I’m writing a book about two girls who magically switch bodies. Not because they want to. It’s a challenging plot that I contemplate often.  So I searched online to see what others have dreamed up about switching bodies.  There are several manga-style cartoons that didn’t make a lot of sense, as I had the sound turned off while sitting in Barnes and Noble.  The one above was clear enough to understand the consternation of the “switchees.”

My questions are many, as I block out the scenes:

-Do the girls meet?  How and where?

-Do the people who know them notice the change?  Who?  How?

-Who believes them?  Who is an ally?

-What is hard for them?  What is easy?

-What do they learn from their switch?

My story differs from most of the “switches” I found online. Those switches stayed in the same time and setting.  My girls come from two very different places: one is from contemporary suburbia, and the other is from a kingdom north of Karakesh (see my Karakesh Chronicles).

https://charmed.fandom.com/wiki/Body_Swapping_Potion

One of the great joys of writing is the element of surprise.  Though I have a basic plot sketched out, I never know what detours may come up.  Stay tuned!

 

 

Illustration by Matt Wall, Awakening Magic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Grassman first appeared in a short story I wrote that became the beginning of Guided by Magic:

I never told anyone that I saw the Grassman steal our baby. I was four years old, minding my newborn baby sister, Toola. Mam had set Toola in a basket in the sun.

            “Keep the baby quiet, Sada,” Mam said. “Don’t let her holler.”

She went into the cottage to gather the washing.

            The day was fine, bright and sunny, and I closed my eyes while I leaned on the porch rail. It was a rare moment that I wasn’t doing some chore or other, like picking burrs out of my brothers’ socks, or carding wool for Mam to spin.

A shadow fell across my eyelids. I opened one eye just a slit and saw a small green man carrying a bundle. He was hurrying along the neighbor’s wall. Jumping down, he tiptoed up to Toola’s basket. He set down his burden, and peered at Toola asleep in her blankets. Then he leaned over and pinched her cheek between a long green finger and thumb.

            “That’s my sister,” I said.  

            “Oooh, yes, that’s so! And a fine wee worka girly she is, too. We Grassmen be making a trade today–a girly for a girly,” said the green man. He bent down with his arms outstretched.                                                    –Chapter 1, Guided by Magic

 

As the Karakesh Chronicles expanded, the Grassmen gained depth as characters.  They were the middlemen between the dwarves and others in the kingdom.  In Guided by Magic, Miela’s stalker, Mick Curmin, hires a Grassman to find her.  A Grassman has no conscience.  He would, as I wrote in one of the books, murder his own mother for gold.

When the Grassman Vetch kidnaps Prince Emric (Awakening Magic), he has no regard for his victim’s misery.  Vetch first pulls a sack over the prince, then callously slings Emric across the back of a horse.  Hardly able to breathe, Emric passes out.

Grassmen are horse-lovers, but they prefer to steal a horse rather than pay for it.  In Tangled in Magic, Malcolm loses his good pony to a Grassman after his mad escape from the half-warlock, Santer.

Grassmen, of course, are all green.  They have green skin and wear green clothes.  Rami, the changeling from Guided by Magic (Chapter 1, above) is half Grassperson.  Her skin is pale green, and her hair almost white.  The Grass People reject half-breeds and exchange them for human offspring.  They sell these children to the dwarves to work as slaves in the mines.

The Grass People live in Liriope, a town of grass buildings shaped like stooks (sheaves of grass or grain stacked on end).

In the evening, the grass houses glimmer with faerie lights, since candles or fires would be a foolish, dangerous source of light or warmth.

The Grassmen in the Karakesh Chronicles seem to have an odd appeal.  Readers mention them more often than other fantasy characters.  Here’s one reader who made himself a Grassman hat for Halloween!

The three Karakesh Chronicles (Tangled in Magic, Guided by Magic, Awakening Magic) are available on Amazon

or at

www.handersenpublishing.com

Tuesday  mornings are mine.  For three and a half hours, I can do whatever I choose.  This past month or so, I’ve chosen to bring my laptop to Barnes and Noble.  With a medium chai latte at hand, I write uninterrupted.  Here I get space of mind.  No obligations to fulfill, no one I know at my table, nothing to attend to except my own rambling thoughts.  It’s glorious.

I’m an introvert.  It’s only recently that I’ve understood what that means for me.  I need solitude.  Being alone is how I recharge.  Extroverts get energy from being among people and in stimulating places.  Not me.  Crowds and noise stress me out.  If I can’t get time alone, I get crabby.  Worse, I don’t know what I’m feeling, or thinking, or even who I am.

I remember when my first husband and I returned from our wedding in New York.  We had a small ceremony at my aunt’s and uncle’s house in Mount Kisco.  It was a great deal of excitement for me to manage, especially since I’d met my husband’s parents for the first time.  Lots of moving around, lots of noisy Spanish relatives, lots of hoopla.

Back in our quiet rented house in Santa Barbara, I took a deep breath.  But wait! We had visitors–friends of my husband’s from Iowa.  My husband planned for us to take them out to dinner.  I refused to go.  I had reached my limit and was feeling the ominous beginnings of a head cold.  That’s how many introverts’ bodies work: if we can’t get the down time we need, we’ll get sick in order to get it.

My husband was furious.  He could not understand.  “What’s your problem?”   I didn’t have the self-knowledge to explain, but I stayed firm.  Looking back, I’m amazed that I didn’t cave in and go out to dinner with them.  I recall curling up under the down comforter on our bed, sighing with relief into the silence.

Now that I’m quite a bit older, I find it easier to accept and care for my introverted self.  I set the alarm for 5:30 or 6:00 a.m.  My husband sleeps on while I meditate, or do some rounds of EFT (tapping).  Or do yoga.  Or work on my writing.

That precious time has so many possibilities that I always run out of minutes before I do everything I want.  I love the quiet of my time in the early morning.  With an hour or so of solitude, I am a much friendlier person when we start the day.

 

Yesterday I listened–twice–to the podcast On Being while Krista Tippett interviewed acoustic biologist Katy Payne.

I first heard about Katy Payne years ago when she and her husband were studying whales off the coast of Argentina.  I believe the article I read was in a National Geographic magazine.  I remember particularly the photos of rugged coast, the huge waves, and the researchers out on the rough sea in their tiny boats. The Paynes’ children were with them.  I speculated on what it would be like to grow up in such a place.

Roger Payne and friend.

Katy Payne is the scientist who figured out that the humpback whales were singing songs.  With amazing listening, precise recording and documentation, she realized that not only were the whales singing complex songs, but that the songs changed each year.  She and her research team produced the recording Songs of the Humpback Whales.

In later years, Payne spent some time observing elephants in a zoo.  She became aware of the vibration produced by low or “infrasound,” and discovered that the elephants were communicating.  She went to Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Namibia to study the elephant herds.  What she learned about elephants’ social and emotional lives makes for fascinating listening.

https://onbeing.org/programs/katy-payne-in-the-presence-of-elephants-and-whales/

It pains the heart to hear how the culling of the herds causes such harm to the elephants who survive.  Payne exposes the threats to the elephants’ existence.  She is an eloquent speaker, and an admirable woman scientist.

This book is on my reading list.

 

 

I’m always making that choice when I have a few minutes’ time.  Do I want to plug in the sewing machine and do a little more on the quilt in progress?  Or shall I dive back into my writing world?

Sometimes the writing is more appealing, or more pressing.  Sometimes the choice is based on my desire to finish a project and move on.

Choosing hands:

The quilt above is an example of the latter choice.  My husband and I worked together on the top of the quilt.  Then it sat around until made time to finish it.  It’s not my best work.  The inner panel depicts Boys’ Day in Japan.  I don’t know anyone with a baby boy right now, so the quilt is tucked away in my craft closet.

Some quilts that I’ve pieced, such as this one above, are too big for me to top quilt on my machine.  I sent this one to a friend’s friend, who has a massive, long arm machine like the one below.

These machines can cost as much as $20,000.  They are computerized and, as far as I understand, use templates and laser technology to regulate stitching and accurately make a pattern.

Putting a quilt “sandwich” together at home can be a long and tricky task.  It’s important to line up the front and back correctly, with the batting in between, and enough extra fabric on the edges so everything can be cut back evenly.

Quilters use many different methods to put together a quilt sandwich.  Some spray the pieces with adhesive.  Some baste the parts together.  I use curved safety pins to hold everything steady.  The long arm machine has clamps to hold the sandwich.

Here’s the “sea glass” quilt I made stretched out on a long arm machine.

I’m almost finished stitching on the binding.  Most of my quilts are given away to friends, but I’m keeping this one for the guest bed, where I can enjoy the colors myself.

The Poet X

by Elizabeth Acevedo

Harper Teen, 2018.

Caught between her parents’ traditional culture and values, and the present-day realities of a teen living in Harlem, Xiomara pours herself into her writing.  Mami tries to corral Xiomara inside religion.  Xiomara longs to perform her poems in an upcoming poetry slam.  Add in Xiomara’s involvement with a boy in school, and she faces an overwhelming situation.

With encouragement from her English teacher, support from friends, and her own inner strength, Xiomara finds her way to realizing her artistic dreams.

The Poet X won the 2019 Michael L. Prinz award.

It is a beautifully written story, all in verse, with language that sometimes takes flight.  Some phrases that caught me and touched my soul:

Just because your father’s present

doesn’t mean he isn’t absent.

 

She gives me that look again,

when someone who doesn’t know you is sizing you up

like you’re a broken clock and they’re trying to translate the ticks.

 

I hold on.  Link my fingers with his for just a moment.

And walk to the train feeling truly thankful

that this city has so many people to hide me.

 

I sit wondering how writing can bring

such strange strangers into the same room.

 

If I were nothing but dust

would anyone chase the wind

trying to piece me back together?

 

Read this book.  It is lyrical, deep, and prize-worthy.