the rich, detailed world-building lies the heartbeat of an epic fantasy tale that rises above the bounds of mythology and into a coming-of-age novel that will leave the reader yearning for more. Maya clearly dips her plot and characters in several different mythologies, yet the book has a distinctive voice that tugs at your heartstrings.

Let’s deconstruct the goodness going on here.

World-Building

Maya’s world building kicks ass. It’s unique, it’s ambitious, and it has an undercurrent of femininity that, without the advent of the interweb tubes, the story Maya is trying to tell never would have seen the light of day. It’s so different it is, and I say this with no exaggeration, a high fantasy literary bomb of mass destruction. It is not so much a filled with troupes and familiar themes as it becomes a classic example of the very idea of world-building.

How does she accomplish this? Maya’s neolithic setting latches on the magical undercurrents of the world she envisioned and never lets them go.

For example, stone-aged peoples in the real world were concerned primarily with survival. Gender roles and relations follow a path necessary for the continuation of the individual and the group.  There is a reason when an attractive woman smiles at a man she unconscionably puts her hair behind an ear, why rejection impacts men and women differently and why we are creatures of instinct despite our technological advancements.

Yet, toss magic into the fray. Magic, like technology, lends itself to the removal of the disparity of force. Maya takes this one step where few tread: it’s not necessarily what you can wield, but more what you know. Dindi’s quest isn’t so much a classic grab-onto-the-power but an unlocking of a mystery.

That moves us back to the impact of the type of magic Maya puts forth. Women, in her tribal society, have distinct roles but they are far from simple property. Women need to bear children so the society she has shaped takes that into account, but it’s not as if the magic is something that sits around in a feudal or even Victorian society as if it’s a character by itself rather than infused into the setting. It has a distinct feminine vibe without the politically correct bullshit.

This is evident from the ground up. It’s in the way characters talk. You might think ancient peoples would also have a primitive language and culture. But neolithic-era people with magic? Maya nails this. It’s in the way they dress, how they pick their mates, how they relate to other tribes, how they view politics, honor and duty. In a world where magic comes forth from a dance, where pixies, talking bears, and fae abound–Maya uses this magic as the glue to everything: setting, plot and characterization. It is the basis of her world-building and because of the creative and talented way she does it, Initiate comes off as highly original, unique and engrossing.

I’m not exaggerating here. World-building. How To. Tara Maya. Initiate. Read it.

Characterization

My number one surprise with this book is that this book has guy stuffs in it. I could talk at length how fascinating Dindi is, how she comes across as both vulnerable yet puts aside her fears to do what must be done. How she seems like she is fourteen going on eighteen one moment, and fourteen going on twelve the next. Maya pens her as tenacious and doesn’t shy away from giving her a sexuality. Dindi’s great.

My little fantasy heart, however, belongs to Kavio.

Because Kavio kicks ass.

Kavio, actually, is a tragic figure. Maya gives him nobility and youthful idealism as his moral fiber, and tosses him into situations of conflict where it becomes apparent that Kavio greatest enemy is himself. Kavio is a good guy, but he’s also a weapon of mass destruction. He follows the rules when obviously he could, quite simply, make up the rules himself with his magic. He’s like a Jedi Knight being given a ticket by a traffic cop. Press hard, Kavio, you’re making five copies. The cop has a gun and feels superior, but Kavio could turn him inside out, burn his cruiser, go to the station, and have it swallowed whole by a rent in the earth while blood pixies rip out everyone’s eyeballs through their noses making the police station scene in The Terminator look like a scene from a Jane Austin novel.

Instead, he signs.

Did I mention he’s a bad-ass?

As a writer, Kavio fascinates me mightily. I’m beginning to wonder if someone handed Maya an honorary penis because she hones in on the masculine feel of Kavio with laser-like focus. She nails what I call the Tragic Masculine Paradox: when confronted with an attractive young woman coming-of-age, the man of honor is torn with feelings of protectiveness as a father figure yet desires as a lover. You see this in fiction all the time. Rarely do you see it done with such empathy and understatement. Many writers go overboard with this, giving this a tragic (and pervy) element. Maya, however, simply presents it as-is. Kavio has bigger problems than his youthful naïveté.

Dindi’s feminine, innocent beauty, simply highlights Kavio’s main attraction: Dindi is magically powerful. Without going into the rest of the series, he’s slowly falling in love, and love, my friends, is messy. Dindi is more than a girl and then more than a young woman. She’s the catalyst to…

But I digress. Dindi isn’t the only character in a come-of-age journey in Initiate.

Plot

Which leads us to the clever, delicious plotting, and how we come full circle back to our discussion about epic fantasy.

A prevalent, and welcomed trend in speculative fiction is the come-of-age journey set in a fantastic (be it wonderful or dystopian) setting. I am a huge sucker for these types of stories, and in Initiate, Maya plots a literal come-of-age journey as Dindi goes out to become a woman, ready or not (and no, she wasn’t ready).

But epic fantasy has stakes. Big stakes. End-of-the-world (or worse!) type stakes, but unlike much of what is out there today, this book is surprisingly not a coming-of-age novel with an epic plot line to give the character’s punch and excuses to reveal their literary humanity. No, this is a book that provides the foundation for the true story: the battle with the malevolent forces out to crush humanity. It’s not exactly Clan of the Cave Bear meets The Lord of the Rings, but you get the idea.

Dindi is on a personal journey and she yearns to become a magical dancer in the society she was born in. However, if, as a reader, you’re paying attention, you can spot the epic plot that Maya is serving up like drops of water to the thirsty.

And this is where we depart the shackles of traditional publishing. Maya fearlessly has plotted out a twelve book series and each book is building  on that plot in a relentless, epic fashion. Let me be very clear, I am not a big fan of many-book fantasy series. Many of them have problems with continuity, editing, and, quite frankly, sometimes as a reader, I feel I’ve been ripped off around book four because I’m being milked rather than being cleverly entertained.

eBooks, and today’s book market, however, has expanded the types of books we can find and buy, and Maya’s greatest accomplishment as a writer is taking  full advantage of medium. The twelve book format, based on her world-building, is not only daring but also a little slice of epic fantasy goodness, and her skill at characterization draws the reader right into her world.

It’s epic fantasy by our very definition, and it’s yummy. Give me those twelve books. I’ll gladly ready every one of them. If you love a good fantasy series fix, Maya’s your drug dealer, Baby.

More Please

You can tell I’m a fan. Initiate is a wonderful, rich and diverse book and the series thus far is a fantasy reader’s fantasy series. I do have quibbles with it, but they are nits in the larger picture. I’m not a fan of the cover art. I disagree with some of the editorial decisions made and feel Maya’s talent could easily support books of larger word counts, smoothing some of the abruptness of the plot presentation.

Yet these are mere nits because from a storytelling standpoint, it just doesn’t work, it’s a slice of Awesome Toast with Bacon. I tell my non-writer, but reader friends, the Era of the Reader is upon us. Novels like Initiate proves that assertion. If you are a writer, take a step back from all the meta that goes on with writing, look at the bigger picture, and read Initiate. You’ll realize the sum of the book is bigger than its parts, and, at its heart, epic fantasy many readers want to buy, but haven’t really been able to do so.

I give Initiate four bacon strips out of five. And while this is a singular book recommendation, I’ll just drop a teaser that as good as it is, the other books in the series get better.

(TRUMPETS)

These posts crack me up because they inadvertently become popular with my blog harem and my other 30.7 readers. I’m like… a guy. Who writes… or something. Perhaps everyone loves my dry, sarcastic wit. Or maybe you’re all expecting me to trip over myself. Or perhaps see this post:

The Wife Unit here. I’m sorry, my husband won’t be blogging any more. He made one snarky comment too many and I brained him with a stainless steel Kitchen-Aid sauce pan. No worries, the pan is okay. The DH, however, needs some time to recover.

Admit it you could totally see that.

But I digress. To talk about 2011, let’s go back to 2010.

Somewhere in 2010 I posted a bunch of story ideas. I was really reaching for some direction. Which story appealed to me? Which one could you see me writing?

2011 I figured all that out. Mainly through the mind-clarification process of editing. Here’s the smattering of stories I was considering:

• That book in which stuff blows up in space
• An epic fantasy novel book about dragons and singing
• A book about high school cheerleaders from Utah battling space zombies (you know you want to read it)
• Death by Decades: every ten years someone tries to kill the main character
• The Baby Dancers: A YA novel about two brothers who travel across the Endless Void to rescue a baby

What I Learned

We’ll in 2011, here’s what I learned:

I have a dozen dozen ideas in my head. And none of them matter if, when I sit down and write, the voicing is not there. I can tell if the writing has a proper voice.

Holy crap. I can see the voicing.

It’s as if I’ve climbed a mountain, and found the Writing Guru, who then handed me the gift of a lifetime. It’s not that these ideas have bad plots, or maybe the main character is not interesting. I start a novel, and I can tell if the voicing is rocking the pages or if it’s stilted and flat. If it’s not there, I move on. I may have wasted 10,000 words. But I know. I know it down to my tosies.

I can’t begin to describe how liberating this is. It’s a ray of sunshine. Chorus of angles. A (REDACTED) with a (REDACTED) while (REDACTED).

Let me give you an example. I sent Super Cassie a plot idea and she about exploded in excitement, demanding the book in her mailbox.

I sat down and wrote two chapters. The plot is wonderful, and the main character is interesting, but the voice of the story is flat. It’s a literary sexless wonder, and I say that with total affection. I’ve put the manuscript aside.

So Tell Us About the Writing Already

Other than my voicing breakthrough, I wrote two books.

One was Stuff Blowing Up in Space. The book needs another revision, but I have plans for this novel, oh yes I do. It’s creative and fun. It’s sexy and the story arc is epic. EPIC I TELL YOU.

The other book was The Lightning Giver.

And ho-boy (ho-boy being a technical term) what a novel The Lightning Giver is. I have a manuscript that, based on my beta readers reactions, is not so much a YA novel as it Weapon of Emotional Mass Destruction.

It scares me. It really does. I’m not sure I can handle making so many people cry.

I have yet to have The Wife Unit read that one, by the way. It will push all her buttons and I don’t really want her to chase me around the house with a Kitchen-Aid pan.

I’m querying it anyway. If it doesn’t bite, I’ll move on. Because that is what I do. Which leads me to…

2012: I’m Still a Relentless, Productive Little Snot

What’s next? Besides querying my latest widely, I have a variety of things whispering to me:

• That Baby Dancer book
• That Dragonsong book
• Some henceforth untitled book about a teen boy breaking into Hell to rescue the girl of his dreams
• A book about a starship pilot fighting for a dying race while trying to come to grips with his legacy
• Rat Princess, the aforementioned book Cassie wants in her mailbox
• A sci-fi idea that keeps bubbling up about a warrior poet or something like that
• Cheerleader zombie fighters!

It’s quite the diverse list. Which is good, Someone told me I should enjoy non-contract writing while I could. I believe that was wise advice. Which leads me to…

Self-Publishing: That Thing I Keep Getting Asked About

People ask me constantly if I am ever going to self-publish.

I don’t wanna!

There are many reasons, but here are three that stare me in the face:

• It will cost me about $3000 to self-publish a book. Yes. 3K. I have editorial standards. I have cover-art standards. Both of these things cost money.
• To do it right, it’s a time commitment.
• I am a social creature, a consultant by trade. I like to talk with people and work with other professionals. I am a professional’s professional. That’s what I do. Writing is already a solitary pursuit. Self-publishing to me sounds like a lonely, lonely road.

With that said, I’ve also been told point-blank to stop screwing around. That there was a market for my stuffs and keeping it locked away was simply delaying my back-list.

Okay. That appealed to my “Just Do It” and see what happens nature.

But I don’t know, folks. The positive thing about being unpublished is I’m “allowed” to explore different genres. I could self-publish something and then want to move in an entirely different direction. Yes, I know all about the use of pen names (don’t ask, you don’t want to know). I don’t have any enthusiasm for publishing a novel under a different name. That’s not me.

I don’t have a line in the sand about self-publishing, but I am leery about spending so much time doing something I might dislike immensely. I am a father and a husband and a writer with a full-time job that is intellectually challenging and satisfying. If ever there was someone who should pursue an agent for Team Anthony it would be me.

Then again, the publishing landscape keeps rolling around. eBooks have torn away from traditional publishing methodologies and the path to readership is divergent.

Color me undecided. Which leads me back to…

2012: I’m Still a Relentless, Productive Little Snot

By the end of 2012 I will have written two novels.

That, my friends, is a bit of the awesome.

Weeeeeee!

Oh, and leaving Facebook for a year? Best. Idea. Ever.

Sasha is rich.

Sasha is beautiful.

Sasha is powerful.

Sasha is, quite simply, a bad-ass. Below is the ground floor to her pad. Anybody (i.e., the PCs) that wants to crash her party, is going to be in for a slugfest. There will be blood. And stuff blowing up. “Stuff” being your friends.

To give you an idea how decadent Sasha is, the upper floor of her manor home is her bedroom:

And to provide scale, here is a miniature. This is someone who broke into Sasha’s manor home. Right now, her name is Lunch:

Oh, Liara!

In Mass Effect, it was FemShep, Liara and Tali. We saved the galaxy.

In Mass Effect 2, she broke my heart, but I won her back.

I wonder if I can get The Wife Unit to dye her hair blue on my birthday…

The following video is the culmination of two epic action role-playing games, with the last installment due in March.

I could write an entire essay over how emotionally compelling the female Shepard romance with Liara was. In Mass Effect, she was this naive, geeky beauty that endeared me to her feminine, yet alien, ways. On the battlefield, paradoxically, she was a holy terror.

In Mass Effect 2, she flat out broke my character’s heart. She was distant, hard, and withdrawn. Stepping outside the context of the Mass Effect Universe, I thoroughly felt the writers had lost it completely.

Then Lair of the Shadowbroker, the DLC of all DLCs comes around and smacks you alongside the head. The setup was perfect. The voice acting was perfect. It was epic.

And it was romantic.

My ending was slightly different because I didn’t lose any team members and I had a little black party dress on, but everything else is on the money.

Games like this is why I don’t go see movies hardly at all.

Hugs and Kisses,
Anthony

There are things about me that I keep close to my heart. I’ve hinted here and there, and while I don’t keep secrets, I’ve also pointed out that sometimes knowledge is a burden. That wasn’t a hint to back off. It was an attempt not to contaminate you.

Yet, this year, that heart is heavy for many writers. In some ways, my empathy comes full circle. I know first hand that some journeys are steps where your own shadow is your only company. I’ve learned since joining the interweb tubes club that it’s best to simply offer a kind word. No one wants to hear that sorrows are relative even if that is the universal truth that lends perspective and change. These are things that simply don’t convey because I am not sitting across the table looking into your eyes and sharing your burdens.

So what does that have to do with writing?

Ah, you see my friends, writing is a skill for honing, practicing and developing. Writing from the depths of your core, however, requires something altogether different. This year, I not so much grew my writing talent as I’ve grown as a person. I’ve come to terms with some of my own little slices of bleak.

Sometimes, understanding is a block.

Don’t come to grips with whatever.

Write it out.

Don’t delve deep into the mind of your own psyche.

Write it out.

Don’t reach out for empathy and a sympathetic ear.

Write it out.

Write it out. Write it out. Write it out. This is what flows in our blood. This is who we are. The blank page deserves honesty. If, at the end of the last page of the last chapter, you’ve bled and cried, then so be it.

Sometimes the only connection is the literary connection. The void, sometimes, can only be filled with words.

My penchant for Scrooge-like feelings during the holiday season has slowly been replaced by warm memories of my children’s joy for the season. For young boys, yes, Christmas is a lot about presents. If you are a good parent, if you could overcome the bombastic rampant commercialism, there is an underlying simplicity about the season that can pull at the heart like no other time.

This morning Thing Two came in while I was getting dressed, wanting to know if we could go get Thing One’s Christmas present tonight. How cute is that? I’ll tell you how cute it is, it is a bit of the ultra-cuteness.

Yes there are the presents. But then there is the smell of the tree. The gingerbread house. The decorating. The Christmas cookies. The story of Christmas. Grandpa and Nanna. Daddy’s Christmas Day roast. Santa. The music. The warm fireplace and the happy dog.

Long after those presents are gone, the memories of our close family during this time will linger on. One day my sons will be walking in one of the great national forests around here, and after the morning rain, smell the fresh scent of grand firs. And it will smell like Christmas.

And that will be magical, always magical, even in the dead of summer, it will be Christmas magic.

(repost from 2008)

The first item had a line drawn through it. “Move the desk in the office to the other wall.” The desk was too heavy for her to move, but her husband had moved it around the office as if it weighed nothing. The item under it, “Change the smoke detector batteries,” and all the other ones that followed, remained unchecked.

She frowned at the list. Then she stuck her tongue at it. Then she tried to repress a giggle, but failed. It came out as a snort.

Tom knew she hated standing on a ladder. It gave her a mild case of vertigo, the feeling of falling while standing up. She could imagine falling off the ladder and landing on her head. Splat. Blood everywhere. Perhaps a broken neck. She could imagine a loud “snap” and then a feeling of oblivion before sliding into it.

She sighed. She didn’t want to do it. It was the husband’s job. Tom was a funny guy, he would do anything she asked as long as it was on a list and he could plan when he was going to do it, yet the items that remained undone clawed at her gut, a list highlighting a failure of… what, she didn’t know. Her husband? Her aptitude as a wife? How they were a couple?

Nagging of course was out of the question. She was not a nag. She was a beautiful, young lady, thank you very much. Beautiful young ladies do not nag.

She got out the ladder and put on an apron. She put the batteries in an apron pocket, took a deep breath, and climbed the ladder.

When she got to the top, she grabbed the detector with one hand in a death grip. The feeling of vertigo was intense. A third of her felt like she was falling, another third felt like she was building up to an orgasm and the last third that she had to pee.

As she stood there, she briefly wondered if perhaps there was an upside to vertigo. That’s stupid, she thought. She closed her eyes. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. When she opened her eyes, the feeling was gone.

She changed the batteries. The worse part, actually, was pressing the test button. The noise hurt her ears. Then she got out earplugs, and that was that.

Look at me, I am all handywoman and stuffs, she thought. She crossed the item off the list.

She put back the ladder, went into her walk-in closet, and cried. She wrapped her hands around her knees and buried her face. Her lovely house didn’t feel so lovely anymore.

***

Katie wrinkled her nose at the next item on the list. It was a doozy. “Power wash the driveway.”

Using a power washer. Like she knew anything about that. Her dad tried to show her once, but by that time, she was putting on a cheerleader uniform and bouncing her boobs at athletic man-boys. One of them could do the power washing.

Her poor dad. Three daughters. And he was such a handyman. She made sure to find someone just like him.

Only Tom was a tiny bit different. Daddy never used a list. He just did it.

“Damn it, Tom,” she said, aloud.

She went to the garage with a little notebook, and wrote down what the washer was. Then she went online. Not only did she find the instruction manual on how to operate it, she found instructional videos.

She easily washed the driveway and porch. The next day, her arms and shoulders were sore. She took a hot bath and remembered the last time Tom and her made love it. She got several bruises, so he went with the not-so-subtle hint of cornering her in the shower instead.

She ran her hand down a soapy thigh before submerging it.

The Honey-Do List wasn’t the only thing under neglect.

***

The next item on the list was worse than the power washing. “Install a new sink trap.” She had to get under the sink, and couldn’t figure out how to uninstall the old one. She couldn’t find purchase to pry it out with her flat-head screwdriver. It seemed melded to the sink.

Vowing to do it all herself, she drove back to Home Depot where she got the new kit and the sealant goop, and tracked down the grandpa-looking guy who found it for her.

“Unhook the drain pipe, and then whack the assembly with a rubber mallet from the bottom.”

She smiled. She was thinking of something with a bit more finesse.

When she did that, the old sealant crumbled loose and landed in her eyes.

She envisioned hitting Tom with the rubber mallet. It was an unkind thought, but it made her feel better. She crossed off the item on the list with a vicious stroke of her felt pen.

***

She hated the next item, feeling like a complete and utter fool for putting it on the list. “Make slow, hot love to my hot little body,” she had put. She thought it would be a cute reward for getting halfway down the list.

Her hot little body. Oh, how vain and stupid she was. She still had a hot little body, all right.

Sometimes she wanted touch so much, she felt like going down to the seedy bar outside of town, in a miniskirt without panties, and fucking the first guy who sent a pickup line her way. Against the dumpster out back. Bonus points if he was wearing a ball cap and needed to see a dentist.

Instead, she got a glass of wine and drank half of it.

She walked over to Tom’s piano. He loved his piano almost as much as he loved her. They met that way. She was sitting in the hotel lobby during a sorority trip waiting for her sisters, looking at this cute guy with quite the bored expression on his face reading a book.

It must have been a bad book, because Tom threw it in the trash, looked around, and spied the piano there. He walked up to it, contemptuously tossed the “Please Don’t Touch the Piano” sign aside, and started to play.

And oh, how magical that was—it was beautiful and sexy and perfect.

And damn it all, if that man didn’t even know she existed. The music consumed him so, that she might as well have been invisible.

But he stopped playing when she sat down next to him on the bench. He looked very surprised.

“I know chopsticks,” she said, and he laughed. She played it for him and he smiled with flashing eyes and that’s when she knew her heart wasn’t her own. Two weeks later, she gave him her virtue.

Now his piano, like her body, had been silent for months.

She drank some more of the wine, and dumped the rest on the hammers in the middle.

“Whoops,” she said.

***

Tom’s piano tuner wasn’t the cuteness of her husband. He was an older gentleman, with an elegant wedding band. Where Tom was tall, he was average. Where Tom was muscular, he was almost too skinny. Where Tom had bright, brown eyes, Rich’s eyes had the beginning of crows-feet behind glasses.

But his eyes were blue. They went quite nicely with his blond and grey hair. She always liked blue eyes on an older gentleman.

Rich played the piano with precision and perfection. Tom played it with passion. Rich was Bach. Tom was Beethoven.

When she called, Rich said of course he could fix it. She insisted on making sure he replaced the felt, not simply repaired it.

How much wine did you spill? he asked.

An entire glass, she said. I feel so stupid, she added.

No worries. I just wanted to know how much time to book.

I would appreciate it if you took your time. The piano means a lot. Could you come on Friday?

I have a volunteer gig at my son’s school, but after that, sure, Katie. You bet. Be there at 1:00.

Thanks, Rich.

More importantly, Rich loved to look at her legs. Rich had a fine appreciation for the beautiful things. His occasionally friendly-wandering eye had made her feel appreciated.

Wanted.

***

Rich was punctual.

“Hey, how are you?” he said when she let him in.

She closed the door. She locked it.

“I’m okay. Do you need something to drink or something?”

“No, I’m good,” he said, heading towards the piano.

“Okay.”

She went upstairs and stripped. She put on black stockings, reapplied her makeup, and put on a black silk slip that stopped halfway up her butt.

She came downstairs as Rich was leaning the lid to the piano on the wall.

“I lied,” she said, feeling hot. She was sure her face was red. “I only spilt a bit of wine. A quarter of a glass.”

“Katie…”

“I know you’re married, Rich. That’s why I picked you. I’m not some pathetic basket case. You’ll never tell, and neither will I. I don’t want men sniffing around me like I’m some lonely looser.”

He stood up straight. He looked uncomfortable, but his eyes betrayed desire.

“You’re taking one for the team, Rich, no more, no less.”

He hesitated.

She walked over and kissed him.

***

Where she would ride Tom’s passions in bed holding on for dear life, Rich was altogether something different. He was in bed as he was—gentle, giving, precise.

But he was also an experienced man. She wanted him to take her from behind, but he did not, ignoring her request and pressing down on her, face-to-face. She wanted him to satisfy his lusts and leave, but he kissed her and filled her with loving strokes until she peaked. She wanted to lie there like a passive lump, the prom queen taken by the band nerd, but she wrapped her legs around him and used her body as she best she could.

Afterwards, Rich held her. She felt like biting him, hard, but kissed him instead.

***

She watched him warily as he dressed. Snuggle time over. He had to go home to his wife.

“You need a lover who isn’t going to leave you lying there, Katie,” he said, stating the obvious.

“That’s what I had,” she whispered, turned her head, and stared at the closed blinds.

When he was gone, she took her pen and put a line through the item on the list.

As if anyone would notice.

Surprisingly, she didn’t cry.

What did that mean?

***

“Put rat poison in the attic.”

The last item on the list.

It took her a long time to find the stuff. She found it in a locked cabinet in the garage of which she had to search all around for the key. The box had a Mr. Yuck sticker on it.

Like she was going to have children. Ha. That would mean having sex. With a husband. Or, at least, with a man without a vasectomy.

As she put down the traps and baited them, she sniffed at the poison. She briefly wondered what it tasted like, and then thought that was the most stupid thing she had ever thought, in, well, ever.

Enough, she thought.

She grabbed her list, crossed the last item off of it and headed towards the city.

Halfway there, she pulled off the road and threw up.

Confession may be good for the soul, she thought, but it was certainly eating her insides.

***

“Tom, I had an affair. I made love to another man. It wasn’t just get-it-over sex, either. I loved every minute of it,” she said.

Tom didn’t say anything back, of course, his headstone silent as always.

She sat next to his grave.

“I finished your list, Babe. See?” She held it out. Then she rolled it up and put it in the flower holder.

“I want someone to pick me,” she said. “Next time. Man Number Three. I’ve picked you and I picked Rich.”

The wind rustled through the trees.

“Yes. I think it’s time for me to be chased. I’m chased-able material.”

She closed her eyes. She could practically feel his arms around her.

“Damn, Tommy, I miss you so, so much.”

She got up and walked away, vowing never, ever, to put a list on the refrigerator again. Her daddy didn’t need a list, and neither did she.

OMG Cerberus WTF? Meanwhile, I’ve teamed up with Man Candy and The Princess. Let’s just put each one into the nibble category.

Entry 2: I don’t trust Cerberus as far as I can stretch my bra, but damn I’m on the new Normandy and I got a feeling, yanno, “down there.”

Entry 3: I’m flying in my rocket ship, I’m flying faster than light!

Meanwhile, Miranda, Jacob and my personal assistant, Cutie Kelly, make potential bed warmers, but I must stay faithful to Liara. The three also look at me like I am a bug ready to go nuclear, which, now that I think about it, I am.

Entry 4: The AI (Jesus Mary Joseph, people), has no files on Bane, Sure you don’t, honey, sure you don’t. Bane, I’m coming for your punk ass.

Entry 5: I wanted to complain about Cerberus’s whacky weapon allocation scheme, up to the point they handed me a gun with a bore the size of my head. Oh, and I feel a little bad about spending a small fortune on ship resources on makeup. I’m vain, but Liara likes me pretty.

Entry 6: I’ve had better days on the Citadel.  I SAVE YOU FOR THIS CRAP? WE ARE DONE. It was the REAPERS, you jerkholes. You need to push this mass relay into the primary, dorks.

Entry 7: Oooooo, fish!

Entry 8: The Doctor and I are getting our drunk on. We both resist the urge to make out. So I’m either more mature after the Cerberus rebuild or crazier.

I think we all know which one it is, right?

Entry 9: Garrus wasn’t on the smartest of assignments, but hey, he spent two years shooting people in the head. HE UNDERSTANDS ME. He asked why we weren’t with Cerberus before. I told him because we were stupid.

Entry 10: OMG Ash. I tried to patiently explain that I was, yanno, dead for two years, but Ms. Pink, possibly because she hasn’t gotten laid in all that time, reams me a new one. Yes, it’s Cerberus. You know what, Ash? Cerberus is my parent now. Got that? I’m a Cerberus Baby.

I’m two years old, Ash, and I’m about to throw a Collective tantrum.

Entry 11: Well, at least Liara will love me. I bet she’s on this planet of perpetual blue PMS we’re orbiting.

Entry 12: …

Entry 13: I guess I was just an Asari Maiden chew toy. My bed is empty. My heart is broken. I’m sitting here at this overpriced desk looking at her picture, crying. Congratulations, Liara. You made the Commander cry.

Entry 14: Hello Jack. Apparently you are a psychotic killer who channels rage into a trail of death. Hold this big gun for me.

We’ll get along fine. Yes, we will.

Entry 15: Oooo, more fish!

Above that, Grandpa was my father figure. He loved me fiercely. You’re not supposed to have favorites, but I was his favorite. Maybe it was because I was the first grand-baby. And I think it pissed him off to no end that my natural father abandoned my mother, and me, before I was even born. He was also fascinated by my personality. One time he told me, “I like you, Tony. You think before you talk. I don’t even do that, so I guess that means the Good Lord does smile on our family sometimes!”

Then he gave me a taste of his tobacco pipe and I ran to the bathroom and threw up.

Ha.

When he died from one stroke too many, I was so devastated I crossed that “need to cry” boundary into “numb.” I literally could not cry, and I couldn’t even see beyond my grief to feel guilty about it.

When my first child was born, they handed me the baby because The Wife Unit was so out of it. The birth did not go well and they had to deliver the baby by Cesarean. Then it was just me and the baby.

When a baby is born after the initial “waa waa waa!” they become alert and quiet because their little baby bodies are flush with the hormones that run around during birth. My first-born son would not stop staring at my face. In that one perfect moment, that one little baby-faced moment, I wished Grandpa was there to see his little, beautiful face. Looky here Grandpa. He looks just like us. You and me. Look what we did. Look.

That’s when I cried.