Anne McClane is a New Orleans native who spent sixteen years out west before finding her way home to embrace the mysteries of the Mississippi River Delta. She has many years experience in publicity, public relations, and marketing, which has provided a fine primer for writing about the speculative, abnormal, and outrageous.
Witch Wars, by fellow After Glows author T. A. Moorman, releases today! It’s available on Amazon (click this link). Here’s a little more about the book:
Tialanna is fated to become the queen of all Underlayes witches. She thinks the worst part of her life is the fact that she’s betrothed to a complete stranger while in love with someone else. She’s in for a rude awakening when she discovers who, and what, she truly is.
Tialanna is about to learn the truth behind several lies, because not only does her life depend on it, but so does the fate of the family she never even knew she had. But hey, life would probably just be boring if she didn’t have to deal with elemental witches, vampires, demons, sorcerers, bindings, spells, lust and betrayal. Right?
–This book is intended for mature audiences only. It includes depictions of both graphic violence and graphic sex.–
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
When you become a Mom, you begin to put yourself last, and your combat boots begin to collect dust. Going to your child’s PTA meetings in full Gothic, especially industrial regalia, is pretty much frowned upon. Especially by your own children, and your teens would die of a heart attack. But, one should not have to completely stop being themselves, uniqueness is greatness. So all of that darkness is put into words in her books, and designs in her jewelry sold in her GothicMoms DarkCharms shop.
Mother of five beautiful children, but by far, more than just that. T.A. Moorman is an artist, a violinist, a seamstress, a crafter, a writer, a blogger, a reviewer, a dark confidant and a darkly dangerous, fiercely protective friend.
*This week and next, I’ll be posting on Tuesday instead of Wednesday.
I’ve been keeping this under wraps for a little while. But now that the relaunch of The Incident Under the Overpass is less than two weeks away, it’s time to reveal the new cover!
The e-book is available for pre-sale on Amazon, with a delivery date of September 19. For new visitors to this space, here’s the blurb:
It’s been fifteen months since Lacey Becnel’s unfaithful husband suddenly passed away, leaving her to sort through her feelings of anger, love, and loss, and wondering where exactly her place in life should be.
But when she awakens under an overpass near her home, next to Nathan—a man she met just hours before in the streets of New Orleans—she begins a journey of discovery that some might call supernatural. In the days that follow, it becomes clear that Nathan might be the target of a murder plot, and Lacey—somehow—has the power to heal.
The more she becomes embroiled in Nathan’s danger, the more confused Lacey becomes about her feelings for him. Will she ever fully understand her abilities, or will the danger surrounding Nathan bring things to an abrupt end?
And for those of you who’ve been following along, this story—my first novel—was picked up by After Glows Publishing earlier this year. It has been such a pleasure to work with them! This time last year, much like Lacey, I was wondering where exactly my place should be. (In life, not so much; but as an author, yes.)
Writing and publishing are two entirely different endeavors; and there are parts to the work of each that I really enjoy. But ultimately, I want to be able to write stories, and I want to work on improving that skill. With After Glows looking after the publication, I’ve had more time to narrow my focus on just the writing.
I like to think of Lacey as a sensitive, vulnerable woman who is just beginning to understand her strength. And when she realizes its depth, it surprises her. (I think that’s a pretty good description of Lacey through the whole story arc…The Incident Under the Overpass—this book; The Trouble on Highway One—book 2, currently under revision; and the tentatively titled The Epiphany on the Causeway—book 3, which I’ve just begun to write.)
Anyway, I think the Lacey on the new cover really captures both her strength and vulnerability; and she also lets potential new readers know they’re in for an urban fantasy / paranormal romance featuring an unusual supernatural ability.
Thank you, After Glows, for helping to bring Lacey to life!
A cow that escaped its trailer in my sister’s neighborhood
My birthday was yesterday. It was a little hard to savor the start of another year on planet Earth, due to some personal reasons. All reasons entirely outside my control, and most having to do with said planet and its climate. But having no one person or thing to blame really doesn’t lessen the emotional impact.
Blaming Harvey and what he’s done to Houston won’t accomplish much, because, in the end, he’s just weather. Really horrible, destructive, biblical-type weather, but weather just the same. He might have forced my cousin to evacuate her home south of Houston in an airboat, but it wasn’t weather that came to her rescue. It was the good will and good intentions of human first responders.
My sister, west of downtown Houston, is sheltered in place and waiting to see what effect the release of the Addicks reservoir will have on her home and neighborhood.
And completely separate from the weather and half a world away, there was the loss of a very good chap. On Sunday, Tim and I discovered that one of our good friends had died while on vacation, visiting family in the U.K.
I’m used to forgoing birthday celebrations for things far outside my control. When your birthday falls at the height of the hurricane season, you get used to altering plans.
While watching everything unfold in Texas, it’s hard not to recall what happened in New Orleans, on my birthday, twelve years ago. Tim and I were in Shreveport, Louisiana, with a sizeable chunk of his family at Sam’s Town Casino. (That’s where we had evacuated to.)
Just as we’ve done this week, we watched from afar as the catastrophe unleashed. I distinctly remember watching the news on Monday, August 29, 2005, after Katrina had come ashore, and thinking that New Orleans might have escaped the worst of it. It was either that night or the next morning that we received the news of the levee breaches.
I can’t remember precisely what my immediate plans were supposed to be back then. Tim and I had anticipated being back in New Orleans in about three days time, I remember that much. And returning to the normal routine of our lives. Instead, we made it back very slowly, spending the first week of September in Baton Rouge, then the rest of the month outside New Orleans in Metairie, the suburb where we were both raised.
We were back into our 2nd floor apartment across from City Park in early October, as I recall. (Miraculously, the apartment building was like an island in a vast sea, and never flooded).
I didn’t mean for this post to turn into “Katrina memory time.” And I by no means intend to play compare and contrast. My thoughts and prayers and heart go out to all the people in Houston, my family included, plain and simple. I hope they will accept whatever service I can offer, that would be most useful to them.
The lesson that was so forcefully delivered to me on my birthday twelve years ago was to not take anything in this life for granted. It’s a lesson I hold close, and it’s a lesson that the losses of these past few days have highlighted in garish colors.
1:28 pm versus 1:29 pm. That’s Venus on the upper right.
So, I had the rare opportunity to witness Monday’s total solar eclipse. I traveled with a friend more than 500 miles northeast of our homes in New Orleans to Murfreesboro, Tennessee, just south of Nashville.
I had noticed early on in my research that The Volunteer State was referring to this celestial event as “The Great Tennessee Eclipse.” I’m not sure how the other states hosting the total eclipse felt about this appropriation. But for my part, I thought Tennessee put on a pretty good show.
We found ourselves in Murfreesboro because it was the only place in the greater Nashville area that had a hotel room at a non-extortionary rate. In digging around the Internet, I discovered that Murfreesboro not only houses the affordable and clean Candlewood Suites, it is also home to Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU). I thought a University might be a good place to catch an eclipse.
Turns out, NASA must have thought so, too, because MTSU was “an official NASA viewing site for the greater Nashville area.” Their eclipse event was held on a big lawn on the campus, ringed by a new science building, older science buildings, and the library. They had set up a stage, with musical acts from a student-run record label (Nashville is Music City, after all). The buildings were open to the public, in case the viewers might want to escape the pre-eclipse heat. They had telescopes set up around the lawn, and big screens showing the eclipse in real time.
And about an hour before total eclipse time, faculty from the Physics and Astronomy department took over the stage and talked about the science of eclipses, and invisible parts of the sun’s atmosphere that become visible, and lots of other cool stuff. I liked that there were professionals, who knew what they were talking about, commentating to the crowd.
When the light started to dim, they pointed out that Venus had become visible in the Southern sky. When totality finally arrived, they instructed when it was okay to remove the special solar eyewear, and look directly at the sun. And when that minute had passed, when we needed to put our special eyeglasses back on.
But here’s the thing about that minute, that minute of eclipse totality. (Totality was longer in other places, but a minute is what we got in Murfreesboro. I’ll take it.) I can honestly state that I’ve seen nothing else in nature to compare it to.
While corresponding with Husband Tim around the time of the eclipse, I wrote: “Can’t describe it.” To which he responded: “You’re a writer.”
Touché. My response back? “Can’t describe it YET.”
Herewith my attempt: there are the pictures at the top of this post, showing the difference in the light. And there are words: incredible, awesome, amazing – all overused, and thus, lacking in true descriptive power. Awe-inspiring and phenomenal do a slightly better job. But still not adequate.
The word that most closely describes the experience for me? It’s gestalt. The German word, which I’ve always taken to mean things coming together to become something greater, greater than just the sum of their parts.
The extreme rarity of the event, the appearance of the night sky at 1:30 in the afternoon, the drop in temperature, and just looking up and seeing a black hole where the sun should be – these all came together to create a very intimate and transcendent moment. Imbued with personal meaning beyond all the mechanics at play.
During totality, and for a few moments after, fireflies lit up around the base of the tree where we stood. I remember seeing fireflies at my father’s camp in the woods when I was very young. Back during a time when I was much closer to magic, and fantasy, and the surreal.
Before Monday, I couldn’t have told you the last time I saw fireflies. All of this gives me the feeling that maybe magic, and fantasy, and the surreal were never really that far away after all. It’s making the time to look for them that remains a top challenge.
In less than a week, I’ll be in Nashville to witness the total eclipse. Yes, I am that into the idea that I actually took the day off from work, purchased a plane ticket, and booked a hotel. (It’s been impossible to reserve a rental car, so I’m hoping the cab/ride share options in Nashville are plentiful). I even managed to coerce my friend Beth into the whole scheme. (Husband Tim opted out of this run. But I’ve already asked him to “save the date” of April 8, 2024 – that’s when the next eclipse will be visible from the U.S. Watch out for us in seven years, Dallas.)
And I’ve been living with total eclipse brain. The lyrics to Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” have been going through my head non-stop. (Once upon a time there was light in my life / But now there’s only love in the dark). And this eclipse falls on a Monday, during a new moon. So, there’s Duran Duran’s “New Moon on Monday” (I light my torch and wave it for the / New moon on Monday). Also Pink Floyd’s “Eclipse,” the last song on TheDark Side of the Moon.* Problem with that one, though, is that it always intermingles in my head with “Brain Damage,” the song right before it.
So there’s Roger Waters’ voice knocking around my noggin, singing “The lunatic is in my head / The lunatic is in my head / You raise the blade, you make the change / You rearrange me ‘til I’m sane.” Thanks for that, Roger. Didn’t need you to help me feel loonier than I already do.
I could spend some time on the relation of the moon to lunacy, how the Latin word for moon (Luna), led to the word for moon-struck (lunaticus). But I won’t.
Instead, I’ll focus on my most memorable eclipse from a movie. And that would be Ladyhawke.
For those of you who have been paying attention, this movie has come up before in this space. In a post about Lent, and in another one about my family. Because, truth is, I love Ladyhawke. Sure, one could argue that the Alan Parsons Project soundtrack dates the movie; but I would argue right back that it cements it into a certain Zeitgeist, the heady days of the mid 1980s. When movies could still be unapologetic about their cornball aspects.
In Ladyhawke, Navarre (Rutger Hauer) is this kind of masterless Samurai (but it’s set in medieval France, so he’s not really a Samurai), and Isabeau (Michelle Pfeiffer) is his star-crossed love. They’ve been cursed by an evil Catholic bishop (John Wood) to live half-lives as animals. Isabeau spends her days as a hawk, and Navarre spends his nights as a wolf. So they never get to see each other.
But that’s where the eclipse comes in! The drunk monk Imperius (Leo McKern) foresees the coming eclipse, and, with the help of Philipe Gaston (Matthew Broderick) convinces Navarre and Isabeau to confront the evil bishop as humans, together, during a total eclipse.
It’s really a grossly underrated movie, in my opinion. Richard Donner directed it, it’s got this lights-out cast, and the setting is to die for.
And to conclude, if looked at a certain way, who is the real hero in Ladyhawke? The eclipse!
*Yes, I realize Dark Side of the Moon pre-dates the ’80s. But I first listened to it in the ’80s, so it gets lumped in there.
Some elements from my writing desk, including the new Ametrine stone. Hey, just thought of something: Ametrine, Ambrose the Writing Mouse, Anne McClane?
I’ve been thinking a lot about transformation lately. Like the caterpillar-to-butterfly kind of transformation, the kind that transitions a creature from crawling to flying.
The “lately” qualifier needs a disclaimer. Truth is, I’ve spent a good bit of my life thinking about that kind of transformation. I’ve had an affinity for butterflies since I was very small—back then it was because they were pretty and delicate and seemed gentle. It wasn’t too long before I caught on to the symbolism of butterflies, and then I was set. Butterflies were going to be a thing for me for life.
Thoughts of transformation were somewhat inescapable this past Saturday.* I went to the New Orleans Healing Center for a yoga class. First aside: the New Orleans Healing Center is a location in both novels I’ve written so far—just seemed like a natural fit for a protagonist who discovers she has a supernatural healing ability. Second aside: I’ve been practicing more yoga as my body transforms (with age). I can no longer run as often as I might like, ever since my legs and lower back decided to shout out their displeasure over the prolonged pounding. The meditative aspects of yoga have helped fill one of the voids I’ve felt from running less.
After class, I asked the instructor to clarify one of the words he had used as part of an incantation. It was prana, the breath—the “life force” or “vital principle” in Hindu philosophy (it didn’t sound like prana to me). We chatted for a little bit, and he mentioned the particular Upanishad where I could find the incantation. But here’s the thing I found remarkable: how quickly I offered up the fact that I’m a writer. I said something like “I’m a writer, so words matter to me.”
There’s definitely some transformation at work. Even just a few short months ago, I’m not so sure I would offer up that facet of my life so quickly. Yeah, so, I’ve had this blog for two years; but bringing up my writing in this safe space is an entirely different matter than talking about it in public.
And I did it again; just moments later at the “Island of Salvation Botanica” shop on the first floor of the Healing Center. Third aside: a renowned Vodou priestess runs this shop. (She is ordained into the Haitian voodoo tradition, or “Vodou,” which is why I’m using that spelling.)
In addition to butterflies, I also dig rocks and stones, and I was perusing the nice selection of crystals and stones for sale. I picked out a piece of Ametrine, which the helpful card describing all the stones told me is “a very rare quartz based crystal in which Amethyst and Citrine have formed within the same crystalline structure allowing them to amplify and augment each other; bringing strength and luck in equal measure.”
I asked the Vodou priestess about the Ametrine and one other stone, I don’t remember which one now, but yet again, I volunteered something like “I’m a writer on the verge of publication, so the transformative properties of the Ametrine sound pretty good to me.” She agreed, and I am now the proud owner of a lovely piece of opaque lavender-hued Ametrine. (A bargain at $5)
Finally, late Saturday afternoon found me at Vigil Mass (the Catholic Church offers a Saturday church-going option). And wouldn’t you know it, it just happened to be the Feast of Transfiguration. I’m by no means an expert on these matters, but my understanding of the Transfiguration is that it was when Jesus’s divinity was revealed to the apostles.
I’m also by no means comparing my transformation into confessed writer with any kind of divine event whatsoever. I just thought it was interesting that Little Rabbit Foo Foo kept bopping this field mouse over the head with transformation stuff.
And finally finally, back to the beginning, what did I notice fluttering above me as I entered the New Orleans Healing Center? You guessed it—a butterfly. 🦋 🦋 🦋
* I can’t mention this past Saturday in New Orleans without mentioning the transformation of our roads into rivers on the very same day. A deluge was beginning just as I was leaving my neighborhood to go to Mass. While I was away, streets in my area of the city became impassable, and many businesses (and parked cars) flooded. In my neighborhood, several cars were totaled by the flood water and the sunken areas of a few homes took on inches of water. I hung out at my brother Jerry’s house, in an unaffected neighborhood, until I was able to return home late, late, in the evening. Thing is, this was not a hundred-year-event. A similar, though less severe “rain event” occurred just two weeks prior. Have you ever heard the song “New Orleans is Sinking”? Well, it’s true.
So, Thursday of last week was a good writing day. A successful day in the calendar of Anne McClane, fiction writer. There are two bits of irony here, in that I don’t think I actually wrote much of anything on Thursday; and one of the things I’m about to share isn’t about my fiction writing. But it concerns an essay I wrote about fiction, so I’ll claim it falls under that umbrella.
Here’s what I have to share, in chronological order. I’ve included a header indicating what part of my writing life it bolstered:
Community: I met a New Orleans-based writer who just published a set of joke books for kids. He’s makes his living in PR (public relations), and I met him at a luncheon for PR professionals. (I don’t do a lot of PR work in my current job, but it’s something I have a fair amount of past experience with. I still go to the lunches when the topic sounds interesting). His name is Michael Strecker, and his books are: Young Comic’s Guide to Telling Jokes, Books 1 & 2. Basically, it was really cool to meet another writer, who devotes the time to writing on top of / in addition to other commitments. And I thought it was great that a publisher had picked up his work.
Development: I had a call with the editor I hired to do a developmental critique of my second novel. I really can’t place a value on that one hour spent hashing out plot holes, discussing character motivation, and just talking about the struggles I’m facing with the story, and how they might be fixed. After her line edits and that phone call, I have a pretty good sense of the work that needs to be done—a road map. Now, I just need to make the time to get behind the wheel…
Publication! I received the final proofread of an essay I wrote last fall, for an anthology commemorating the 30th anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation. The title of the anthology is Outside In Makes It So: 174 New Perspectives on 174 Star Trek: TNG Stories by 174 Writers. It should release September 28. And the proofreader was complimentary of my essay, which I thought was really nice, considering there were 173 other pieces to proofread.
“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” –Henry David Thoreau
Last week, I mentioned how I was reading Steven Pressfield’s DO THE WORK! Overcome Resistance and get out of your own way. I finished it a few nights ago—it’s a quick read and pretty entertaining. I’ve been pondering the lessons therein and what they might mean for me.
Resistance is the big, bad dragon in Pressfield’s book. Resistance is all the stuff that keeps us from pursuing what we truly long for. In my case, what I truly long for is a career as a fiction writer.
Some helpful advice from the book I plan to take seriously:
About the actual work of writing: “One rule for first full working drafts: get them done ASAP. Don’t worry about quality. Act, don’t reflect. Momentum is everything. Get to THE END as if the devil himself were breathing down your neck and poking you in the butt with his pitchfork.” I think resistance is the devil Pressfield infers.
About finishing and actually putting your stuff out there—he borrows Seth Godin’s term “shipping”: “Because finishing is the critical part of any project. If we can’t finish, all our work is for nothing. When we ship, we declare our stuff ready for prime time.”
And finally, an anecdote about the lengths Michael Crichton would go to when he was nearing the end of a novel (he’d check into a hotel and work non-stop till he was done): “He knew that Resistance was strongest at the finish. He did what he had to do, no matter how nutty or unorthodox, to finish and be ready to ship.”
I’m fairly certain staying in a hotel and just writing is not an option for me; even if it was, I’m not sure that would work for me. But I get the gist of it—do what’s necessary (as long as it’s within my moral, ethical and economic boundaries) to “get ‘er done.”
But there are a couple of things about resistance that Pressfield doesn’t address. Number one, having subsisted on a steady diet of Star Trek: The Next Generation in my early twenties, I couldn’t help but think of the Borg, with all the mention of resistance. For those of you unfamiliar, the Borg are a massive collection of cybernetic organisms linked via a hive mind. Their insidious goal is “the forcible assimilation of diverse sentient species, technologies, and knowledge.” (Thanks, Memory Alpha.) Pretty much the scariest threat humans ever faced.
The Borg’s mantra? “Resistance is futile.”
Taken in context of DO THE WORK, it sort of makes resistance a little less scary. Like, all the resistance you face in trying to complete something might be futile in the end. If you stick with the project (for me, a series of stories featuring Lacey Becnel, a protagonist of my creation) and don’t let obstacles derail you completely.
HA! Take that, Borg!
So, I recognize that might be a bit of a stretch. I know myself—I’m not that optimistic, to think that I can consistently face down resistance by cheerily turning one of the scariest-ever lines of dialogue on its head.
My number two point feels a little more thought out. And it’s this: Resistance makes you stronger. I know this from my two favorite forms of exercise—running and swimming. Running wouldn’t offer all the same benefits if there was no pavement to offer resistance. Swimming would just be kicking and flailing about if there was no water (bet it would look pretty funny, too).
It never feels good when I’m “doing the work.” Struggling for breath, or feeling the impact on my aging bones. Or suffering through crippling self-doubt while writing. While that pain may be necessary, it’s also of limited duration. And ultimately, worth it. I’m a healthier human from the running and swimming, and (hopefully) a better writer from the work of producing manuscripts.
This post was supposed to contain some deeper musings about my time in New Smyrna Beach. About how Tim and I wound up there because of a successful silent auction bid last fall. We bid on a week’s stay on a condo during the Deo Gratias fundraiser I wrote about last November. Or how I finished Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 during vacation (it’s one of those books I never read during my school years—a deficit I’ve been seeking to correct for some time.)
I could have written something about time and the seasons linking up, how Deo Gratias led to another type of journey. Or something about how the lessons in Fahrenheit 451 still resonate today—how a majority can be persuaded to choose ignorance over the wisdom that comes through experience.
But, no. In a “vacation’s truly over now” kind of moment, I’m having some work done at the house and find myself without wi-fi. I got rid of an old modem as part of the whole process, but I can’t install the new one yet. Because I can’t get the old cable out of the wall. My finger and thumb are pretty raw from trying to get the nut to budge (and yes, I know which direction it’s supposed to turn: lefty-loosey).
So whereas I endeavored to unplug last week with limited success, here I am now left with no choice.
Resistance is pervasive.
Which brings to my final vacation discovery. Sunday night, I was already back home, but had not yet returned to my job (so by my rules, technically still on vacation). I encountered Dee Todd’s post, a review of Steven Pressfield’s DO THE WORK! Overcome Resistance and get out of your own way. I was compelled enough to download the book, and am about a quarter of the way through.
Pressfield’s premise is that any activity “that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term growth, health, or integrity will elicit Resistance.” He includes a number of endeavors in those activities: writing, painting, launching an entrepreneurial venture, a new health regimen, and more. Essentially: “the more important a call or action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.”
He writes: “Resistance is a force of nature. It acts objectively.” I’m thinking of that coaxial cable nut. I know it’s not out to get me as it resists all my efforts to dislodge it. Even though it feels like it. And since it’s forced me to unplug, it’s turned into something of a benefit.
Pressfield also writes: “Like a magnetized needle floating on a surface of oil, Resistance will unfailingly point to true North—meaning that calling or action it most wants to stop us from doing. We can use it as a compass.”
Hmmm. I already know that writing’s a pretty big deal to me. And when the time I set aside for it gets spent on something else—when I push back instead of going with the flow—it weighs heavily.
Right now, I have two pieces of writing that are so close to fruition. My first novel is set to republish in two months, after another round of editing. My second novel is in draft form, and it’s chock full of line edits, awaiting my review and revision. Maybe the lesson is this: when I say I’m going to unplug, I really should, so that I can get my butt in gear and Do the Work.
Right now, I’m on vacation with Husband Tim in New Smyrna Beach, on Florida’s Atlantic coast. I’m attempting to unplug from everything, including WordPress. I’ve not been 100% successful at that.
My compromise is that I’ll post a few brief observations today, and save any deeper musings for next week. I still wish, like Bil Keane, I had a Little Billy to sub for me. It’s the only enviable thing about The Family Circus. But far be it from me cast any further aspersions upon that comic strip. Last time I did that, I spurred the ire of my brother-in-law Jim. I was unaware he was such a big fan.
This is our first time visiting New Smyrna. Here are a few things I’ve learned:
Beforehand, I read something about New Smyrna’s “drive-on beaches.” Wasn’t quite sure what that meant until I saw it. Sure enough, you can drive your car onto the beach and park in certain designated areas. We are staying within walking distance to the beach, so we opted to save the $10 vehicle access fee.
Famed painter and art instructor Bob Ross was from around these parts. He was born in Daytona Beach, and died in New Smyrna. All the happy little clouds I’ve seen while here now have special meaning.
Catching the sunrise yesterday, I encountered a gentleman who told me, “Florida is the only state where you can see the sunrise over the water in the morning, drive across the state, and watch the sun set into the water in the evening.” (I’m paraphrasing here). Thinking about it, I would guess you’d also be able to do this in Hawaii. But I appreciated his observation nonetheless, and it did give me an occasion to reflect upon the geography of peninsulas.
The gnats in New Smyrna are thick before sunrise. And they bite.
I might be wrong on this, but I think the locally accepted way to pronounce the name of the town is New Sa-Mur-Na. Like Smyrna is three syllables instead of two.
That’s it for now. Just a few more days before I have to plug back in. Gonna watch some more happy little clouds.
Anne McClane 