They're Back

They're back.  The tiny, four-footed slugs that steel your heart as they steal your plants.  Friday afternoon I peered out my back door into a yard spattered with forget-me-nots, primroses, columbine and hostas.  Rain poured down, making small wading pools in the gravel, rinsing off my "deer away".  If the plants Survived. One. More. Night. the yard would look perfect - NO - more than perfect for our dinner party on Saturday.
As I said, they're back.

Perhaps "Done" is Over Rated

Perhaps announcing that I was done with Ashes and Bones was premature.  Perhaps the call of revising another project, The Shape Shifter, was too big a draw.  Perhaps.  Perhaps.  Perhaps. 
For Ashes and Bones has called me back to the story board and I am chopping sentences, revising scenes, speeding toward my own deadline of -- What?  June?  June what? And once the allusive date is met?  THEN will the fledgling manuscript finally be allowed to leave its hard-wired computer nest and spread its wings to paper?  Will I, the over-protective wordsmith, at last stop dissecting paragraphs and peering at each and every word under the thesaurus-microscope and hand the pages, wrapped in a protective cocoon of craft paper, to Cate and Deanna and whisper, "My baby is yours now.  Be kind."?

Done, Once Again!

     At last!  Ashes and Bones has struggled through the gauntlet of my critique group's critical eyes and emerged on the other side a more concise work. The tempo is sharper, the spelling has been corrected, and the sequence of events makes more sense.  I think the manuscript is done.  Will Deanna and Cate think so, too? This summer they plan to read the work from page 1 to page 409 (not so frightening when one realizes the lines are double spaced) instead of twenty pages per month.  At that slug's pace any reader tends to forget what happened 200 pages ago.  And, if truth be told, the author does, too. 
     As many writers know this "being finished" idea is both a good feeling and a scary one.  After all, what comes next?  What will happen to my characters?  Will anyone love or hate them as much as their creator?  I may not have the answer to that until August when the members of the critique group give me their final lists of "These are the good things" and "These are the bad".
   

Spring

How long before spring "springs"?  The world seems cold, although thrushes spend mornings whislting  mating songs, big-chested robins steal worms from the frosty garden and tiny tree frogs fill the night with a low, clucking call.  Skunk cabbages are doing their best to brighten the world with yellow flowers that resemble hands cupped together in prayer.  All these sights and sounds are signs of spring - so why is there no warmth in the air?

The good thing?  Cold mornings make a girl feel the need to wrap her hands around a warm cup of coffee, pull out the chair at the writing desk, drag a fuzzy black cat onto her lap and disappear into a flurry of words.

Second Step

After deciding to honor the strength of my friends, and fearing intrusion on their grief, I began researching diseases similar to what Anna had.  The closest one I found was Tay Sachs http://www.tay-sachs.org.  So, the daughter of one of my main characters develops this disease instead of Sanfilippo.

Not having children myself, I asked friends with daughters and sons what they would think and do if their child were diagnosed with a disease that would ultimately kill them.  Across the board the answer was, "Why would you even want to write such a thing?" 
Why indeed.

For five years Sarah and Mark and sweet little Anna have been my answer.  I have not regretted one word of my novel Ashes and Bones.  Showing love for a dying child harms no one.

The Birth of Ashes and Bones by Alicia Jamtaas

The story begins
Ashes and Bones is a work to honor a truly remarkable couple - Sarah and Mark. Sarah and I met at the Ozette Archaeological site where we worked side-by-side by day and at night, drank Wild Turkey and danced to Johnny Guitar Watson with men from Neah Bay.

After leaving that gorgeous stretch of beach, we apparently grew up.  I got rid of the glasses, but kept the necklace and the man who carved it from an antler he found on the beach. Sarah met and married Mark, and together they began a family of beautiful little girls.
Anna, the eldest, proved to have a gentle spirit trapped inside a body that ultimatley betrayed her.  Because of a defective gene this blonde haired, blue eyed cutie was born with Sanfilippo Syndrome, a genetic error of metabolism.  Through time there was a decline in her ability to learn, followed by delayed physical development and ultimately deteriorating mental status. The syndrome is inherited as an autosomal recessive trait -- both parents must possess the gene in order to pass the syndrome to a child.
Who knew?  What luck?  Although I'm sure these thoughts ran through Sarah and Mark's minds a hundred, a thousand, a billion times, I absolutely know they thought, "What fortunate people we are to have Anna in our lives."
And how lucky she was to have them in hers.  Even as her symptoms became increasingly evident and life grew more complicated, Sarah and Mark changed their family's routine as little as possible.  They didn't say, "We can't do _____ because it will be hard to do with Anna."  They said, "How best can we do ____ with Anna?" 
The last time I saw Anna was at Dabob Bay on Hood Canal.  Mark, a seaman to the core, had taken her shrimping.  When they were done, he brought her ashore, slung over his shoulder like the proverbial sack of potatoes as he walked across the sand.  He was grinning, pleased with his catch, not burdened one whit by the weight of his child.

(for more information about Sanfilippo Syndrome please visit
 www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001210.htm).

Black on White with a Little Hint of Red

Ravens' dance on cumulus clouds.  Trout caught in river froth.  Ink on paper. 
Cat eyes at midnight.  Natural Instincts.