White Elephant

(my new one) White Elephant: A folktale retelling of Beauty and the Beast. Magical realism in a well-known story. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FSXS741M

Be Our Guest

Same book, new cover
Be Our Guest: A retelling of Beauty and the Beast
I can now say that it's part of a set of three, all retellings of Beauty and the Beast; second one's done and coming soon.
Paperback $7.39, kindle $2.99, free on ku
https://www.amazon.com/Be-Our-Guest-retelling-Beauty/dp/B0FM82CSKX

feeling really sluggish these days, though i'm in the middle of writing a book. i wake up in the morning and fear for my life as i start down the first step. i'm grateful that knees, ankles, feet all seem to work, though not smoothly or gentlly, and there's lots of people i see out there who are much worse off than i am. my nights are full of driving things out to my son's place (~3 mi) and driving kids home who are here. and shopping - i need to keep them supplied.

in the book i'm deep in the reign of king taksin of thailand which interestingly is at its peak right around the american revolution. i find a lot of parallels with modern times: his xenophobia, his obsession with religion, his declaration that all must pay obeisance to him - kind of an interesting situation. it's like i can write about the modern times, all the while appearing to write about ancient thailand.

my tale is simply three retellings of beauty and the beast, some of which have two beauty/beast combinations, making really a total of about six. not everyone gets along well with their beast. there is a little beast-swapping. the beasts think like we do but have these hairy bodies and all thoughts of bestiality, well, that's taboo, i shouldn't even mention it, should i? but then can i actually put in real sex scenes too, all steamy and all that? well as it happens i'm pretty squirmy about that kind of stuff and it's not coming out very easily. if readers are hoping for that well they might be a little disappointed. but i think the other books in this series (global beasts) will more than make up for it.

at home we really have two different things going on. one is making a house on holton street more ready to sell. it is really not looking all that great especially on the outside, but the inside is not so bad and my wife is applying herself to making it better. i've just finished cleaning some workers' debris and getting stuff out to the garbage. but now there's a heat spell and today i'm feeling, well, sluggish.

then there's the kids, shuttling them around. that never ends.

thursday morning and i'm waking up slow. i try to read something and it just doesn't take. if i don't find my mind catching on to what's going on in the book, i become a little impatient. i'm thinking about anything else. i give up and try another book.

i have about four or five going, so i should be able to find one i can key into. there's a pleasure book also - when nothing else works, that does. but i'm so far behind on the ones i have to do that i get less pleasure out of the pleasure book and i get impatient with that.

then there's this - though i like just reporting what i do, i get behind here too. i like to keep these up and let you know what's going on, all the while protecting my family and kids - so you get a limited-surface view much as you do the moon. there's a side of me you never see. the rest of me you see more than you probably want to.

it's become distinctly, markedly, significantly cooler. i like that except that hay fever season is still full blast, so i've kept my aircon on in hopes of sleeping better. the aircon will at least filter the air regardless of its temp which actually doesn't influence me much. in other words if it's cool and there's aircon, it might get real cool, but i don't mind. it's deceptive though. in texas i thought, it can get as hot as it wants, but when it's dry and there's no hay fever, that's a huge relief. turns out it could get too hot, and get too hot easily. it was hard to live with 90 + temps all summer and i'm grateful to be more or less over it.

i am in a kind of groove on writing. when my mind is scrambled like now i don't really want to try it. but it will unscramble. let the coffee kick in!