This blog has been oddly silent.

I mean, I’ve never been the most dedicated poster, but lately I’ve been even quieter than usual.

This is because I’m writing.

I know. “Sorry I haven’t been writing, but I’ve been writing” is a weird excuse, but it’s the truth. In a perfect world I could manage to write and do regular blog posts at the same time, but the truth is I’m not very good at typing on phones anymore. I miss phones with real keyboards – I can’t write effortlessly on these new-fangled contraptions like I used to. It ends up being 90% typos, and fixing it is more trouble than it’s worth. I try voice to text, but it usually ends up gibberish…. so I find myself waiting to write until I’m sitting down by a real keyboard.

Of course, once I’m sitting in front of a real keyboard, I always ask myself: do I want to write a blog post, or do I want to write something that will eventually earn me money?

I know, I know. Some people want to publish because of lofty dreams and aspirations. That’s not me.

I’m not saying that I’m entirely mercenary. I write because the words bubble up inside me and explode out in unhealthy ways unless I let them spill out like lifeblood on paper.

That’s why I write.

Publishing, on the other hand, is a whole different ballgame. I want to publish because

I’m not dumb – I know I won’t make a ton of money. Still, it’d be nice if I could make enough to do little projects around the farm. Maybe I’ll name my books after my hopes and aspirations?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyways, I’m writing. And for once, I actually have a pretty good feeling that it’s going to be done sooner rather than later. This is all because of a Facebook ad that I stumbled across a couple of months ago. I can’t remember exactly which book it was trying to sell me, but even if I did I probably wouldn’t say… and that’s because I want to be honest about it without hurting anyone’s feelings. And here’s the honest truth:

Holy crap, the writing was AWFUL. It was some kind of dragon story, and the excerpt was so horrible I downloaded a sample. People would shout things wincingly (<– I’m not making that up. “…he shouted, wincingly” was honestly part of the book.) The plot was confusing and cliche, all at once.  The grammar was all over the place, and the whole thing was just… just WOW. It was bad. It was really, really bad.

It also had 4 star reviews from several hundred people, which meant that it was selling pretty well.

If you’re curious how that is even possible, it’s because there’s a science behind independent publishing, and if you churn out a book every 30 days you can beat the Amazon algorithm, and then if you give some of your books away for free, people will respond favorably.  Once you  get the 50 review minimum Amazon will start recommending the book to people, and…..

And if you’re really interested in learning more, there are better blogs than mine to explain about it.

I sent a screenshot of the book (even the cover had problems!) over to Melinda over at Dr. Mel Newton. “Look at this! This is awful! We could write ten times the book, without even proofreading it once.”

We laughed, and then went on with our day.

The reason I shared it with her is that she’s kind of an awful human being.

I mean, she’s really the best kind of human being, but she’s just awful in that she actually follows through on stuff.

She’s like that kid in high school who does all their homework before they watch TV… only they’re not actually going to ever sit down and watch TV, because they’re off learning how to play classical piano, and eating only salads and lean grilled chicken.  You kind of like them, because they’re the best people ever, but also you don’t’ want to hang out with them too much because you can’t relax on the sofa with three ice cream sandwiches and binge watch Grey’s Anatomy.

Although, now that I think about it, I never binge watched TV in high school. What did I do? I guess I binge read Dragonrider of Pern books? It’s getting to the point I don’t even remember what life was like without chasing after a pack of kids.

Anyways, in case you think I’m making this up, here’s proof:

Back in 2015 I went to a writing conference. I attended a couple of “how to write magazine articles and make money” classes and came away with some great notes. I’ve shared those notes with a couple of people. We all agreed it was really good advice.

I’m not sure any of us ever did anything with them, but seriously – it was super advice! It was just the best advice.

When I found out that Mel was looking to do more nonfiction writing, I shared the notes with her.

“Oh, that’s great!” she said. “Thank you!”

And then she did something really weird.

She actually went and DID all the stupid advice I sent her.  Like, immediately.

Ick.  Who does that?

As a result started getting picked up by Equus (a very big name horse magazine) and having people regularly buy her columns, and just… I bet she went out and ate a big bowl of salad and went for a run in celebration. Oh, that’s right, she probably did do that, because she regularly runs 100 mile ultras.

Sigh.  She’s not even human, I swear.

Still, she’d enjoyed the advice so much I sent her some fiction tips. Once again, she expressed a ton of gratitude, and went off and PLOTTED AN ENTIRE BOOK.

Everyone who knows anything about writing knows that you’re just supposed to dabble, and endlessly revise the first 30%, and never actually finish anything. I mean, duh.

Anyways, one evening as I was having trouble falling asleep, I started thinking about this wish list, and how much I wished that I actually could do Tinder For Writers and find someone to collaborate with.

And then I remembered the crappy dragon book, and I got an idea.

The next morning I got up, and started writing an email to Mel. In the subject line I typed “A Really Good Bad Idea”. In the body of the email, I basically said “Do you remember that crappy dragon book? Dude. We could do that. And I’m not just saying it… I mean, we could literally do it.”

And she took me up on it.

And you know what? It’s kind of perfect. We’re both good at what the other person is not-so-good at. We made a list of ideas, and we chose to start off with…

Wait for it…..

Crappy Dragon Book.

Yes, that’s it’s current working title. No, that’s probably not the title we’ll eventually publish it under. There’s still a lot of behind the scenes work to do between now and a finished book, but it’s actually really, really working. I stay up in the evening and vomit a bunch of ideas and scene suggestions onto a document, and then she shows up in the early morning and basically turns into the annoyed robot from Wall-E and sweeps it all up into some kind of format and works on it… and then we go back and forth and back and forth.

And now we’ve got the thing, like, 80% plotted and have about 20k words in it. I kid you not, I’ll be very surprised if we don’t have a finished product by January.

So, yeah. I’ve been writing. I just haven’t been writing here.

Anyways, now that you know what I’ve been doing with all of my “free time”. As for what else I’ve been doing, I’ve been pretty busy. Last week Carrots had some laminitis, so I sat there and imagined the worst.

By Friday she was visibly limping, horribly uncomfortable while standing, refused to do more than nibble at her meds, and I steeled myself for the worst.

When the vet showed up on Saturday morning, she walked right up to the fence, no trace of a soreness, no heat in her legs, barely registerable digital pulse, all bright eyed and bushy tailed. She nickered happily.

I glared in relief, which I didn’t even know was possible to do until that moment.

That pony is just…. She’s kind of too perfect.

So she’s on a diet now and on an exercise regimen. Last night we moved the goats in with her, and it’s been very entertaining to watch. I figured she could use the company, because Reverie went off to boot camp yesterday.

Here’s the thing with Reverie – if she’s not the smartest horse I’ve ever worked with, she’s in close running. I don’t say that as a compliment – I kind of like dumb, happy-go-lucky horses.

Reverie is not lazy and dumb and happy-go-lucky. Reverie is sweet, and loving…..and eerily intelligent and easily bored.

She’s also alpha – very, very alpha. The good news is that she’s a nice alpha, not one of those bitchy mares that takes joy in ordering others around. She just stands her ground and doesn’t like to give in when another horse heckles her. She’s also sweet natured at heart.  She’ll trot away from a giant pile of food to meet me at the gate to let me scratch on her (IT’S SO NICE HAVING A HORSE THAT ENJOYS BEING SCRATCHED ON!!!).  She’s also happy to accept my leadership – I’m sure we’ll have battles in the future, but for the most part she doesn’t challenge me too much.

PHEW.

The bad news is that she’s alpha enough that she’s been ordering Carrots around for several months now. I think the passing of the baton happened some time right after her first birthday, and I just can’t help but think that it’s an absolutely horrible thing for a yearling to grow up thinking she runs the entire world, and that everyone 4-legged needs to get out of her way.

So, I contacted my farrier – Rose. Rose is amazing, and runs a happy, healthy herd. She has a bunch of Appaloosas she’s owned almost since birth, and a tiny herd of rescue minis that were all foundered and lame enough to put down, that she nursed back to health. She came with a trailer and I walked Reverie over and loaded her in.

By “loaded her in” I mean I made a complete hash of the job, and I’m too embarrassed to talk about it, but Reverie doesn’t phased at all by my ineptness (I swear, I used to know how to handle horses.) and I resolve to do much better in the future. And that’s all I’m gonna say about that for today.

Anyways, when we arrived at her place and unloaded Reveri, she looked around alertly, paused at the entrance, and hopped neatly down.

One of Rose’s appaloosas whinnied hello – a high, bright tenor.

Reverie raised her head and answered back in her deep, almost stallion-like baritone.

I walked her over and let her sniff through the fence – there was no squealing or striking – just a lot of intense interest.

Aside from a rare glimpse of a neighbor’s horse when I walk her in the lower pasture, she hasn’t seen another horse since January, when Caspian was put to sleep. (One of these days I’ll get around to owning a trailer.)

I was surprised that she didn’t seem as short as I thought she would – I guess she really is growing up. She was still literally less than half as wide as Rose’s foundation bred Appaloosas (who are all GORGEOUS), so she’s not that big yet.

Eventually, once the excitement had calmed down, we turned her loose. Ears pricked, she floated out in a graceful, delicate trot straight at the big horses, neck arched, eyes bright. She moves like poetry.

She made a beeline straight for the alpha mare, reached her neck out as if to sniff at her, then suddenly pinned her ears, planted her front hooves, and double barrelled the alpha mare straight in the chest.

C-RACK, went Reverie’s hooves, as they made impact with the much larger mare’s chest.  I couldn’t believe my eyes. To be honest, I’m pretty sure the only reason it made contact was because Rose’s big mare couldn’t believe her eyes either. Did she just….. Did she really just…..?!?!?!?!

It was a little bit like taking your 11 year old scrawny pre-teen out for a nice dinner and as soon as you turn your back, your kid strides right up to some giant thug on the corner – the one with the tattoos and the hard eyes – and ineffectually shoves at their chest, telling them to “Get off my corner. This is my neighborhood now.”

Luckily, Rose’s mare and I were on the exact same page.

And thus began Reverie’s schooling.

The neat thing was, none of the horses were particularly mean about it. When I worked up at the ranch we had a large herd of 40-50, all divided up in different paddocks (or sometimes running altogether). Horses can be downright cruel sometimes. Rose’s herd could have been much, much meaner with their discipline. They didn’t corner her or kick unnecessarily. They just decided to push her all over the property, whether she wanted to go or not.

We’re trotting….

We’re trotting…..

We’re trotting in total unison….

Oh, crap! I didn’t see you there. My bad. I’ll just….I’ll just go around you.

Ack! With emphasis! I’ll go around you with emphasis! Sorry!

If she refused to move out in a submissive enough way, she got a double barrel kick in her direction.

Oh, are you over there? Well. I want to be over there now. SO MOVE, little snotty red horse.

I would feel sorry for her, but honestly, these were foundation appaloosas, and while powerful, they weren’t exactly moving at the speed of sound. Reverie only got kicked once, and that was because she tried to stand her ground and let it happen.

Even when she was trotting off, she didn’t look very repentant. In fact, she looked like she was enjoying the heck out of herself.

I mean, look up at that last pic. That is not a horse who is having a bad time, despite the fact that in that pic she has 8 horses trotting after her.

Despite the action shots, the whole thing was pretty low key, and by the time I left, everyone had settled down.

Reverie was exploring the place with an unbelievable enthusiasm. I did feel a bit guilty about that – I know she has been bored, but I didn’t realize she was that bored. The look on her face as she navigated the hills and explored the different terrain made me feel a bit sad for her.

We are in the process of fencing in the lower pasture – it will be done by next spring, and I will probably even have the upper part fenced off for light grazing by the middle of September. Still, up till now, Reverie has been 100% bored stiff. She’s in a dirt paddock with a stodgy old pony who has no sense of playing. I gave her things to play with, but she’s not mouthy and doesn’t really enjoy that. I did consider letting her play with the goats, but I am not entirely convinced playing with the goats would result in happy, not-hurt goats. The few times she’s been able to herd cats in the paddock, she’s enjoyed herself a little too intensely. I could see her happily herding goats to death, or trying to engage in a fun little kicking fight. Maybe when she’s older? We’ll see.

I was pretty impressed at how brave she was with terrain. At one point she was exploring a lower area that was blocked with a bunch of scrub brush. She walked up to it, and picked her head up high to see if she could see over.

She couldn’t, so she busted right through it.

CRASH CRACKLE SNAP, went all the brush as she disappeared.

Rose’s herd stared at her, horsey eyebrows raised.

“That’s mostly stinging nettle”, commented Rose.

CRASH CRACKLE SNAP, went all the brush, and Reverie came out the other side, tail flicking in annoyance at the welts rising on her skin…. and with a giant, tomboy grin on her face. Well, alrighty then. I guess she’ll be okay on trail?

Anyways, that’s where Reverie is right now – learning how to play nicely with the other horses, and take orders, and share her toys on the playground.