The day Toly met Maverick.
Almost a month later, he was washing his hands in a McDonald’s bathroom
when a man loomed behind him in the mirror, and said, “Anatoly Kobliska?”
Toly froze, glanced up at his reflection, and then froze again.
The man had a friendly, weather-beaten face, handsome in an easy sort of
way. Dark hair getting some salt in it, jaw rough with purposeful stubble,
brown eyes. He wore a plain blue hoodie.
And a Lean Dogs cut.
I've always hesitated to say that having a puppy is like having a baby, because I know parenthood is a much greater challenge. But there are similarities. The watching their every step, the teaching, the disciplining. "What's in your mouth? Don't eat that!" applies to both species. Worry over electrical cords, and ponds, and household cleaners. Apologizing to strangers in public: "I'm sorry, he's friendly! He's just excited." The way "no" stops feeling like an actual word because you've said it so much.
In many ways, Strider is shaping up to be a good barn dog. He loves the horses, and they at least seem to tolerate him. My last dog, Viktor, was not only hyper-aggressive, but angry. I've never met such an angry puppy. He was terrible with children. Strider is cheerful, and bouncy, and loves life...but I can't get him to sleep through the night. He started teething at the start of October, and, like a human baby, was feverish, cranky, and had an upset stomach. He was up three, four, five, sometimes six times a night. Cue me standing in the yard, robe and jacket over it, with a flashlight, searching for coyote eyeshine while he did his thing. His teething is better, and he is sleeping a little better - at least two or three nights a week all the way through - but there's no consistency. He's been to the vet, and there's nothing medically wrong with him. I've tried with and without canine probiotics, tried keeping him away from certain treats (horse manure, let's be real), but so far, the only common denominator I can find is the weather. If it's freezing, and windy; if there's a storm front moving in, he can't sleep. Cry-cry-cry, scratch on the crate door, and then it's outside. At one, two, three, four. Every hour, some nights, until he crashes as the sun comes up, and then it's extra coffee for me throughout the day. He's an anxious bird - gee, wonder where he picked that up? - and I'd like to think this is all just a stage he's going through, that as he matures, and comes into his own - the big boy bark is in full effect, these days - he'll be less anxious, more confident, and I can find some kind of sleep rhythm.
Until then, I'm still on the night shift.
And I won't lie: it's messed with my head a little.
I like spooky. Halloween is my favorite holiday. My dad likes to say that I'm Claire from Modern Family. But that's just it: spooky. I love horror, but I tend to swerve more toward ghosts, and creepy forests, and old legends, haunted Victorian houses. I rewatch Sleepy Hollow every year, and prefer Crimson Peak to Nightmare on Elm Street. Less existential dread horror, more creature feature horror. Vampires, and werewolves, and Loch Ness Monster documentaries. It's fun to be frightened by fictional monsters.
But as someone who's grown up on farms, I've learned it's not Lon Chaney Jr. who's going to come at you across a field at night.
When I worked at an "in town" farm, I came face to face with coyotes on multiple occasions. My boss's son shot one, one day, and brought it around in the golf cart to show us all. Tall, leggy, shaggy: it looked just like a wolf. In movies, on news clips, they're small, skinny, furtive creatures. They snatch a few toy dogs in Cali every year, but are solitary, skittish, and not a threat to humans. Right? If that's your coyote experience, you've never run up on an Eastern coyote. Nor heard them howling at night. Eastern coyotes travel in packs, hunt in packs, routinely bring down deer, and are as tall as my dog. Thick-coated, like a wolf, less fearful, known to kill sheep, and goats, and small donkeys. There are three packs who spend their days in the woods that border my farm. If an ambulance siren breaks the peace of an afternoon, you hear them start up, one, two, three, like sirens of their own. That awful hyena squalling.
About four years ago, I heard a mountain lion in the woods for the first time. Georgia Fish & Wildlife are adamant they don't live here, but there's no faking that sound. That spine-tingling, murdered-woman shriek. It's the sound a female makes while trying to attract a mate, and I've only ever heard it in January and February - mountain lion mating season. Go Google "mountain lion scream," and be prepared to have all your hair stand on end. I don't know if the cats in my woods are Carolina panthers come down, or Florida panthers come up, but a friend's caught them on trail cam, so suffice to say they're there, amidst the bobcats, and chuckling foxes, and howling coyotes. The rabbits, the skunks, the woodchucks. It's Wild Kingdom out here, northwest of Atlanta.
These are the animals I've been thinking of, as I stand shivering, scanning with the flashlight. When I see eyeshine coming toward us up from the hollow, fast and unafraid, while Strider sounds the alarm. When I hear the drip and plop of heavy dew, and the who-cooks-for-you call of the barred owls, the resonant whooooo of the great horned owls. When I hear some odd, gargling shriek that I can't identify, but which echoes through the hollows and hills; shivers through the bare tree trunks; ehcos strangely in the rocks.
Night shifts with Strider have left me wanting to write a proper monster tale. Fitting it into the repertoire is the challenge. If only I could get more sleep...
New Year, New You? Well, probably not for me. I'm playing my goals close to the vest this year, though be assured at least one of them is impossible and guaranteed to leave me disappointed. But aim high, right?
If you follow me on Instagram (@hppress), you'll know that last August I brought home a new Doberman puppy, and he's more or less turned life upside down. From the itty bitty baby stage, to the runaway toddler stage, to the difficult, up-all-night-teething stage. Now, at seven months, he's in the rowdy teenager stage, and keeping his brain and body active is every day's top priority. He knocked the back half of 2022 for a loop, so now I'm trying to gather my thoughts, and notebooks, and stories, and get back on track for 2023.
Let's Recap:
Last year I released three new novels.
The Wild Charge (Dartmoor Book 9) in May, which was the culmination of a multi-book story arc featuring the sinister Abacus, starring Tenny and Reese. The big, crazy, biker-cum-spy book that I absolutely didn't want to write but ended up being quite proud of. It was fun in its best moments, pull-out-my-hair stressful in its worst. A lot happens in this one, and it introduced a host of new characters whose stories I'm now working into the rotation.
In June, Demon of the Dead (Drake Chronicles Book 4) dropped, continuing the overarching main story of this epic fantasy series, with a special focus on Corpse Lord Náli, his Fault Lands, and necromantic powers. Each book purposefully expands the magic of the series, slowly peeling back the layers, and further developing our motley cast of kings, ladies, princes, and bastards.
Long Way Down (Lean Dogs Legacy Book 4) came out in October and marked the first of the spinoff stories to come from The Wild Charge. Because one half of the central couple is a Sex Crimes detective, the novel veers a little from the MC format into crime thriller territory. A whodunit with an outlaw twist and a reluctant (on our leading lady's part) romance.
Looking Ahead:
I'm currently working on the next Lean Dogs Legacy book, as well as Drake Chronicles Book 5, Fortunes of War. I've got other projects slated after those, some long-overdue, some new ideas, some series continuations. Frankly, I want to write an obscene amount this year, and I'm afraid even saying that is jinxing myself. But I'll do my best, and am eager to see what I can accomplish, dog willing.
Thank you, all, for your support last year! For your kind words and encouragement. I'm hoping to bring you more stories to get lost in this year.
Let me know what you're looking forward to most. Dartmoor? Drakes? The not-abandoned but woefully-on-pause Sons of Rome? 😅 (I really am going to get back to that, I swear! She's just a BEAST as far as research and story scope goes). Which characters are you most hoping to see more of? I have my favorites, for sure (Ragnar, anyone?) 😏
Hello, all, and Happy New Year!
I took two weeks off - one to prepare for hosting Christmas dinner, and one to recover from it. I'm back writing this week, and hoping to be able to blog more consistently this year...? No promises, though, given the Dog Situation is still very much controlling all aspects of my life. I figure when I have work time, I should be working on books, rather than posts.
I'm diving back into the next Dartmoor book, Toly and Raven's story, which, shockingly still doesn't have a title, even 90k words deep. Oh well. It'll come. Please accept a snippet of one of my favorite scenes, and be on the lookout for more soon.
“She’s a bit stressed,” she heard Ian say.
“Well, yeah.”
“And about to become more stressed, I hate to say.”