This cover was done by my friend Clorinda Fresquez-Tria, who is a Roswell native (although she moved across the country a few years ago). Still, this book will be a Roswell effort; I’ve even asked a local editor to be my proofreader. The above image was inspired by the belltower at Assumption Catholic Church. Bells have a theme in the story, and the belltower specifically will be in the next book. I hope you like the cover as much as I do. You’ll, of course, notice the dragonfly. Please visit her website, which I linked to. I love her artwork!
I’m waiting for my latest video to upload to post the link….
I’m going to change my focus to making YouTube videos, but tech and I don’t really get along. In the last week alone, I tried to use my nice camera to film a video, only to discover the mic wasn’t working. I never could get it to work and ended up filming on my phone (I will post the video below, and maybe you will follow my channel). Then, I lost access to my book in Atticus and finally gave up because their customer support is too slow and reverted to a version lacking the latest edits I’d done Tuesday – Thursday. Thankfully, I had a recently exported file of the entire book. The program does up-to-the-minute backups, but I couldn’t get their backups to load. There is no doubt a way, or they would be useless. My patience, however, was wearing thin. Lastly, my phone couldn’t find my Verizon account or SIM card for hours yesterday. I still have no explanation for that. I hope there is nothing left that could happen. We’ll see when I try to film another video tomorrow.* That is my sob story of the hour. Btw, I will try to post every Sunday. I have the house to myself for a couple of hours Sunday mornings, so that is a good time to film.
Yes, this is titled “The Book Blurb.” Here it is:
PDex deliveryman isn’t on Hector Ruedas’ list of life plans. But he has to earn a living after losing his wife and plumbing business the day he caught her sleeping with his business partner. Now, his only goal is to plow through each shift without having to deliver to Roswell, New Mexico’s nastiest residences. When a notorious haunted house lands on his route, his survival mode is wrecked. The house was inherited by local widow, Arora Smart, who is desperate for help. Nobody else will make deliveries to her there, let alone fix the plumbing. Not that Hector wants to be the one…until the ghost tells him to. With the aid of this specter, Hector and Arora uncover the house’s sixty-year-old secrets. Being a detective isn’t on his list, either. Yet, here he is, a lifeline for a widow and her youngest son. As a grudging PDex delivery driver, he suddenly finds himself transporting something much bigger than packages: hope.
So, what do you think? Do you want to read it? I’m very excited about this book and the series I’m going to write. It feels like the one, if you know what I mean. I’ve always hated my characters after writing a book from their perspective; I still love these characters and will bring in new and interesting protags the next book: namely a young tech nerd who will work with the priest to find out who has hacked the church’s internet…and why. Because I’ve set a precedent, all the books will have to contain otherworldly elements, as well as murder.
My dopey first video:
And a video of Paulino Bernal playing his iconic polka. Paulino passed away in September a year ago. So, here’s to the memory of a great acordeonista:
*User error, where I published this then knocked it back to drafts. However, the dishwasher, washing machine, and robot vacuum all acted wonky today. The robot couldn’t find its home base, even when it had one foot on it. It said it was lost and proceeded to shut down. Then the washing machine ran an entire load without ever filling with water (it’s a side-loader that locks and then counts down the time). The dishwasher, on the other hand, just sounds like its motor is going out. That’s actually normal behavior — annoying, but normal. The rest is too weird for ordinary explanations.
Quiero ser un rincon soleado / donde me puede amar a mi amado…donde me puede amar mi amado or donde puedo amar a mi amado…
That is the start to a norteño song because, you know, I might as well write them. Scott Adams has an intriguing view of success, claiming that a person doesn’t have to be a genius at one skill to gain success; what’s needed is a stack of middling competency skills. When those skills are combined, voila, there you are: success! I’m laughing a little at my ridiculousness, but it was true for him. For example, he’s neither a great artist nor a comedian, but he’s reasonably insightful, witty, and apt with a pencil.
My middling competency includes a degree in which I studied both English and Spanish poetic forms and even translated Sor Juana’s poetry for my dissertation. I’ve also written a fair number of poems in both languages. I’m brazen that way. Many years ago, for example, I wrote a poem called Oda al acordeón. If I can find it, I’ll post it, even though it’s no doubt quite awful. It was heartfelt, whatever the case.
I can also sort of play the accordion, I can sing on key if not amazingly, and have over two decades of obsession with listening to the tropes in norteño songs. I can do this! On the other hand, writing actual musical notation is probably beyond me, though I do know the tonic notes on my instrument.
Further updates on life: the golden dragonflies are still following me everywhere. They hover outside my office windows for hours. If not for magical thinking, life would be incredibly boring. They are my friends! They come to visit me particularly! Meanwhile, I’m at that desperate point in my book where I’m so close to the end and not quite there. Currently, my delivery driver and his band of merry fellows (brother and two old high school friends) are at a rotted-out childhood pirate ship/fort, rescuing the heroine, who has been kidnapped, tied up, and gagged. Sadly, the hero has to be be the one to rescue her, so while one friend (Stephen) is swinging from a rope, and he and his brother Lorenzo are engaged in hand-to-hand combat, Wilford (the other old friend) is going to set the heroine free, but…wait! Stop! No! Only our trusty delivery driver can do the job. So she’s left bound and gagged until he can manage it.
There are two murders that must be solved, and the heroine’s son must also be saved. The arc of the book reaches a small climax at the pirate ship, the largest climax at the fight with [redacted], and then the most tense but least action-oriented climax at the boy’s rescue. Finis. The dragonflies are now happy.
Oda al acordeón (I should have put this through notepad, as I copied and pasted it from an archaic file format and proceeded to email it to myself):
It turns out there is a local Dragonfly Festival here; I knew this long before I moved to Roswell. My parents took the grandkids camping and happened on the festival during their trip — many years ago now. So, dragonflies are apparently a happy part of the local environment. However, I’ve never seen hundreds of them glittering in my yard in the evening as I did last week.
This week, my staycation writing holiday was over, but on Monday I still had the wind beneath my feet, propelling me to finish my book by the end of August. I have a great urgency that I must, and as if in anticipation of this feat, I was dive-bombed by a dragonfly while out walking.
Then I got sick. I don’t get sick. Not for a long time, anyway. I caught Covid from vaccinated super-spreaders a couple of years ago, but I haven’t been sick since and rarely was sick before that. I’d finally built my immune system! I knew the answers!
I have been sick all week. I’m still sick. I took a couple days off work but returned when the fever went down. Yesterday, I was literally ushered into the library door of my office building by a golden dragonfly.
Yes, I always enter from a side door that forces me to walk through the parish library, with its statues and books. I then work my way down a hallway with motion-activated lights that flash on the images of Jesus as the Good Shepherd or of the local Bishop and priests. Near my office is a plaster relief of the Virgin Mary; she is quite pretty and peaceful but seems blind. I’ve often contemplated the artist’s choice in finishing the eyes as blanks.
The dragonfly did not follow me inside. That’s probably a good thing, as I’m already beginning to believe something weird is going on between me and these beautiful creatures. Why are they dive-bombing me, ushering me, hovering in droves outside my window? The better question is, why am I still sick? What happened to my immune system? Why is this happening when I need to finish my book by the end of August? I might even be feeling sorry for myself. Might. Self-pity is an indulgence that feels pleasant for about five minutes. Then it is rather nauseating.
We have our parish feast tomorrow. At the very least, I should be there. I was supposed to volunteer to do something important like wear a chicken costume (I really was holding out for the chicken), but unless my health improves quickly, I won’t even go to Mass, let alone the festival. Let alone entertain small children with the chicken dance. My true talents, you see, are often wasted in the everyday sober adult life that doesn’t involve randomly breaking into song and dance. And yet another opportunity to reveal my skill set has been all but lost!
I need a miracle! Instead of little mice, as I don’t have those (thankfully), I need my dragonfly friends to use their golden wings to fly my prayers to heaven. I was imagining them typing away on my computer for me, but unfortunately, they don’t have tiny little hands like the mice in The Tailor of Gloucester. Have you witnessed little mice hands? Once, I heard a mousetrap spring in the middle of the night and, when I checked on it in the morning, there was only one little mouse hand left there. The mouse had torn his hand off in order to free himself. No wonder the mice won’t help me! I’m sure that one little guy carried the tale of how he lost a limb to his children and grandchildren.
Maybe that is the kind of determination I need. Do I feel as if I’m stuck in a trap? Yes, a little. Should I rip myself free, even if it means severing a hand from my body? I always did want to be Captain Hook, a singing, dancing pirate…. Focus! Dear little golden dragonflies, please wing my petitions to heaven for me. Or inspire me to work! Something. Anything. I’m getting desperate.
I need:
This song is a little morose for my tastes, but the video is my personal crack, as it combines two of my taste aesthetics: accordions and classic trucks. I have wanted a classic square-body truck since high school but have been too practical to make it happen. Hence, I admire them from afar. I also tend to give my book characters my fantasies. Anna in Anna and the Dragon has a classic truck, and her love interest plays the accordion. Sorry, these obsessions have been with me a long time, and they aren’t going away any time soon. I wrote that book long before I ever decided I should learn to play the accordion in my freaking forties, though, and maybe I’ll have a classic truck someday too.
Atticus has worked great. I’ve got all my chapters uploaded, numbered, titled, edited…the book is still lacking some essential information and the important ending, wherein my detective must become a hero to a few people. It’s not as much of a mess as I thought it was, and I had a long conversation yesterday with my friend and book cover artist, Clorinda. She’s a Roswell native, which will give this book an entirely Roswell feel to it. I live in Roswell, my character is based off a blending of Roswell people, and I am a Roswell author. For now. This is positive. Everything is wonderful and positive. That didn’t sound forced or anything, did it? No!
Do you ever wonder how our natures become suppressed by life? When I first started my job as a Catholic church secretary, someone told me I had a bubbly nature. I was taken aback, but it felt nice. Growing up, I was very much like my son: dealing in dramatics, wearing my emotions on my face, expressing myself in sometimes dumb but honest ways, being utterly and completely goofy. How did I become a boring, stoic intellectual? I am really very enthusiastic about this book. I am feeling utterly goofy inside. I hate being a stoic intellectual. In fact, the thought of reading philosophy at this time of my life, or having philosophical conversations, makes me want to roll my eyes like a petulant teenage girl.
How life knocks us down! What do I want to express with this book? The restoration of love and community, captured in a sense of goofiness. That is what The Minäverse has that my other books do not, and why it’s still my favorite book that I’ve written. I despise Anna and the Dragon because I stripped out the goofiness based off critiques informing me the tone was inconsistent. Was it a comedy or a dark drama? It was both because that’s the way the world is! But now Anna’s story comes across as merely gloomy. The truth is the world is a dark place, where people are evil and terrible and there are so many tragedies and disappointments. Yet, people are also loveable and kind and they say and do the craziest things. Also, there is joy, serendipity, and success (or fulfillment) where we least expect it. That’s what I want to express! I actually did manage to keep both the goofy and dark tones in Order of the PenTriagon, but the book isn’t my favorite because it follows a standard “hero’s journey” plot, which is not preferable. I guess if there’s enough weirdness, that plot is intriguing. Straight hero’s journey tales without the relief of weirdness have been done to death, though. I won’t read them, so why would I write them?
So, there you have it: my Friday brain melting down into…I don’t know. I need to reign in the weirdness at least until I finish the last chapter of this book. Btw, it has a title now. It will be called Delivering Hope. This will be the start to a series with my delivery-driver detective, where he might be Delivering Justice or Delivering the Goods. I don’t know, but mystery series tend to have these types of repetitive titles. Romantic comedies do, too. This is a mystery and a romantic comedy! How could it not be romantic when the protagonist is going to rescue the poor female and…? I don’t want to give everything away.
The last two evenings while playing my accordion, I witnessed clouds of gold hovering in front of my house, stretching across the street. I rose and stepped up to the large front window so I could see what the clouds of gold were. They were dragonflies, hundreds of them. I’ve never witnessed hundreds of golden dragonflies before; it was as if I’d entered into another realm or a place of spirit or magic, made even more magical by the glinting of sunlight flashing on my accordion. If only I were a visual artist I might capture my golden accordion flashing with lights surrounded by these dragonflies, and it would be a powerful image of somethingintangible. Sadly, I’m not.
Please believe me; I’m not an occultist. I’m a Christian, which means I firmly believe in the realm of the spirit, and I also believe God communicates to us through both natural and supernatural means. That is, dragonflies are part of the natural world, just as butterflies are. If you’ve been following me for long enough, you already know white butterflies have been an important symbol to me. When I’m being silly, I call them angels, but I truly believe God has used white butterflies as a means of encouragement and confirmation in my life numerous times, whether they are angels or not. Did I mention there was a dearth of white butterflies during the pandemic? I can’t explain it, but that was the reality. They’ve all but disappeared now, as well, when they are usually numerous at the start of August. Of course, the heat has been record breaking this year, and I don’t expect the usual to occur under such extremes.
Perhaps preparing to work on my delivery driver book, last night I dreamed I was working alongside my character. We were in the warehouse loading the delivery truck together; we drove around in his sweet personal truck together (yes, I gave him a 1978 Silverado because I’m benevolent to my characters); we went to the gym together later in the evening. At the gym, a few golden dragonflies flew around us, and the voiceover that’s been prominent in my dreams lately said, “The time of butterflies is past. Now is the time of dragonflies.” Laugh if you want, but that’s what my dream narrator said. And surprise — I just glanced up from my screen and a lone golden dragonfly flitted through the front yard.
I love to consider such ideas of the natural and supernatural meeting — of a God who created beauty and gave us a spiritual life as well as an intellectual one. I can’t imagine what it would be like to dwell only in the intellectual. Even though that is a human tendency, I’ve tried to push myself to discover the world that exists outside my head, not to mention the one that dwells in the places normal eyes can’t see. In Ephesians 1:18, the epistle writer says, “Open the eyes of their hearts, and let the light of Your truth flood in. Shine Your light on the hope You are calling them to embrace. Reveal to them the glorious riches You are preparing as their inheritance.” I want the eyes of my heart to be open to all the riches, all the wonders God has prepared for me. It’s a different seeing; it’s not superstitious, and the riches are not of this world. But what is the truth of dragonflies? I don’t know. Butterflies brought and still bring, as far as I’m concerned, a sense of hope for the future. Perhaps dragonflies are a different kind of hope — a more mature one. I don’t want to overthink it. Finis. May God bless your week.
Let me tell you about the writing process. There comes a point where everything is a mess. Chaos ensues in the mind, and there doesn’t appear to be an exit. My writing method doesn’t help much, as it amounts to “write a 1000 words a day towards the plot and idea you’ve constructed.” At the end of 100 days, what do you have? You have 100,000 words that need structure and organization and editing. After 200 days…. Well, you get the idea. Thankfully, none of my books will ever be over 150k as the outside number. Few people want to read a doorstop. I have three books at this stage of mess: my delivery-driver detective/ghost story, the Albuquerque breakdancing cyberpunk story called either Breakin’ Good or Breakin’ lo bueno (depending on the day), and the sequel to the Roswell alien book already published (Order of the PenTriagon).
The book that was at the closest point of completion was the breakdancing tale. However, I became consumed with my fabulous idea to have a delivery driver be an amateur detective, due to this stalwart sort knowing where everyone lives and what they order, at least if orders don’t have privacy packaging. They are expected to be in neighborhoods, their vehicles parked in front of houses, and they wear innocuous clothing. Because I have a tendency to only write absurdities, I changed my driver from UPS to an invented company called PDEX (Package Delivery Express), whose signature colors are dayglo yellow and charcoal grey. Nobody looks good in dayglo, and it’s ridiculously bright, but the drivers still recede into the background and are able to skulk around discovering murderers. At least, the hero of my story is. I’m pretty sure we should all be wary of delivery drivers in real life, too, as this book was inspired by one particular driver who one day revealed knowledge of where I live and where others in my family live and work, and another driver who has a charming manner and face but gives nothing away. Combine the two into one character, and you have a force to be reckoned with.
That being said, I’m supposed to be making a plan today to bring the delivery driver to his publication fame, but I’m instead falling asleep on the couch even as I work my way through numerous cups of coffee. This book will happen, though. It must happen, even if I have to go back to working seven days a week to accomplish this. I have far too many pursuits; I get burnt out as anyone might and at one time had sworn to keep my weekends sacred. No writing, in other words. That has to change until this book is finished. I have a week’s vacation coming up, and I will use it for this goal. I’m not sure if that’s a promise or a threat. I will either listen to binaural beats during this time, or it will be whatever Spotify comes up with for me — which usually is a list of songs I listen to obsessively because I’m trying to learn them on the accordion. Binaural beats it is, then. One doesn’t need accordion distractions. First, though, I’m going to buy one of those programs that make books really pretty without all the effort involved in making my own ebook and print book the old-fashioned way, with a CSS stylesheet and coding and a desktop publisher respectively. I’m ready for easy. I’m ready for a lot of changes in my life, but some are a lot easier to make than others. God help me!*
Meanwhile, a distraction. Btw, I firmly believe Intocable is the U2 of norteño. There was norteño before Intocable, and then norteño after. Rock listeners don’t always perceive how much U2 changed the sound of music for years (you can still hear their influence in Christian rock), but they did. Same for Intocable — so many norteño songs emulate their sound.
*Speaking of difficult changes, I gave up drinking. I had given it up for Lent and made it about three weeks. I started again over a month ago, and I’ve had one lapse. I drank two shots of vodka because I couldn’t relax after staying up late to watch Sound of Freedom. It was a traumatizing movie. Difficult changes can be made, though. If you’d like to know what program I plan to buy, it will be Atticus. It gets good reviews, and I don’t have a Mac, so the popular Vellum is out. Going the easy route and spending money is probably harder than giving up drinking for a stingy do-it-yourselfer. Big congratulations!!
Jill Domschot 