Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

L. Darby Gibbs

Have I got a story for you?

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Roses

I was busy writing Book 3 of the Kavin Cut Chronicles, and these two characters joined the cast. They were so intriguing.

One had been a minor character, a brief walk-on, but he left such a strong impression, I wondered if he would be back.

Lord Laurents was a charming, elderly fellow with a perpetual smile on his face, impossible not to like. Kambry certainly appreciated his quick grin and teasing words.

But when his wife, the stiff-lipped Lady Laurents showed up and other characters started to talk about her, I was sold on the idea that these two were not going to melt into the woodwork as easily in the third book as they had in book 1 and 2.

Chapter one of Book 3 had the Lady Laurents front and center. I was even more curious about how sweet Lord Laurents ended up with such a sour-puss for a wife.

They needed a short story focused on the two of them.

I stopped everything and spent a Saturday finding out what drew charming, sweet-natured Laurents to this “caustic” woman.

“A Sultry Buzz” was the result. I made it available to my newsletter subscribers, giggling the whole time.

A Sultry Buss story cover
Story cover

Now that I know the Laurents’ secret, I grin every time I think about those two.

Here’s the first paragraphs:

Standing at the entrance of the room, Bernum Laurents folded his arms across his chest and narrowed his eyes. “I’ve been staying close to home, avoiding trouble and sitting in on the council meetings, and now you say I need to settle down?” He pressed the back of his head to the floral-papered wall and exhaled noisily.

Mother slid her embroidery needle neatly though the pale, stretched linen. She sat with her back straight though the chair back was canted, a floral blanket covering her lap down to what he knew were thin, weak ankles. Her legs seemed to strain against the straps that crossed over them and held them in place. “Don’t be dramatic. You’re ready now,” she said, not looking up as she tugged the needle, one thumbnail holding the twist of thread in place for the rosette.

“I wouldn’t say I’m ready at all for marriage,” he said. He trod across the drawing room until he was only a few feet from his mother. A low hassock was the nearest seat to her, and he folded his lean frame up like a trestle table after giving the squat seat a glare. Why with all the chairs in the room had she chosen this one to keep close? He gazed at her strapped-in legs and instantly grew contrite. He’d loved to sit near her when he was a boy and had routinely chosen the lowest seats so she could feel tall once and awhile. She probably kept the hassock here just for him.

“You’re twenty-seven years old. It’s time you chose a life partner.”

“Okay, let’s follow that argument. ‘Time I chose.’ So why have you invited the caustic Joulette Dwantry to dinner? Why did you insist I attend? And why when I asked if you knew Miss Dwantry did you say it didn’t matter if you knew her, only that I got to know her?”

“I’m not allowed to make suggestions, Bernum?”

“Then the demand that I appear promptly at six in court clothes for a family dinner was a suggestion?”  

“Of course, not. I want you to impress the girl.” She tugged the thread through again.

And the rest is their story. If you’re interested in reading more about these two, you have a few choices. You can join my monthly newsletter.

  • Click the tab titled Sign Up at the top of my webpage and signup for my newsletter. The short story links are always in the newsletter about mid-way down.
  • You can read Book 1 in the Kavin Cut Chronicles trilogy and click the newsletter link at the end of the book. And you’ll find the short story links about mid-way down the newsletter.
  • You can read both books in the series and at the end of Book 2 click the link to sign up and get the short story in a few clicks and not have to wait for the newsletter to come out that month, as signing up from Book 2 includes an offer to receive “A Sultry Buzz.”

Writing this short story was such fun that I’m hoping to write one each month. October just started, so I’ll be waiting for that itching short-story-writing sensation.

I can’t make promises that there will be more, the situation with teaching and writing is not conducive to adding to my load, but I squeezed this one it. How hard can it be?

Don’t answer that. Let’s keep up the charade that I can eek out the time if I try really hard. And I’m going to try really hard. There’s a map I thinking about making, too. But we’ll see how that goes. That requires more time to eek out.

My Current Reading Rotation

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Reading books (Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash)

I read quite a bit, often following several series at once.

I’ve been keeping up with four separate series whose writers have been kind enough to be on quite fast release schedules.

I can’t write at that speed for a variety of reasons, but I believe all four of these writers are writing full time.

Who are they and which series?

  • K. M. Shea: Hall of Blood and Mercy series
  • Lindsay Buroker: Star Kingdom series
  • Jessica Lynch: Touched by the Fae series
  • Elizabeth Hunter: Glimmer Lake series

I just keep rotating through.

What I find particularly interesting is that the moment I read the first few sentences, I’m suddenly comfortable. “Oh, its Killian and Hazel.” I snuggle down in my seat and put off grading for a few hours.

That is what books should do. They steal us a few hours away from what we should do, what we don’t want to do, what needs to be done and will be, later.

I remember when my parents would be arguing, I’d grab a book, pick a chair somewhere in the house and leave via someone’s well-written words.

I didn’t want to return. It took someone jiggling my foot and saying, “Dinner! Didn’t you hear?” to get me to return to the world of the teenager and family squabbles.

So along with getting my now online-job work done, keeping my family from going stir crazy, enjoying a particularly affectionate Labrador who is no longer in quarantine in the back hall, I’ve been reading at every opportunity.

I hope you’ll consider checking out these series. They are each nearing their completions, I think. You never know for sure though.

Stories sometimes do more of the dictating than the writer of when the story ends.

For myself, I have often thought I was writing a standalone novel only to find the story is not complete. Such is the case with my newest series. I published book 1 and have book to in pre-order. It’s a trilogy, I think. I’ll know for certain when I get to the end of book three.

I suspect it may have an offshoot series, but I’ll have to wait and see when I get there.

In the meantime, I’ll follow these series to their ends. Join me if you like snark, magic/space adventure, strong female protagonists and well-wrought worlds you can step into until someone jiggles your foot and you have to eat dinner, which I have found makes it possible to read more later.

A needed revision (for the boat)

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The story of two speakers without purpose.

You would think that there is little in common between writing and owning a sailboat, but as we make improvements on our 27-foot boat, I begin to realize there are many commonalities.

Speaker

For example, we have a quarter berth which is below the seat on the port side (left) in the cockpit. The berth is a cozy place were someone can sleep and is tucked under the long seat overhead in the cockpit. A flaw the space had was a speaker that had been mounted on the wall. There was a matching speaker on the starboard side as well.

Overly long screws ready to snag an arm or shoulder in the starboard storage locker.

They both had overly long screws that could catch one’s arm easily when accessing the storage locker or your head if you sat up in the berth.

In fact, my husband did catch his forearm on one of those screws while crawling in the cockpit storage when we were installing the new mount for the outboard motor. Proof in the pudding.

What does this have to do with writing? A book is a compact world. So is a boat. You can’t afford to have snags and wasted space or poorly constructed containment spaces.

As a result, we discussed what was the best way to deal with these issues. Of course, changing out the screws is the easiest choice, but neither my husband nor I think we’ll spend much time blasting music out to the neighboring boats. And the system was rather aged.

Speakers port and starboard in the cockpit.

That leaves two unnecessary holes in the boat. One should never leave holes in a boat any more than I would be comfortable leaving holes in a plot. So we sat down and discussed what could be done.

First option was put some sort of patch in or false cover. Really not a good option.

Second option: for the berth, we would put in a porthole so there could be some outside light coming in as well as a means to increase air circulation and get rid of a worthless item that stuck out several inches. That option suited us.

My husband re-cut the hole, shaping it into a long oval and installed an aluminum port which could be opened from the inside and have a screen inserted. It is a very smooth surface on the outside.

New porthole in the quarter berth

Thus, we have a little porthole in the quarter berth (which I am secretly working to have as my own sleeping area since the v-berth is not quite large enough for two people).

As for the matching hole on the starboard side, we decided on a removable cover which would hide a bag great for keeping small important items that need to be easy to access but are also easy to lose if left loose in the cockpit.

That came in the form of a plastic twist off cover and removable bag that hangs flat when not in use. It takes up zero room in the storage locker while offering a handy place to stow a phone, the lock to the companionway door (door to the inside of the boat) or other small item.

New compartment for stowing away the little stuff.

Writing connection: what may initially seem like a great idea, something that fits with the plot and adds to the overall story, may turn out to be less significant than thought or even unnecessary.

For example, in The Dragon Question (a romantic fantasy with Beauty and the Beast underpinnings), I described a collapsible desk in detail. I later cut out much of it. It turned out to be insignificant to the story. The main character still used it, but it’s construction details didn’t matter (except to me as it kept me consistent in how she used it when it did show up in the narrative.)

Final result of revising the holes in the boat.

That is the story of two speakers without purpose becoming useful to our long-term activities on the sailboat.

It’s going to be exciting in slow motion.

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We bought a sailboat!

Yes, I know in these trying times what are we thinking? It seemed like a very good idea at the time (just a few weeks ago).

We’d been going back and forth for months about size and should our sailboat be trailerable or just affordable. And this one came up for sale, in distant Oklahoma of all places, and met both criteria.

My husband drove eight hours one way with the assumption he was buying this boat if it was as good as it appeared to be. I was in full agreement, and likely, in complete denial of the reality of the events that will unfold in my future.

He drove back ten hours with the boat behind him, stopping once to readjust the mast because a niggling thought kept bothering him.

Hurray for niggling thoughts or he would have had a very exciting moment when the mast decided to slide off the boat. But he caught it in time, re-engineered the tie downs, adjusted it for travel and returned home safely.

Even so, I thought the Titanic had landed in our driveway.

I said it was a good idea at the time. It still is, but my husband is a bit of a perfectionist. He has since replaced the system that is used to raise the mast. Prior to his “adjustment,” the mast was raised using a hinge and pin system “woefully” undersized and already showing the future breaking points (metal fatigue or cracks if you prefer). So imagine a hinge that might be attached to a cupboard door and enlarge it until the pin is the thickness of a pencil. That’s bigger, right?

But will it raise a mast of a sailing ship? Granted our boat is only 27 feet long, and the mast is perhaps 35? I’m guessing here and have no sailing experience. It’s longer than the boat.

Now imagine the hinge plates three times as thick, and the pin that holds the two plates together the thickness of a sharpie pen (hey, I’m a writer, I think in units of writing utensils).

That mast is going up and staying up. (I’ve been assured of this and have inspected the new hinge plates. They look hardy.)

Now about the outboard motor.

It’s a fine motor. At 9.9 HP, it will move a sailboat of our length pretty well. It’s lovely, almost new. So what’s to complain about? It’s mounted on a plate with four bolts, nice strong bolts, though the plate is a bit undersized and rated for 120 lbs. maximum.

Guess what our outboard weighs? 126 lbs. I have been assured by a very knowledgeable fellow (my husband) you never set up anything to the maximum range.

That’s not all.

Four pieces of plywood, approximately each three-inches square, were mounted on the inside of the stern to supply support. The same above referenced knowledgeable fellow assures me this is a disaster in the making.

Four bits of plywood is not enough support for fiberglass hulls when holding a 126 lb. outboard mounted at the maximum strength of an undersized plate.

Enter 8×8-inch steel plate mounted in the interior of the stern with a new rated 250 lb. mounting system for the outboard. (Note: probably original outboard was likely 6 HP and would have met the maximum rating well below.)

But his fixes don’t stop there. But I really must at this point.

So why did it seem like a good idea at the time to buy this boat? My husband has sailed before, and I have driven motorboats for many years. This boat was to be our training sailboat.

I will learn sailing on the local lakes, and we’ll both learn how to maneuver a 27-foot sailboat onto a trailer or away from a dock with an outboard mounted on the starboard (right) side with a whole lot of boat between us and the bow.

Yeah, it’s a bit different than the ski boat with the wheel at the midpoint of the boat and plenty of clear viewing out front and a big V8 inboard Volvo centered and pushing one along.

Sometimes, when I’m lying in bed, I think I’ve nothing to worry about because it will be at least a year before my husband will be done perfecting the boat. And then I recall that this boat arrived ready to sail. Summer has arrived. All the fixes are just my husband taking care of hazards in our future. The boat could go out tomorrow as is.

You don’t climb around a ski boat when it’s in motion. You sit, safely, in the cockpit. The only one in danger of hitting the water is the skier out behind.

Photo by Artem Verbo on Unsplash

What do you do on a sailboat? Apparently, you skitter around the deck with maybe a foot of shoe space, sometimes less in spots, stepping over vertical lines and stays while the deck is pitched at an angle (heeled over?) with nothing but some very thin and less than confidence-building ropes running from thin metal stanchion to thin metal stanchion between you and the water (or in our case, the nine-foot drop to the hard ground below since our boat is currently sitting in the backyard).

I say this because I had to do this so I could hold the bolt heads while he stood inside tightening them. How many touch points does one need to work one’s away from the stern to the bow?

Answer: as many as one can create at a snail’s pace.

I hold onto the handrails, and not handrails, like I’m climbing Mount Everest. And we’re on land!

It’s going to be exciting in slow motion.

So what totally logical purchase, perhaps frightening in retrospect, did you make during the quarantine?

I love the lesson in Man of La Mancha: perspective

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Photo by Nadine Shaabana on Unsplash

More than a year ago, I attended a production of Man of La Mancha. I’ve seen it in the movie version and have read the book, but this was my first time at a stage production of the work.

It still reverberates in me, after so many months. Besides the fine acting and a great story and a noticeable number of tears (my husband is such a softy), I was overwhelmed with such an appreciation for the positives in my life and the importance of giving them more attention than those moments when life is less than perfect.

The Spanish Inquisition is far more than just a bad day or even a rough year, but we all have difficult times when for some reason we get caught in a focus on the negative.

Don Quixote saw beauty in everything. And one can certainly argue that he might not have been carting around all of his brain cells or was perhaps in denial about what was really happening in his social circle, but one cannot refuse to acknowledge that what he saw was very much worth having be real.

We all need to seek the beauty even among the worst of times.

My daughter told me about something she saw just yesterday on her Facebook feed. I’m extensively paraphrasing (and probably getting a few details wrong. I didn’t see the actual feed).

Someday one will look back on the COVID-19 shut-in requirement. A parent was listing what they will remember about being stuck at home: bored children, limited food selection, the worry about if there would be enough toilet paper or perhaps if toilet paper makes a good soup.

The child listed what stood out to him: playing endless hours of hide and seek with that parent. Or it could have been playing living room baseball with dryer wool balls and the broken blind wand. I don’t recall the details.

The point was perspective. You see and you remember what you most looked for. What you anticipated you would get.

If I think I’m going to get nothing but bored, that my internet will fail once every hour, that the dog snoring was like having an unwelcome old man in the house for days on end… I’m going to have all those things.

But what if I am overjoyed that the internet worked at least 45 minutes out of every hour, plenty of time for an episode of my favorite sailing vlog, perhaps even two videos, and that the fifteen minutes without internet made it possible for my husband and I to discuss the whales feeding in the cold Pacific waters yards from the boat.

My dog Cagney gave me the perfect excuse to stand in the backyard and throw a tennis ball and watch her run delightedly after it, ears flapping, rear end slightly drifting to the left.

I’ve had time to think. To consider Don Quixote, my snoring dog, the lovely moments that come with talking to someone who thinks just like I do.

It’s not been easy to work from home. To think of all the ways we can avoid having to go to the store. How using one less square of toilet paper will reap dividends or at least clean those dividends later.

(Photo by Nadine Shaabana on Unsplash)

I’m going to keep my perspective oriented toward the positive.

The internet has been running over an hour now. The snoring has become a soft white noise. I had a whole pack of toilet paper in my classroom (the soft stuff for my students’ noses) which is now at home with us. We’re set for a least another two weeks.

Aw, life is grand in the old house tonight.

The Battle of the Fungus

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Yes, I’ve been busy drafting the new Solstice Dragon book, redrafting said book, editing said book, approving covers for the new series, but my biggest endeavor for the last four months has involved FUNGUS. Yes, I know, all caps is screaming.

Cagney before the fungal attack.

Fungus, I say!

It has taken over my sweet companion Cagney since just before Christmas. I could mention how it has kept us from all family visits, but though terribly important and frustratingly heartbreaking, that is a separate issue. (We haven’t see our daughter in six months!)

This is about the Battle of the Fungus.

It started a week before Christmas. That is, we realized there was a problem about a week before Christmas. In retrospect, it had made its advance into our lives at least two weeks prior.

Feral kittens and a curious dog. Need I say more?

Cagney was following the kittens under the house (pier and beam foundation).

I couldn’t find her in the backyard, and she was in such a hurry to get out from under the house and out of trouble with me, that she banged her back against the foundation beam and left a couple scrapes.

I cleaned the cuts with soap and water and thought nothing more of it.

Jump ahead two weeks with a plan to head south to visit the family for Christmas only a couple days in the future. Cagney’s hair is falling out in clumps where the scrapes were.

What the heck!?

It’s Friday evening, of course. We plan to leave Sunday for the trip. The vet is not open until Monday. I leave a message.

We get a return call early Monday, and they squeeze us in for a quick examination.

“Fungus. Your dog has fungus.”

Instructions: shampoo at least twice to three times a week. Keep her area clean, use bleach if possible. Wrap her bed in a sheet and change the sheet regularly. Give her these pills twice a day for 23 days. She should be good in three weeks, though some cases take longer.

Oh, don’t expose her to any animals or people until she is cured. Cured is when little hairs are growing where the skin is bare.

She’s highly contagious — To People and Pets!

No trip south.

Regimen #1

  • Pill morning and night
  • shampoo three times a week (approx. every third day)
  • change sheet same day shampoo
  • vacuum area every other day
  • wipe down area with borax same day as shampoo
  • no petting
  • She’s not allowed to leave her designated area except to go outside
  • escorted outside (no visits under the house allowed)
  • lots of hand washing up to the elbows and wearing gloves when I bathe her

3 weeks: This fails miserably. The fungus is moving from her spine to her shoulders and ribs. She has completed the pills and is nearly out of shampoo.

Back to the vet. They shave her thick coat to about a quarter inch length, which by the way was called “a grooming” and looked like it was done with a hatchet and cost more than any haircut my husband and I have had combined.

I purchased another bottle of vet-recommended shampoo.

Regimen #2 (after the second vet visit and some internet research)

  • shampoo three times a week (approx. every third day)
  • change sheet same day shampoo
  • vacuum area every other day
  • wipe down area with borax same day as shampoo
  • no petting
  • she’s moved to a back hall 5×9.
  • I wipe down walls, floors with borax
  • escort outside
  • I purchase more shampoo (brand I found at Walmart) along with a spray anticeptic/antifungal for between baths
  • Purchase and install child gate for hall
  • spray her spots with anticeptic/anti-fungal spray on days between shampoos
  • hand washing like a crazy woman

She gets worse. Shoulders, neck, flanks, rear, belly and armpits are now infected.

Colors here are slightly intensified so you can see where the fungus is. It isn’t black looking like it shows here.

I do further internet research, more thorough and highly motivated. We have now gone three months since the initial outbreak.

I learn the following:

  • This can take up to six months to eradicate
  • shampoos must contain Ketoconazole (1%) & Chlorhexidine (2%) (the brand we’re using has lower percentages of the medicine)
  • area must be cleaned daily (bleach recommended)
  • start with shampooing every day first week
  • medicine (pills) should be taken for at least six weeks (not 23 days!)
  • dogs with longer hair should be shaved at once
  • change bedding every day
  • fungus is carried in the fallen hair shaft
  • pets often reinfect by rubbing furniture, food bowls, etc.)

Regimen #3

  • shampoo every other day
  • change sheet every day (wash and dry on allergy mode)
  • vacuum every other day (she’s barely losing hair)
  • wipe down area (floor, walls and gate) with Clorox bleach wipes
  • spray with antiseptic/anti-fungal on day not shampooing
  • vacuum on bath day: walls, floor, and bed beneath sheet
  • purchase dog trimmer and shave her down to a quarter inch, maintain as needed. Clean shaver with soap and water (Can’t use stronger disinfectants on the working parts.)
  • disinfect bowl and cone of shame (she has other issues) with bleach wipes every other day
  • escort for outside breaks
  • I’m a hand-washing maniac

She’s no better, but she’s no worse after two weeks. Maybe I see improvement in some areas. But there’s two spots which just won’t improve.

What am I doing wrong?!

I have this friend at school with whom I chat once a week about our dogs. She’s been in on this debacle since the beginning. We rehash everything that has happened since day one. We’re both feeling a bit frosty about my vet.

I mention how we had to wait an extra hour to pick Cagney up after her shaving because she had to be blow dried.

We both scream at the same time. BLOW DRIED!

That night I blow dry Cagney after her Monday bath.

It takes an hour and a half! I have grading up the yin yang to do, and I’m about to cry. But I blow dry her with my pink Conair on warm, high speed. Neither of us are enjoying the process.

By the way, I can crouch now for at least an hour without my legs cramping. Just sayin’.

Add blow drying to regimen #3.

By Friday she looks less raw.

By the next week (last week) she has baby hairs growing.

I shave her again. So much easier to shampoo and blow dry.

This picture was taken today. The spots are visible, though blurred. That’s the hair that is coming in making them look less defined. This picture is an accurate match to her colors.

Pink skin is showing in most areas, though there is some dark pigmentation. It will hopefully fade. Her ears have always been that color. 🙂 The fungus never traveled beyond the bend in her neck.

Today is bath day. It will take about two hours from start to finish. Maybe three weeks from now she’ll get to roam the house again and wait at the sliding glass door to greet us when we come home.

I really miss seeing her there perked up and pleased as all getout to have us home.

We threw out all her beds except the rectangular flat one because its easy to wrap in a sheet and was cleanable. I can’t wait to buy her a new comfy bed for the kitchen and another one for my office.

I’ll post an update when she’s cured. I hope this is useful for anyone else dealing with a pet with fungus.

UPDATE: She is still dealing with fungus. We did have one three-week period fungus free, but then her feet became infected. May 2020

UPDATE: Feet recovering, inner ears now involved. Aug. 2020

UPDATE: Feet had a relapse. Bleach water bathing of each foot, ear drops, pills, more baths, deep sanitation of the back hall, and…..drumroll……….She is fungus free! Sept. 2020.

Thousands of baths, clean sheets, and ten months.

UPDATE: Belly, right side of face and flanks now spotted with fungus. October 1, 2020. We went four weeks fungus free. That is our current record since December 2019.