Jan 29, 2025
If you like my fiction writing but don’t normally listen to my podcasts, you might like the “Dino Wars” series I’ve been doing on Cool Zone Media Book Club.
You can find it every Sunday on the It Could Happen Here feed and the Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff feed.
And we’re about to kickstart my new book, The Immortal Choir Holds Every Voice, which is the third book in the Danielle Cain series but don’t worry it can stand alone.
You can sign up for notifications about that kickstarter, which launches in March.
You Do Not Flee a Storm
Last night was the coldest night of my dog’s life. He didn’t know it, of course. I no longer live outside, and I’ve got central heat, so he was curled up on the bed with his chin on my leg instead of huddling near the heater like he would have had to do if he’d been born a bit earlier in my life.
He didn’t know that I was worried about the feral cats, the ones I built a little shelter for in my tiny falling down barn at the back of my property. He only knows that he thinks he wants to go outside until he gets outside and realizes he doesn’t want to be outside quite as much as he thought he did.
There’s one house visible from my house, on the other side of some trees, and Rintrah noticed a plow in my neighbors driveway and decided to let me know. I ran out into the snow and waved the guy down and paid him to clear mine too.
That second part, the part about the plow, that isn’t really part of the metaphor I’m trying to build. I’m just grateful that my dog told me about the plow. And when you live alone in the countryside, what counts as “excitement” is recalibrated dramatically.
Most people who died in a medieval battle, as I understand it, died during the rout. When soldiers break rank with one another and flee, enemies ride them down with cavalry to capture, maim, and kill.
Continue reading “You Do Not Flee a Storm- . or: morale as a terrain of struggle”
The Free 