Assorted musings by the time-lost author of The Malora Octet, Huron, and The Bacra Chronicles
I’m in a new horror anthology releasing December 1st! My short story, “Stay”, is a nightmarish little experiment that I wrote early this year and was accepted almost immediately to join the rest of the unnerving stories in Under the Stairs, by Ossuary Press. If you enjoy bite-sized horror across multiple subgenres, these stories will be great for those delightfully gloomy, snowed-in winter nights.
I never intended to write this book.
I thought I was finished with Bacra, but it turned out that Bacra isn’t finished with me. This summer, I was ambushed by a fierce need to write an extended conclusion for the fire witch Iefyr Sealash, the main character of Emberstorm. So I did, and ended up with a novella called “Ashes and Embers”. I wasn’t sure what to do with this story, but then two more ideas attacked. Nestled between the last two chapters of Dustlight is “Little Feathers”, the story of Elsin Sylleth’s eldest daughter, Elena, and the unexpected relationship she finds herself in. “The Broken Stars” is kind of an epilogue to the epilogue of Dustlight. It’s about a young woman who has thoroughly sarded up her life finding herself on a journey to figure out who she wants to be.
Together, these three novellas were collected as The Settling Dust: Three Novellas from the Aftermath of The Bacra Chronicles. My little summer project became my 18th published book (23rd if we’re counting anthology inclusions, soon to add 2 more) and my beta readers are as in love with it as I am.
That may be because I took the bitter and flipped it into sweet. It can take a journey of self-discovery and redefining relationships to get there.
And just because one thing always leads to the next, “Little Feathers” was the catalyst for my work-in-progress, a puzzling adventure told by sixteen-year-old Sparrow Coldstar. I’m trying to write this as a book that can be read either independently or as a sequel to The Bacra Chronicles. There is an interesting balance to that goal, considering the massive amount of backstory Sparrow’s family already has. I’m 50,000 words into this project and can’t seem to stop typing long enough to do anything else, so we’ll see how this mess turns out once I get it cleaned up. That would require convincing Ashlyn to shut his mouth once in a while so his son can get a few more words in.
Whether you’re an author or a reader, watch out for these fakes.
Here’s an article about someone this recently happened to:
Author says ‘AI-generated’ books were published under her name. Amazon wouldn’t take them down
My paperback author copies came today! I have both the first edition of Dustlight and copies with the updated spines for Cavelost and Faelost.
I can’t believe I’m finished with this series. I often find I’m still lost in The Bacra Chronicles. The eccentric characters, the sprawling North America-inspired landscape, the irregular rainbow of magic-skills . . . dragons… It’s hard to conjure that portal and jump across the void into a completely new world. It’s so hard not to settle into what has become so familiar. I suspect my mind will return to visit Bacra from time to time. It still happens with Malora, which is why I recently revised and re-released three of them.
I designed and made the moonblade axe myself. The hook on the back isn’t visible since I had to set it under Emberstorm to fit as much of the axe in the frame as possible. Its a replica of the Bacran version, which belongs to Ragan Vale. It’s a Fae weapon that was given to him by…
The rest of that sentence can be found in Emberstorm.
These are all twenty-two of my word babies, the paracosms of my neurodivergent brain. The book nook separates my worlds from some worlds that inspired me. I’m pretty proud of this shelf. It’s not something I ever expected to accomplish back when I was a twenty year old ceramic engineering student.
My goal is to fill this shelf and move on to the next. I’m working on something new now in a world that is a lot less dark and a lot more cozy. It’s still fantasy, but I’m playing in a subgenre I’ve never ventured into before, so we’ll see how it goes. This story may end up being only a way to relax my mind after Bacra, or it may be something bigger. I’m just going to have fun with it and see where it goes.
I do love how the covers look all together now, even though I’m not sold on the color of Cavelost‘s font. The Crystal Lattice is a funny thing, bright blue in the midst of the black of The Malora Octet. You’ll understand why once you meet the main character, Tesji. Bards aren’t known to quietly lurk in the shadows, are they?
Anyway, this shelf accounts for just under twenty years of work. Let’s see what the next twenty brings.
It’s been a while, hasn’t it? I’ve been sorting out some chronic health issues, so I haven’t had much energy to engage with the greater world. I do have a couple major announcements, though…
I finished The Bacra Chronicles!
Dustlight is the fifth and final volume, completing the series. This makes for my second completed series. Nearly twenty years of work between the two, and I spent over seven of those working on The Bacra Chronicles.
Dustlight was an extremely difficult book to write. Not only is it long an emotionally intense, but I needed to be sure I stuck the landing. I’ve read too many series with disappointing endings, and I hope this isn’t one of them. I don’t think it is.
Dustlight begins six years after the end of Emberstorm, and about fourteen years after the beginning of Cavelost. Some of the children born to major characters along the way are teens or tweens now, and Zinnia is no longer drinking from ink pots. Yana is a young adult now, ready to take on her own storyline. And she does…
The Uldru mage Yana is one of our main characters, along with her adoptive brother Tessen and a new character, someone who has been mentioned several times throughout the series but he doesn’t appear on-page until Dustlight. Saevel Yarrow is a young cottage witch who struggles with both his narcolepsy and with not knowing why he was abandoned as a newborn at an Aerie Peak temple, the wounds on his face already identifying him as a Spellkeeper. As a life-long captive of the false Moonlight Guardian, he has been given few choices in life…aside from which words he chooses to throw at a war-ravaged world that both reveres and reviles him.
So, anyway… The Bacra Chronicles is complete and I hope you enjoy it! I know I do. I’ve always written the stories that I want to read, and I sometimes get sucked into rereading my old books.
Which segues into my next announcement…
I reread The Malora Octet and decided to revise #2-4 (originally the Echoes of Oblivion trilogy). The writing was clunky and I knew I could do better. The revised editions are published now, as are the updated covers for #6-8 (originally the Emergence trilogy). If you have the old versions of the ebooks on your devices, make sure you update them so you can read the revised versions. The story is the same, but I rewrote the clunky sentences and added some little details here and there, including giving Rhodren and Rabbit’s relationship more depth in The Shattered Veil. Books 2-4 were originally a single book that got too long, so they won’t make sense if read out of order.
My next announcement is that my short story “Stay” is being published this autumn in a horror anthology called Under the Stairs: An Anthology of Homebound Horror. I write mostly genre-blended epic fantasy, but sometimes I write in other genres like horror and scifi. I’ll have more info on this anthology later. If I remember that I have a blog. Sometimes I forget. Meds ate my memory.
Speaking of horror, I wrote a novel last year that I haven’t published yet. It’s a nonlinear mythic gothic cosmic horror tragicomedy. How’s that for genre-blending? Several people have read Not Bees and think I should look for a publisher for it, so I’ve been holding onto it while hoping something fitting comes up.
My newest project isn’t dark at all. I’ve only just begun it so I’m not going to give away much at this point in case I change my mind on it. It began as a rewrite of a rejected anthology submission, which was enjoyed but didn’t make the cut. It’s hard to leave Bacra behind for an entirely new world, so I’m still playing around with worldbuilding and characters. I’ve written so much dark that now I want to write something light.
Oh, speaking of light…
Here’s my children’s book, Luna Draws the World. It’s a gentle fantasy, a lower middle grade chapter book, about a little girl who receives a set of magical colored pencils. I wrote it for my elder daughter when she was eight because she doesn’t like reading or watching stories with much conflict. If you have a kid in the 7-11 range who likes softer fantasy, give Luna Draws the World a chance. I illustrated it, including the cover, and the hardcover is beautiful. There is an ebook version, as well. My younger daughter is eight now, and she loves it. She gives copies of it to her teachers and to her friends on their birthdays.
I’ll leave you with Cadriel. The spirited little pixie dragon first appeared in Faelost and became his dragonbound’s constant for the rest of The Bacra Chronicles. I’ve been making felt dragons since last fall, and although the rest of them are bigger, some by a lot, actual-sized hatchling Cadriel is currently my favorite. Isn’t he adorable?
I’ve been through some things the past couple years. My executive functioning isn’t great at the moment so I haven’t been able to write. This is the first creative thing I’ve written this year and it came out of me in a brain fog burst. It’s about my recent medical issues (gastroparesis, dysphagia, reflux, IBS), so don’t read it if you don’t want to for any reason. Specific CW for emetophobia and weight (loss, medical attitude toward).
Unexpected reactions to mundane things seem to be a hobby for my new chronic illnesses.
I’ve been collecting cookbooks for over 20 years. I lost quite a few to a flood in my basement post-college apartment, but better ones replaced those over the years. I have a bookshelf next to the kitchen island just for my collection.
Most of them are completely useless to me now.
We’re told to eat as close to the source as possible. Whole grains, raw fruits and veggies, high fiber, nuts and seeds, berries. Low calorie, choose water instead of caloric drinks, have you tried keto (It’s magic, don’t you know‽)? Yoga? Oils and herbs and herb-infused oils? Eliminating toxins and chemicals from your house? Positive thinking? Reducing your stress? CBD?
Sigh.
I like whole grain food and fresh produce, especially berries from my garden. I can’t eat them anymore. Or actual solid foods. Or the things on this long list my GI wants me to follow.
I’ve been vegan (or beegan) for about as long as I’ve collected cookbooks. I liked to cook and bake. I have cupboards and drawers full of herbs and spices. Many are unusual to an American palate. Many of the herbs I grow myself for both tea and culinary purposes. I liked to experiment. Sauerkraut, kombucha, sourdough, pickles. Seitan and tofu. Superfoods. Tea blends. Raw foods.
Ugh. Raw foods are the worst. I could never eat salad without my guts declaring war, and never knew why. Raw foods are supposed to be healthy. I have a couple non-cookbooks dedicated to them. I haven’t been able to eat tree nuts since a pistachio reaction a couple years ago, so that already eliminated at least half of the recipes.
Gastroparesis crossed out the rest.
There are other things, too. I haven’t successfully eaten solid food since lunch of January 29, 2021. I know the exact date because it was the first of two ER trips. Twice in the ER, tests and tests. Endoscopy, biopsies, bloodwork. Here, have some more barium. It tastes like chalk and gets stuck on the way down. The radioactive oatmeal was especially sticky, but I can’t eat eggs so the standard gastric emptying study meal was out.
I had gotten used to notes and calls of “tests came back normal”. Usually that was the end of the investigation into why I would have months at a time of unexplained severe abdominal pain.
One caring and considerate GI doctor also added, “There is nothing wrong with you. You don’t have GERD. Eat less, exercise more.” He’s the one who gifted me with with a new variation of anxiety, one that still makes it so hard to get medical help when I need it. No GERD, he said, so no one would treat my imaginary GERD.
It wasn’t imaginary.
The GERD I’ve had since my first HG pregnancy damaged and damaged until my nerves and digestive system gave up. At the time of my endoscopy I had long-term acid damage teaming up with gastritis and esophagitis. Tests are at six months and counting, adding on diagnoses one by one as we discover and rediscover how much of my digestive system is no longer working as it should.
Gastroparesis. Esophageal dysmotility. GERD. IBS. Little cryptic ICD-10-CM codes sit next to each label on my discharge papers. Then there’s the arthritis in my neck, degenerative disc disease with osteophytes, found incidentally during a modified barium swallow. That led to more x-rays. Degenerative arthritis in my ankle. Explains why there are knives in it when I walk. I was afraid to see a doctor about it for years because I knew the weight gain would come up, the weight gain that was caused by the gastroparesis but blamed on my supposed slovenly gluttony. I was too short for my weight, so that must be why I hurt and feel sick. Even though I was a “normal” BMI when I first got sick. Isn’t that right, Dr. Condescension?
Tired, so tired.
The weight is gone, but the knives are still there. The pain and fatigue are worse. I still need meds for tachycardia, chronic migraine, and narcolepsy. I still can’t swallow actual food, and what I do swallow using gravity assistance doesn’t digest. Shrug. Had to be the number on the scale, right Doc? Had to be that too-high BMI.
The non-existent GERD wrecked an entire body system and now I own three blenders. If they’re all in the dishwasher I’m limited to what is already liquid or puree. Cream of Wheat with extra liquid, applesauce, runny boxed mash potatoes, meal replacements in cartons. I know which baby foods taste best, and which are too weird to finish a single pouch. Yogurt on it’s own is out. It sticks in my throat and can sit there for hours.
With the magical, mystical triad of blenders (and their faithful dragon, the food processor), I can make smoothies (peanut butter in everything, but no uncooked fruits except bananas and avocados), tofu pudding, and soup. I can also blend unconventional things. The best are pot pies, mild Thai curries, and vegan breakfast sandwiches without the bread part. Mac and cheese is only okay if the noodles are cooked to mush first so they don’t blend up gritty. Other foods are so off they can make me gag. Don’t get me started on the un-tuna salad attempt.
Back to the cookbooks.
I don’t know when or if I’ll be able to swallow normally again. I doubt my stomach will decide to work since looking back tells me I’ve probably had gastroparesis since college. It will flare and recede, but it’s always there lurking. Waiting for a stressor to bring it out like an unwanted superhero whose collateral damage is far worse than what that particular villain could cause.
All those healthy whole food plans printed onto those dull or glossy pages? Those are all out. Maybe I could pull a viable recipe or two from most of those books, but it’s as stressful as grocery shopping to flip through the stained-page, crease-bound books. Substitutes are nothing but disappointing when it comes to these things.
“Clean eating and whole foods are the way! No processed food! Devour all the fiber!” I see on social media as I slowly, so slowly, wait for the tiny nibble of white flour sourdough bread to sink down my esophagus and maybe settle in my stomach. Maybe not. It’s as likely complete the fall as it is to get stuck and regurgitate.
Still, it’s far less likely to cause a problem than my old staples of brown rice and broccoli. I ate the “right way” for so long, and my body said, “No! No more!” I cannot eat those things. Strawberries, citrus, Freekah, quinoa, chia seeds, kale salad. Even popcorn is a whole grain, full of fiber. So are many cereals, granola bars, crackers, and chips.
Do you know what a bezoar is?
These aren’t those books by that person I won’t mention. Real bezoars are like a cat’s hairball but made of fiber. They can build in the stomachs of people with gastroparesis and cause further problems none of us need, ranging from pain and nausea all the way to digestive tract gangrene. If we have too many complex carbohydrates, they can bind together as they sit too long in the stomach, then build with each consecutive meal.
I already have kidney stones, no thanks.
I’ll take the white bread, white rice, soft foods easy to digest.
Maybe I can still use some of those cookbooks without screaming. Without my body declaring another civil war. I moved them to the top right position (ignoring the air fryer and appliance manual books) as I sorted out the mess on the shelves. The pressure and slow cooker stuff might have some ideas. Low FODMAP. Maybe some of the soft or sauce “cheeses”. Maybe some soups, strained of their fiber.
It’s easy to get lost in the chasm rifting my mind while I look at a collection that’s no longer of use. I had to stop doing some things I loved when my ulnar nerve gave up and again when I fell on my wrist, and this is similar, but it twists the knives deeper. I can survive without playing musical instruments, but food is essential.
It’s also a major part of our social culture. What diet are you on? You must tell me your weight loss secret. Then offers of food and drink during visits, it’s only polite. Birthdays, dates, parties, office events, can you meet me for lunch? Holidays. So many holidays, each with their own legion of food.
I have cookbooks dedicated to holidays and parties.
I need to stop collecting cookbooks.
Maybe I should put away most of those books and replace them with a different collection. I compulsively collect books about my special interests, so it feels mandatory. Craft books are kind of out because my arm nerves never fully recovered so projects I can’t potentially do are frustrating.
Plants and gardening. That will work. Food-adjacent, but only sometimes, and so customizable. I already have a large garden, growing lush as I dig through the closet laundry mountain for pants that won’t fall off. I don’t want to buy many new clothes when I don’t know where I’ll land once I finish falling. Or floating. Or rising like a helium balloon. Hard to tell. Can’t plan a day in advance, let alone further. Chaos within, so unpredictable.
I found my plant books earlier and gathered them up. I’ve used a lot of them for writing research. I didn’t realize I had this many. I have to split the stack to move them. Then split the stack of cookbooks and move them somewhere not so upsetting. They’re just as heavy. Heavier, if we’re talking abstractly internal.
It will need to wait. I have to finish this medicine-laced tea first. It only takes an hour to drink. Smoothies can take three. Breakfast flowing into lunch, and then I’m too full to eat lunch. Maybe I’ll be able to eat a calorie-dense dinner, if it’s a fast-stomach day. Otherwise it’s…
What can I eat, again? I can’t remember.
Overwhelmed so easily, farewell executive functioning. It’s so hard to eat when eating requires so much work. Considering, choosing, preparing, consuming. Cook and blend, slowly swallow. Distract yourself because the texture doesn’t match the taste. Sit upright, very still, and try to keep it down.
Maybe the cookbooks will help with the choosing.
I’ll look through each as I tuck them away.
May is Mental Health Month, so I’m going to do something a little different. All* of my book royalties for this month will be donated to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).
Why am I doing this? Many of my books, especially The Bacra Chronicles, were born out of my own struggles with prenatal and postpartum depression, anxiety, and depersonalization-derealization. Writing these stories helped me climb out of the depths of my own personal darkness, and now I want to try to give something back to help other people through their own journeys. May is also the birth month for both my youngest child and me, so it seems fitting to do something that honors both her and the people who held lanterns for us during those months when I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be able to escape the cave I was lost in.
*This includes ebooks, paperbacks, and KU page reads for all fourteen of my books. Not included are the three multi-author anthologies (Trick or Treat!, HOBOF, Infinite Dysmorphia) since they are through other publishers. There is about a two month delay between book sales/page reads and receiving royalties.
Happy Valentine’s Day! Spellkeeper, Book Three of The Bacra Chronicles has been released into the wild. The ebook and paperback aren’t linked yet, but they should be soon.
Love is at the core of this book, but it’s not all romantic. Old love, new love, romantic, platonic, friendship, familial, redemptive, even learning to love oneself. Spellkeeper is often dark and violent and devastating, but can also be sweet and funny. One of my beta readers described it as “a real emotional roller coaster.”
I highly recommend reading Cavelost and Faelost before Spellkeeper, but the same things I said above can be said for them. Love and survival are the driving forces for my characters, but those two things mean something different to each of them. All three books of The Bacra Chronicles can be read for free if you have Kindle Unlimited!
The Bacra Chronicles is an epic fantasy series, but it’s a little different from much of the genre. The books are about dragons and magic and adventure, but they’re also about living with chronic pain and mental illness, families forged by both blood and choice, struggling through that awkward cusp between adolescence and adulthood, and clawing our way out of the darkness to become better than those who hurt us. The cast is diverse, the language tends toward snarky and colorful (especially once the mercs arrive in the second book), and the journey is a wild ride through a world inspired by locations that include the American Southwest, California, and the Pacific Northwest. I don’t particularly recommend The Bacra Chronicles for readers offended by: queer heroes, mental health/chronic pain talk, soft men, assertive women, blood, explosions, casual profanity, blatant insolence toward authority, or weaponized forks. Everyone else, good luck and have fun!
I hope you take a look at my odd little fantasy world. It’s quite a ride and I love it just as much as I love my first series, The Malora Octet. I’m writing Book 4 now, and I think the series might finish at Book 6. Who knows, though… The Malora Octet was nothing but a short story that got out of control, after all.
Look what I have!
It’s just a proof for me to work from for final edits and proofreading, but that doesn’t matter because this is the very first printed copy of Spellkeeper, Book Three of The Bacra Chronicles. My 12th little novel baby needs a thorough read-through before I can release it into the wild, but I’ll give you a teaser below in the form of the first page. I can’t wait to share the rest!
Courtney M. Privett 