Inkabout L. Darby Gibbs

Science Fiction & Fantasy author

Writing Meditations

No Office Is Complete without a Dragon Wall

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A dragon sign with the name L. Darby Gibbs and two dragon coat hooks hand on a wall.

Back in 2018, I decided to write romantic fantasy novels with dragons.

I was already writing fantasy, but I enjoyed reading dragon fantasy. Why not write it?

My husband has been more than supportive. He encouraged me when I had no ideas for the genre.

We sat down and brainstormed three books together: The Dragon Question, Dragon Bone Ridge, and Dira’s Dragon.

Several weeks ago, he brought in a package from the mailbox. He was giddy as a schoolboy.

He’d ordered a sign with my name underneath a dragon.

With my office complete, it was time to hang it. I call this my dragon wall.

It makes me smile every day.

Rasmuth’s Night Before Christmas

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A Solstice Dragon World Version

Snow on pine

Rasmuth’s Night Before Christmas

A Solstice Dragon World version

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the land

Not a creature was stirring, and not one demand;

The rucksacks were hung by the cavern with flare,

In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

The fledglings were nestled all snug in their caves;

While visions of deer and elk danced in their brains;

And Kasska in her warm niche, and I nestled in sand,

Had just settled our minds for a winter snowland,

When out on the cliff there arose such a clatter,

I sprang from my ledge to see what was the matter.

Away to the entrance I flew like a flash,

Tore out through the opening and into the pass.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,

Gave a luster of midday to boulders below,

When what to my wondering eyes did appear,

But a gargantuan sleigh and eight dragon rein-deer,

With a little old driver so lively and quick,

I knew in a moment he must be St. Nick.

More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,

And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:

“Now, Mogan! now, Varvi! now Kimble and Shazure!

On, Karlyle! on, Clave! on, Shrhak and Brundar!

To the top of the cliff! to the top of the peak!

Now dash away! dash away! dash away, streak!”

As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,

When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;

So up to the butte top the coursers they flew

With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too—

And then, in a twinkling, I heard overhead

The prancing and pawing of each giant tread.

As I drew in my snout, and was turning around,

Down the crevasse St. Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,

And his clothes were all tarnished with brambles and soot;

A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,

And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.

His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry!

His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!

His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,

And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow;

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,

And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath;

He had a broad face and a little round belly

That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,

And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head

Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,

And filled all the rucksacks; then turned with a jerk,

And laying his finger aside of his nose,

And giving a nod, up the crevasse he rose;

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,

And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.

But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight—

“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”

What marks the beginning of a new era?

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Picture of sunflowers at sunrise

I’m not sure, but I always know it when I see the new era glistening up ahead.

We have been water skiing since 1983. I’m talking slalom, not wake boarding.

My husband competed in slalom with speeds up to 34 and stretching out with only one hand on the rope handle as he cut through the water around the balls set at a specific distance in a lane with gates at either end. Each pass, they would shorten the rope or raise the speed.

If you’re not familiar with competition slalom skiing, that’s the best description I can give.

I skied too, but I don’t need to give you any dramatic description. I can use one word. Cadillac. I crossed the wake, I cut the water, and I rode my Cadillac ski smoothly, but without flash. My husband does flash.

We sold our ski boat recently. Having not taken it out in more than two years, we accepted that we were done with skiing. We’ve moved on to sailing. An entirely different water sport.

An entirely different era in our lives. It glistens on the wind pushed waves, far different from when it would glisten on glass-like water at dawn.

We’ve had a few of these eras:

  • moving from the west to the northwest
  • moving from the northwest to the south
  • having a baby
  • our daughter graduating high school and leaving for college
  • the death of one of our Labradors after thirteen years of selfless devotion
  • the closing of a furniture story after fifteen years of purchasing just the right piece
  • our daughter graduating college (just this week)

Eras leave us behind and kick us forward into the next.

My writing is full of eras, too.

One of my series was an era. I started out writing time travel novels. I loved reading them for many years. Writing them was just as delightful. I wrote five of them and then I wrote one fantasy novel and….

End of an era.

The world shifted on its axis and a whole new view hung before me. I wrote three books in that series and started another series, also fantasy. I couldn’t go back, even though I had two more books planned for that time travel series.

I pulled my first series out of publication. It had been my “kindergarten” entrance into writing. I learned a lot from it, but I didn’t want it out there representing me. Not with two fantasy series growing every three to four months.

I have another era hanging out ahead of me. Not far away, (light at end of tunnel metaphor could go here) there is change coming. I still have time, but I see it coming. I think we always see them coming. Sometimes we close our eyes to them.

But I’m prepared for this one. I’ll be looking into revamping that time travel series. Not this year, may be the next. It’s not that I think I can go back. You can never go back. But sometimes you can revamp.

I returned to college after earning an associates degree and working for a few years. I earned my bachelors. Then went after my masters. I love going to college. So much to learn. I didn’t go back to the same experience.

I went forward with what experience I had gained and acquired more. I’ll do that with my time travel series.

My daughter’s doing that as she leaves her era of college. I’m not sure what era lies before her, golden and glistening, but one does. She’ll know it when she watches it drop behind her, the next shiny era rising ahead.

One day, time travel will slide back in, but fantasy, dragons and magic still glisten ahead of me along with that new era just ahead. I’ll keep writing. I’ll keep learning. I’ll miss my daughter being part of our sense of home while she starts her new era.

Somewhere up ahead, I know she’s part of another era I get to take part in. For now, I’ll work with this one and anticipate the next one.

What’s Strange about Weather?

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Deep blue sky with wind-swept why clouds.

Actually, there isn’t anything strange about weather. We can have rain, snow, clouds, sunny skies, cold and warmth with the option to combine as nature and climate see best.

But we look at weather like it is something strange.

Wow, look at those clouds coming in? Hey, I think it’s raining! Did you see how sunny it is?

Some people turn to weather when they can’t think of anything to say. It is my mother-in-laws go to topic.

When am I interested in weather? When it determines if my husband and I are heading out for a tandem ride or how we think it will affect sailing. We used to discuss it like life depended on it when we were water skiers, but we sold our ski boat a few weeks back. Glassy water is no longer an issue. It’s now about how much wind can we expect in the sails?

It’s relative, right?

Who is effected, to what effect and how long will that effect last?

So I have you thinking about weather. And you’re probably at the “so what” stage.

Weather used to make me feel guilty. How can you sit in the house when it’s so nice outside?

Well, I like to read and weather doesn’t effect how well I can do that, especially if I’m reading on a reader.

I like to write and weather is inside my head (the story, that is) so what’s outside is again not an issue. However, I do a lot of “so what’s it feel like, look like? How does it effect a person’s personality? So it is important that I know weather, not in a shallow sort of way, but deeply, personally.

When I went to Sweden to visit cousins, the first thing I noticed was they were very much concerned about weather and seasons.

My cousin’s windowsills had flower pots, usually with flowering plants, red blooms the most popular, and along side the flower pots were little lamps.

In winter, she said, they lit the lamps so it felt sunny outside even when it wasn’t. And the plants bring nature inside the house even when the ground is knee deep in snow.

So maybe the strangeness of weather and our attention to it even when it seems like it has little to do with or a lot to do with our activities is more about how we feel than what we do with it.

Right now, it is hot and muggy outside and nobody is asking why I’m at my desk on my computer and not outside. When I look out the window, the trees burgeoning with dark green leaves and weaving in and out of my view along with the vibrancy of my neighbor’s red roof above their white house makes me happy. I feel good.

The sound of wet pavement shushing when cars drive over it always makes me think of winter slush which strangely makes me feel good. I can recall stepping into slush with my rubber boots when I was a kid. The soft give of it under my weight combined with a warm coat, cozy mittens and the giggles of my friends gets tugged in with that wet payment sound.

So it isn’t weather that is grabbing our interest. I think it’s how it makes us feel. We connect with others when we talk about weather, a shared touch point attached to memory and contentment (or memory and sadness, what have you).

People remember the weather on important days.

We buried my father-in-law in late December. It was sunny but the wind was biting cold. He was a sunny man and losing him froze us. The weather fit. We’d hung a chime right above his grave, and that cold wind kept it softly ringing in deep tones.

It would be strange if we didn’t remember, comment and argue about weather.

#weather

Where an idea begins ~ mine took me here

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Picture of The Sharded Boy cover

I am about to embark on writing the fifth book of the Standing Stones series. My daughter reminds me regularly this is the series that writes itself. It is an apt reminder.

It started with a friend wanting me to write a guest post for her blog. She gave me a set of possible topics, one of which was fantasy. I hadn’t written a fantasy before, but I’ve read thousands.

It was the only topic I thought I could write fairly well on. I had an idea, nothing particularly new, but I hadn’t seen it written about in the manner I was thinking, so why not?

My brainstorm idea: the rules that govern the world of a story create pathways that as the story proceeds limit the choices available to both the writer and the character. Those limited choices funnel the writer and the character to its ultimate conclusion. Nothing new, right.

But I’m a teacher, and examples are paramount in putting across expectations. So I immediately began thinking about a set of rules for a fantasy world: wielders of magic must carry with them a heavy flat stone which they must stand on in order to wield the essence that is the base of their magic and is embedded in the stone. What if there was a wielder that couldn’t carry his stone or found it extremely difficult? How would that act as a governor of his experience.

From there, I considered a series of questions.

  • Why can’t he carry it?
  • Are there alternatives?
  • What caused this situation?
  • What can he or she do about this if anything?
  • What other rules apply?
  • and the list goes on…

I got to the bottom of the parameters of this fantasy world and how it would guide the story and was so invested, I could not send her the post. I set it aside while I finished up a book I was writing.

I thought I might write a short story with this created character: Jahl Pratter and his struggle with fitting into the demands of being a wielder.

I began writing another book in my then current series and continued to let Jahl wait for when I had time to write that short story.

I got stuck, not just stuck: I lost faith in the book I was writing. I had to step away.

I started another book that had been running around in my head. Over the course of a couple of months, the conflicts of this new book became all to real to me, and I could not face it. Both my father-in-law and my mother were showing serious signs of dementia, a key component of that novel.

Both have since passed away, and 20k of words are waiting for me to come back. I can’t just yet.

I returned to the previous series’ book and struggled along before again setting it aside. Jahl beckoned.

I thought writing a short story might lubricate the wheels. And it was all laid out in my head. It wouldn’t take much time to write it.

At about 20K of words and no where near the middle, never mind the end, I realized I was writing a book, and it just kept writing itself. I was along for the ride.

Cover of The Shifter Shard

Book 2 grabbed hold, and I said, “Okay, let’s roll.”

Before I had time to take a breath, Book 3 was in the works.

Cover The Heart of Lal

I stepped back to the fifth book in that earlier series I kept setting aside and finished it, quite satisfied with the result. I had hated it the majority of the time I spent writing it. It just never felt good enough. By the time I finished it, I quite liked it. One unpublished blog post produced four books.

I started a new fantasy series of standalone novels, Solstice Dragon World. After writing three of them, I returned to the Standing Stone series and wrote its fourth book as easily as I had written the first three. I love that series and have been thrilled to learn from my readers that I am not alone.

Cover of The Sand Wielders

Standing Stone Book 5 is next on my agenda. I’ve been holding it off while I have finished my current series: Kavin Cut Chronicles, just weeks away from publishing the third in the trilogy.

I suspect Standing Stone’s Book 5 will be the end of the series. Of course, given its beginnings, I can’t be certain.

If you would like to check out any of my fantasy series, click the tab at the top of the web page labeled All Books. You’ll find links to all the main retailers where they are sold. Just click on the series title of each and work your way through the books.

The power went out, silently, without preamble

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Just as I sat down to write this post, the power for our entire town went out. Usually, we hear the rollicking pop of a transformer or have a few preliminary brown outs.

Not this time.

A gentle outage, like a mouse tiptoed in and sat down. Lights out all over town.

That was also new. Usually, it’s just our block. The lights are normally, tantalizingly, on across the street and everywhere else.

My laptop’s battery has a very short life these days.

I immediately thought, “Guess I’ll just read.” But my conscience said, “Pull out the iPad and keyboard and get to writing.

So there I was, tapping away in the dark. The Christmas tree is a tall cone-shaped shadow across the room, a bit of silhouette in front of the dimly lit window behind it.

My husband sauntered in and took a seat.

Politely, and only with the slightest sigh, I set aside my iPad.

We talked of butcher-block counter tops and the new sink we purchased and won’t install until Christmas break.

Then there was our new plan for kitchen cabinets.

After all, we did just purchase a lovely new refrigerator. Now those vintage (kindly word for really old, crazy old, did I clearly put across that our cabinets are old, say 100 years old?) cabinets could use some replacing.

Funds are limited, and we’re only expecting to live here another two to three years. We’d located some new vintage looking cabinets which will fit the Adams style of our (100-year-old) two-story frame house. So, we re-discussed this choice.

The boat galley
The boat galley.

Talk wandered. The boat needs cabinets, too. My husband is using the pieces from the old ones as templates for cutting out new ones. Another project for Christmas break.

We decided on what to get our daughter for Christmas. But I’m not mentioning what we decided on here. My daughter reads my posts. (HaHa, sweet girl.)

We recalculated retirement plans.

There were a few minutes of contemplative silence. I typed a bit more on this post because I’d nothing to contemplate other than my To-do list which is frustratingly long.

Then my office in the new house was played. Lighting, of course. How would I like it lit?

I hadn’t given this any thought. Ho hum. Let me see. A desk lamp, some task lighting for my planning board. No, I don’t want an overhead fan.

Why is it my don’t-like-small-talk husband loves to talk to me?

I know, I shouldn’t complain. So I won’t.

We covered politics, Covid, education in general, teaching in specific, whether or not Cagney will stay free of fungus.

Cagney, fungus free

That last is an ongoing discussion. Cagney’s longest run this year has been four weeks. I’m hopeful. I have added “update my post on our fungus battle” to the To-do list.

Lights on.

My husband nods at me and wanders out of the room. Now he can get some work done.

What’s at the top of my To-do list now? Hmm. There’s a three-way tie for first position. I better get busy.