Winter Solstice~Harbinger of Growth to Come

This time of year is magical for me in many ways and grey in others. The waning light is always hard for me. I don’t always feel merry and bright when it’s dark and, well, just icky outside. That’s why I look forward to Winter Solstice like a Green-Woman waiting for Spring. I love the light.

No matter what your spiritual persuasion, Christmastime is a time of celebration. For me, it’s a promise of brighter days to come and thankfulness for the harvest life has blessed me with in the previous months. I love the presents and the candle-making (which I do in my grandmother’s double-boiler so I feel closer to her and her traditions) and the card-writing, and every moment spent enjoying communing with those I love, those I really like a lot and those I’d like to know better.


This time of year for me is about people, love, light and tradition. It is a glorious time because we want to love and relate to others and become better people.
So, I feel like I should start with tradition. Yule is the celebration of the longest night, relinquishing itself to the light half of the year. Yule varies according to the Gregorian calendar from December 20~23^rd . Traditionally bonfires are lit, crops and trees are “wassailed” with toasts of spiced cider and cheers to wish health upon one’s crops, especially apple trees. Evergreen boughs symbolize immortality and are connected to the Divine. Evergreens symbolize the ever-green spirit in all of us, even in our darkest moments.

Wheat is used to symbolize prosperity, plenty, the culmination of the harvest spent during the cold-winter’s-night, triumph, light and life. The pagans may have used this symbol first, but isn’t it interesting that WATERFORD CRYSTAL has used it in their toasting flutes and Christmas ornaments in time immemorial? Or at least as long as Waterford has been around. 

 

Often, as a child, I received an orange, actually lots of oranges, in my stocking. I didn’t realize what a gift this was for Scandinavian people and all people of the North who would have treasured citrus at this time of year. I thought it was weird and cheap. Now….?... I think it’s really cool.




So, what are the traditions for celebration in your family? Do you have a favorite food or decoration or tradition that symbolizes the season for you? Please share. I’d love to hear it! Happy Yule, Merry Christmas and May Your Celebrations bring Light and Love into your Life.

The Next Big Thing

I've meet some wonderful authors since joining RWA and Wisconsin Romance Writers. Mary Hughes is one of my favorites! Mary asked me to join The Next Big Thing and I said, YES. So here we go.

Here's a link to Mary's next big thing from last week..

Here's my next big thing:

What is the working title of your book?
Defending Destiny: Book 3 of The Warrior Chronicles, is my work in progress.
Here's a preview of my draft cover.

Where did the idea for the book come from?
I thought it would be interesting to create a world where magic and mythic objects are not only real they create goodness in our life without our knowing it...BAM the magic happens.

What genre does your book fall under?
Contemporary romance with a mystical twist.

What actors would you choose to play in a movie version?
I'd love to see Channing Tatum as Magnus, Sean Connery as his grandfather, Seamus, Jason Statham as Shannon O'Shay, but he'd have to be aged a bit for that to work. Emma Thompson as Mari, Magnus's mother, would be great. For Daisy....actually my daughter would be perfect for that; she's strong and sweet and so fiesty she'd give Channing a run for his money!

The one sentence synopsis of my book?
Druids, stone circles an evil royal and a heroine with a knack for finding mythical artifacts who saves the day.

Will it be self published or represented by an agency?
It will be published by Pen & Sword Publishing.

How long did it take you to write the first draft?
Too long! About six months.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?
Anything by Susan Elizabeth Phillips with some Buffy badness thrown into the mix.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?
The tangible magic I feel when I'm in Scotland inspired me to set this book there and the myths of Merlin and Arthur's magic sword have been dancing in my subconscious for quite some time so I decided to add those elements to this series. That and my dojo where I meet the most interesting characters.

What else about your book might pique a readers interest?
The love stories are what make romance for me. I love the romance Magnus and Daisy create out of the most unlikely situations. I like having older secondary characters find love as well and that element is in all my stories. Romance doesn't die after forty! Neither does great sex!

Since every author that I contacted to join in with this blog event has either already participated, been tagged to participate or no longer blogs, I am including the following links to previous submissions.

Stacey Joy Netzel

Liz Kreger

Betsy Norman

...and here's a link to one of my favorite authors, James Lee Burke.

ANTICIPATING CELEBRATION

It’s the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, one of the best days of the year for me. I love to create food to share with the people I love and creating that feast with my husband and my children is, in a word, transformative.
Of course, it would be wonderful if the house would magically transform itself into a pristine environment, but I’ve come to appreciate that our house is very much a microcosm of life: kinetic energies mingling together in an environment full of potentiality and chaos. Even so, a not perfectly put together house that smells of pie, veg and whatever meat is the current offering is comforting. If there are a few socks the kitties have stolen milling about, if every bookshelf is overstuffed and haphazardly double-stacked and if every square inch of the fridge and pantry is covered with photos and random artwork well…welcome to my world.
My daughter is waking up in her bed this morning---at least I hope she wakes while it’s still morning as she’s still sleeping as I type---home from UW for the weekend. She’s put in her request that we bring up all the candle making supplies Thursday after everyone is gone and the cleaning up is accomplished. She wants to get an early start Friday making votives for Christmas.
Today it’s nearly 50 degrees here, about a half hour south of Milwaukee. Perfect pie baking and candle making weather! The doors can stay open, flushing the scents of autumn through our home. She says she misses that at school which cracks me up, because she’s never really been interested in candle making. She likes the candles, but it’s my son who helps me every fall and every spring creating our mini-wax-creations-of-love.
So this year, the energies flowing around me are converging into a stew of contentment and anticipation over what can happen surrounded by family.
My parents are coming tomorrow and we’ll serve all the traditional things they remember from their parents---with the exception of the pan-ultimately icky Jello mold corrupted by that sour cream layer of grossness my mom insisted on making every year which every child hates. At heart, and in the taste-buds, I am still a child, a purist of the highest order, when it comes to Jello. Some things should be sacred. Not-so-sorry, mom, but it’s not on the menu.
I digress…
This year my husband and I have picked out a handful of new dishes to try. This is huge since we’ve always been about tradition for Thanksgiving dinner, but this year has been full of firsts. This year has literally scared the (add the expletive of your choosing) out of us. We’ve started a new business built around our mutual love for all things Scottish, we’ve ridden the waves of the building market, and we’ve jumped into book publishing with eyes toward expansion and diversification.
Yep, it’s been quite a ride. And it’s far from over. But each new journey begins with shutting the door on your safe place and stepping onto a new path.
So, consciously or not, this has translated into Cranberry-Meringue Pie, Pumpkin-Chocolate Torte with Pumpkin Whipped Cream (which thank the spirits of the season we made early because I love pumpkin and chocolate), which is going directly in the garbage with mom’s Jello recipe, and turkey breast stuffed with walnut and mushroom stuffing. All the traditional items will be there as well. I’ll let you know what turns out and what we shrug off as culinary waste.
         This morning as I type this blog, which was supposed to be about Thankfulness, I’m smiling. Tomorrow, the house won’t be perfect; a flaw that will not go unnoticed nor uncommented upon. Something will be under or overdone. Someone will say something outrageous and most likely hurtful. And, on a day filled with old favorites and new potential masterpieces, I will be celebrating the moments as they happen, letting it all wash over me, grateful for the meaningful moments and the moments of absolute absurdity with those I love. 
So, I raise a figurative glass to you, my friends! May Thanksgiving find you well and leave you better. May you anticipate the up-coming holidays with love in your hearts and courage in your souls. May you always be warm, well-fed and loved.
Happy Thanksgiving Eve, Leigh.

Character Assassination: Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher.

Does anyone else feel betrayed when the main characters on a book cover in no way match the characters in the book? I do and it's such a glaring flaw for me that it takes something away from the enjoyment of the story. And that's a small, albeit grating, issue.
Casting someone in a movie who is so wholly out of place in the role of a character I love to read is an all together different kettle of fish. Stinky fish. Stinky bottom feeding fish. AARRGGHH.

I've read every Reacher novel, most of them more than once. (If you haven't dipped your toe into Lee Child's Reacher series, Bad Luck and Trouble is a great read.) I will NOT see One Shot with Tom Cruise as Reacher. That's like having Woody Allen direct The Shining; so blatantly wrong, it just becomes farcical.
Character should matter to a story-teller no matter what expression the story takes, in this instance a movie. Reacher is 6' 5", anywhere between 210 and 250 lbs, rugged and blond. Every story has his physical description as an element of who he is. Often, Reacher can't buy clothes that fit, and this is a problem since the only item Reacher carries with him as he wanders the country saving the day is a portable, folding tooth-brush. Always, always, always, Reacher uses his extreme physicality to annihilate one or more bad guys at a time. He is aware of his size all the time. Taking that away from Reacher indelibly changes his character.
Dolph Lundgren, the  wonderful actor Ray Stevenson, Liam Neeson, heck, even some-what shorter Sean Bean, would all have been better choices. On Lee Child's FB page this morning there were 949 comments commenting on the new book cover featuring Tom Cruise. Almost without exception fans of the books are disappointed to such an extent, not only will they not see the movie, some won't buy any more Reacher books. I will. I love Reacher. What I won't do is have the magic die by watching Tom Cruise mutilate a character I like to spend time with.

Perhaps Mr. Child genuinely likes this choice, but I doubt it. Thoughts?

ART IMITATES LIFE EVERY DAMNED TIME (Or: Art doesn’t exist without life to give it context.)

Has any life experience made you so angry you said to yourself, that’s going in a book? How about a joyous experience you couldn’t wait to journal about? Or, better yet, has something very real happened to you, no matter how small or inconsequential at the time, that made you want to change the world or at least your small part of it?
If the answer to any of these questions is yes and you then wrote about it, took a photograph or painted a picture, made up a song, a dirty limerick, or even the perfect FaceBook quip or Pinterest post, then I think you’ve experienced art imitating life. Oscar Wilde famously said: “Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.” This may seem chicken and eggish in the premise it sets out to prove, and to some extent it is, but I believe the distinction merits a look.
I make a lot of stuff up when I write. Gallery photographers use different lenses to generate and saturate color, to shadow and show effect. Painters experiment with light and shading. Musicians and poets play with meter and rhyme. What they and I can’t make up, and I believe this to be true of others as well, is the emotional content. Artists of every stripe, even mimes and sidewalk shell-game artists, have to draw on and connect with emotion, or their art falls flat.
I used my grandmother’s name in the second book I wrote for a character who otherwise was a compilation of women I admired as well as the product of my imagination. When it came time for that character to die, the emotion was very real. That scene rings true. I cry every time I read it because I let a piece of my life bleed into my art. The character wasn’t real, not wholly anyway. The emotion was.
That same story has part of its genesis in a visit I made to a long term care and rehabilitation facility. My client, an elderly woman with no family and a large estate, was recovering from a hip injury. She was also being billed $6,000 a month to share a room and drink Ensure. She didn’t even have a walker that worked. Needless to say, I was a little pissed off. I got her out of there, but not before she was billed $12,000  for a  60 day stay. That little adventure spurred the creation of Potter’s Woods, a wholistic healthcare facility. I made it up. I created a way to pay for it in my story – it helps to have a spare billionaire – and I felt better. Now, Mr. Wilde will be right if said billionaire reads my story and Potter’s Woods becomes a reality.
I can only hope.
My point is that artists, paid, unpaid, known and unknown, universally pour their life experience and the emotion that imbeds itself on the psyche as a result, into their art, even if all that comes out on the canvas is the representation of a soup can. It resonates with some people. It leaves others cold. Yet, the emotion is real whether it paints a rich and textured picture or it wounds with its starkness.
That’s life, baby. And it creates art.
So, my friends, does life’s emotion influence the way you create or the way you enjoy art? I bring my own experience to my reading and often I read a great story a little differently than friends who read the same words. How does your life experience influence your reading, your art, your enjoyment of others' art? I can’t wait to hear from you.
My your life always be filled with art that adds to it and emotion that nurtures it.
Leigh Morgan
http://bardintraining.com/
http://www.facebook.com/leigh.morgan.5817

Slainte (to-your-health) and Cheers to the August Chaos.

Is anyone else out there wondering, where did the summer go? I've got I-want-summer-to-stay syndrome...badly.
So far this August, I've tried to squeeze in the state fair, the Bristol Renaissance Faire, and a whirl-wind trip to Door County, WI before my daughter goes back to college and my son back to school. Oh and guess what, tomorrow the world's largest Celtic Festival, Irish Fest, begins at the Milwaukee Summerfest grounds! Yeah!!!
My family and I look forward to Irish Fest all year. We are in the parade, daily. We usually sponsor a team for the run/walk for arthritis research the Saturday of the Fest. This year we're sponsoring two teams: Team East-West Connection Martial Arts and Wellness studio and Team Macski's Highland Haggis. So much fun and so much, well, time.
I registered my son for school today, decided on haggis shirts and logo for the Labor Day Highland Games, waited for my husband's EKG and blood work results (he's having out-patient surgery in September) and then had an Oh Shi* moment when I realized, at 2:05pm, that it's the third Wednesday of the month and my day to blog.
So here I am, blogging.
I really thought when I gave up going to court every day that my days would be less hectic and I'd get more done. They are. And, I do, for the most part. And then there's August...sigh. The month where everything gets squeezed in as we try, or at least I try, to eek out every minute of family togetherness before my daughter gets all wrapped up in school and labs and the chaos every bright, overly stressed, college student experiences.
There's also the desire to live every minute of daylight August has to offer and enjoy the cooling nights while their softness lasts. So, friends, my blog today is about that welcome chaos the end of summer brings. I love this time of year where festivals and being outside are ends in themselves, where we reap the early harvest from our gardens or the local farmer's market, where I am reminded more particularly than any other time of year besides winter break and the Christmas season, of the importance of being with my family in every moment.
I've been to Irish Fest every year since it's creation in 1981. First with my parents. Then with my husband and my parents. Then with my husband, my children and my parents. Sadly, my parents can no longer negotiate the expansive and crowded grounds, so now it's my family and me. Some day, in the not so distant future, I will be going with my husband, our children and our grandchildren. Hopefully by then we will be living at least part of the year in Argyll and part of the year in New Mexico. No matter where we end up, for four days every August I will live with my family at Irish Fest.
Summer is important for many reasons, but the most important is the added time with my family. August in particular, because these are the days when family bonding is clear and immediate. These are the days memories are not only made, but solidified. It's a time to reap the seeds we've sown from early days sent enjoying time together. I've enjoyed the early summer calm and even the late summer chaos. I hope I'll be enjoying that chaos every August for the rest of my life, with my family around me.
So I raise a proverbial glass to you and whatever makes you revel in joy this August as I say: Slainte! (to your health).
My Scottish Blessing to you: In every moment of chaos may you be blessed with loving family...may the chaos flee quickly and the loving remain...may you live every day with a festival in your heart, music in your soul and a dance in your step.
What does August and the ending of summer bring to you? What summer traditions fill you with quiet pleasure or jolts of joy?

How do you escape when you have traveling feet and nowhere to go?

I was going to write about the Declaration of Independence and what it meant for a fledgling nation to declare war against the superpower of the time, an important and timely topic to be sure. Bella wrote about freedom beautifully on the 4th. If any of you missed her post, it's worth a look. It's beautifully written and I find I have little to add to her fine work.
So this July what's of import? Lot's I suspect. The height of summer is upon us and there's lots to celebrate just being alive. I live in south-eastern Wisconsin, where I've lived in various small towns my entire life. Here there are Memorial Day parades down main street followed by 4th of July parades down main street, County fairs just off main street and Labor Day picnics and barbecues. It's pedestrian and, well, nice. I'm thirty five minutes from Milwaukee's lovely lakefront and ninety minutes from Chicago's. So nestled in all this small town-ness is the opportunity to live large in the city. It's pretty ordinary really, the every-day-ness of it eclipsing at times the specialness of time and place. Sometime appreciating what we have requires distance. This July I'm hoping to appreciate it while being present. I'm finding the task harder perhaps than it should be.
Usually this is the month my family and I go on vacation. Sometimes to the Rockies. Sometimes to Ontario. Sometimes to New Mexico, specifically Santa Fe. This year things are different. Jobs are different. Children are different; older, more independent, with their own lives that have little to do with me or their father. We're busy with a new business and sticking closer to home.
So what does one do in a small town where streets can be comforting or claustrophobic on any given day? Well, for one who travels to expand my soul and my spirit, I have to admit I'm feeling a bit stifled. I shouldn't, but there it is. So what's a girl to do when she's stuck at home longing for new sights? Journey inward is always a good choice. Books, books, and more books. I'm reading more and writing more and trying to adjust to having more time to do what I want with fewer resources than I had a year ago. Weird, all the way around.
So what opportunities does this new life bring?  Well, this July I've been to the largest Renaissance Faire in the U.S. twice so far (It's been open only 2 weekends and I've been both). I've been going since I was a little girl since it's in the small town where I grew up, Bristol, Wisconsin. Summerfest, the world's largest music festival is held at Milwaukee's lakefront ten days at the end of June and beginning of July. I spent more days there this summer than ever before. Irish Fest, the world's largest Celtic festival is coming up in August. I sponsor a team for Arthritis research every year for the run/walk to Irish Fest at Milwaukee's lakefront. This year I'm sponsoring two. One for my dojo. One for our new haggis business. As much as I love it, it is something I've done every year for many years. (And now I sound so whiny I'd like to slap myself...I need a vacation!)
So why are my feet itchy beneath me? I need to change my routine. I need to see new places and do new things. It's a need imprinted in every cell of my body. Traveling gives a new perspective and it makes me more thankful for what I have in my own backyard. It also clears the cobwebs from my psyche, especially when I visit the mountains. Something about their grandeur and my being present in it makes life more clear and more basic. I will be going to the Rockies for a few days in September and my palms are itchy just thinking about it. The visit is for business, not pleasure, but I'm pretty sure I'll find pleasure in the journey.
And that's ultimately the goal, I think. To find pleasure in the journey whether it's just to my backyard or 3000 miles away. Both are significant if we attach significance to them. Some of the best books I've read involve small places and the everyday life that occurs there. The magic happens in small moments of appreciation and often in small towns or small environments. The magic is in everyday, I think, if we're open to it. So how do you open to it when time or circumstance don't allow for travel? I read. I water my flowers and try to absorb their beauty because I dread the long and very cold winter that blankets life here for five months of the year. And I dream of mountains and the Highlands and the magical places in Britain and I plan the next trip. After each trip I'm so happy to be home.
So, my fellow travelers, help a girl out. What do you do when you can't get away. Does reading and dreaming do it for you? What are your favorite reads of the summer? How do you escape?