Wake up, America! It's not too late! I love you!

What can I say? I hope and I pray that more and more people can see through the haze thrown upon us all by the criminal master manipulators, see them for what they are, and for what their interests are.  Divide and conquer... Too easy. This is not a happy birthday.

However, in the darkness...

There is perhaps courage to speak the truth...

https://australiannationalreview.com/health/no-one-has-died-from-the-coronavirus-says-leading-pathologist/

There is hope of an awakening...

https://eagenda.collincountytx.gov/docs/2020/CC/20200518_2481/48410_Explanation.pdf

And people who are not afraid to speak out, with intelligence and integrity. Douglas Murray, a Brit, is one of them.




and this:

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/this-revolution-isnt-what-it-looks-like

These are just examples.

Put two and two together, see and understand beyond what the mainstream media wants us to believe, notice all the contradictions, the mismatches, the discrepancies, all the things that don't seem right. Then you will be closer to the truth.

I love you!

Question

Dear Karma, feeling overwhelmed by all the liars?

Montreal Comic Con 2018

Yes, it's happening in Montreal, July 6 to 8, 2018, and I'm going! (insert lots of fan girl giggles)

It all started about three weeks ago when my oldest daughter casually said "You know, Marc Sheppard is coming to Montreal.."

What? How? When? Really?! Really?

None other than Crowley, my favorite King of Hell, of Supernatural fame, is coming to Montreal!

Wait! It doesn't end here!

Then she said, "David Duchovny is coming too..."

What?

Oh, my beloved Special Agent Fox Mulder...

Almost faint with excitement, I started googling away... and, lo and behold, there they were, all of them, and so many more.  

Including these guys...

and all of these amazing comic book artists.

And, to think that I'm coming back home from a faraway land just on time for the second day - the only day when Duchovny is there... yes, I could faint... (more fan girl incontrolable giggles)

Haven't been to a Comic Con before, so it's about time...

11 years

How is this for a coincidence?

I've been thinking for a while about putting up a blog with just cute/weird/funny pictures of my kitty -yes, just an old-fashioned blog, not instagram or anything like that- and for some reason today is the day I decided to post there for the first time.

So what do I see when I look at the post? Lo and behold, it's 7th of May.

Why does it feel familiar?

Well, because 7th of May, 2007, was the first day of Chick with a Quill...

So, yup, 11 years! Unbelievable!

I can't thank enough everybody who ever stopped by to read a thought and share some thoughts... You mean the world to me!

And I'm not going anywhere... A Cat Named Blues is just joining the fun.

First Day of Autumn 2016

 image belongs to Under the Treetops

oh, no, it’s not that I don’t like Autumn
I find her quite aesthetically pleasing—
a painter of inimitable talent
concocter of tart perfumes
and sweet essences
a virtuoso of rustlings
and caws—
but I think I can see
beyond her masks
of reds and golds
a cruel magician casting
the last illusion of bounty
the great hope of renewal
for our fearful souls
before it’s all gone
in the anticlimactic finale of
a flamboyant show
and all that’s left is
just the end

Hello, 2016!

So, we stepped over that imaginary threshold between years...

Are we different? Certainly, one year older than on January 1st, 2015... Maybe, a little more hopeful for new beginnings... Energized, perhaps, ready for new projects or to renew projects (that is, if we're over that hangover...). I think I was writing once on this blog how each month feels different to me and January feels a bit scary... A door opening into a wide, open space where... well, who knows what awaits there... (something like in "At the Mountains of Madness"...)

Resolutions, anyone?

Mine are to:

• laugh more
• write more
• exercise more
• pay more attention

and

• worry less 
• procrastinate less
• play Hay Day less (I don't know about that)

 To all those who read these words -and to every living being in this world- I wish you a very happy and healthy New Year! May you be blessed with love and bring love to the ones in your life. May you give kindness and receive kindness. Thank you for being here. Happy New Year!

Goodbye, 2015

It's hard for me to believe that 2015 is almost over. (It's hard to believe that we're already talking about 2015 when just the day before it was 2000...) A few more hours, a few drinks, and that's it...

When did it go away? Well, it had a whole year for that, but it feels like much less, much, much less...

How did it go away? In a blur, that's for sure... And what did I do? Well, I guess... outlined a little, wrote a little, read a little, lived a little (did a lot of farming on Hayday!)... 

All in all, it hasn't been a bad year for me. Not a spectacular year, but not a bad year either, and that's also important, isn't it?

Bye-bye, 2015!

Farewell at Night by Georges Barbier

Not Lost - and a Bit of News

No, I did not get lost in Manhattan... though sometimes I wish I did... :-)

Thanks, everybody, for your comments and good wishes on my previous post. It's kind of late to answer them individually, but please know that I appreciate them and I am very grateful for all of them.

Since I returned home, I've been very busy writing a story at the request of Mike Davis, the editor and publisher of the Lovecraft eZine, who has published one of my stories before. That's done now and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he'll like it. :-)

Check out the very nice 5* review that "Wanderings on Darker Shores" got at  Pure Jonel ~ Confessions of a Bibliophile. There's also a giveaway for three paperbacks and five pdf copies that ends on April 17th.

And last, but not least, "Airships & Automatons", the steampunk anthology from White Cat Publications -with my story "The Thing with Feathers" in it-  is now available both as a Kindle ebook and as a paperback. Why not give it a try?

Well, Hello 2015

I'm sorry to say that 2014 hasn't been a good year for me. I didn't write about this on the blog -although I did write a post or two that I chose not to publish- because I simply didn't want to think about it, couldn't think about it. Someone extremely dear to me lost her battle with cancer in June, and bad things happened to other people about whom I care a lot.

There is one thing that "saved" me, in a way, and that was working on my novel, my short stories, and preparing the collection of short stories for publication. You know, something like in Simon and Garfunkel's "I am a rock:"

I am a rock,
I am an island.

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me;

Holding that real book in my hands was certainly the high moment of the year.

So, what can I say about 2015? I certainly wish it's a very happy one for all of you, for everybody. Probably for the first time in many years, I didn't feel the moment between the 31st of december and the 1st of January as a threshold. 2015 doesn't feel like a new beginning, or a new hope. It's more like this:

I had no idea that this was a motivational poster produced by the British government in 1939 in preparation for the WWII. Well, I can certainly use it this year... and perhaps I won't be just drifting away... like in this song that I love and that sometimes doesn't let me sleep at night with its obsessive refrain....

So, allow me to wish you all the best: good health, love, good books, and good music.... and if you haven't bought it yet, perhaps you might consider buying my book this year...

...from Amazon.com or Amazon. ca. Thank you! :-) :-) :-)

Life and the Beach

A beach, I think, is a pretty good allegory for life. I find it especially true for the crowded beach of an all-inclusive resort.

Let me tell you why.

You come there for a week, ten days, or, if you’re lucky, two weeks. You lie in the sun, you bathe in the sea, you participate in the activities, you drink your mojitos and your daiquiris.

Sometimes, something mildly exciting happens. The people on the banana-boat got overturned again. Look at them, they can’t get back on. A photographer parades with a huge yellow snake or with a cute monkey. Not both of them at the same time. A man and a woman with beautiful athletic bodies, their skin ebony, wearing tribal attire, pose -he with women and she with men- perhaps for the same photographer.

Sometimes you might even get noticed. If you’re too fat, too skinny, too beautiful, too ugly, topless or wearing the loud neon-green bathing suit that doesn’t hide anything. Most of the time you observe the scene from underneath your umbrella. You might play a game or two of volleyball or take the salsa lessons given right there on the sand by an impossibly flexible guy from the animation team. You might build a sand castle. Others have certainly built nicer sand castles than yours, but you’re proud of yours anyway. You might even think it will last.

And then, it’s time to leave. You thought it was going to last forever but it’s really time to leave. And you’re gone.

Somebody might remember you for a while, for instance the people who occupied the umbrella next to yours, just because you were always there if nothing else. The same way you remember the teenager looking like Heckle (or Jeckle) the cartoon magpies, or the trail of Dolce & Gabbana “Light Blue” always following the woman whose face you’ve never actually seen, or the guy with the tiny boom box at his waist (the same guy with the neon bathing suit!) or the guy miraculously carrying five plastic cups of beer in each hand plus one in his mouth. But then those people leave too and there’s nobody there to have even seen you let alone known you. New people come to the beach, build their sand castles and then they leave, and so on.
 
The beach is always there. People come and go.

I guess that’s the beach. And that’s life.

So I suppose what I mean is that it’s nice to enjoy it while you’re there. Dance your dances, drink your drinks, and don’t worry too much about your sand castles.

This is me, drawn by my youngest daughter in sand.

Out of my Cave to Say Hi and... Seven Years

Well, hi guys!

I’m not dead (yet) but I’m sort of dead to the world... I reside exclusively in the world where my heart is... the story that unravels now for me and that I try to write down.

I’ve started occasionally to scribble some verse for the blog but stopped every time. That is because all (of my) poetry comes out sad, most (of my) thoughts that lend themselves to poetry are sad, and I don't want to be sad. I’ve had it with feeling at the bottom of a deep well (I do feel like that a lot of the time) and looking up at a patch of blue sky that seems infinitely far. So I am wary of all 'poetic' thoughts...

(This is an illustration from "The Green Ray" by Jules Verne, translated by M. de Hauteville, 1883)

I’ve also started writing a review or two or other thoughts on various subjects but never got to finishing them. (One thing I have to say though is this: Karen Marie Moning is brilliant and her series Fever is brilliant. If you haven’t read it, check it out. Need I say that it is brilliant?  Barrons and V'lane - enough said...  :-) )

However, I think of you often and I miss terribly the thoughtful exchanges with my blogging friends, the daily snippets of beauty and wisdom, or just the news of your whereabouts and of your endeavours. I apologize for not replying to all those kind enough to comment on my two most recent posts. But I’m not leaving this place and I hope to be truly back one day.

Amazingly, Chick with a Quill is seven years old today.

Bye, guys! See you soon! Be well!

Ah, the Fragrance of the Sea...

...one of my favourite scents... So incredibly rich with life and mysteries... The promise of adventure, of freedom... (That also makes me think of the Seinfeld episode when Kramer comes up with the idea of a beach-scented cologne and tries to sell it to Calvin Klein... Ha! Ha!)

That being said, I'm off to the Caribbeans. No internet so I won't read your blogs... before I return.

Lots of XOXOXO to all my blogging friends and I’ll see you in about three weeks...

(I was trying to write a bigger piece but I didn’t have time to finish it so I’ll link this post instead to Geraldine’s Woven Dreams Prompts, which this week is Perfume...)

An Anniversary

A bit more than six years ago, I was reading an article about some famous blogs that had turned into book deals and thought Hmmm...

One of them was Girl with a One-Track Mind, the other one Wife in the North. There were others too. I didn’t think I could find something constantly interesting to write about, in my life or in the place where I live, nor have the stamina to do it daily, but the idea of writing a bit of my soul and let it float away on a tiny paper (or rather, electronic) boat on the river of the World Wide Web, felt kind of exciting. Scary, but exciting.

So, exactly six years ago today, I took the plunge. (Or maybe the first shaky step.)

A link from Wife in the North had taken me to the Inner Minx, the blog of Minx, aka Kate Bousfield, author of “Coven of One.” Minx was just blogging about some lions (not just any lions, but lions of Lyon) up for adoption at Seamus Kearney’s site. Go take a look, they’re still there and they are beautiful!

(Seamus is an Irishman from New Zealand living and working as a journalist in France. Also a short-story writer, novelist, musician, blogger…)

One could “adopt” a lion, name him, write a short poem or text about him, and become a member of the group of writers called The Shameless Lions WritingCircle, initiated by Seamus. Got it? Seamus – Shameless :-)

At the time, Seamus believed –I’m sure that he still does- that powerful writing can be found in many places on the internet. The Circle and the award “A Roar for Powerful Words” were developed by him to put forth that belief and to encourage writers to roar. I completely agree with this.

I chose my lion, which you can see on the right side bar of my blog (yes, go lower, much lower), wrote my poem, actually I wrote two because the first one was too long (also on the side bar, below Alexander’s photo) and Seamus very gracefully accepted me into the Shameless Lions Circle.

This is how I met a bunch of great people. Some have since retired from blogging, some have become successfully published authors, a few are still going on.

I guess I’m one of those still going on…

The Shameless Lions Writing Circle was the first leap for me. The second was The Clarity of Night. In fact, it was Minx again who suggested to me I should check it out. I’m so glad I did.

Jason Evans’s blog, the beauty of his writings, and the high quality contests that he held on his blog have all meant tremendously to me. The blogosphere is certainly poorer without them. I surely miss them. But although Jason’s isn’t an active blog anymore, the goodies are still all there, just a few clicks away.

It is, in a way, mind-boggling to see how paths open one from another, taking you to wonderful places where you can meet wonderful, incredibly talented, like-minded people, and how unbelievably enriching this experience, this communion can be. Not to mention the exceptional quality of the poetry, prose, photography, etc. –art in one word- that these people are posting on their blogs.

This is why I’m still here…

Trust

This is for Geraldine's Woven Dreams... :-)

New York New York

photo by ajagendorf25

Ah, the Big Apple, the City that Never Sleeps, the Melting Pot, the Empire City... I can hear it calling to me again... So next week I’ll be walking its streets, still in awe, still in love with it all... looking forward to getting infused with some of its enthusiasm... I’ll see you in a week. Happy Easter to all who celebrate it! Be good!

Slowness

Somehow, to me this New Year feels less delineated than previous ones. January 1^st feels more like just a date in the calendar than a new beginning. Thus, my need for New Year’s resolutions is vague, if anything.

Certainly, I could promise myself to write a novel, to finish what I have started, to write more on this blog, to visit more blogs, or rather give a sign that I’ve been there, to read more books, to do this, that and the other, and, of course, all of them more, more, and more, faster, faster, and faster. After all, I did that every January. And every year I did my best to achieve these goals of doing, and if I couldn’t, then I would struggle even more. With each new struggle to do more and do it faster, regardless of its outcome, one thing came for sure. One thing that I’ve come to dread. The overwhelming feeling of Time slipping through my fingers, bringing about the panic of running out of time.

This has to change. Because, you see, this time I’m planning more to be than to do. Just be, here and now, smell the roses or the coffee, even write a line or two when I feel like it, with no pressure. I’m not that sure how this can be done, but I’ll learn.

Less is more, that’s what they say, don’t they?

So, yes, this is my resolution for 2013. Slowness.

 watercolor by Amelia Jane Murray, Lady Oswald, 1800-1896