The weather right now is amazing, but it always is those few weeks between seasons (at least where I live). The breeze is balmy, the scenery is changing, and it feels like magic, moving from one state of being to another. I love summer into fall, fall into winter, winter into spring (REALLY love that one), and spring into summer. All that potential, gearing up for a new context for living.

How was your potential for happiness this week?

Our own Deb Blake has your introduction to witchcraft right here:

Brimming with nearly seventy spells, tips, and activities, this illustrated Little Book of Witchcraft helps you take new steps on your personal journey into witchcraft. Award-winning author Deborah Blake teaches you how to build an altar, use divination tools, invoke deities, and much more. Covering a wide range of magical goals, this little book will help you improve your relationships, deepen your connection to nature, and live a successful, enchanted life.

Deborah Blake is the author of the Baba Yaga Series from Berkley (Wickedly Dangerous, Wickedly Wonderful, Wickedly Powerful), as well as the Broken Rider Series, the Veiled Magic series and the cozy mystery Catskills Pet Rescue series. She has also published twelve books on modern witchcraft with Llewellyn Worldwide, along with a tarot and an oracle deck. When not writing, Deborah also works as a jewelry maker, tarot reader, and energy healer. She lives in a 130-year-old farmhouse in rural upstate New York with various cats who supervise all her activities, both magical and mundane. Continue reading →

Come here to say anything you want, ask anything you want about One in Vermillion (or Lavender or Pink, if you’d like).

And because Ashley asked:

If you haven’t read Vermillion (or Lavender and Pink) and intend to, it’s probably a good idea to stay away from the comments. Just a suggestion.

You may have seen, briefly, a happiness post up here. Pretend you didn’t. I was trying to schedule it for Sunday. It is now scheduled for Sunday. Forget it was ever here. These are not the droids you’re looking for. Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes? ARGH.

I am reading Patricia Highsmith’s Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction (still not sure how I feel about it, will report back later) and Joshua Jay’s How Magicians Think<, which I'm enjoying a lot, pen in hand so I remember what I want to use for Ethan's PoV in Haunting Alice. But that’s for when I’m in bed at night (I’ve banished electronics from my bedroom) so I still have two manuscripts that I promised to read for people and they’re next up. It’s been nuts here, people, and I was nuts before that so . . .

Tell me what you read this week that was great. I might even get a chance to read for pleasure in October; give me some ideas.

So we survived the podcast which turned out to be a lot of fun, so thank you, Emily and Trey! And now we’re back to work at writing and all the other stuff we have to do (I don’t know what Bob was doing with that rake he was talking about, but I’m still unpacking and doing laundry and trying to figure out where everything goes (I feel your pain, Zoe). But mostly, we’re back to work.

But a couple of things from the podcast . . .

First of all, Bob asked me to collaborate when we were both in Maui in 2004. Here’s the story. I did go find him the next day and say, “Let’s discuss this,” but he asked first.

Second, on our first book, the first time he asked me who I wanted to write about, I said, “Film director” because Mollie was working in film at that time, and he said something like “army guy” and we wrote Don’t Look Down. The food writer/hitman thing was Agnes.

Third, I had a really good time, and Bob survived, so it all turned out fine after all. And we thank you for your support.

Enough about us, what did you work on this week?

It was wonderful seeing so many of you on there, made me feel right at home. And you were all right: that was fun. Actually, they asked us back for next year when Rocky Start comes out, so we can do that again.

But mostly, THANK YOU!

Edited to add:

Video is here:

Bob and I are doing a podcast tomorrow/Monday at 8pm Eastern Time for The Modern Romantic. I am very nervous. It’ll be live, so the possibilities of me screwing up are endless. The live stream of the podcast will be accessible on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Youtube and Twitch TV. If you miss the live broadcast and still want to hear it, the audio will be posted at The Modern Romantic website: https://www.modernromanticmagazine.com/. I believe that takes a week or two.

Argh.

I would like to point out that Bob’s picture is from fifteen years ago. He’s younger than I am, but not twenty-five years younger.

I spend a chunk of my morning arguing with Bob in e-mail about the first act (he won because he was right) and was just trying to convince myself to get out of bed when the doorbell rang. I am not used to doorbells ringing. Or doorbells, for that matter. So I put on my jeans and went to the door and there was Pat Gaffney and Louise, her beautiful mixed-breed dog who looks like a boxer to me but Pat says no. Pat then said, “Lunch,” and I said, “Absolutely,” and we walked one block to the grill and had a wonderful time discussing absolutely nothing of value but all of great interest, and I gave Louise some of my bacon when Pat wasn’t looking. Then we said good-bye and she walked back home to do things, and I came back home to look at Act One again and fell asleep instead.

In other words, a perfect day so far.

Happiness is a friend who rings your doorbell with a dog and says, “Lunch?”

So who rang your doorbell and made you happy this week? (“Doorbell” is metaphorical here, but keep it clean.)

So Vermillion is finished and Bob has it uploaded so you can buy it in paper and hardcover now. And I just plotzed. I have so much to do, and I just couldn’t do any of it. So I tried to read a novel and nope, couldn’t do that, either; my brain is too full of words on a screen to compute right now. I ended up watching Matt Smith’s first Doctor Who episode, which I think is called “The Eleventh Hour,” because it’s brilliant and so is he. That’s how bad my brain is broken: I’m watching TV for the first time in years. Literally years. Unfortunately, this isn’t a “This is a Good TV Show” post, so it’s over to you.

What good book did you read this week?