Tag Archives: family

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Not at all Writing Related

Monday Musings Return!: A Crazy, Wonderful Time

Where to begin.

It has been an amazing and amazingly busy time for Nancy and me. I suppose it began in early September with DragonCon, which was great fun, as it always is. I don’t know how many more DragonCons I’ll be attending, but if this is the last, it was a good one with which to end. I saw many friends, received lots of support and love from people who hadn’t seen me since last fall. And my panels were uniformly interesting, well-attended, and entertaining.

I got home September 2 and Nancy and I spent the next ten days readying our house for real estate showings. We moved furniture, cleaned like dervishes, and made the house look like something out of Good Housekeeping. It worked, but more on that shortly.

A week and a half after DragonCon, we went out to Washington State for a wonderful wedding celebration of the daughter of dear friends and her partner. We were out there for a week, sharing a house overlooking the Hood Canal with a terrific group, a mix of old (college) friends and new ones — the newly formed Forbidden Freak Show!! (Long story . . . .)

While we were away, our real estate agent began to show our house to interested buyers. We received an offer the first day — for our asking price! — and had a preliminary contract signed after two days.

And then things really began to get crazy: We flew home from Washington on September 19th, were home for two full days — time enough to do laundry, take care of a few things at home, sign some documents for the real estate agents, and sleep a little.

On September 22nd, we boarded a plane in Atlanta and began the fifteen hour flight to Johannesburg, South Africa. For the next three weeks, we experienced what may be the most remarkable travel experience either of us will ever have. We spent the first several days in the Pretoria and Johannesburg area, the highlight being a full-day (close to nine hours) tour of JoBerg, which included visits to the Apartheid Museum, the township of Soweto, Nelson Mandela’s home in Soweto, the Hector Pieterson Memorial near where the Soweto Uprisings of 1976 began, the Constitution Hill prison where Mahatma Gandhi and Mandela were once held, and the Constitutional Court which is now located there.

Male lion in Manyeleti Game Reserve, South Africa. Photo by David B. Coe
Male lion in Manyeleti Game Reserve, South Africa. Photo by David B. Coe

It was a long, difficult day. Our African tour guides were fabulous — knowledgeable, passionate, patient with our questions, brutally honest with their answers. We learned a ton, and came away with a far deeper understanding of the anguish caused by Apartheid, and the continuing legacy of that cruel chapter in South African history.

Our host in Pretoria was a good friend, a Black American who lives there now and is, himself, steeped in South African lore, culture, and history. Our conversations with him that night were illuminating as well.

After Johannesburg, we flew to the Kruger National Park region for six days of photo safari. We stayed in two different game reserves, Manyeleti and Timbavati, which are part of the Greater Kruger area and share open boundaries with the national park, providing additional wilderness. The animals there are completely wild and the game reserves actually tend to have tighter restrictions on what visitors can do and where safari trucks can go. I intend to write in great detail about the safari part of our trip in an upcoming post. For now, it is enough to share a photo and tell you that the six days of morning and evening bush drives, twelve drives in all, were some of the most memorable days of my life. I was blown away again and again and again by the animals and birds we saw, and by the expertise of our driver and tracker, who worked so hard to show us SO MUCH cool stuff. Simply incredible.

From the Kruger area, we flew to Cape Town, for another week of sightseeing, wine-tasting, whale watching (yes, we saw Southern Right Whales!!), penguin watching, and general fun. We went down to the Cape of Good Hope, which was spectacular, and ate several terrific meals over the course of this last week away.

We flew home on the 11th/12th of October and drove home from Atlanta.

But wait, there’s more! On October 14th, still jet-lagged, we flew up to New York for what we thought would be the closing for our new home in upstate New York. As it turns out, it wasn’t — scheduling issues. Still we had a nice visit with my brother, sister-in-law, and niece. We flew back home on October 16th. Did more laundry, slept a bit more. And then flew on October 19th to Denver, where we had time with Erin and marked the one-year anniversary of the death of our older daughter, Alex. It was a good visit, hard for all of us, but also easier than it would have been had we remained apart.

Finally, we flew home on the 23rd of October, and then had the closing on the New York house the next day, remotely from the office of a notary and generous friend we have here in our little town.

We now have a bit less than four weeks to pack up the house, close on the sale of the house, and move on up to our new home. Piece of cake, right?

Actually, I expect that while it won’t be easy-peasy, neither will it be too overwhelming. We are living very much in the moment right now, both with the wonderful things we’re experiencing, and also with the stuff that just needs doing. Obviously, packing and cleaning the house falls under the latter category. But the promise of our new place is pretty wonderful, and that keeps us going. I plan to write more about the move sometime soon as well. But first, later this week, our unbelievable experiences in the African wilderness.

Until then, take care, be good to one another, and have a great week!

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Writing

Wednesday Musings: Big, Big News!

Yes, I’ve been quiet for a while. Things are okay. Really. More than okay, actually. But Nancy and I have been hella busy. With travel, with family stuff. But most of all with the big news that is the subject of this post.

Our new home in NY!!This [see the photo above] will soon be our new home. It is in New York’s Hudson Valley, near Albany, on six-plus acres of beautiful land, complete with gardens, fruit trees, and a small pond. More important, it is maybe twenty minutes from my brother and sister-in-law, is equally close to one of my dearest friends and his partner, and is within easy drives of many other friends and family.

We have lived in our current house for nearly twenty-six years, and in our small college town here in on the Cumberland Plateau for more than thirty-two. We raised our girls here, built a home, nurtured successful careers here, made friendships that will last for the rest of our days. Even as we have chafed at the backward, hateful politics of Tennessee, we have reveled in the state’s natural beauty and the friendliness of so many of its people. It is strange and a bit sad to contemplate our imminent departure from this home which we love. (Yeah, we still have to sell the place, but we’re hoping that won’t be too difficult.)

But the rightward tilt of the state, the Tennessee GOP’s fetishistic obsession with gun culture, and the legislature’s unrelenting assault on the rights of women, people of color, and members of the LGBTQ+ community have worsened significantly over the past few years. And, of course, since losing our older daughter, living in the house in which she grew up has become difficult to say the least. It is time for us to leave.

Nancy is deeply grateful to Sewanee: The University of the South for all the opportunities offered to her over the course of her academic career here. She has served in a variety of roles — assistant professor, associate professor, full professor, department chair, associate dean, associate provost, provost, and finally interim Vice-Chancellor of the University. She is the first biology professor to hold the William Henderson Chair in Biology and the first woman in the history of the university to serve as VC. She has loved working for the school.

And I have been so pleased to be part of the Southeast’s speculative fiction community for the past twenty-seven years. I have established wonderful relationships and have been welcomed at literally hundreds of conventions across the region, including many for which I have been designated as a special guest or guest of honor. In 2022, I received the Phoenix Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Southern Fandom Confederation. As I said, I have built a career here, and I will forever be grateful to the fans and colleagues who have become valued friends.

What’s next? What will life be like for us in New York? Well, it’ll be colder. There’ll be more snow. Nancy will be retired, but has plenty of interests and projects to keep herself busy and very, very happy. I intend to keep writing and editing, although I imagine my output will be somewhat lower than it has been in recent years. Then again, who knows. I have no shortage of projects I look forward to taking on. And given how much travel we want to fit in, I’ll need to make some money . . .

We will have more time with family, which will be wonderful. My college friend and I love playing music together, so I am hopeful that music, and even the occasional performance, will become a larger part of my life.

And we will continue to heal, to rely upon each other, and upon Erin, for love, support, hope, and laughter. It won’t be perfect, of course. Nothing ever is. But it is our next adventure, and we’re looking forward to it. I promise that we’ll keep you informed. In a social media sense, I’m not going anywhere.

Enjoy the rest of your week.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Writing

Monday Musings: Checking In, With Further Thoughts On Grief

I’ve been traveling a lot this summer — hence my inconsistency when it comes to posting. Generally the travel has gone well, and visits with friends and family have been wonderful. Whether in personal settings or professional ones, I have felt valued and loved, seen and supported. I can’t ask for more.

I am still on the same journey I have been on for the better part of a year. Grief, I am learning, doesn’t ever go away. It changes, it eases and spikes and eases again, it becomes part of us, redefining who we are and how we interact with the world, with the people in our lives, with ourselves.Alex

Months ago, I wrote that I would not wish to stop grieving. We grieve because we loved and because we remember. Grief is how our hearts and minds remain connected to those we have lost. I continue to believe this.

I am no stranger to grief; I’ve dealt with more loss in my life than I would have liked. We lost my mother and father when I was still in my early 30s. We lost my brother Bill far too early. And, of course, we lost Alex — the cruelest cut of all. In the past, I fought my grief, trying to hold it at arm’s length, fearing that to embrace it would be to surrender. The thought of that surrender terrified me. What if I couldn’t pull myself out of my sadness? What if the loss overwhelmed me?

This time around, I didn’t have a choice. The loss was too great, the pain too consuming. Had I not surrendered to it, I would have broken in half, like a tree trunk snapped off by a straight-line wind. Yes, there is an echo here of Aesop’s fable, “The Oak and the Reed.” A better analogy for my purpose is standing in the surf. I’ve never been a confident swimmer, and I used to hate swimming in the ocean because I would try to stand against the force of breakers. Only when I learned to body surf and to dive through waves did I start to love going to the shore. It was a lesson the girls picked up on quickly, and some of my fondest memories are of swimming with Nancy, Alex, and Erin during our annual beach vacations.

Grief is a huge wave. Only when I allowed it to wash over me and carry me where it would, did I come to understand that I could surrender to it without drowning.

Something else I’ve learned about grief — and another analogy to explain it: Our emotions have needs, just as our bodies do. And often we have to listen to our thoughts and feelings to understand what those needs might be. You know that feeling when you’re suddenly hungry for something very specific — a piece of fruit, or some meat or cheese, or a savory snack. That is our body’s way of telling us that it needs a certain type of nutrition — sugar, protein, salt. We learn to trust those cravings and to cater to them.

My emotions, and perhaps yours as well, work much the same way. There are days when I need to be with other people. There are days when I want to be alone. There are days when I crave work and others when writing and editing are the last things I want to do. One day I wanted to get a tattoo. Another day — Alex’s birthday, actually — I needed to hike and birdwatch on my own. I walked eleven miles that day. I have learned to listen to my grief, to honor it, to let it guide me through the roughest days.

So, how am I doing? I’m asked that a lot. Still. I don’t mind at all. I understand that the question comes from concern and from love. And the truth is, nine months on from the hardest, worst, most brutal thing that has ever happened in my life, I am all right. I won’t say I’m doing great. I don’t think you’d believe me if I did. But I am living my life, savoring time with the people I love most, doing the little things that I enjoy and from which I draw strength and peace. I have bad days, of course. But I get through them. And I’m finding there are fewer of them now than there were in the fall and winter.

It occurs to me as I write this that I have been listening to some new music lately. New to me, I should say. The lyrics aren’t particularly deep and the musicianship isn’t all that flashy. It’s kind of the musical equivalent of peanut butter and pretzels — a bit of protein, more substance than, say, gummy worms. But no one would confuse it for gourmet fare. It matches my mood in a way. I am not ready to go back to the tunes from which I have usually drawn emotional comfort. There is too much baggage in that music. Too much pain. Too many associations. And so these new songs are what I’m using to get through right now.

One last analogy to explain where I am with my grief at this point in time.

Thanks for reading. Have a great week.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Not at all Writing Related

Monday Musings: Forlorn On The Fourth Of July

We have a fun July 4th celebration in our little town. It’s a university town, and a somewhat affluent one at that, especially when compared with the surrounding communities. And so we attract a lot of visitors. There are games for kids, a fun, somewhat tongue-in-cheek dog show, a parade, lots of food stands, a crafts fair, and, in the evening, a surprisingly good fireworks display over one of the local lakes.

Erin face paintAlex face paintOur girls LOVED Sewanee Fourth of July when they were young. We would give them a bit of cash, help them meet up with friends, and then pretty much say goodbye to them for the day. It’s a small, safe, friendly town, and we never worried about them. They always found us eventually, sunburned and sweaty, their faces covered in face-paint, their pockets stuffed with candy that was thrown to kids by the parade participants. We’d go home, have a nap and some dinner, not that any of us was very hungry, and then, after covering ourselves with bug spray, would make our way to the fireworks venue.

Fond memories.

Nancy and I have been doing July 4th on our own for many years now, since we became empty-nesters. It’s easier in a way, though a bit less fun. The magic of the day has dissipated with the years. We still enjoy seeing people, and we can usually find something good to eat. These days, we tend to stop by a couple of the parties that take place along the parade route, and, once the parade is done, we head home. Some years we go to see the fireworks, some years we don’t.

I will admit that this year my heart isn’t in it. Not the way it used to be. Part of that is personal — those fond memories have thorns these days.

But more than that, I feel less inclined to celebrate America than I used to. I have long found the equating of conservatism with patriotism offensive. I was brought up by liberals, and I raised my kids as a committed progressive. The terminology changed, but the love of country has never wavered. I have a Ph.D. in U.S. history, and while it is impossible to dive into the depths of our nation’s past without seeing its many flaws, it is also impossible to do so without gaining a healthy appreciation for qualities in our national story that are worthy of admiration. Resolve and resilience, boundless ambition and a commitment to human dignity that is often myopic and even hypocritical but also naïvely sincere. Ours is an imperfect but charmingly idealistic vision of government, an experiment in democratic republicanism that has yet to fulfill the dreams of its Founders, but which continues to strive for realization.

All of which makes our current state of political affairs so terrifying. The aforementioned experiment is at risk. If the Presidential election were held today, we would likely elect a man who has shown no compunction at all about placing his personal hunger for power above the national good, a man who has shown utter disregard for the centuries-old norms of our governing system, a man who has been convicted of 34 felonies and accused of dozens more, a man who literally lies about everything, who has made grievance and greed and graft synonymous with his personal brand, and who has declared without shame that he intends to begin his next term in the White House — a sequel to his disastrous, chaotic, hate-filled first term — with a one-day dictatorship. As if this paragon of gluttony will be able to stop after a single day.

Is our incumbent old? Yes. Do his communications skills leave much to be desired? Absolutely. This is why your Democratic friends and neighbors haven’t slept or eaten in days and have the look of caffeine addicts whose coffee machine is on the fritz. But Joseph Biden has been a remarkably effective President when it comes to passing bipartisan legislation. He has overseen an economic recovery that includes the creation of fifteen million new jobs. To be sure, inflation went up on his watch, spurred by supply-chain disruptions that began during the Covid recession of 2020 and worldwide economic dislocations caused by the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. But it has come down steadily since its 2022 peak and is now below 3% annually.

Most of all, though, the President is a decent, honest man, who honors and upholds our nation’s political ideals. He poses no threat to our republic. On the contrary, he is committed to saving our heating planet, improving the lives of those who face discrimination and economic injustice, and restoring a national right to women’s health care access. He has spent his life fighting for social equality. Is he a step slower now? A bit more muddled in his speech? A bit more frail and forgetful? Yes, yes, and yes. But on his worst day, he is better than the lying felon running against him.

I hope desperately that the American people will realize this before it’s too late. I fear they won’t.

I hope your July Fourth is fun and fulfilling.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Not at all Writing Related

Monday Musings: Very Special Tattoos

While our older daughter, Alex, was sick with cancer, she continued to live her life with passion and exuberance, in defiance of the disease, the treatments, the fear, the injustice of a cruel and arbitrary illness. She traveled, she spent time with friends, she treated herself to new clothes, she went to concerts and restaurants and parties, she worked out. And she challenged herself to do new things.

Early on, soon after her diagnosis, a dear friend gave her a lovely bouquet of wildflowers that she kept in a vase in her apartment. Eventually, of course, the flowers faded and then dried, but they never lost their delicate beauty, and they continued to mean the world to her. She kept them in the same vase, refusing to get rid of them. I think in some way they became a talisman for her. As long as those fragile blooms remained intact, she would be all right.

Somewhere along the way, as her battle went on, Alex decided she wanted to have the image of those blooms tattooed on her arm. She turned to a friend from NYU who had become an accomplished tattoo artist. This friend, Ally Zhou, specializes in fine line work, and was the ideal person to render the precise details of the dried bouquet. The result was a gorgeous tattoo that Alex bore proudly for the rest of her too-short life.

After Alex’s death, Nancy, Erin, and I decided that we wanted to honor Alex by getting tattoos from Ally as well. Ally had already designed a couple for Alex’s friends: a copy of Alex’s nickname signature — “ABC” — and a small image of lemons, which had a special meaning for Alex during her illness — like Beyoncé, life had dealt her lemons and she was determined to make lemonade.

Last week, the three of us were in New York for the wedding of my nephew and niece-in-law (I know that’s not a thing, but it really, really ought to be . . .). A couple of days after the wedding, we went down to Brooklyn for a day, to the studio collective where Ally works. It’s called Macondo, and it’s a very cool place. We had contacted Ally ahead of time, and they set aside much of the afternoon for the three of us.

I should say here that while Alex and Erin had long talked about getting tattoos, Nancy and I never have. If not for Alex and her ordeal, we never would have even considered doing this. But now it felt like an imperative, something we all needed to do. And so Nancy got a set of blooms based on Alex’s bouquet, and added to it a small butterfly that she (Nancy) drew, and a small version of Alex’s “ABC.” Erin added Nancy’s butterfly to the “ABC” she’d gotten at Alex’s memorial in NYC back in October. And I got the “ABC” and the lemons.

I know there are many of you reading this for whom a small tattoo is no big deal. You have sleeves or extensive back pieces or whatever. I think that’s great. But as I say, this was something Nancy and I had never intended to do. It felt momentous, like a ritual of sorts, a way of alchemizing our grief into something physical and shared and public, something that links us to one another and to Alex. I love my new tattoo, for what it means as well as for how it looks.

Did it hurt? Well, yeah, a little. Tattoo artists use needles, you know. While lying on the table, I gained a healthy respect for those I mentioned earlier who have extensive art all over their bodies. I’m not sure I could do that. But Ally has a light hand and a wonderfully gentle and supportive manner. It was a good experience for all of us.

Our darling girl is gone. Nothing can bring her back. But, strange as it seems, I feel a bit closer to her now. To my mind, our tattoos are yet another affirmation of our family connection, which transcends all.

Have a great week.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe

Monday Musings: Contemplating Marriage At Thirty-Three Years

Thirty-three years ago, on Memorial Day Weekend in 1991, Nancy and I were married. We were living in California at the time, doing our graduate work at Stanford, which is where we met. We had a wonderful weekend, which included not just the wedding itself — in the Rodin Sculpture Garden in front of the Stanford Art Museum (now called the Cantor Arts Center) — and our reception at a restaurant called the Velvet Turtle, but also a Saturday softball game for all our guests, and several really nice lunches and dinners. To this day, I don’t know that I have ever felt more loved than I (we) did that weekend. It was glorious.

Wedding Day Photo 1We had lived together for two years before our wedding, and we were both in our late twenties. We had known almost from the day we started dating that we would spend the rest of our lives together, and by the time that weekend rolled around, we felt ready for the responsibilities and challenges of marriage. And we were. And still, we had no idea.

Life events come in flurries. I remember that year, ours was just one of many weddings we attended. Suddenly, it seemed like everyone we knew was getting married. A few years later, a bunch of our friends started having kids, and pretty soon we ourselves were shopping for a crib and changing table. Skip ahead to today, and we seem to be in a new phase in which many of our friends’ kids and (at least on my side of the family) several relatives are getting married. We have already been to one wedding this year, and we have three more to attend between now and summer’s end. Which is great. The first wedding weekend was loads of fun and I have every reason to expect the others will be as well.

I have no doubt that all four couples feel ready to make their commitment. They understand that marriage brings responsibilities and challenges. And they have no idea.

Wedding Day Photo 2
In front of Rodin’s “Gates of Hell.”

By any measure, Nancy and I have had a successful marriage. We’ve stayed together through tough times. We have remained true to each other. We are best friends and we are also still very much in love. We have raised two brilliant, reasonably happy, independent, beautiful children. We have pursued careers that we love, and each of us has enjoyed a good deal of success. We have supported each other through disappointments and setbacks, losses and tragedies. And we have shared countless marvelous experiences, things that we both will remember for the rest of our lives.

We have no cause for complaint.

And yet, with all of that going for us, I can also state without any doubt that we have both been through times of deep frustration with each other and with the circumstances of our life together. We have fought. We have gotten fed up. We have weathered periods of difficulty that could have torn us apart.

Some time back — more than ten years now — a couple with whom we spent a good deal of our social time told us they were splitting up. We were utterly gobsmacked. These were people we saw socially on a weekly basis. We celebrated holidays and birthdays with them. They were our closest friends here in our little town. Yet, we’d had no idea that they were having troubles. And I think that reveals something fundamental about the work involved in keeping a marriage going. So much of the effort takes place out of sight, unseen by anyone other than our partner. We don’t want our kids to see it. We don’t want to put on awkward displays in front of our colleagues or friends or families. We do the work in private, make our sacrifices without anyone other than our spouse knowing.

Nancy provost installationThe clichés are true. Of course marriage is about love, about passion, and — even more — about friendship. But it is also about compromise, about joining two lives and finding the balance necessary to make certain that each of those lives feels complete and fulfilling, even as together we build a third life that belongs to both of us. It is a complicated undertaking. And while love and passion are great, there are times when they feel elusive. The kids are sick and you both have work deadlines and the shopping needs to get done. Or one job is more demanding than usual and it’s all you both can do just to get one kid to soccer practice and the other to ballet while also taking care of dinner and arranging the babysitter for the Friday event in town. Work, balance, compromise, sacrifice — sometimes, it feels like that’s all there is. Those early days of the romance, when everything was laughter and love and sex and adventure, seem so very, very distant.

And yet those golden elements of marriage do come around again, if we’re patient, and if we keep making the effort.

So, what advice would I offer to those who are marrying now?

1. Remember to laugh and play. Nancy and I laugh and joke all the time, and we have managed to do this through almost every phase of our marriage. Our shared sense of humor is probably the single most important element of our partnership.

Our family in Monteverde, Costa Rica, November 2011.2. Have faith. I’m not talking about religious faith here (though if that’s your thing, great). I mean faith in each other and in what you share. That belief in the fundamental power of our bond has gotten us past some really hard times. The love might not always be palpable, but we KNOW it’s there, and that certainty gets us through.

3. Honor the work. I believe people cheat because when things grow difficult, they convince themselves that being with someone else will bring back all the fun of the early days without any of the problems. That’s folly. Every relationship takes work. Every relationship goes through rough patches. The work we do builds on itself. Nancy and my marriage is stronger now for all that we’ve put into it over thirty-three years. Why on earth would I want to start over when my best friend and the love of my life is right here?

I wish you love and laughter. Have a great week.

David and Nancy
(Photo by Cat Sparks)
Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Thieftaker Chronicles, Writing

Monday Musings: “What’s Next?” Well, How About Some Big News?

“When I ask ‘What’s Next?’ it means I’m ready to move on to other things. So, what’s next?” — Jed Barlet, THE WEST WING

Yeah, I will seek out almost any excuse to quote from The West Wing, it being my favorite television series of all time. But as it happens, this is a question that’s been on my mind for a while now. In the show, “What’s next?” was more than a change of topic or a jump to the next agenda item. It was also used to turn the page after a setback, to refocus the staff after a triumph, even to look for a new beginning after tragedy.

As is the case with so much that happens in the course of the show’s seven seasons, the quote has long had great significance for me, and this is especially true now.

I know better than to think I can “turn the page” or “move on” from the past year. And even if I could, I’m not certain I would. But I am ready to restart my life, to venture back out into the professional and personal world, to find a new routine that makes room for all the emotional complexity of the new reality my family and I face.

In some ways, I have already started this process. I finished a book a few weeks ago, one I started back in January. It was sort of a work-for-hire, tie-in book, but it was fun to write. The plotting and character work proved absorbing, and because I started it later than I intended, the deadline kept me focused, motivated, and, yes, just a little manic. If it seems like I am avoiding telling you anything specific about the book itself, that’s because I am. Sorry. For now, I can’t really talk about it. When I can, you will all be among the first to know.

I have also written a novella for a new shared-world anthology that will be released this summer by Zombies Need Brains. And, as some of you have seen, I am again accepting clients for my freelance editing business. At the end of this month, I will attend ConCarolinas, my first convention since DragonCon last September. Baby steps. But steps forward, which is the point.

Today, I can also share some news about What’s Next that I think will please a good many of you.

First a little background.

Many of you will have seen my blog post about the trip Nancy and I recently took to Italy. If you haven’t, you should check it out. For the photos, if nothing else. While we were in Venice, I fell in love with the city’s narrow lanes, ancient bridges, and gorgeous architecture. It is, visually speaking, the loveliest city I’ve ever seen. And there are no cars — all travel within the city is by boat, by foot, or by bicycle. Walking the streets was like a journey back in time.

Street sign in Venice: "Rio Terra Dei Assassini"
Street sign in Venice: “Rio Terra Dei Assassini,” which means, basically, “Street-That-Used-To-Be-A-Canal Of The Murderers.”

We took tours of the Doge’s Palace and Saint Mark’s Basilica (both were spectacular), and one of our tour guides mentioned that while Venice is a very safe city today, once upon a time it was anything but. And as proof of this, she said, we should pay attention to some of the street names. “Street of the Dead,” “Lane of the Murderers,” “Street of the Head” (that’s not a typo), and more.

And, of course, this set my writer brain in motion. One thing led to another, and I can tell you now that I am beginning work on a new Thieftaker universe series set in 18th century Venice. I don’t know yet if it will be a spin-off or will feature Ethan throughout. I don’t even know how I am going to get Ethan to Venice, though I have some ideas about that. But I have already commenced my research for the books and I am totally jazzed. One publisher has already expressed interest in seeing a series proposal, so that’s good as well.

Thieftaker, by D.B. Jackson (Jacket art by Chris McGrath)What about the rest of my life? What’s next in other realms?

Well, we’re about to start doing some work on the house — I won’t say it’s overdue, but it comes at a good time. We have more travel planned for later in the year and several weddings to attend this summer and fall. We’ll see Erin. We’ll see other family and many friends. I’ll be at DragonCon late this summer. And we’ll continue to heal, even as we also look for ways to honor Alex’s memory and celebrate her life.

I look forward to crossing paths with many of you in the months to come. We have some catching up to do.

Have a great week.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe

Monday Blues: The Hardest Birthday

Yes, another post about our daughter and our loss. A part of me shies from this, wonders if I have written about her too much. “Write something upbeat,” I tell myself. “Something funny, something — anything — that isn’t about grief.” But we are grieving. Still. It’s been six months since we lost Alex. A bit more, actually. It seems like so long. It seems like nothing. And that is what my therapist tells me — that really six months is nothing. We remain at the very outset of a long journey, one that will be part of our daily existence for the rest of our lives.

So, yes, another post about our daughter.

As it happens, we are, generally, doing pretty well. We recently returned from three weeks in Italy (photos to come later this week), where we had an incredible time walking, learning, eating and drinking, seeing friends, and managing to live in the moment. We have more travel coming later this year. We have family and friends to see, weddings to attend, things to anticipate and enjoy. We have work to do, which also remains a balm.

But today, none of that matters.

Today, Alex would have — should have — turned 29 years old.

Today, I am shattered glass. Today, I am leaden skies and unrelenting rain. Today, I am a father bereft.

Tomorrow will be better. I know that. Next year will be a little easier. And the year after that more so. Today is the hardest day.

I understand all of this. But none of it makes this day any easier. As you read this, I will be off doing . . . something. Birdwatching, perhaps. Playing with my camera. Walking. Later, maybe, I will play some music. Mostly, I will be thinking of my darling girl.

I have nothing more to say, I’m afraid. I have no wisdom to offer. No deep words or insights. Today is a day to be endured, to be gotten through. I am simply doing the best I can.

Be kind to one another. Tell the people you love how you feel about them.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Writing, Zombies Need Brains

Monday Musings: It ALWAYS Feels Good To Finish a Book

I could have ended this post at the title. That really is the point. I have been writing fiction for close to thirty years. I have finished more than thirty novels and as many pieces of short fiction, and yes, each time I complete the first draft of any story, it feels great. Kind of like completing a good workout or reaching the summit on a lengthy hike.

So, what is this new, just-completed novel about?

Well, I can’t really tell you that. I am co-writing with someone — a person of some celebrity who came up with the story concept but left much of the writing to me. Someone who, I will be honest, paid me rather well. And someone who, for now, would rather I said less than more about the story, the book, and our partnership.

I’m fine with that, but it does mean that I can’t answer questions. I’m sorry to keep secrets. Really.

I can tell you that finishing this particular book has felt better than most. In part, that is a consequence of all that my family and I have been through. I finished a novella for Joshua Palmatier at Zombies Need Brains earlier this year, and I’m pleased with how that came out. But this more recent project felt big when I started it. I didn’t know if I was up for writing a full novel.

And it is always a challenge to write in someone else’s world, bringing to life someone else’s characters and plot lines. (As it happens, the Zombie Need Brains story was written in a shared universe, so both of the things I’ve worked on this year have been not entirely my own.) On the one hand, when writing in someone else’s sandbox, I want to honor the creative vision of the person or people who conceived of the world and characters. I feel a sense of responsibility to the original idea and source material (in this case, a script). At the same time, though, I also NEED to feel some ownership in the project. I want to have a creative stake in what I’m writing. Otherwise, the work has no emotional or artistic appeal, and my writing winds up sounding flat.

As many of you know, about fifteen years ago, I wrote the novelization of a script for a major motion picture (I would rather not be more specific . . .). It was a difficult and, frankly, unpleasant process, in large part because I was given no freedom to create. I had to stick to the exact dialogue and narrative presented in the script. I could do some internal monologue, but that was all. This new project was VERY different. My co-writer gave me a good deal of freedom to write the story as I thought it should be written. As this person pointed, movies and their books are often very different. They were fine with that being the case here.

As a result, the book proved to be a great way for me to work my way back into writing after last year. A good deal of the emotional content was already spelled out in the original source material, meaning I didn’t have to do a deep dive into my own emotional world, which I am not yet ready to do. But I could add in some new content, some different characters, some different points of view. And in so doing, I could put my own creative stamp on the finished product. Which I did, quite well, I believe. The resulting story really is a collaboration, a blending of artistic visions.

What’s next for me professionally?

I’m not sure yet. Nancy and I have some travel planned for this year, as well as some long-deferred work on the house and yard. And so I think I will probably take a little break from writing fiction while we tend to other parts of our lives. But that is not to say I don’t have ideas for new stories. I do. I have Thieftaker ideas, I have an old series that I still intend to reissue sometime fairly soon, I even have Fearsson ideas. And I have ideas for stories in universes not-yet-created-or-explored. So, stay tuned.

And thank you for your patience.

Have a great week.

Blogging, D.B. Jackson, David B. Coe, Writing

Monday Musings: How Am I? Well, It’s Complicated…

Back in November, just a few weeks after the death of our older daughter, I wrote of the difficulty I regularly encountered answering the question, “How are you doing?” At the time, my emotional state was a moving target. I didn’t know how I was doing. Not day-to-day, not hour-to-hour. I was as changeable as mountain weather, as fragile as ancient parchment, as vulnerable as a newborn. I was all over the place.

David and daughter AlexIt has now been nearly five months since we lost Alex. I still get the same question — and to be clear, I don’t mind being asked. Not at all. It’s just that I still don’t know how to answer. My friends tell me that five months is nothing, that there is no reason I should have a handle on my emotions already. My therapist says the same. I suppose I should listen to all of them. But I grow impatient with myself. I make my living with words and with emotions. The core of my art is conveying the emotional state of my point of view characters. It’s practically the definition of what a fiction writer does.

And I cannot manage to put into words what I am feeling. Worse, I can’t even explain it to myself. I had a birthday this past week. And birthdays, holidays — those can be tough when grief is fresh. I will always miss hearing from Alex on my birthday, but this was the first one without her, and the sense of loss was particularly keen. (Alex’s birthday is in early May, and already I dread its approach.) But I also had a good day. I had wonderful conversations with family and friends, a lovely dinner with Nancy. And yes, I had comforting memories of conversations with Alex on previous birthdays.

How was I doing that day? I have no idea. Great. Terrible. Okay. Not so well.

I wrote about grief just after New Year’s. Actually, I’ve written about grief a lot in the past year, but in that post in particular I wrote in praise of grief. “We grieve because we have loved,” I said. “We grieve because we remember. And while the ache of our grief dulls and lessens with time, we never stop grieving. Nor would we want to.” I hold to that still. But neither do we want to become mired in our grief. Is that what’s happening to me? I don’t know. Helpful, right? Maybe now you’re starting to grok my frustration.

In the older post I mentioned in the opening graph, I worried about those moments — fairly frequent — when I felt numb. At times more recently, I have felt as though I am emerging from that numbness. And then I’ll find myself back there again, and I’ll have no idea how I got there or when it happened. Memories still ambush me, surprising me with their vividness, stealing my breath, leaving me unable to do much of anything. No, I don’t want to stop grieving. Except when I do. Because, yes, there are times when I wish I didn’t have to grieve at all, when I’m just so tired of feeling this way, whatever “this way” might be. And then another memory warms me, brings a smile, reminding me that grieving really is better than forgetting.

I don’t think the problem is that I haven’t made any progress. I’m not sure there’s a “problem” at all. As I say, friends, family, and people who should know tell me my state of mind is pretty normal for what is an extraordinary circumstance. And then they remind as well of what I already know: There is no “normal” for something like this.

The point of all this? Well, one point is, please don’t stop asking how I’m doing. Really. I appreciate the love and concern behind the question. And the other point is, when I answer with a shrug and an “I’m not really sure,” know that I’m not being evasive. I’m being honest.

Finally, the greater point is that the answer to “How am I doing?” is as complicated and long as a novel, as a relationship, as a parent’s love for his child. I am doing all right, except on those days when I’m not. I am getting work done, except for those times when I can’t. I am eating well, exercising, taking care of myself, letting Nancy take care of me, and doing my best to take care of her. I am not curled up at the bottom of an empty bourbon bottle. I am not spending eighteen hours a day in bed. I am not paralyzed with loss and sadness. But neither am I the embodiment of emotional health. If I was, I think I’d have cause to be worried.

How am I?

I’m okay, thank you for caring. How are you?