March 15th launch of the sequel to The Dire Deeds, in my Guild of Ornamental Hermits fantasy series!
I am so happy to announce the mid-March arrival of my second book in The Guild of Ornamental Hermits queer urban fantasy and paranormal romance series! As of March 15th, it has arrived, first as a Kindle eBook and soon will appear as a paperback.
Like the first book, The Witching Work takes place on Hawaiʻi Island during a “not too distant future” when the Hawaiian Kingdom is finally unoccupied and able to reform its government. This is a transition time for everyone in the islands, but for the Hermits of Hermitville Farm & Arts Collective, their entire lives have been turned inside out by the sudden death of Hermitvilleʻs founder and the arrival of Elves of The Realm. In The Witching Work, the human Hermits are forced to become adepts in Elven magic in record time, because the human and preternatural foes continue to threaten all Hawaiʻi and humanity as a whole. Can our plucky ensemble of mostly queer, aging misfits and their dishy Elven mentors save the day? Or will the eldritch powers from beyond really land with a pink sploosh in the middle of Hawaiʻiʻs lush Puna district?
This is what some readers had so say about the first book, The Dire Deeds.
I am pleased to announce this publication of The Witching Work, as well as the forthcoming third book in the series, The Queerest Quest, hopefully later this year!
Gentle readers, I have a healthy international readership on this blog. This is why I am crossposting this image and asking you to please take a look at these lovely review excerpts for my urban fantasy novel, The Dire Deeds, the first in The Guild of Ornamental Hermits series. I hope these reviews encourage you to seek out my book on Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Available on Amazon in either paperback or Kindle eBook.
These books are LGBTQIA++ saturated, yet the characters (and the plot) can be loved and enjoyed by anyone who likes humor, paranormal romance, preposterous plot twists, and plucky humans learning magic from plucky Elves.
Excerpts from three Amazon reviews of my book.
The second and third books are with the copy editors and publisher now. The fourth is in progress. The Dire Deeds is not just a first novel with aspirations for a series. I have already written so much more!
It’s been quite awhile since I actually blogged about my “most trusted one,” Loki Laufeyjarson. That’s because there hasn’t been much to say and that in itself is something to note. I’m not alone in this. In certain online communities where Lokeans gather, people are wondering where Loki went. The oft-repeated story is “He was all over me and now he’s not around any longer. What happened?” I think it’s just Life Happening, his and ours.
For example, I’ve spent the last several months adjusting to yet another set of huge, complex changes, and I’ve also been dealing with a gradual worsening of a chronic condition, soon to be fixed (I hope) with surgery. So I’ve been tired, sick, exhausted, often quite sad, a bit fearful, and busy. Consequently I’ve let things go with regard to my formerly daily practices and I have (at times) even forgotten to place the daily cup of cinnamon tea on his altar. In fact, there have been a few times when I’ve put the hot water and honey in the cup, and placed it on the altar, but forgotten the tea bag. A year ago this would have been unthinkable.
I know that it’s foolish to neglect regular spiritual practices and devotions in the very times when I need connection with my spirit allies the most. And yet that’s what’s happened. I can’t change it. I can only do better, starting now.
But I also feel that ebbs and flows of attention are a natural part of the process. Fallow times and growing times are a part of the cycles I observe in myself and in all that’s around me. So I don’t feel insecure about my relationship with Loki, just temporarily not that connected. But it’s really up to me to nurture that connection, or not. Free will and all that. I feel that Loki is understanding to some extent. And he is probably as hooked on “new relationship energy” as any human polyamorist. If I’m not active in my devotions and cultivations, he (she, they, ze) is happy to go where there’s more action. And I’m okay with this as I know that whenever I ramp up the energy, he will be there.
And he’s not entirely absent. One thing that will sound absurd is that Loki plays with the pair of battery operated candles on his altar. He turns them on and off. I am not kidding. In fact, a previous battery operated candle stayed on for almost a full year, on just one battery that was only supposed to last ten hours. Again, not kidding. So every day he will turn the candles on. He used to do this in the morning. Lately he does it at night and I see them when I come up the stairs to go to bed. I’ve been feeling it’s a hint that I could (should?) renew my evening meditation practice with Loki.
Instead, I’ve just let myself vegetate. I crawl under the covers with a heating pad held against my belly and binge-watch stuff until I fall asleep. This is more than simply lying fallow. It smells of composting! And I guess it’s what I’ve needed until now.
The two of us, together as HeroForge figures.
In another way, though, I’ve been very much engaged with Loki these last few months. This is with regard to his role in my life as a muse, particuarly as a muse for my Guild of Ornamental Hermits fantasy novels. (See “Meet Lucky LaFey.”) The first book is coming out any day now (I’ve been saying this for quite some time, but it IS true) and I’ve done a major make-over of my book website, using images of HeroForge figures that I created, based on each character. Loki had unexpectedly steamrolled his way into my third book in the series and he is now deeply entrenched as a “handsome drifter” named Lucky LaFey (human guise). I cannot wait for people to meet him!
This is another form of devotional work for me, honestly. And Loki is a consummate muse. He is quite happy to live in stories that we humans tell and in images we create. The more the better, actually. And those of us who are fortunate enough to engage with him (her/they/zir) in this way never seem to tire of it!
I’ve enjoyed making HeroForge figures based on my book characters, but making images of Loki/Lucky is particularly amusing. Many members of his large family have also entered my books. In my third book I have it that Loki birthed seventeen witch daughters (“troll women”) as a result of eating the burnt woman’s heart (see Stanza 43). I’ve named them all and made HeroForge figures of them. Angrboda and Sigyn have “cameos” in the third book as well. However, of his children with Angrboda and Sigyn, only his missing son, Váli, has an actual role in the third book. Even so, I created figures for Jormungandr, Hel, and Fenrir, and Narfi. (No Sleipnir, though, as I can’t make eight-legged horses in HeroForge.)
A side note: As Zeus birthed Dionysus from his thigh, and Athena from his head, so I see Loki’s witch daughters emerging from various parts of his body in a similar fashion. Though as he’s a shape and gender-shifter, I suppose he could also have taken on a cis-female form for birthing them. (As for Sleipnir, I guess I assume Loki gave birth while still in mare shape.)
After writing this, now I see that I haven’t been as disengaged as I’d imagined at the start of this blog post. I’ve just been engaged in a different way, making images which are a new form of devotion, and preparing to launch yet another saga that will eventually feature Loki center-stage.
So, as always and forever, Hail Loki!
L to R: Angrboda, Loki (with cupcake and drinking horn), Sigyn, and Yours Truly, depicted via HeroForge.
Loki as Lucky LaFey, Rock God! Depicted via HeroForge.
Loki’s HeroForge figure is in the far back, at right. He’s standing on a rocky outcrop. The other characters are only a few of the large cast of characters in The Guild of Ornamental Hermits books.
Living as I do in a chemically avoidant “bubble” (meaning I stay home most of the time), I confess to some envy of those who move freely amongst the populace without gasping for air or succumbing to unpleasantly dizzy brainfogs, making a swift retreat and bedrest a necessity. However, the people I envy the most are not those who casually sashay through the detergent aisle of the supermarket (though it would be nice, as cat food is always across the aisle from the really awful smelly stuff), but those who are right out there making outrageous stuff happen–art, music, revolutions, burlesque, whatever!–without getting sick.
Life is not passing me by–I get stuff done. I write. I teach. I create. I sometimes help people from afar. Sometimes I see friends or my kids. And I am in life-long service to cats… But I confess to an occasional vicarious fascination with people who puncture the norms in the outside world. I like to watch them do it (yay for the internet) and I cheer them on, also from afar or in the comments section of a YouTube video. My all too active imagination performs a sort of recombinant conceptualization of a world that doesn’t exactly exist, but that I would like to join. My favorites are all there. I won’t name them here but their music, performances, art, and words remind me there is more to living than the interior of my house.
Sometimes I conjure, then cut and paste their attributes into characters in my books. For example, my “Ornamental Hermits” and their magic companions are partial composites of the outrageous “friends” I’d like to have over for tea and magic rituals. Since there’s no way to socialize in the real world, I set these characters in motion against real estate developers and supernatural bad guys. Sometimes these characters fall in love with each other, which is often a surprise! And on the real world stage, similar things are happening. We (the arty, the weird, the transgressive) stand opposed to the truly monstrous and cruel, but we haven’t yet morphed into a global fellowship, combining our powerful energies and visions into an unstoppable force for renewal and joy, for sex and life, for art and transformation. Perhaps we never will.
I can only sense the pulsations, observe from the sidelines, and stir my witchy “thought potions.” My “wicked fascinations” are ingredients added to the creative cauldron. I stir winks and shimmies, a puffy clown suit button, swear words and sass, tears of anguish, shouts of triumph, a blackened eye, the sweetheart who died, and a pair of sequined pasties, into my brew and serve it up hot–or cold–as the writing demands.
And then I exhale over the simmering stew and invite my spirit companions to do the same, charging the mixture, bringing it to life. Thought forms emerge, pledged to carry my vision into the places I cannot visit in the flesh. They go forth in books not yet read.
I’ve written this blog on my other website. #IStandWithTrans and I always have. And if you’d like to join our Guild of Ornamental Hermits group, for MagicQ fun and support, please do!
I completed my 50,000 words for NaNoWriMo and the first draft of The Witching Work of the Guild of Ornamental Hermits on Friday. This book is the second in my fantasy series. It’s a whimsical, queer-saturated book in the “urban fantasy” genre.
Today, I begin the second draft revision.
Lucky LaFey (the Norse god Loki in mortal disguise) is a leading character. You’ll meet him in the middle of his search for Vali (his long lost son who was turned into a wolf by the Aesir and made to kill his brother Nali).
In addition to my plucky cast of human “Hermits” and outlier Elves who comprise the Guild of Ornamental Hermits, you’ll also meet Lucky’s seventeen witch daughters (called “troll women” in the lore–Loki gave birth after eating a sacrificed burnt woman’s heart); his part mortal/part elf/part Jotun son (with two biological dads–just ask me how!); a giant multi-dimension hopping salamander named Vesta who digs human architecture in a big way; the “Big Dipper”–a sinister Lake County CA guru; and Sigyn and Angrboda both make cameo appearances. Plus, the first book’s star villain, Anna Phylaxia, known as the “Martha Stewart of Kink” due to her line of BDSM-themed luxury housewares and linens, makes a comeback appearance. In the shadows, the lurking menace of U.S. government surveillance…
Thrill as Lucky (in his female-ish form of Lucia LaFey) battles the Big Dipper at a celebrity banquet by parodying his/her own Lokasenna. Sob as Lucky and his daughters uncover the nefarious doings of “the Dip.” And ponder as the human Hermits try to get a grip on what exactly their “witching work” is meant to be!
They don’t know it, but the Boulet Brothers and three seasons of Dragula have joined my private and exclusive cluster of “writer’s muses” for my fantasy novel in progress, The Witching Work of the Guild of Ornamental Hermits. (Here’s the Season 1 premiere of Dragula, on YouTube. Season 2 and 3 are on Netflix.) The goal of Dragula is to create “the Next Drag SuperMonster.” Their guiding principles are “drag, filth, horror, glamour” (and “punk” in the first season).
Boulet Brothers Dragula owns the rights to this image. Used in blog commentary about the show.
My goal is to complete the first draft of my second novel in the Ornamental Hermits fantasy series. My guilding principles are “magic, punk, art, glamour.” (I’m not so down with “filth” as I’ve changed far too many diapers in my time, and currently empty seven cat boxes twice a day… so there’s that.)
Right now, I’m in the middle of my annual participation in November’s NaNoWriMo. Since November 2nd, I’ve written 30,000 words out of a 50,000 word target. This is a writer’s competition–a challenge to pit my tendency to over-edit in first drafts against raw inspiration and creativity.
Over-editing in first drafts is the result of fear. It’s an unwillingness to commit to the entire plot, to put characters in jeopardy, to give all or lose all in love and hate and war, to race toward the exciting climax of the book. Much like the contestents in Dragula, I deeply believe in my writing, just as the contestents deeply believe in their drag. They create personas, constellations of characters, facets of being, visions, a “world” in which their drag selves are at play–suffering yet triumphant, always rising from the ashes. Damage breeds creation. Yet so often those hidden fears can mute or dim our full commitment, our performance of our art. Dragula challenges its people in just about every way imaginable. The Boulet Brothers’ constant admonishment is “do better, commit fully, show us who you are.” If you don’t, you “die” on the show.
Writing–world and character building–is my salvation, just as drag is theirs. Many of the Dragula contestents could feel right at home in the artsy, queer haven that is my imaginary “Hermitville Farm and Arts (and Magic) Collective”–and if not Hermitville, they’d enjoy “The Realm,” a place where there are at least twenty-nine genders among the Elves, and almost every Elf is capable of shapeshifting and summoning irresistable powers of glamour.
I am writing to create a home and a community for myself, even if that home is not manifest in the physical world and my book friends are all invisible. Drag performers participate in an already created, yet constantly mutating demi-culture of art, but acceptance is not necessarily ready-made. Still, I envy them.
The Boulet Brothers are not in the business of coaching writers, yet I am keeping them before me as inspiration. I imagine them telling me to not be lazy or play it safe, to expand the limits of my imagination, and to bring this into my writing (otherwise, Elimination Challenge!). And I love their witchiness (’cause, you know, I’m witchy and my books are all about the discovery of magic), and I love their mischief (’cause, you know, my divine S.O. is a Trickster), and I love their sex and gender fuckery (’cause, you know, I’m a sexologist–but there are compelling personal and creative reasons besides).
So in a moment I will leave this blog post and open up my first draft, and plunge into my daily word count challenge (about 2,100 words or so). I will light an imaginary candle (though I could light a real one–I have plenty) and summon my muses both inner and outer. And the magic of world and character building will contine. It’s my deepest joy.
Thank you, Boulet Brothers, for shining your dark so that others may begin to sparkle in chthonic depths, clawing their way into the limelight as fully realized creatures of art.
Loki has always been a “muse extraordinaire!” People love to write and sing tales of the exploits of Loki Laufeyjarson, the Northern trickster. From fan fiction to published novels, modern writers are no exception. I didn’t plan on making my second Guild of Ornamental Hermits fantasy novel all about Loki,” but he stepped into the plot during last year’s National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). I’ve been working on the book since then, and now, in the 2019 NaNoWriMo contest (goal: complete 50,000 words in one month), I am certain I’ll complete the first draft of the novel before December. (The book already weighs in at about 68,000 words.)
I’ll try to provide a short glimpse of the book without too many spoilers. In the first book, The Dire Deeds of the Guild of Ornamental Hermits, my plucky gang of intentional community oddballs, known as “the Hermits of Hermitville,” were living happily on twenty acres of jungle and agricultural land in Pahoa, Hawai’i (the “Big Island”). But tragedy struck, Elves showed up, and chaos prevailed. The book is “a tale of mid-life magic” and if you’re over the age of fifty, you perhaps can appreciate the challenge of learning magic(k) in the midst of a (mid-life) crisis.
This second book, The Witching Work of the Guild of Ornamental Hermits, finds the Hermits fleeing to another location, here in California. And Loki, in his guise of “Lucky LaFey, a drifter,” bursts into the book from the very start. And my writing life will never be the same.
The Witching Work has a lot to do with Loki as a parent. He’s the mother of witches (in my book there are seventeen), a co-father to one of my book’s characters (that’s a bit of a spoiler), and also the heartbroken parent of Váli, the son who was transformed into a wolf by the Aesir, and who then killed his little brother, Nari. Nari’s entrails were used to bind Loki to a rock, while he writhed under serpent venom whenever Sigyn had to empty the bowl she held above him (to catch the dripping poison).
[Note: in some versions of this tale, Váli is named Narfi. I thought it would less confusing to use the name Váli.]
Loki’s seventeen witch daughters also appear in the book. They call him “Mapa” as he gave birth to them. Loki’s ever-complicated love life is also on display.
Loki the actual “Norse god” can be very interactive with those who pay him any attention. Since he is my “most trusted one” in my polytheist pantheon, he gets quite a lot from me. He seems to be quite willing to serve as a muse as well as my beloved deity and teacher (especially when the book is “all about him”). I enjoy his shameless delight in his own stories.
The beauty of this is that Loki, a shapeshifter, changes shape as a literary character too. “My” Loki (written and worshipped) is very different from “your” Loki, or the Loki of any other writer or devotee. He actively invites the union of my imagination with his inspiration, and laughs happily with the results. With his help, I’ve produced over 13,000 words in five days since Nov. 2nd. And the results are amusing and gratifying.
And now–I leave you to dive back into my manuscript, which is will get much more attention this month than my blog.
Leaves are falling, temperatures are dropping, the light has changed, the veil thins. Everything feels liminal… I love it! And there’s lots going on in the next two weeks: the 1st year anniversary of the dedication of Loki’s Lokabrenna Tiny Temple on the 28th–an observance which also represents with a deeper spirtual bond with my “most trusted one”; a witchy ceremony and “Dumb Supper” at my house on the 30th; Halloween/part of Samhain and a good friend’s birthday on the 31st; the second part of Samhain and my birthday on Nov. 1st; and another good friend’s birthday on the 4th!
Left hand path. Copyright Amy Marsh 2018
These are some of the joys of a life lived on the left-hand path, though the term itself means many things to many people. I first encountered it in neo-tantra circles but of course it is used widely elsewhere. I associate it with witchery, tantra and sex magic, and other spiritual processes. I also imagine my last years as a creatively crafted life–something along the lines of the Addams Family meets Downton Abbey meets War for the Oaks, but with a punk rock /Helium Vola/ Hawaiian musicsoundtrack and a Leather Family next door. I suppose this is a topic for a whole other blog. Meanwhile, I collect too many glass jars and lids. (I’m either planning jar spells or storing food against the next zombie power outage apolcalypse.)
Reflecting on this last year’s events and accomplishments, this blog is one. Though the blog has consumed much of the writing energy that should have gone to my two novels, I needed to do it. But never fear, NaNoWriMo starts on my birthday and that should propel me right back into The Witching Work of the Guild of Ornamental Hermits.
Other events and accomplishments include doing the “30 Days for Loki” observances in July; doing with the layout and assisting with the editing of Loki’s Torch; putting together an online Loki Fest conference; doing some writer/allyship in support of the Kia’i of Mauna Kea; my spectrosexuality survey; appearing on Australian TV; updating my 150-hour course on Hypnosis for Sexual Concerns; and acquiring three more cats. (That’s IT, I swear. Seven is more than enough!) I also acquired a roommate and that’s worked out fine.
Oh, and I gave away some books.
The mundane aspect of turning 65 next month has also brought the transition to Medicare. I have already fried more a few brain cells trying to figure out the unweildy assortment of supplemental plans.
I also, like most people in Northern CA, endured the PG&E power outage for three days (some endured it longer). But at least there has not been a fire this year to force me to evacuate my home. There’s a reason I make friends with fire deities and offer them cookies!
What comes after Samhain is going to involve another constellation of challenges. I intend go to “a place quite northwards, it seems”* in the next 6-8 months, to a place that is less isolated and more culturally active than where I live now. I’ve been well-sheltered by this house for the last two years, and have enjoyed my daily view of the lake and the mountain, but Lake County is not right for me. It seems I’m more suited to urban-ish environments than rural life and I need to find a better place to age, to spend the last decades of my life. A medium-sized college town, progressive and arty, will do me just fine. I know a place. I have friends there.
So this time of year involves reflection, liminal awareness, and a deeper opportunity to connect with my deities, guides, and ancestors. I am asking for their help in the coming year, of course, and Loki, my restless guide, is determined to not let me vegetate.
Hail Loki and all love to Freyr, Freya, Gerda, Bast, and Brigit as well! Love to the ancestors.
Yesterday was March 6th. According to Susan Miller’s Astrology Zone March forecast for my Sun sign, that was my day for a big candy box of astro-goodies. I had (1) New Moon in Pisces in my fifth house (love and romance)–though I didn’t “go out and circulate” as advised, except for a trip to the grocery store and no, I didn’t meet a new love in the parking lot. (Gluten-free crackers were on sale though. That was a score!)
But perhaps all that action in my fifth house is what inspired me to launch my Neopagan Spectrosexuality and God Spouse survey this week? Looking for 100 good respondents who will actually fill out all ten questions. If you’re having spirit sex, I want to know. Totally confidential. (No one keeps secrets like a Scorp!)
According to Miller, I also had (2) Neptune doing the conjunct thing with the New Moon in Pisces, where the Sun and a retrograde Mercury are also canoodling. And (3) Mars is in my seventh house “partnership sector” which I guess is dandy, but since there is no human partner on the horizon, it seems kind of a waste. Now a literary agent–that’d be a treat! I could get serious about that!
So here I am, waving a nice internet signal flag (below) to the literary world and to fans of fantasy fiction at large. It’s a “showcase” of the first three chapters of the first book in my Guild of Ornamental Hermits fantasy trilogy–a tale of mid-life magic. It’s meant as a “teaser,” so please, purchase and be teased!
Plus, the entire profit ($3.00) of each print or PDF copy goes to the KAHEA Mauna Kea Legal Defense Fund as a “give back” to the “Big Island” of Hawai’i.
Showcasing the first 5 chapters of a tale of mid-life magic. A ragtag bunch of artists and musicians learn mystic arts and team up with Elves as they resist interdimensional baddies, a giant salamander, and the usual real estate developers. Set in the lava land of Puna in the “not too distant future” of a renewed Hawaiian Kingdom. The lead characters are trans and intersex, and many others are LGB and queer. The $3.00 profit from each copy…
Getting those five chapters into the MagCloud format, and launching it, was what I was doing yesterday instead of displaying my charms at the Foods Etc. parking lot in Clearlake. (Sorry, fellas!)
(4) Miller also heralds this March 6th astro-quake:
“Uranus into Taurus for the first time since 1934 to 1941. This means the influence will be brand new to you and most people living today. Uranus takes 84 years to circle the Sun and all 12 houses of the horoscope, spending seven years in each house this planet visits. The seven years Uranus will be in your marriage and partnership house will be from March 201[9]* until April 2026.” (She wrote 2018* but that was obviously a typo.)
I’m twitching with anticipation. And since I’m 64, a Uranus in Taurus partnership just might get me through the remaining years of my life. We’ll see. If nothing else, I guess I’ll make a few more trips to the grocery store.
So, just as any good Scorpio would do, I ignored the romantic promptings of the stars and shunned human company so as to thrust two more projects out into the world in order to advance my aims for world domination. It’s a life that only my cats–and Loki–can understand. That is, until you read my five chapters and take the survey…
Then you’ll know…all!
P.S. Yesterday I found out that microwaving marshmellow Peeps is a popular form of consumer product torture. I never knew it was a thing. Is it kinky? Should I run a survey?
####
In addition to my plucky cast of human “Hermits” and outlier Elves who comprise the Guild of Ornamental Hermits, you’ll also meet Lucky’s seventeen witch daughters (called “troll women” in the lore–Loki gave birth after eating a sacrificed burnt woman’s heart); his part mortal/part elf/part Jotun son (with two biological dads–just ask me how!); a giant multi-dimension hopping salamander named Vesta who digs human architecture in a big way; the “Big Dipper”–a sinister Lake County CA guru; and Sigyn and Angrboda both make cameo appearances. Plus, the first book’s star villain, Anna Phylaxia, known as the “Martha Stewart of Kink” due to her line of BDSM-themed luxury housewares and linens, makes a comeback appearance. In the shadows, the lurking menace of U.S. government surveillance…
Lady Of The Lake 