Articles

Sep 13 2024

A Fundamental Shift for Fall

Author: Jamie DeBree

Happy Friday the 13th!

Fall is fast approaching, and with it, vacation days that will be spent on publishing tasks rather than traveling, which I’m looking forward to. I’ve enjoyed the change of pace this summer, though a lot was getting prepared, but I’m somewhat relieved to go back to not trying to fit travel into our weeks along with everything else. We may end up taking another short trip before winter, but nothing to long or intensive.

Last weekend while struggling to get everything done even though I was on a break from making dog food, I finally admitted to myself that I’ve taken on too many responsibilities here at home, and I need to either give myself more time to deal with them, or dispense with some of them. This after buying two more fish (pretty platies – pictured above) for one of my aquariums because I’d planned to merge it with the other large one, but I’m definitely not going to have the time or money to do that until early next year, and I didn’t want to look at a mostly-but-not-quite empty tank for the next six months (there were/are several khuli loaches in there, but they spend most of their time in the sand).

It’s difficult to impossible to decide what to give up. I love my aquariums, my plants (Do I need so many? No. But can I decide which ones to get rid of? Also no.), my writing, crafting, and while I don’t love cleaning so much, I need to do more of that, just because it needs to be done.

So, I’m working on figuring out how to spread things out more over the week, and do little bits every day instead of trying to do everything on the weekends. It’s definitely a process, but I think that will allow me to keep what I have, at least, and if I adjust my weekend sleep schedule to be more “normal” (*sad sigh*), I should have more time for writing and crafting things on the weekends, when I need bigger blocks of time for those things.

It also occurred to me last weekend when I was thinking about all of this, that a major theme of my life is trying to organize everything enough that I can do all the things I love, and perhaps that should have a larger focus in the books I write (or some of them, anyways). I know I’m not the only person who struggles with this, so it would be a relatable thing for readers, and it’s what I know and am constantly thinking about.

Perhaps this will be the next series idea I’ve been looking for? I’ll play with it a bit this weekend, and see what shakes out.

The Magpie novel is coming along well, and Alex hasn’t started the spooky story yet, so we should both probably keep/get moving on those. And I really want to get the print formatting done for Alex’s Death by Veggies collection for an October release. So that’s what we’re working on at the moment in publishing.

And that’s all I’ve got for this week. Until next time,

That’s it for this week! If you have a favorite thing to share, or want to recommend a book, TV show, video or podcast, comment below, email me at jamie@jamiedebree.com, or catch up with me on Facebook or Instagram.

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Jul 12 2024

Sweet Alpine Silence

Author: Jamie DeBree

This past Monday, my husband and I took our classic van on its “maiden” voyage (with us) up into the mountains. It was time to hunt down our first “out of town” stamp for our Montana Bookstore Trail passport, as well as test out all the mechanical work we had done a few weeks ago, start breaking in the new tires, and make sure the transmission and new brakes were up to the task of ascending and descending sometimes steep inclines. That happens quite often in this state, especially when traveling west, so finding any problems closer to home is preferable than farther away.

Our first on-the-road passport stop was in the little tourist town of Red Lodge, Montana, at the base of the Beartooth mountain range a little less than an hour from where we live in Billings. The store is called Beartooth Books, and it’s in a lovely old stone building with a beautiful wooden door and a stained glass transom overhead. It’s cozy, but spacious enough not to feel crowded, with lots of light and incredibly handy “If you liked [big name author]…try [this not-so-big-name-author]” recommendations hanging on the shelves in very visible and helpful spots.

I picked up four books: “Dead Mountain” by Preston & Child, “Black River Orchard” by Chuck Wendig, “A Most Agreeable Murder” by Julia Seales, and “Lone Woman” by Victor LaValle. I also grabbed a couple of bookmarks – one for myself (because I’m trying to be slightly more civilized, though I’m not sure it’s working) and one for my mom for taking care of our dogs while we were out gallivanting around in the country.

The bookstore’s stamp for the passport was drawn by one of the owners when she was nine – a lovely image of a heart with a silhouette inside. The stamp was frisky that day, and tried to escape before it could “validate” my passport, but it was quickly retrieved and the validation complete.

After a successful book-shopping stop, we headed down the street to Bogarts for lunch, a popular restaurant that opened there the year I was born. I had an incredible burger with onion bacon jam and Gouda, and a side salad that was big enough to have been lunch all on its own. After that, we stopped at the candy shop, which you will not miss if you just walk main street, and grabbed a bag of taffy (another well-known destination that’s been around since I was a kid) before we headed on up into the mountains.

The Beartooth Pass tops out at nearly 11,000 feet, and the road up is only open in the summer (it’s buried, literally, in yards of snow all winter). The highway is very twisty with steep drop-offs, dramatic views, and sharp switchbacks to navigate, so it’s not a “set the cruise control and go” type of drive (not that our cruise control works). You have to pay attention and focus, and there are a lot of turn-outs where you can pull off and go hiking or just take in the mountain air and spectacular forestry (until you get above the timberline, anyways).

We kept going until we hit the summit, and then stopped to stretch our legs over the rocky Beartooth plateau, say “Hi” to the rock chucks, and enjoy the big sky our state is nicknamed for. It was cool and calm, and even though there were a few other people up there enjoying the day, the thing we both noticed pretty much right away was the silence.

Here in the city, it’s never silent. There’s always at least the underlying hum of electronics, cars, birds, chatter…even late at night in our “quiet” neighborhood, you can still hear civilization steadily moving.

Up there, it was silent. There wasn’t even much wind that day (it’s normally fairly breezy), and we stood there on the rocks among the wildflowers, looking out over the mountain range and just enjoyed the absolute silence for a bit. We stopped again at a little rest stop with a short walking trail, and even though there were a few more people and quite a few chipmunks begging for food (they told me off in squeaks because I didn’t bring sunflower seeds like others had), the underlying “feeling” was still one of silence. It was very grounding, even though the earth was literally falling away just on the other side of the guardrail.

I love quiet – I’m not someone who needs the TV or radio on “for noise” (in fact it bugs me if the TV is on when no one is actually watching it), and I need to be able to hear myself think in order to write or code or solve problems. It’s been a very long time since I’ve been out of my city, and just that little bit of silence, away from the constant hum of humanity was enough to convince me that I should venture out into the “wild” more often. It was glorious and exhilarating. Though it did take my ears a couple of days to recover from the quick descent from that high elevation (our city is at around 3,000ft, so we went up and down just over 7,000ft in the space of a few hours – down is worse, because it’s faster).

We were supposed to set out across the flatter “prairie” side of the state for Malta and Fairview for more Bookstore Trail stamps in a couple of weeks – our first overnight trip in the van. But my dear husband cut part of his finger off working on framing for the mattress Tuesday night, so that trip may have to wait a bit longer while he heals. I think we should be able to get a day trip in, though. If we do that, it’ll be farther towards the mountainous side of the state.

I’m looking forward to our next adventure out, whenever that may be. And while collecting stamps for our bookstore passport, I’m also collecting photos and ideas, which will hopefully shape themselves into stories. Or at least add to the stories already in progress.

When was the last time you found yourself in a place that felt utterly silent? Do you love the quiet, as I do, or does silence make you uncomfortable (as it does several people I know)?

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Jun 21 2024

Road Trippin’ Summer – Van Life Calling

Author: Jamie DeBree

June 1st, my husband and I packed up our Smurfin’ Subaru with more than we needed (okay, that was me – I’m the over-thinker/over-planner) and hit the highway for the first time in…well, I can’t remember how long it’s been since we left our city (I know it was for a Motley Crue/Def Leppard concert that was disappointing and we got home around 2am). My mom’s side of the family was having a reunion in the small town of Forsyth, Montana, almost exactly 100 miles northeast of where we live in Billings – an easy day trip.

It was a beautiful day for a drive and we didn’t have to be there super-early, so we took our time getting out of town (important for non-morning people like ourselves), and left the dogs in the capable hands of my brother-in-law (who had a few issues, but dealt with them and made sure they got fed and let out for a bit at lunch).

Last year, we decided that this summer, we were going to take a series of short road trips to destinations on the Montana Bookstore Trail, and see how many we could get to. So this reunion trip was a good first day trip out, and we learned a couple of things:

– We should definitely take more day trips
– The seats in our Subaru are really not comfortable for longer than an hour or so.

I wistfully started yearning for the posh old Buick Park Avenues my husband used to drive when we were dating/first married – the seats in those were so incredibly plush and soft, and the ride was so smooth it was like floating down the road. Perfect road cars, but alas, impossible to find parts for or keep running after awhile. Both have been gone for many years now, sadly.

Then I was scrolling Facebook Marketplace after we got back from the reunion (as one does), and I spied a decent-looking passenger van for sale. It was old enough to be “classic”, but still in pretty good shape on the exterior, with a posh looking interior and super-comfy looking seats, in running condition, with just 75k miles on a “new” (second?) engine…all for $3000.

I mentioned it to the hubby, because in addition to our short road trips, we wanted to do a few longer trips that would require one or two overnight stays. I didn’t expect him to go for it, but figured I’d toss it out there as an alternate option to booking/staying in hotels (which are crazy expensive, especially during tourist season). There were a few other vans on offer, so options, but I really didn’t expect the suggestion to go anywhere.

And it didn’t…until one night later in the week, he came over and looked at the pictures. And then watched some videos on van camping. And then did some calculations on hotel costs vs. the added fuel costs inherent to driving a larger, older vehicle than our Subaru (which doesn’t actually get super-great mileage either, but definitely better than a 40 year old carburetor-engine van). And more calculations on how much it would cost to get the van actually road-worthy (it makes sense that an older van would need some mechanical work even if it runs before highway driving), and then outfit it with basic camping “necessities” like a bed, shades, etc.

It took a couple of days, but we talked ourselves into taking a look. We took it for a test drive, factored in the obvious repairs it needs (brakes, glass, seals) plus some that might not be as obvious and last Saturday (June 8), we bought this classic 1982 GMC 2500 Vandura for $3000.

Both of us have been unexpectedly energized by this new purchase, and we’ve been going a little nuts researching and planning how to prep and outfit our van for decent weather road trips, the occasional overnight stay, and then how we’ll store it for the winter months (bonus: ours came with a custom cover, which is good because it won’t fit in our garage). We’ve both read and learned more about engine types, repairs, gas types and car storage/maintenance than we previously cared to, just because this is a classic vehicle, so it’s a bit different than our “modern” vehicles and we want to take good care of it and also not get stranded – at least not due to our own ignorance or lack of maintenance.

We also want to upgrade the interior, shine up the exterior, and make it into something of a showpiece that we can enter in car/van shows if we feel like it. Because…well, it seems like the thing to do.

We do have another classic vehicle in the garage – a 1961 Chrysler Newport (for the car enthusiasts out there – it was the last year this particular model had wings on the back) that his grandma bought new that has been waiting decades for us to put the same level of interest and care into it, but…we can’t camp in that, so the motivation hasn’t been there. I dare say it will get more attention though after we get the van finished to our liking. The van is a nice vehicle to “learn” on.

The new van is registered (working at the courthouse helps with getting that done quickly) and license plates should be here in a couple of weeks. It’s insured, and currently spending a couple of weeks with the mechanic for a laundry list of replacements and fixes, including brake work, A/C retrofitting, belts, hoses, headlight drying, a tune-up, fluid flushing and replacement, and a few other things I’m sure I’ve forgotten. Basically everything except the engine, alternator and transmission needs some sort of repair or replacement, so it’s a very good thing we got it in before trying to drive it around much.

After that, it will get new tires, and spend a day at an auto glass shop for windshield and window seal replacements, though we may take a short trip between those two things to start our Bookstore Trail travels (and test out the mechanical work). Then we can get to the fun things like exterior paint refreshing/protection and interior redecorating as we have time and money.

We’re both very excited with this new development, and I think it’s for the same basic reason kids get excited about their first car: it represents a certain level of freedom that we didn’t really have before (limited by hotel costs/availability, and the comfort level and road-worthiness of our “daily-drivers”). It’s also something new, and not “just” functional – restoring and maintaining classic vehicles is a hobby all on its own (one we’re both interested in), and we may well take part in some “vanning” events eventually as well.

So, exciting times ahead, and many stories to find and create from the inspiration that travel and new experiences brings. Just this week, the Bookstore Trail passports became available at all the participating bookstores, so I got ours, and got our first stamp from my favorite local bookstore (plus a really, really cool book of book-themed stickers as well). We’re on our way!

We will incidentally be visiting stops on the Southeast Montana Burger Trail as well…which will be almost as fun as visiting all those bookstores! Stay tuned.

What’s brought you the excitement of something new lately? A thing? An experience? Plans for something different? Comment, email, or message me – I’d love to hear all about it!

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Aug 29 2023

How About Surgery…Tomorrow?

Author: Jamie DeBree

About six weeks ago, the pain I’ve been having on and off in my groin for the past two years (the pain I’d hoped surgery would fix last spring), came back with a vengeance. It wasn’t bad enough to require emergency care, but it kept getting worse until I couldn’t even sleep on my side anymore, and I feared that my bowel had partially twisted, as the surgeon who took out my gallbladder and appendix in April said it probably would.

I’ve been pretty focused this year on finding and fixing the source of my groin pain, and I was not excited to go back and have half of my bowel removed, as the “spring surgeon” stated would be necessary. So when the pain started up again, I asked my primary what to do, she said to call general surgery again, and I did, only this time, I asked for the surgeon who had saved my appendix a couple years ago when I went to the emergency room for the same frickin’ pain. She declined to take my appendix at the time, and honestly, I wish I’d gone to her last spring too, because I’d probably still have it even now.

Anyways, an appointment with her happened to open up on Thursday, the 10th of August, and I went in expecting her to confirm the other surgeon’s findings and tell me I would be losing half my bowel. Instead, looked at my chart and asked some very pointed questions (two things the previous surgeon didn’t do), and then went out into the hall, got an ultrasound machine, and said she was looking for a hernia.

I told her I had one in the groin area, but that the other surgeon had said it was too small to cause problems, and that I shouldn’t worry about it. She scrunched up her nose, did the ultrasound, showed me the hernia, and said she’d bet that was the cause of my groin pain right there (she also said women should always have these hernias fixed, because they can cause bigger problems rather quickly and we don’t notice as fast as men do).

She did not think I had a twisted or even partially twisted bowel.

She did have a surgical opening the very next day, and offered to fix my hernia right away. She also offered to do a diagnostic to check out my entire pelvic area, and see if my bowel could even twist or not.

Tired of being in pain, knowing I had another 6 week recovery ahead, and just wanting it all over with, I said yes, and Friday the 11th, I went in for my second surgery this year.

When I came to, my sister came in with full color photos the surgeon had taken during surgery for me, pointing out the not one, but two hernias she’d fixed, as well as both sides of my bowel being adequately affixed (so, not twisted). Photos and a note telling me how the surgery went, what her findings were, that everything else looked good, and wishing me a smooth recovery.

I can’t tell you how relieved I was to *not* loose half of my bowel, and also that the pain I’ve been living with for the past two years hasn’t come back since the surgery. I think she was right, and the hernias were causing my pain. Something the other surgeon just told me “not to worry about”. Considering my bowel is attached properly, I’m guessing the other surgeon just used the “folded bowel” as an excuse to take my perfectly good appendix out, which is both annoying and infuriating. Aside from removing a perfectly good piece of me, it also caused me a great deal of stress and anxiety, wondering if or when I’d eventually end up in the emergency room with a completely twisted/blocked bowel. Shame on him!

Of course I couldn’t just have a smooth recovery this time either. About a week after surgery this time, I developed a reaction to the surgical prep that left me covered in hives all across my abdomen and itching like *crazy* for the entire second week. Fun times. That seems to be resolving, finally, and all that’s left is to let my body heal, and get on with my life. I have a final appointment with the surgeon later this week, and four more weeks of recovery, but things are looking up, and I have no intention of letting go of any more major organs, thank you very much.

How did I get the hernias? Well, two years ago, Apollo-dog jumped on me. He put one big paw straight in that groin area I’ve had all the pain in, with all his weight behind it. I dropped to the floor, it hurt so bad, and it pretty much hurt ever since then. So my guess is, at least one is his fault.

That makes him the most expensive dog I’ve ever owned (surpassing Gabriel, who caused me to need a root canal in college). Thank goodness for good insurance!

Now that the pain I’ve been dealing with is finally resolved, maybe I can actually focus on the things I want to do (like, say, blogging and writing, among other things), rather than being constantly distracted and anxious about what’s going on under my skin.

That is a serious relief.

I have to say, I’ve been thinking a lot about those people who have to live life with constant unresolved pain. I’ve always had sympathy for them, but I’m truly amazed at what so many of them are able to accomplish while dealing with that constant distraction and no real relief in sight. Hats off to you, if you’re one of them. I know I’ve been far less productive in the past few years just dealing with these issues.

Writing News

The writing has been on hold a bit while I deal with this whole hernia surgery thing. However, before all that happened, I did get MacKenzie Saves the World formatted for print. I’m quite pleased with how it turned out, and print copies are available to order now from any bookstore you care to order it from.

Ready for the bookstore!

My local bookstore (This House of Books– link below) will have a few copies soon as well (as soon as I get there – sometime today, I hope). I love this story, and whether you’re reading it for the first time in print, or if you’ve already read the ebook, I hope you’ll enjoy it too!

As for getting back to writing, Magpie Shiny is calling my name. And so are two drafts I’ve written, and not gotten around to editing. I think it might be time to pick one or the other up again and see what I can do with it. They’re both set in Meadowlark, which is my fictional Montana town just down the road/out of the valley from Magpie (my other fictional town). My goal is to create a whole little alternate world in that little fictional Montana area, and it’s coming together quite nicely in my head, though still a bit jumbled. Hopefully I can manage to put it out on the page in a more organized manner.

And of course I started something new last week. Ideally, it will be done for my horror alter-ego by Halloween, but we’ll see.

Recommendation(s)

My husband and I were looking for something to watch the other night, and decided to try The Diplomat on Netflix. It was totally not what I expected – it was much, much better. The dialogue between the characters is so, so, *so* good! The chemistry is right there too, but it’s the dialogue that makes everything work so well.

If you have a Netflix account and are looking for something to watch, I’d highly recommend this series. Not only for the entertainment value, but as a study in dialogue and interpersonal relationships, too.

Aug 04 2023

Library Maintenance – Yay or Nay?

Author: Jamie DeBree

Photo of the Week

A friend of mine from work was giving away this bookshelf. Look how perfectly it fits on top of the one we already had in the bedroom! Yay more book storage! I need to add those shelves to the indexing program, now.

Bagging & Boxing & Shelving…Oh My (Books)!

I know some readers who “read and release”. That is to say, they get a book, they read the book, they give the book away (or turn it in to the nearest library or used bookstore). My mom does this, and she seems perfectly happy to have read the material and passed on the actual object. She does have an ereader, but she doesn’t really use it much. My dad, on the other hand, reads ebooks almost exclusively. It’s easier for him, as he’s dyslexic and the digital text allows him to adjust settings for maximum ease of reading.

I, on the other hand, am a collector. While I do read ebooks occasionally, my physical library brings me joy just by existing, the sight of all those books on the shelves (and piled up…uh…everywhere) makes me feel calm and peaceful. Unfortunately, I don’t have room for all the books (there’s never going to be enough room – it doesn’t matter where I live), but I have a hard time parting with any of them, so…cleaning out doesn’t happen often.

Books recently liberated from a storage unit, waiting for shelf space.

I also read comic books, and unlike novels, they don’t tend to stay in tall stacks very well. I also can’t just shelve them, though I do keep some of mine shelved in binders. The rest have to be bagged and boxed, to keep them in good condition and stored away efficiently. It’s the one place in my life where I don’t balk too much at using plastic, mainly because I expect the plastic to be in use protecting the books for a very, very long time.

A few weeks ago, I noticed that my “finished” comic book stack was getting too big for the space it was in, and decided it was time to bag, board and box a bunch. I bought some new boxes and bags at the comic shop, and that Saturday night, I spread everything out in the living room to work on while I watched a movie with my husband (The Out-Laws, for anyone curious…it’s mildly amusing, but not something I’d choose to watch again).

This year, I’ve been reading one issue per day (I got way, way behind for a few years, and kept buying, but wasn’t reading, so..it’s catch-up year), and because I do that before work, I don’t have a lot of time to keep things organized. So I just toss each issue on the “to be indexed” stack, and call it good. This results in a stack of mixed issues that are in backwards numerical order (apparently it’s too hard just to turn them upside down before I toss them on the stack). So my process when storing them is to grab the bottom of the stack, sort by issue and series, and then bag one, scan the barcode, index it, and then put it in the respective box or binder.

It’s not a difficult process, but it does take time, and tends to be a bit tedious. And if I wasn’t using an indexing software to keep track (I use CLZ Comics – link below in the Recommendations section), I’d be totally lost when I have to stop for any length of time and then try to remember which issue I left off with (especially since comic series are notorious for spin-offs and “series within a series” type stuff, resulting in odd issue orders here and there).

In any case, I got about 50 issues bagged and boxed in that session (I had to do a lot of sorting before I started), and then I ran out of boards. For those not familiar, the “boards” are just a piece of thick stock placed in the bag behind the comic book to keep it flat while it’s stored. So, I’ll need to grab more of those before I can continue my archiving project – I’ll do that in a couple of weeks after payday.

More TBR books – that get moved from this vanity chair to the bed every morning, and back at night. *eyeroll*

A few years ago, I decided I also should index all the “normal” books…which is a project I still haven’t even come close to finishing. But I do try to add any new book that comes in to the index, along with a general idea of which shelf it’s on in case we need/want to find it again. Which is why you’ll see labels with numbers on most of the shelves in our house. Those numbers correspond to a number in my library indexing program. I use CLZ Comics for my comic books, and CLZ Books for everything else. Currently I only keep subscriptions for the phone apps ($15 per year each, which isn’t unreasonable, IMO), because that’s the most useful – I can just scan the barcode to enter a book, and unless it’s something really obscure, it’s generally already in the database. And then I have a good chunk of our books in my pocket all the time, so when we’re shopping we can avoid buying something we’ve already read or bought.

On the occasion I get into a heavy indexing phase of older books, I’ll pay for a month or two of the web app as well, so I can enter the books a bit easier with the larger interface, since those barcodes are less likely to actually be found in the system. It all connects to my same account, so all the data is going to the same spot, it’s just the different interface I’m paying for in that case.

Then there’s my Kindle and ebook library. I used to keep my Kindle books organized into folders and such, and then just sort of gave up, but I really wish they were more organized. I’ve been thinking about upgrading my Paperwhite to the new version (just for a little faster processor), but I also use the Kindle app on my phone, so…it would behoove me to get things organized one of these days.

The rest of my ebooks (non-Kindle/Amazon), are all sitting on a folder in my Dropbox account, loosely organized by non-fiction and fiction, and since I get so few PDF books anymore, it’s not really worth my time to organize them any further than that. I really should go through my crochet/knit ebooks though. I often get those in PDF so I can load them on my reMarkable and keep track of my stitch counts as I go. One of these days. Maybe. Sounds like a winter project, doesn’t it?

So, do you keep your library organized/indexed? Or do you prefer the excitement of a hunt every time you’re looking for something to read or reference?

Writing & Publishing News

It’s been a bit slow-going lately, but I’m still moving forward. The biggest news is that MacKenzie Saves the World will finally be out in print August 11th! So for anyone who likes romance in print (ironically, I read most of my romance in digital form), I’ll have links up then, and it will be available at our local bookstore soon too (whenever the shipment gets here). So that’s fun. Personally, I think it’s the best romance I’ve written yet…until I finish the Magpie stories, anyways.😉

I’m working away on Magpie Shiny, slowly but surely, and I also got started on a hopefully fall release for my horror alter-ego this past week as well. So, aside from getting distracted by health issues here and there (stupid body), I’m feeling pretty good about hopefully having some fun new releases coming soon(ish).

I’m also going to take advantage of Ingram’s new mass market paperback size, and work on formatting some of my alter-ego’s short stories into MMPs. I love that size book, and while the preference for trade size seems to be trending, I think MMP is still perfect for shorter stories. That’s my next print project.

Recommendation(s)

For anyone interested in indexing your personal library, I highly recommend CLZ Books, and CLZ Comics. They also have modules for movies, video games, etc – check ’em out!

Screenshots of my indexes…I thought I had more covers in the books one…

Mar 28 2023

First Quarter Well-Fillers (Reading/Watching/Listening)

Author: Jamie DeBree

This is going to be a bit long, so you might want to get yourself a nice beverage and get comfy.

I’ve been doing a much better job of protecting my nightly reading time this year, and I’m actually finishing books! Yay! So I thought I’d do a quarterly report of what I’ve read/am currently reading, in case you see anything you might like. I’ll also add what I’ve watched or am currently watching below, in case that’s of interest as well.

Two of the novels below are first person narratives, which I didn’t used to enjoy at all. I’m finding I have more tolerance for them the more I’m exposed, though they still aren’t my first choice. As storytelling changes, I find I have to as well, as more authors are using first person these days, and I’ve been experimenting with writing in it myself (as one of my pen names) just to keep up. Jury’s still out on whether it will be a long-term thing for me or not.

I’ve read two novels this quarter, and am well into a third, all of which are engaging and entertaining in their own ways. Here are my thoughts on each, with no spoilers (because that would just be wrong).

Bloodless by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

I love pretty much everything by these guys, though I’ll admit, I had a bit of a hard time getting into this one. It seemed to move slower at the start than normal for them, though the pacing at the beginning did match the overall “deep south” vibe. It definitely picked up toward the middle, and raced to the end. And it was very intriguing to finally learn more about Constance, such a long-running enigma in this world.

There was one side-plot that both took me aback, and made me squint a bit at the pages. I’m still not sure I’m completely on board with it, and…well…I may never be. The ending is also a big “huh?!” moment, that could and should have major implications on the series going forward, so I’m anxious to see how that turns out in the next book (The Cabinet of Dr. Leng). Which I have to wait a year for, because it’s only out in hardback and I hate reading hardbacks. Stupid publishing idiocy.

All of You by Elisa Lorello

Elisa is currently one of our local authors and a huge Duran Duran fan, so I picked this music-themed romance up at our local bookstore expecting a nice band-oriented romp, and instead got an orchestra of emotional angst that built to a crescendo of growth and healing for the characters. I was up late more than once for “just one more chapter” because I wanted to know what happened next.

If you love angsty romance, music, and some comfy pop culture references for those of us who are a bit older, grab a copy. I think you’ll be surprised at how much depth it contains. Or maybe not, if you’ve read Elisa’s books before.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

I haven’t read The Martian yet, though I know we have a copy somewhere. This one was close to the top of my TBR pile, so I decided to give it a go. There’s a lot of mystery in the beginning, that could easily get frustrating in a hurry, but Weir does a great job of not letting things hang too long before moving the story along. I’ve just reached a somewhat confusing point where I go back and forth between hopeful and hopeless as the story bounces around the timeline, and I’m compelled to keep reading not just as a reader who wants to see “what happens next”, but also as an author who is insanely curious where the story will end up, from a craft/storytelling point of view.

We’ll see, for sure. I just really need to set an alarm to put the book down in time to get ample sleep…because that hasn’t been happening lately.

The Comic Book TBR Project

You may or may not remember, but one of my resolutions this year is to get through the insane stack of comic books in my “to be read” pile. I sort of stopped reading comic books sometime in 2019 (due to a lot of stress going on at the time), but I never stopped amassing them (I have a pull-list with my local comic shop that I go retrieve every month or so). To meet my goal, I’ve tasked myself to read one comic book before work every weekday, and I’ve been succeeding admirably with that (two on days I take off work). It also tends to start my day on a more creative note than just thinking about everything I need to get done, so win-win there!

That said, here’s a run-down of my progress on the various series I read:

Harley Quinn: Issues 71-75, 1-10 (next run)
I’m not digging the artwork on this particular run. The story is okay, though not awesome, but the artwork is really detracting, in my opinion. But, it makes for a quicker read, since I’m not overly concerned with taking in the details of every panel. So there’s that.

Deadpool: Issues 4-10, Issues 1-3 (current run – caught up, yay!)
I love Deadpool. I love Jeff the Shark. ‘Nough said.

Daredevil: Issues 18-30
This is a very philosophically deep run of Daredevil, with a lot of moral and ethical pondering by both our hero, and Electra, who is filling in for him temporarily. It’s very thought-provoking, and the art style is gritty and very well-matched to the story.

I Hate Fairyland: Issues 1-3 (current run)
If you like an insane amount of “so dramatic it’s obviously not real” blood-spatter, and the constant juxtaposition of overly-sweet with horribly-sour, this series is for you. Start with the first one though, not the current run (you can get them in book-form too). You need the background of the first runs to appreciate the current one. You’ll either love it or hate it – there’s no in-between with this one.

The Amazing Spider-Man: Issues 25-35
When I first started reading comic books, I was doing research, because I thought it would be fun to write a novel about the owner of a comic book shop (McKenzie Saves the World). I also wanted to know if I was potentially missing out on something great. I wanted to pick one major superhero to follow, and after reading a sampling of the big ones (Batman, Captain America, Superman, Spider-man, etc), I settled on Spider-Man. I’ve been reading ever since, and while the plot goes a bit wonky occasionally, for the most part, I enjoy the web-slinger’s more casual attitude about his odd life and I appreciate the off-beat humor at inopportune times. This run has an interesting plot going, but the recent issues have been in the 2099 mini-crossover-series and it’s…a bit weird. Maybe because I’m not really reading much of the other comic series involved. Luckily, it’s only a few issues and then back to normal, so no biggie. Happens all the time in comics.

Venom: Issues 1-11
This run seems very…Gaiman-esqe to me. It’s sometimes confusing, and I really don’t know if I’m enjoying it or just hanging in there because I’m curious how the writers are going to get themselves out of the seriously loopy weird symbiote loop they’ve gotten themselves into. We’ll see, I guess.

Predator: Issue 1
I read this as a trial run…it’s the current series. It was okay, but not really my thing. I don’t plan on getting any more.

Two Graves: Issue 1
This was a one-off trial run too, and I’m interested in reading more, but by the time I got back to the comic shop, they didn’t have any of the subsequent issues. I might see if they can order the rest of the series in for me when I go this month. The art style is really nice, and the story is quite enigmatic.

TV/Movies

We’re watching quite a few series at the moment, and honestly, I’d recommend all of them. I love it when there’s so much good TV on! Here’s what we’re currently watching, divided by where they are so you can find them if you wish:

CBS/Paramount +
NCIS, Season 20 (and yes, we’ve watched them all!)
The Equalizer, Season 3
Picard, Season 3

Netflix
Shadow & Bone, Season 2

Disney +
The Mandalorian, Season 3

As for movies, we haven’t watched anything super-exciting lately, but we are definitely planning a date to see John Wick 4 in the near future.

Music

Not much to report here, except that I am looking forward to getting copies of Theory of a Deadman’s Dinosaur and Pop Evil’s Skeletons very soon. I think I’ll get them on vinyl, and hopefully a digital copy as well. We also have two new LPs from Vinyl Moon to spin. Now that the storage unit project is winding down, we should have time to do that very soon!

Now it’s your turn! What are you reading, watching or listening to? Anything noteworthy? Comment wherever you’re reading this, or reply to the email – I’m always looking to add to my “To Read/Watch/Listen” lists!

Feb 21 2023

Ever Forward

Author: Jamie DeBree

We have a local bookshop here (linked below!), and I’ve been a supporter since it was just a conception. When it opened, they agreed to carry my print books, because I’m a shareholder (so basically, I bought shelf space…and then I literally bought shelf space for awhile too). I think I gave them two copies each of Tempest and Desert Heat, the first books I published. My memory is sketchy, because it’s been several years, but I think they may have sold one of those at some point, plus a copy of Indelibly Inked which they ordered directly from me when someone requested a copy, because at the time, I was only publishing paperbacks through CreateSpace (which is now part of Amazon Kindle). Independent bookstores don’t like ordering books through Amazon, which is completely understandable.

A couple years ago, I thought I should publish those books through Ingram so they’d be easier for independent bookstores (or bookstores in general) to order. So I took Tempest and Desert Heat out of expanded distribution at Amazon, in anticipation of setting up print copies at Ingram. I had to wait a bit for them to be delisted from places that weren’t Amazon, so I could register the ISBN with Ingram as well, so I waited, and then set up the title record for Tempest at Ingram.

Problem is, by then, the book had been out for nearly ten years, and I’d switched computers several times. Long story short, I lost the original print file I’d uploaded to CreateSpace all those years ago. I had also decided to update my ebook covers for those books, so I figured I’d wait until I had that done, so I could update the cover for those paperbacks too. Needless to say, designing the new covers took longer than I thought it would, and then I was still facing a complete reformat of the print file before I could put the paperback on Ingram.

I put it off for quite some time, got busy, etc, and this whole time, the paperbacks were only available on Amazon, and not even out in expanded distribution for places like the Book Depository (which apparently has no issues listing books from the Amazon catalog). Last week, I decided I really needed to finish this whole book migration project, and I spent the majority of a day reformatting Tempest, only to have it end up at a different page count that the original file. Then I started digging into ISBNs and when to use a new one, and as it turns out, doing the reformatting and clean up and new cover all together basically qualified as a “new edition” of the book…which would require a new ISBN.

I have exactly one ISBN left in my coffers at the moment, and won’t be able to buy more for a couple of months (they’re expensive here…if you live in a country where they’re free, consider yourself lucky!). And I was still facing fixing the cover, which was what I had planned for today.

The whole time I was working on this redo, I asked myself why I was spending so much time updating old books that I haven’t sold a copy of in years. Yes, the remaining copies at the bookstore were purchased, but it was a “thank you” purchase of sorts, not a purchase by someone who just thought they looked interesting and wanted to read them. Which is fine, and I appreciate it, but I also have to take into consideration the fact that…those books aren’t generating interest or sales for other books. Nor are people buying them currently, and putting new covers on the ebooks didn’t change that, so…why was I spending all this time on them, instead of working on getting books that haven’t been in paperback published in that format, and working on writing and publishing new things that might be more appealing to readers, given my growth as a writer in the twelve(?) years since those first books were published?

Then I took a shower today before I was going to sit down and finish the new paperback cover for Tempest. As I’ve said many times before, the shower is an excellent place to think.

There’s a marketing school of thought that putting new covers on your old books, rewriting the blurbs, and generally bringing them up to date can breathe new life into sales for them. And that may be true, but with the limited time I have, I think the time I’ve been spending on old books could be far better spent on writing and publishing newer stories that might appeal more to today’s audience. Not that there’s anything wrong with the older books, but they are dated, and while I did the best I could writing them (and I still like the stories, personally), I know I can do better now.

So today in the shower, I decided to stop spending time on my old paperbacks. It’s okay if indie bookstores don’t want to order them from Amazon – they can still order from me, and I’ll put up a way to order from the BSB site directly so they don’t have to really deal with where it’s coming from if they don’t want to. I doubt I’ll get many orders for those anyways, because as I said, they aren’t selling.

I’m going to put my energy and time into my newer books instead. MacKenzie Saves the World has never been out in paperback, and neither has When She Cries by my alter-ego, Alex Westhaven. I can publish those paperbacks through Ingram to start, and they’re pretty close to ready. And I want to keep moving forward with the books I’m setting in the Magpie, Montana world – I have a couple drafts written that just need revisions, and the draft in progress that I’m really excited to finish and get published.

Someday when I have time and energy, maybe I’ll go back and revise, reformat, and recover some of my older books. Heck, maybe I’ll even pick up where I left off with the Fantasy Ranch series, after revising the first of those – I have several more story ideas for that particular world.

But for now, forward, not back. Prioritizing books that might appeal to more readers, over things that are…well, largely sentimental at this point.

As for Tempest and Desert Heat, they are available again via Amazon’s expanded distribution, which means the paperbacks should be available in most online stores again soon. I’ll set up a simple way to purchase directly from my Brazen Snake Books site in the next month or so, and let everyone know when that’s available.

In the meantime…back to my little community of Magpie, where the secrets kept by people are deep, but the secrets held in the mountain are deeper.

Jan 24 2023

Bibliophile or Bookworm?

Author: Jamie DeBree

When I was younger, I never really made a distinction between being a reader and being a book collector/bibliophile. I thought it was all the same thing. I loved reading, and I also loved books as objects, so it never occurred to me that there might be readers who didn’t also love books.

I’m not really sure how I missed that, considering that my mom is one such person. She reads (and has always read) constantly…she was even a school librarian for many years, but somehow, she never needed more than one bookshelf for herself. And even that wasn’t ever full.

Chalk it up to the self-centeredness of youth, but I actually never realized she didn’t keep books after reading them until I’d moved out, and started buying them as gifts for her here and there. She would read them, and pass them on, and I was a little put off by that for a great while. I couldn’t understand why she’d give such a gift away, even after professing to having “loved” it.

Of course she was constantly asking if I wanted this or that book she’d just read, and some I’d take, and others not, depending on if they interested me or not. Of course those books are all still on my shelves, because unlike her, I can’t bear to part with books, unless I absolutely hate them (and even then, I tend to keep them around because…

Well, I’m not sure, exactly.

My book hoarding/collecting tenancies started when I was young. We didn’t have much money (or any, a lot of the time), so we checked a lot of books out from the bookmobile, which parked by our apartment complex once a week. On occasion, we rode the bus downtown to the library, which was like a giant candy-store to me, and checked out large stacks of books to take home and read before they had to be given back.

So when I was gifted a book on my birthday or Christmas, often inscribed with a short message from the giver just inside the front cover, that was special. I treasured those books and couldn’t imagine ever giving them up. My personal library grew slowly but surely over the years, and when I finally got a job, I paid for my own clothes, gas, insurance, fast food, and bought books every chance I got.

I kept fiction and non-fiction alike, and I drooled for weeks over a beautiful leather-bound, decorative version of Gone With the Wind seen in our local used bookstore when I was in college. I wanted it, so badly, but it was $200, and I did not have the money. I still think about that book, over twenty years later, lamenting that I never was able to add it to my collection.

When I finally bought my first house, moving my books was the first thing I thought of, and four years later when I got married and moved into our current house with my husband, there was never any doubt in my mind that I’d be moving a bunch of books. Although…I’d say that’s definitely the thing I dread most about moving – carrying boxes of books.

I have a Kindle, and a Nook (somewhere), and the Kindle app on my phone. I do read ebooks occasionally, as they’re easy to access when I’m not home. But it’s not the same for me. They feel…ethereal, and when people complain that ebooks shouldn’t cost as much as a print book, I kind of agree with them, because there’s a large part of the experience that’s missing for me when reading an ebook. Yes, the story’s there, and theoretically, it’s no different than turning real pages, and it’s far, far easier to make the text bigger when necessary, but with an ebook, I don’t have the actual object to keep, to look at, to take down off the shelf and thumb through the pages, getting caught up in a random page of text that suddenly makes me want to read the whole thing again.

Though obviously, that’s why attics and basements are notoriously difficult to clean out.

This isn’t a “are ebooks or print books better” post (I am all for stories existing in every form possible), but a recent conversation with a friend about the “problem” of collecting physical books and not wanting to get rid of them has me thinking about books and what they are to different people. I think it’s interesting to note that while some of us readers are also book collectors, others are not, and the two perspectives can make for a rather wide abyss.

Will I ever get to the point where I can let go of my physical books and be content with only the “content” in digital form? Perhaps, I suppose, but I dare say only when I’m unable to move with and enjoy the physical collection any longer. And probably never for some things, like recipe books and “how tos”. Because it’s comforting to me that if someday all the electronics get fried by an electromagnetic pulse, and Google ceases to exist (along with ebooks), the information on how to survive and prosper will still exist somewhere in a physical book, for people to find and decipher.

This thinking of books as collectable objects has given me renewed motivation to get my own books back into print…or the ones that have been languishing waiting for me to finish the updates, anyways. What better books to keep in my collection than those I’ve written myself, eh?

What about you? Are you a bibliophile, a bookworm, or both?

Jan 17 2023

Go Big or Go Home? Maybe Not.

Author: Jamie DeBree

Happy birthday to me! How’s it going, you ask? Well…

I drank this Saturday night after I spent the morning in the emergency room thinking I had appendicitis (I do not, but given my history and symptoms at the time it was important to find out). Related? Probably not, but it is kind of ironic, methinks.

Late Saturday night, my throat started getting that sore, bumpy feeling. And my nose started running. Needless to say, in spite of my best efforts, I managed to catch the cold going around, though mine has thankfully confined itself to my head. I have been throwing pretty hefty herbal remedies at it, which I think are helping. After two days of not-great-tasting herbal tisanes, garlic pills, annoyingly heavy tissue and menthol use, I think it’s finally starting to break, though my head is still pretty stuffy this morning.

What really sucks is that my husband was going to take me to dinner tonight, and we can’t really go since I don’t want to spread my germs (yes, I know everyone else on the planet seems to have it, but that doesn’t mean I need to share with the few people who have managed to avoid it so far). I think he might bring dinner home instead. Or we’ll eat leftover lasagna from last night (it’s Costco lasagna, but really good).

In any case, at least I already had the day scheduled off work, so there’s that. I’m sitting here at home, comfy on my couch with the dogs snoozing nearby, with not much I actually have to do today but rest and do a quick water change on Fritz’s aquarium.

I did order a couple of new plants for myself last week, and they came yesterday. Isn’t this the prettiest Peperomia you’ve ever seen?

Peperomia “Fuzzy Mystery” from Steve’s Leaves.

I also got this Anthurium, which will eventually live on the hood of my big living room aquarium once that’s up and running. I ordered the stand for it (the aquarium, not the plant) with birthday money from my dad yesterday, so getting closer to setting that up. For now though, it’s happy enough in my little terrarium here.

Anthurium Polystichum from Steve’s Leaves.

Speaking of aquariums, there’s this 54 gallon corner aquarium listed for sale on the Facebook Marketplace for my city. It’s a very reasonable price – probably not even a quarter of what it’s worth new, but still out of my price range, which is probably a good thing. It’s a corner tank, and I happen to have a corner in the dining room where it would look absolutely beautiful.

Alas, I don’t even have the 40 gallon set up yet (though I finally ordered a proper stand for it with birthday money from my dad, which should be here Friday or Saturday), and while it seems like a fun idea now to get the bigger corner tank as well (and I have a very specific centerpiece fish I’d love to put in it), I need to pace myself while getting back into the fishkeeping hobby.

This, dear reader, is what I do. With everything. I get interested in something (or re-interested), and instead of starting small and building slowly, I rush in full-speed ahead, take on too much at once, and then burn out on the long-term maintenance. It’s the “go big or go home” mentality, and I don’t think it’s necessarily a good trait to have, at least not all the time.

It’s why I have so many plants (that admittedly don’t get the kind of care they really should), why I spent several hours sorting unread comic books from the past two years yesterday, and why I have Smurfs covering nearly every flat display area in the house. It’s also why I have books literally everywhere, though at least they don’t really require maintenance, only storage space. And it’s why I have an entire closet in my hall that would normally be used for linens and towels that is completely filled with yarn and thread, because when you crochet, knit, and now needle felt, you just can’t have enough fiber around (but it’s never the exact right thing for the project you want to make *now* – I know I’m not the only one who feels this out there).

In any case, I am *trying* to pace myself with the fishkeeping. It has been a very difficult thing, I tell you what. I am limited at the moment by fundage issues (one of those “must fix” things for this year), which is a good thing, because otherwise I’d probably already have another betta tank and a pea puffer tank already in the works. Plus that 54 gallon corner tank that would require me to get rid of an entire display cabinet worth of tea and Smurf stuff in order to put it in place.

In my current state of fish-addled mind, I’d totally do it, without a second thought.

The thing is, I think it’s good to be forced to go slow with the fish. To wait, and get each piece put in place deliberately with a lot of time for thought, instead of just rushing out and throwing things together until all that’s left is the maintenance – which admittedly, is more fun with fish and less likely to be let go since there are living animals involved, but still. It’s work, and right now, it feels like the most fun thing in the world, but that’s because I only have one tank to maintain at the moment, and there’s a huge difference between cycling and maintenance on one or two tanks vs. four or five all at once.

If I take my time, and get one tank stable before I move on to the next (the Betta tank is almost cycled, so it’s almost ready to go to weekly water changes instead of daily), it will be much easier to know when I hit my comfortable maintenance limit, and I’ll be in a better frame of mind to make decisions like adding another aquarium…or not.

I sort of feel like slowing myself down, and forcing it to be a well-thought out process instead of such a rush will be good for me in other areas too. Like deciding if I really need to bring that new plant home, or add another weekly comic book to my pull list, or buy a couple skeins of that gorgeous yarn because I’ll “definitely find something to make with it eventually”.

And if I eventually set up a tank for a tiny shoal of adorable pea puffers, then I’ll know it was a well thought out, responsibly made decision I don’t need to feel guilty about.

Even if it does make my husband shake his head…

Sep 13 2022

On Shelf & Screen in September 2022

Author: Jamie DeBree

It’s been awhile since I could read for pleasure, but having finished my duties as an award judge, I’m finally getting back to my “normal” book fare. And the contemporary romance novel I’m reading right now is Rainy Day Friends by Jill Shalvis.

I love Jill’s stories – they’re funny and heartwarming and her heroines are real and down-to-earth, for the most part. They’re almost like a palate cleanser for me – in life, not just in the book sphere. She’s one of my “always buy” authors, and while I’m not too far into this one yet (a couple chapters), I’m already loving it. If you are one of those people for whom anxiety is a very real and crippling ailment, you’ll definitely identify with Lanie Jacobs, the main character.

Next on my to-read list for romance:
The Gilded Girl by Pamela Kelley, which is supposed to be a “Cinderella story – sort of.”

As for other entertainment, I’m still working my way through The Good Witch TV series on Netflix (originally Hallmark). I love Catherine Bell’s character, and the whole series has been/is loosely inspiring for the core part of my Magpie, MT project. I like the relationship interplay and chemistry between the characters a lot, as well as the slower pace of the overall story – a nice change from all the fast-paced shows I normally watch.

The last romantic movie I watched was on Netflix also – A Perfect Pairing. It’s a romance set “down under” in Australia involving both sheep ranching and wine that was cute, amusing, and a relaxing way to spend an hour and 40 minutes or so.

What are you reading, watching, or listening to this month? You can reply here on the blog, reply to the email (if you’re a blog subscriber), or comment on your favorite form of social media. Don’t be afraid to jump in – I’d love to hear from you and add your recommendations to my lists!

Writer | DBA | Dog Wrangler