October 2019

Oh, boy! Not only does Mercedes Louise Allcutt’s first adventure, LOST AMONG THE ANGELS, come out in October (October 8, if Amazon is to be believed), but my grandson and his family will visit me the first week in October! Yippee! Haven’t seen them since around Christmas time in 2013. My great-grandchildren, Andrew and Kasumi, have grown a trifle since then.

After their visit, Daigoro (grandson, who is in the army and has been for what seems like forever) will be deployed for a year. He’s at Fort Bliss in El Paso at the moment, and then he’ll fly far, far away. And be safe, god willin’ and the crick don’t rise.

This is actually the second time LOST AMONG THE ANGELS has been published. Five Star published it first, and now ePW is having a go at it. Love the new covers for the Mercy books:

Buy it!

 

I’ll probably have the year’s last surgery in October, too. Not quite as excited about the surgery as I am aout seeing my family and a book being republished, but at least my year of living surgically will be over. Who knows what 2020 will bring besides a census, a lot of dogs, trying new recipes, remaking oldies and goodies, and writing several books (I hope). The latest x-rays of my various replaced body parts revealed that my right hip is no longer being assisted by cartilage in carting me around, so it’ll have to be replaced sometime or other, but I’m going to wait until it starts to hurt to deal with it. Pretty soon I’ll be made of metal. I don’t, however, feel the least bit bionic.

Daisy Gumm Majesty’s next adventure (I think it’s #15) will be published in December of this year. Wish I had the cover art; I’d show it to you. I can, however, give you the Amazon Kindle link if you’d like to pre-order it. Not that I’m greedy or anything, but it would be nice to make a living. Gotta keep the hounds, semi-hound, Chihuahua and mixed terriorist in kibble after all:

Click Here to Pre-Order SCARLET SPIRITS for your Kindle

By the way, in case you ever wondered about my fur herd, here they are. This is from Christmas in 2018:

Jazzy (the Beautiful Blue Wiener and Queen of all She Surveys) is sniffing my shoulder; Scrappy (the Chihuahua) is looking to escape; Bam-Bam, my winner-picking wiener dog, is appalled that I actually picked him up (he spent his first couple of years in a puppy mill and has never quite recovered); Cookie, the mixed terriorist, is checking out Scrappy’s ear to see if she needs to take a bite out the one she hasn’t already nibbled; and Bella-the-Biter (semi-wiener), with whom I have deep, meaningful conversations from time to time, just looks kind of confused. I also taught Bella to high-five. First dog I’ve taught a trick to since I was in the fifth grade or thereabouts. Most of the dogs who have lived with me have taught me tricks. Oh, and that’s me in the background. In other words, life as usual, but I still need to feed the herd! So buy a book or two, 'kay? Thank you.

I apologize profusely for not getting in touch with all the people who won copies of the audio edition of DARK SPIRITS, narrated by Denice Stradling, who makes a great Daisy. She’s working on SPIRITS ONSTAGE now. I love that book (ONSTAGE, I mean. I was appalled by Daisy’s bratty behavior in DARK SPIRITS, truth to tell). I will attempt to justify my procrastination soon. Haven’t been feeling tippy-toppy recently. I’ll get over it, whatever it is. Or I won’t. And then all my troubles will be over! I think there’s an old spiritual with a similar title. Hmmm. Must look it up. Aha! Found it. Peter, Paul and Mary dug it up out of the gospel-spiritual heap and recorded it during the hectic 1960s-1970s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38bHXC8drHc

Um, I’ll probably give away a couple of copies of LOST AMONG THE ANGELS at the end of October, because… well, why not? If you’d like to be entered into my giveaway for October, please send me an email at alice@aliceduncan.net, and I’ll toss your name into Bam-Bam’s special doggie dish. Bam-Bam will select wieners at the end of October.

Anything else? Well, there’s always Daisy Daze. I love Daisy Daze. Iris Evans and Leon Fundenberger founded the DAISY DAZE Facebook page. On this page, people post all sorts of historical stuff about Pasadena, sewing machines, automobiles, buildings, fashions from the 1920s, houses in which the people in the books might live, stars of the silent screen, and lots and lots of other historical (1920s-era) stuff. It’s fun, and if you’d like to be a member, check it out here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/905100189878318/ .

If you’d like to visit my web page, here’s the link: http://aliceduncan.net/ . If you’d like to be Facebook friends, please go here: https://www.facebook.com/alice.duncan.925

And I think that’s it. Thank you.

 

September 2019

It’s been so danged long since I wrote a newsletter, I almost don’t remember how to write one. What the heck. I’ll fake it.

First of all, the shoulder-replacement surgery scheduled to be performed on May 20 got rescheduled for June 10 and then got RE-rescheduled for July 8, when it actually took place. I now have a new left shoulder, and it doesn’t hurt a whole lot anymore, although it aches occasionally. The physical therapist said I wasn’t giving him enough to do, bless his heart. Then there’s the surgeon. I can’t remember ever giving a man as much pleasure (get your mind out of the gutter) as I have this orthopedic surgeon. The first time he saw me, when he was looking at the X-rays of my shoulder, he was positively thrilled! Said he’d never seen such hideous, wide-spread osteoarthritis on any patient before (although I don’t have osteoporosis. Go figure). So happy to give him joy.

Then, during my last visit with him, he was thrilled again. Better, he had a student nurse with him, and he told her about the gigantic sac of synovial fluid on my shoulder. He had to aspirate it the first time I visited him (which hurt like heck), and he was happy as a lark as he explained to his student nurse, “It was as big as a cantaloupe!” Always glad to make people happy, you know? At any rate, the shoulder is healing nicely, and I won’t make you look at a photograph of the surgery site. I posted it on Facebook, and received reports of people screaming and fainting. It’s just a long red scar now. It winds a bit. I mean, it’s not a straight line. About six inches or so long.

By the way, the first weekend after my shoulder surgery, my perfectly angelic great-niece visited along with her perfectly angelic son, and Sara (niece) made eggs Benedict for us! I love eggs Benedict! That was so nice of her! Sniffle.

At any rate, I now have a metal ladder holding my lumbar spine together, a metal left hip and a metal left shoulder. If I even drive past an airport, alarms go off. Just kidding. Sort of. Every airport I’ve been to since my hip was replaced has had a security person pat me down. Even LAX, for Pete’s sake. Also, I learned that after a person hits the age of 75 (almost there, by golly) s/he doesn’t have to take her/his shoes off at the airport. I consider this ageist, and I’d warn airports to beware of disgruntled elderly people with regard to terrorism, if I ever did stuff like that. The good Lord knows I’m a disgruntled elderly person. I hate being old. Think I’ve mentioned that before.

Also, I have to undergo one last surgery before the end of the year. This next one will require me to have a colonoscopy (wheeeee!) first. The surgery itself is of a rather delicate, personal nature, and I don’t want to think about it, much less talk about it. Oh, what the heck. I have a prolapsed rectum, and it has to be repaired. I had to have this same surgery two years ago, and I think it’s totally unfair that it has to be re-done. Grumble.

My army-medic grandson has been deployed (again) for a year. He’s already served two tours in Iraq. This means his kids, Andrew and Kasumi; and his wife, Emily, will be left to deal with life without him for the duration. Ah, well. He volunteered for this. Unfortunately, Emily has to take care of her senile mother as well as the kids while Dai’s gone. Life could be a whole lot easier for Emily if it only wanted to be, but life seldom seems to cooperate with anyone in my family.

However, there is some good news in the book department. First of all, ePublishing Works is going to republish all my Mercy Allcutt books (set in Los Angeles, CA, in the 1920s), and I’ll be writing more of them. What’s more, they’ve given the books smashingly gorgeous covers, and the chapter headings are downright adorable. Look here:

 

 

Daisy Gumm Majesty’s next book, SCARLET SPIRITS, will be published this coming October (I think), and I’ve already begun the next book. Must think of a new Mercy plot, too. I took a fairly giant plunge and have stopped editing books for Five Star’s Frontier Fiction line. I loved reading all those wonderful westerns, but boy, editing is hard on the old eyeballs. I swear, I had permanent, painful eyestrain while editing. Plus, I’ll have to write more books, and editing takes up too much time. Just hope I can make enough money to keep the dogs in kibble and me in potatoes and onions. Maybe cheese, too. Rice. Beans. You know. Cheap, nutritious stuff. Well, I don’t know about the cheese, but life wouldn’t be worth living without cheese, so what the heck. Plus, I don’t have all that many years left to me, and I’ll be dinged if I’ll allow old age to rob me of even one more of the things I used to love to do and/or eat.

I’ll be in touch individually with all the people who won copies of the audio edition of DARK SPIRITS, narrated by Denice Stradling, who makes a great Daisy. She’s working on SPIRITS ONSTAGE now. I love that book (ONSTAGE, I mean. I was appalled by Daisy’s bratty behavior in DARK SPIRITS, truth to tell).

Lemme see. What should I give away at the end of September? Beats me (and it hurts). If you’d like to be entered into my giveaway for September, please send me an email at alice@aliceduncan.net, and I’m sure I’ll have figured out which book to send you by then. In fact, send in a request. If you win (and I have a copy of the book) you’ll get that one.

Um, anything else? Well, there’s always Daisy Daze. I love Daisy Daze. Iris Evans and Leon Fundenberger founded the DAISY DAZE Facebook page. On this page, people post all sorts of historical stuff about Pasadena, sewing machines, fashions from the 1920s, houses in which the people in the books might live, stars of the silent screen, and lots and lots of other historical (1920s-era) stuff. It’s fun, and if you’d like to be a member, check it out here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/905100189878318/ .

If you’d like to visit my web page, here’s the link: http://aliceduncan.net/ . And if you’d like to be Facebook friends, please go here: https://www.facebook.com/alice.duncan.925

And I do believe that’s all I have to say for the month. Thank you.