Kids

I feel I should blog something, but my kid more than my story is on my mind currently. Yes, all teenagers are challenging. A smart teenage girl with autism nudges that up a few degrees. She is nominally in 10th grade at this point. I counted up - and while your typical kid will have been in three different schools at this point, she's been in eight, not counting summer school. I'm not including our few bouts of homeschooling either.

School has always been a challenge. She doesn't like school. She thinks it's boring. She doesn't connect the idea of needing an education in order to get a job and do the things she wants to do with her life (at least the ones that are consistent with reality). I suspect she has not done a normal day's school work since early in middle school. I know she hasn't at any point in 9th or 10th grade. Even when I had her work at home, it wasn't her supposed grade level.

Anyway, she is super excited about Halloween and full of grandiose ideas of costumes she'll sew (for her stuffed animal, Austin, from the Backyardigans) and treats she'll make to give away. It used to be my favorite holiday too - maybe up until 15 years ago. She asked me what happened to my Halloween spirit. I told her it was beaten out of me with a shovel - and then I had to explain that I didn't mean it literally, because she is all about literal.

There are so many memes on Facebook about choosing to be happy and choosing to see the positive. Right now I can't seem to get past feeling frustrated and helpless to improve my daughter's situation. I can't give up on school for her, especially when I know she's smart enough to excel, but how do you make someone want to learn? I ask this not from lack of trying. We've tried about every thing we can think of - rewards, consequences, changing the content to revolve around her interests - to no avail. The only one that seems to be able to make her do any academics is me, and I have to work. I can't be her full time teacher.

To be perfectly honest, I'm kind of glad I have to work. I was a work at home mom from just before her birth until the end of June last year (she was just over 14). That's a long time. I did IT support while dealing with her issues. When I go to work, I'm around nominal adults all day and I almost have a break from the other stuff. Of course there are always the calls and emails from school, but I can't be constantly summoned to come get her. "I have to work and I'm an hour away" is an awesome excuse.

I didn't choose to have a special needs child. It wasn't some deity's special plan for me. I'm not a saint. It is what it is. I wouldn't trade her for anything, and I wouldn't have another for a million dollars. I don't want people to say, "I'm sorry" when they hear she has autism. She's a great kid, except when she's not. She can be funny, clever, creative and loving. Also maddening, frustrating, stubborn, and impossible.

She's my little hatchling and I'm her dragon mama. And to all those proud parents of normal kids with those damn honor student bumper stickers - my hatchling ate your honor student.

 I’m No Saint

Don’t call me a saint.  If you do, you don’t know me.

Don’t call my child a saint either.  She’s a child, with all the craziness that entails.

Don’t tell me that ‘God’ doesn’t give you more than you can handle.

We all know there’s plenty of evidence of that to the contrary, out in the world.

I didn’t sign up for this.

I didn’t imagine this.

I don’t love my child because of her disability or in spite of her disability. 

I love her because she’s my child.

You know why I am where I am?  Because that was the only option for me.

Might for right.

Suffer no guilt.

What have you done today to make the world a better place?

That’s the code I try to live by.  I’m human – so I don’t always succeed.

Don’t call my child a saint because she has special needs.

Seeing the disability as the core of who she is  - saying she’s blessed or a saint –

That’s just as condescending as people that say she’s less, or defective.

She is not the sum of her disability.

She is her own person.

She has all the love, hate, madness, beauty, intractableness of any other child.

And she happens to have a disability or three.

And really, if you look at it, who doesn’t have something different about them?

She may have her official labels. 

Just because you don’t have one, doesn’t mean you’re that mythical person called ‘normal’.

Whoever that mystery person is, I’ve never met them.

I do what I do to care for my child – to help her grow.

I teach her manners, because they ease the way while she learns compassion.

I teach her the rules now, because they lay the rails for learning to do what’s right.

She’s the center of my universe, but don’t tell her that. 

Children are egocentric enough as it is.

I learned to speak up, from a lifetime of shyness, because I had to.

I learned to not care if what I said would rock the boat, because I had to.

I learned a million things I never wanted to know, because I had to.

I’m not a saint, and I didn’t sign up for this.

But I wouldn’t change anything either.

Noelle Meade

11/9/2012

Introducing Lillian Ravenwood

After reading the first draft of Forging Day, my editor suggested I might consider writing some steamier fare. So as not to confuse people about what to expect, Lillian Ravenwood was born. Her first short story is out now on Amazon. The novella is due next summer. And no, she isn't making me neglect Olivia's world. I have five books and one novella already written and in the hopper.

Lillian's first short story is out now. It's called Trick or Treat. If you liked the steamy scenes in Forging Day, I think you'll like it.

Trick or Treat

It's only a .99 commitment. The best comment I got from one of my beta readers was, "I'll be in my bunk."

Release Day: Forging Day - Crucible of Change Book 1

Release day was a weird experience for me. I was camping at Steamboat Lake, Colorado and my Internet access was intermittent at best.

I started this book at the end of March last year. I had a contract on October 5, 2014. I went live on Amazon.com on July 20, 2015. It's been an amazing journey.

My series is about Olivia. She begins as a twenty-something with serious self-esteem issues. She lets herself be used by her boyfriend because deep down she doesn't think she deserves anything better. The book is an action/adventure story but the heart of the story is Olivia's growth from doormat to hero.

Yes, there is explicit content in the book. I write Olivia's story as she experiences it - good and bad. If you don't see how low she's been, you can't quite appreciate how much she grows. She swears (not as much as I do). Sometimes she makes bad decisions. She's not perfect by any means and she really needs to learn to duck. If they had frequent flyer cards for hospital visits she'd have earned a trip to Hawaii by now.

This is near the beginning of the book. Olivia decided to play a prank on another member of the group she doesn't get along with - a man that has a reputation for bullying and harassing other women in the camping group.

An excerpt:

It felt like I’d barely closed my eyes when I heard motorcycles and loud diesel engines pulling in just down the road. You could smell the rolling coal from here. I burrowed deeper under the covers, warm against Kat, and tried to ignore the noise and go back to sleep. Between the engines and the loud voices in the middle of the night, I knew it must be Derek and his group. I’d nearly succeeded in going back to sleep when I heard jangling cowbells, one group after the other, and a lot of bellowed curses.

“Oh bloody hell, Kat. I forgot about the cowbells. They’re going to kill me. Wendy is going to kill me.” I pulled the pillow over my head and squeezed my eyes closed.

“Oh my god. Is that what you were doing over in their camp today? Really? Cowbells?”

“It was a plan. It was a good plan, even. It would have been a better plan if they’d shown up Friday afternoon like they usually do.”

What's next:

My husband, Bryan Fields, is also a writer. His third book, Dragon's Luck, released the same day with Forging Day. We share a world though our stories are somewhat offset in time. His fourth book, currently under construction, begins when Forging Day begins. Both series are independent, but if you read both(which I highly recommend) you'll run into some familiar names and places between the two.

I've finished the next three books in Olivia's journey. I'm working on the fifth. Family Values in up next - probably this winter. It deals a lot with relationships in between fighting the bad guys - once they figure out who they are and what they're actually up to. California Dreaming and then Dungeon Raiders were fun to write. I'm a World of Warcraft player. Imagine if the newest casino on the Las Vegas Strip was based on a game called Warblade. I know I'd go there. California Dreaming and Dungeon Raiders move Olivia away from her home in Colorado to Las Vegas and Southern California. Of course when you're a certified trouble-magnet, adventure is sure to follow.

Links:

https://www.facebook.com/AlladaniaAuthor

http://www.amazon.com/Forging-Day-Crucible-Change-Book-ebook/dp/B0128U1CC4/

https://store.kobobooks.com/en-CA/ebook/forging-day

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/forging-day-noelle-alladania-meade/1122293805?ean=2940152303322

https://museituppublishing.com/bookstore/index.php/museitup/fantasy/forging-day-detail

 

https://www.facebook.com/BryanFieldsAuthor

http://www.amazon.com/Dragons-Luck-Dragonbound-Bryan-Fields-ebook/dp/B0127ESOFY/

Book Release on the Horizon

My first book, Forging Day and Bryan's third book, Dragon's Luck, will be released simultaneously by MuseItUp Publishing on July 22nd. I'm very excited!

Here is my interview with Chris, my lovely and charming editor.

http://chrischattalkscreativity.blogspot.ca/2015/07/with-noelle-alladania-meade.html

Here is the link to Bryan's interview.

http://chrischattalkscreativity.blogspot.ca/2015/07/bryan-fields.html

And because, eye candy:

Review - Novices: A Story of the Restoration (Chronicles Book 1)

Another book in the Restoration series is out! Yay!

Carl and Eddie are so central to the stories of the Restoration, yet their backgrounds have always been shrouded in mystery. Finally, in Novices, through the eyes of Joe Mitani of the mysterious Rydder Institute, we get a peek behind the veil and begin to learn what forces helped turned these boys into the fascinating men they become. If you haven’t yet discovered this amazing series, you are doing yourself a disservice. It’s our world, but not.  Each of the stories has drawn me in and I can’t help devouring it and wanting more.  The world is compelling and the characters are gripping.

One of the things this author does that truly delights; so many of the characters, no matter how tangential, feel as if they have a back story just waiting to be told. Nobody feels like a walk-on cardboard cutout. That’s a rare gift.

In the interests of disclosure, I was given a copy of this book in return for a fair review. That didn’t influence my opinion. I’ve purchased every other book in this series and come back for more.

Novices is due out June 23rd. Go get it!

http://www.amazon.com/Novices-Story-Restoration-Chronicles-Book-ebook/dp/B00XB6MYXQ/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1434932048&sr=1-5&keywords=novices&refinements=p_n_feature_browse-bin%3A618073011

amazon.com/author/kmherkes

Behind Again

Sorry little blog. I've neglected you again. I have many excuses, but mainly, nah, I just didn't get to it.

I'm finally logging some serious time writing the fifth book in Olivia's series. I now know more about dinosaurs and Brazil than I'd ever intended to know in my life.

On the fun side (not that writing about Olivia isn't fun), I have contracts for publication of my humorous contemporary romance and short story. The romance won't be out until Fall of next year. The short story should be out this October.

In the meantime, I have a few pictures to share. The two drawings are Lillian. She'll make her writing debut in October.

This is a bird from Brazil known as the Cock of the Rock.

A lovely Persian rug. One of the stars of book 5.

The town center in Presidente Figueiredo, Amazonas, Brazil.

Forging Day Book Trailer

You know, I had this awesome book trailer made by the very talented Rachel Bostwick https://www.fiverr.com/rachelbostwick and then I forgot to share it on my blog. Time to fix that.

Forging Day - The Long View

In the story, a mysterious Change causes roughly one third of the world's population to no longer be human. For the short term, after some initial uneasiness, I think people would roll with it. The lights are on. The internet still works. People still go to work.

Long term things I'm pondering, most well beyond the scope of my story:

If elves and other fantasy races are much longer lived than humans, what happens to social security? What happens to the retirement age?

The next time a census comes around, do they even bother with current racial subtypes? Do they have Human (list of subtypes), Elf (list of subtypes), Were (list of subtypes), etc. Just the race page for each person in the household would be several pages long.

The new races breed true in my stories, so someone that became a troll now has troll DNA. Some races are more fertile than others. I put humans at average. I think trolls have higher fertility. I pegged elves and dwarves with lower fertility, or maybe it's average but stretched out over a longer life span.

Do they come up with new names for children of mixed race? Given some of the crazy mixed breed dog names, it seems likely. What do you call a troll/elf mix? trelf? droll? drelf? Or, as happens in the real world, is the baby defined by society by what's seen as the least desirable portion of their parentage? Do these mixed breed children have trouble being accepted by anyone? Maybe initially. I would expect it to change over time - or would it get worse over time as groups fear losing their unique racial identity?

Do races that regenerate get a discount on their insurance premiums?

Magic exists now. I'm betting they try to get new laws on the book regarding magic use relatively quickly. I already mention in one of the books that weres have to follow certain rules approaching the full moon.

How would you handle jail for races that cannot easily be held? What about a life sentence for a being that lives for hundreds of years? I speculate that the Changed, at least those judged most physically dangerous, wouldn't often live long enough to have their day in court.

Would you have mixed race teams in professional sports? Can a human linebacker compete with an orc? Probably not. What about the Olympic games? Along with male and female, would they have racial subcategories for each event?

Yes, I spend a lot of time pondering the world I created for my characters. I just don't have all the answers.

Forging Day Themes

Hmmph. I started out tonight trying to do a serious blog on how I use religion in Forging Day. The problem is I'm not great at serious blogs. I like poking at things with humor and sarcasm.

I've always figured religion existed to provide spiritual comfort and moral guidance. I don't believe there's only one right choice in this area. Nor do I believe someone has to follow a religion to have a moral compass. If you really need the threat of some sort of eternal damnation to convince you to do the right thing, you're not a religious person - you're a dick. Treat people with compassion because it's the right thing to do.

Excerpt from the beginning of Chapter Two: (warning, language - now where was that whitewashing app when you need it - j/k)

I tried to get some perspective on the short walk home, but my mind just ran in circles. I didn’t want to face my roommates after all of this, but there was nowhere else for me to go but home.

I was nearly there when one of the neighbors came out to put his trash at the curb. Behind me, he called out, “Miss! Miss!”

Oh god, he meant me. I reluctantly stopped and turned around.

“Miss, sorry, I don’t know your name. I’ve seen you around, and I know you live in the big purple house on the corner. Do you need help?” He looked vaguely familiar, tall and skinny with a shock of dark hair, but I would swear I’d never seen him before.

“Miss, please. I’m sorry. I’m doing this all wrong. I’m not trying to be creepy. This is going to sound crazy, but I’m a priest of Crom and I’m kind of new at it, and I’m supposed to offer aid to those in need. No offense, but you look like someone in need.”

Now I knew where I’d seen him before. It was at one of the Pagan open full moon gatherings.

“I’m not trying to be rude. Bob, wasn’t it?”

He nodded. “Well, sort of. My given name is Bob, but my priest name is Ingve.”

“Okay, Ingve. I’m Olivia. Here’s the thing. I’ve had a bad night and a worse morning. Unless your Crom can fix stupid and bad judgment, I don’t think you can help.”

“Not exactly... Crom teaches us about strength and honor, but He knows everyone doesn’t start that way. He calls the trials we go through in life the Forging of our Souls. Shit happens, and you survive and get stronger. You’ve heard, ‘what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger’? It’s like that.”

In spite of myself, I gave a bitter laugh. “Ingve, if what Crom says is true, I’m going to be one badass motherfucker at this rate. Or dead.” I headed off down the sidewalk, and then turned to look at him one more time. “Bob. Ingve. Thanks for caring. It means a lot today.”

Release Date!

I began research for the book that was to become Crucible of Change: Forging Day, on March 29, 2014. I was going to self-publish, but my husband (and published author) Bryan Fields, urged me to submit to MuseItUp, his publisher, first. I was quite nervous when I sent off that email on 10/5/2014 at 12:06am. Image my amazement when I received a contract by return email on 10/5/2014 at 6:11pm!

This whole journey has been incredible to me. I want to thank Lea and MuseItUp Publishing for taking a chance on me. I can't thank them enough for giving me a platform to share Olivia's story.

My official release date is June 30, 2015. And finally! I get to share my cover. I am so impressed with my cover artist, Anna.

My book is available for preorder now. https://museituppublishing.com/bookstore/index.php/coming-soon/june-2015/forging-day-detail

Kerwhopping the Mafousle

I'd heard mention about it before, and then promptly pushed it out of my thoughts, like other mental detritus. Today, it came up again. If you hadn't heard, someone wrote an app that takes another person's ebook (digital book) and combs through the text for any words the writer of the app deems inappropriate for children. It doesn't just black out the word though - it substitutes in another word entirely.

I wrote my books using the words I wanted to use. If you don't like those words, don't read my books. Use the app and you're not reading my book; you're reading the mutated, whitewashed bastard of what I wanted to say.

My books aren't intended for children or young adults. Frankly, if you're letting your child or young adult read my stuff, you're being a little loosey-goosey in the parenting department.

If I wanted random words dropped into my stories, I'd do it myself.

Olivia swears. (Not as much as I do, but she does.) Could she use another word? Yes. does she want to? Bobtruckle no!

If you're going to run around editing someone else's book, what's next? If there's a same sex relationship, are you somehow going to tack on a Mafousle to one of the partners and change the pronouns? (Or nip a Mafousle off, for that matter.)

How about religions that don't match your own? How do you rewrite those references to protect fragile minds from the incredible diversity of the spiritual world?

How about bad guys that hurt people? They exist in the real world. You can see them on the news. Are people allowed to die or do we just subtly stop mentioning them?

Here's the clean version of my story:

There was a woman named Olivia. She and her non-gender-specific friends had some stuff happen to them. More stuff happened. There was a bad guy that hurt people. More stuff. The end.

There, wasn't that nice, clean, and boring as Banthapoodoo?

So warning, if you like your stories, clean, tame and lily white, oops.

Character Study - Olivia

My new cover art inspired me to try my hand at drawing Olivia again.

Olivia is 25 years old. She somehow managed to graduate college. She has a degree in graphic design. She shares a house on the edge of Cheesman Park with friends. After a mysterious event known as The Change, Olivia finds herself to be a Dark Elf mage, though not quite as she'd envisioned.

Here's a small excerpt as she and Berto, one of her roommates, reflect on what's just happened to them a few hours before:

“Not that I mind getting my arm fixed and not bleeding to death, but why didn’t you use the glowy-light thing like you did on Mikah? My arm is killing me and I’m completely useless like this.”

He looked troubled. “I tried. I don’t know why it wouldn’t work. I couldn’t get it to work with Mike either. And why didn’t you shoot those little balls of light like you did before?”

“I forgot. I panicked and I forgot.” We both sat there, looking glum. “Oh my god, Berto. We’re noobs. We’re not even first level adventurers. We’re those idiots trying to figure out the tutorial—and I always skip the tutorial.”

“We’d better not skip this one. Our lives might just depend on it.”

“Somehow, when I dreamed about becoming a fantasy adventurer, I was always a max level character with epic gear. Look at me. I’m wearing vendor trash.”

Countdown

It's hard to believe I'm getting close to my first book being published. I've been through the many rounds of edits and we are about there with the cover artwork (which is gorgeous!). Leading up to the release, I'm going to share some of the drawings I've done (for myself) of my characters and villains. I plan to share profiles of some of the characters, as well as different graphics I used when building the story. For now, here's a small tease.

Global apocalypse never felt so good

At twenty-five, Olivia Mitchell almost has the perfect life. She almost has a job. She almost has a boyfriend. She almost has a future. It’s a good thing she has friends. And on a sunny day in June, she and her friends watch the world step sideways into a new reality–one of magic and dreams made real.

Out of the chaos come Elves, Dwarves, Goblins, and Trolls. Olivia’s dreams transform her into a Dark Elf mage, and her new girlfriend is one sexy kitty. However, with magic came monsters, and things that draw blood in the night.

 
A werewolf is carving a path of blood and pain and murder through the park next to Olivia’s home. The old Olivia would have been hiding under her sister’s bed. The new Olivia is going hunting.

In times of trial, some people fall to their baser natures.

Some people give in to their fears.

Others - they rise to accept the challenge.

 

Adversity is the forge of the soul. For Olivia, today is Forging Day