Tempers flaring?

'The Flowers of the Forest' plays in my head when I read this ... Lament of Sidhelagh

Was it so long ago

We danced in the early dew

Loving the dawning

With everything new

Was it so far from here

We danced in the dawning

now ‘tis the gloaming

and darkness is near

where now the singing

or melodies ringing

horses are screaming

eagles on  the wing

to battle  to battle

so sound the Horns

bells  add their crying

darkness draws nigh

where now hearth-home

where our sweet bairns

where our true mates

ah – we mourn

grieving and fighting

no new daylighting

side by side fighting

holding the day

 holding and holding

holding lest faith should fall

where now the future

for which we risk all

we fall and we fall

who now to stand

tomorrow tomorrow

now in your hand

I fall oh I fall

Hear now my voice

Hard in your ear

Stand you must stand

Kiss now my daughters

Hold close my own

Tell them their mother

Has gone down

Give them big boots

tell them they must  grow the feet

to stand in those boots proud and tall

and to hold

to hold

to hold

Overwhelmed? Underwhelmed? QUACK!

Sometimes Ya Just Gotta ...

DO A LITTLE QUACKING!

When you're speechless ... 

but want to say something ... 

It's all in the delivery, you know.

Not what you say, but how you say it.

When MammTwo of Tarnos was getting rounder by the day and the fire-headed Cousin Twins Samm and Sarr were yet littles, they followed their beloved aunt everywhere, waddling in her pregnant wake - quacking - and so a family tradition was born, along with LittleMamm of course. 

Now this is a sort of silly fun thing here, the quacking. BUT - as it says above, the key lies not in the quack itself but in the delivery of it.

Call it a social experiment.

I want to see people quacking at one another, in real life, not just electronically.

One simple little, silly little, word ... and communication (audible communication) happens. 

Type quack into a device and all you have is a word.

Say quack with a bounce in your waggle and a lilt in your voice and you convey happiness or merriment, laughter and joy.

Say the same word with a half-hearted little tail wag and a down-turned face, and you're telling someone you could probably use a hug right now.

Waddle confidently into a meeting, look your people in the eye, and quack at them with authority in your voice and you're going to get their attention.

In the middle of an argument, where nobody's listening to ANYBODY, let loose with a loud QUACK and guess what. Everyone's liable to shut up and stare at you. Quack again with a smile, and someone might quack back - which puts a stop to the argument and gives everyone a chance to start over - with smiles instead of scowls.

Just sayin'.

Interpersonal communication is becoming less and less inter'personal'. And real communication is going out the window.

So give a quack now and then, just because.

You can say a lot with one quack.

Here's a Good Story, Whether We're Related or Not: My Version of the Story

It seems that, back in the day, there was a bit of a ruckus about whether or not it was all right for some Cameron folk to just up and move onto someone else's land to live.

The Davidsons didn't think that was a neighborly thing for them to have done and wanted them to move themselves back on home.

Well, the Camerons liked it where they were and didn't want to go back home.

So the Davidsons, who were part of the Chattan Clan group, got together with some MacPhersons and some MacIntoshs to encourage them to hasten on their way but those Camerons weren't hastening anywhere in any great big hurry.

A squabble came up over which family, the Davidsons or the MacPhersons, would get the lead spot in the coming fray. The head Chattan Chief, a MacIntosh, had to decide and chose the Davidsons; the MacPhersons got their knickers in a knot and walked clean out of the fight, which took a good many Davidson lives on that day.

That evening, the MacIntosh Chattan Chief sent his bard to the MacPhersons, singing a very sad and mournful song about people who just turned their backs while their friends and families were getting slaughtered, including the Chief of the Davidsons and seven of his sons.

That song upset the MacPhersons so much that they up and, that very night, hied themselves to the Cameron camp and did some slaughtering of their own; it didn't bring back the dead but at least got them out of hot water with the Chattan, so it was all good.  

Well, not so much for the dead guys, but at least they had been avenged.  

Now the Davidson Chief's family was left with only a daughter who couldn't become Chief, and a little son who was too young - so the Davidsons had no leader (until that boy grew up) and hardly any warrior men left.

Skip ahead about a decade, which is where it gets interesting for me since I was looking up my Grandmother's MacGowan branch when I found this story.  

The fighting between Chattan and Cameron just kept on keeping on until finally the King stepped in and said that's just about enough of THAT.  I reckon he didn't much appreciate the fact that some of his best warriors were picking each other off right and left when he might want to call them to fight HIS fights.  

So he tells them to each pick 30 champions to meet and fight it out once and for all in a trial by combat, right?

And of course they agree and it's all fine and dandy.

Except that one of the Chattan men got so sick that he couldn't fight.  

Well now.

The Camerons flat refused to pick one of their men to sit it out, and the Chattan contingent flat refused to fight short-handed so there they sat.

Finally somebody hollered out to the spectators wanting to know if there was one among them who would fill the empty Chattan place.

One guy jumped over the retaining wall and said he'd do it if he could basically become one of the Chattan group if he survived, and they said sure okay.

Now this guy was a big brawny man, strong as all get-out seeing as he was a smith and fit as a fiddle.  

They do say that he was among the first to draw Cameron blood on that day, and he WAS among the survivors of the Chattan who watched the lonely survivor of the Camerons run away to swim across the Tay to safety (or maybe to hide his face).  

And from that day to this there have been MacGowans among the Chattan.

You see, the name MacGowan comes from Mac s'Ghobhann, just spelled more the way it sounds ... and ghobhann means 'smith' ... so the courage and audacity and confidence of that one man has carried his family on for all of this time.  

I have no idea whether or not my grandmother's MacGowan family stems from that line or not, and it doesn't matter.  

The story makes for a fine telling, and MAYBE there's a connection.

A famous writer told a version of this story long ago, namely one Sir Walter Scott.

More recently, another writer has shared the above story in the long version that has all the background and stuff, one Matthew Dawson who affiliates with the Davidsons in the States.  He presents his story clearly, relatively concisely, and it's a good one that makes sense.

Just to put a clincher on this whole thing, it was while I was looking up another branch of the family, Day by name (on my grandfather's side), that the Davidson Clan (Clan Dhai) connection came up, and the MacPhersons, and the MacGowan name by association, which I recognized and thought hey that's kind of cool. So I looked it up.

And I take it back about that being the clincher.  That's not the clincher.

It was in the lineage of that same grandmother that I found a clan connection with Cameron. 

500 years it took for that peace to be made? 

No, that's not the clincher, either.  

The clincher is ... drum roll please ... before my sister poked me into looking back into our family tree, I started writing the books of They Are My Song and spent literally days on end looking up stuff about the Scottish Wildcat, totally fascinated by it and wanting to include it in my stories. 

As part of that research of course there was reference to the cat that tops the Chattan arms in most if not all of its branches. Didn't think much of it, except for liking the heck out of it, as that part of Scotland wasn't part of my books, at least it wasn't yet then. But I did give Mamm a cat named Catan, a mighty big cat, who is tamed only by Mamm's magic.

To have become so fascinated by the Scottish Wildcat, and to have nodded and smiled at reading: Touch not the cat bot a glove ... I found and loved the cat long before I realized that there might be a remote possibility of a connection, let alone a double connection, however far removed.

THAT, my friend, is (for me) the clincher.  

*laughing*

I spend about half of my time in the Albann of 487/8 AD, writing my books - so I find myself wondering: all this stuff, this story I found, which took place in 1396 ... is it in my past, or in my future?  

Yeah, I'm strange that way.

Wait until you see my wonderment about the Yew Tree. I think I'd better post that one in my Mystic blog ...

ALIANORA OF DUNNOTTAR

Still got a little fixin' to do but Alia's coming right along.

Alianora of Dunnottar and her husband Drustann are the Leaders of our little Dunnottar group. He hails from the Orkneys and they met in training on Iona. He's an architect and she's a natural when it comes to dealing with people. At the beginning of They Are My Song, the two of them have just gotten back from their extensive travels and advanced education, bringing with them their daughter Merri and their son Dothann. Their Voices Sing of Faith in the Song of the Trinity.

And so WHAT if I use a lot of 'F' words in my books !?

I was at our local County Fair, selling and signing books, right?

Yeah, I was - and it was a lot of fun, too! Got to see and talk to a bunch of people I hadn't seen in years and met a bunch of new ones to boot. It was a hoot I tell you, a great time!

Mostly the focus was on Small Town USA, because that book is about this particular County and these particular communities here.

But I had along the Mamm Books that I had finished (copies of Iona got here just in time; Mamm of Dunnnottar was not even begun yet). And I wore my Sidhelagh clothes. Her wardrobe is much more comfortable than mine, I have to say.

Anyhow, I got asked about the Mamm Books quite a bit so did a little explaining, a big part of which involved those 'F' words.

A group of young adults, not from around here and I have no idea where they WERE from, were curious and interested ... and apparently the 'F' words stuck in their heads because I saw a couple of them again and they grinned when they saw me and said, 'You're the one who uses all those 'F' words!'

And I laughed and said, 'Yep! Do you remember what they are?'

Now I was only teasing them, didn't really expect them to have even thought twice about it.

But they surprised the heck out of me when they promptly and accurately rattled them right off!

Faith
Family
Friendship
Freedom
the Future

AND drew the circles in the air with forefingers as they recited them!

It still makes me smile.

I kind of like being 'the gramma lady who uses 'F' words a lot' ...

JUST SET MYSELF AN ALARM

Sometimes I get so wrapped up in whatever I'm researching, or writing, that I totally lose track of the time and the next thing you know the morning sun is shining bright outside my windows. 

So I decided to set myself a 'GO TO SLEEP RIGHT NOW' alarm.

My bedtime alarm is set for two in the morning - mainly because I've gotten so used to working 3-11 that it's a natural time for me to be winding down.

If you work 9-5 or 8-4 or 7-3, do you get home and go straight to bed? I doubt it. 

It takes a while to settle myself, even if I'm dead on my feet exhausted. Going straight to bed is a waste of time since I can't fall right to sleep anyhow.

So I give myself permission to stay up late - and just lately I've been staying up way TOO late.

Getting home between 2330 and midnight, a couple of hours to shift gears ought to be all I need, right? One would think so.

Working this shift (3-11) actually fits pretty well with my natural inclination to work late.

When a person's work day is not exactly like most people's work days, the whole rhythm of their life kind of fits itself around that schedule.

We don't get up, wash up, have breakfast, get dressed, go out the door, work, then come home for supper, do stuff for a few hours, and go to bed at a reasonable time.

We get up, do stuff for a few hours, eat, maybe grab a power nap, wash up, get ready for work, work, do stuff for a couple of hours, and go to bed in the middle of the night.

When I stay up until sunrise, there go those first few hours of doing stuff, out the window- the 'extra' hours I put in after work end up making me more tired all the way around - and aren't as effective a use of my time as they could be because I'm going into them already exhausted from eight hours of pretty hard work. 

These past couple of months I've put in more shifts than I wanted to, so had to make up the 'lost' days on my in-between days off ... eighteen hour days spliced into 'regular' shift-work days have been necessary but they aren't exactly good for me. They've cost me more than I should have had to pay and almost more than I could afford to pay - not in dollars and cents but in physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion. 

So.

No more extra shift-work for this woman (got the schedule thing straightened out thank God), and a more regular daily schedule - one that doesn't include staying up ALL night - leaving myself permission for an occasional all-nighter because I know full well that those are bound to happen.

Still, setting a GO TO BED alarm might help me to remember that whatever I'm doing can be done tomorrow. 

The writing itself (the books) - that can sometimes be a different story. There ARE times that the flow of the writing will have veto power and I'll stay with it for as long as it takes and THEN rest. There ARE going to be times that I'm definitely not going to hear my alarm and say oops time for bed - not if I'm in the middle of something whose flow will be lost and probably not found again if I just stop suddenly. 

Right now, however, the only things I'm likely to be writing for the next while are press releases, blog posts, journal entries, possibly some poetry, and short stories ... none of which are long enough or complicated enough to require the massive writing hours that a long story line and a looming deadline entails (not to mention the unwillingness/inability to stop except at a logical stopping point).

I've just hit the snooze button on my alarm.

Heh heh.

It will remind me again in a few minutes, with a nice little harp ripple rather than a jarring 'WAKE UP! GET READY FOR WORK OR YOU'LL BE LATE!'

And yeah, of course I realize that I can just turn it off and keep on going - but I also realize that my brain and body are going to perform better if I give them some rest. 

yaaaaaawn ... 

Good night, this woman is tired now and going to bed so that she won't be even more tired tomorrow and can maybe tend to business and get things done.

Time to put my work boots on

Yep.

It's well past time for me to have put my work boots on and get on with what I'm supposed to be doing instead of what I AM doing.

*laughing*

But ... but ... all THIS stuff has to get done TOO, you know!

That it does, but not right this very minute.

Sorry, Not Ready To Tackle Audio Yet

Holy Buckets!

I went to check the process of doing audiobooks and spent most of the night figuring out that no, I'm not ready to go there quite right now.

So ... 

For those of you who have been asking, it's gonna be a while. 

The whole process is fascinating, though. And it probably won't be as confusingly complicated once I get into studying up on it a little more.

The good news is that I surely DO have all audio rights, so can do what I want with them without any conflict with the print/ebooks.

Maybe I'll start practicing with some of our old kid stories from way back, the Bandanas and the others we did clear back when Ian was a tot and Tess and Heather weren't even here yet. IF I can find them. 

That would be pure FUN I think!  

They're just very short little things, so would be a good beginning point. 

Those, and the Vignettes (Victor and otherwise). 

Hmmm...

Now to find the time.

WILL WONDERS NEVER CEASE?

Now, I'm not altogether sure I ought to be doing this but what the heck.

In the past weeks, since even before Mamm of Dunnottar was finished, the next set of books has been taking root and growing. 

Leave it to my Characters to throw my best-laid plans into the wind.

I tell ya.

And that's EXACTLY what they did.

My INFJ mind is going to work here, so either click out or bear with me, whichever best suits you. 

Back when I was fretting about the presentation of SONG, wanting to present in reverse order (not knowing at the time that the other books were about ready to start their Story) someone on one of the forums suggested starting in the middle.

I left SONG as it was but it turns out that SONG really was 'starting in the middle' - kind of - as it is both the beginning of one story-line and the ending of the second in the Mamm Books.

The PLAN was to, chronologically, bring the Story up to the present (our own present) in increments of about 300 years with the Characters telling it turn and turn about in their own books.

I might still do that - or a variation of it - but guess what.

Danann and Sidhelagh were slated to be last in line because they're in Atonement, right?

Well, their 'Story' had to be the Future as the rest of the Characters' Stories bring us smack up to now.

And they flat refuse to wait and let the others go first. They're right, too. They ARE next in seniority and status, after Mamm.

I was going to wait to write their Story for a while, but ... well ... I'm only just a lowly recording device and they outrank me. 

So I've been mulling.

1500 years in the past, that's the time of the Mamm Books - Perth, Tarnos, Iona, Dunnottar, SONG. So logically speaking, Danann and Sidhelagh ought to be 1500 years in the future.

Running across Zoltan Istvan again at this particular time is serendipitous indeed. 

His 'futuristic' outlook is exactly what I need right now so it's happy I am to be able to learn as I go here.

People ask me: What would your Characters think about the way things are now, as opposed to what they were like back then?

I don't know - haven't asked them as I was going to lead up to that whole thing via the intervening books.

And now I'm liable to get their opinions about today, all right - from the perspective of 1500 years from now.

I think I feel a headache coming on.

YIPES!

Went to update stuff on my Google thing, right? 15 months of 'living 1500 years in the past' has a way of keeping me out of touch.

It's been a while since I thought to check on it.

And Holy Moly!

Going down the news feed list there I am, as totally expected since it's my own site, with Zoltan Istvan's MUCH more major, high-profile things interspersed between the Mamm Books and such.

I had to laugh: futurist, pastist, futurist, pastist - like 1-2-1-2-1-2 all lined up! 

And then, me being me, I really did have to stop and think.

We are now about 1500 years 'in the'future' from the time of the Mamm books.

1500 years from now our cultures and societies will be as ancient as those times are to us now.

And, you know, I can't help wondering ... 

Updated Sites and Stuff, at leat some of them

Amazon Author Page

amazon.com/author/shiela

Life was going right along nice as could be, thank you very much.

Then a mystic experience from years ago was re-ignited when I found on line what I had always thought to be an imaginary place.

Me being me, I had to research it and find out where it was and why on earth it might be important to me.

An art project turned into a book when I gave one of the Characters a Voice with which to narrate 'first-person' accounts of the captions for the art project.

Me being me, I wanted to know what came before that Story, and what happened next.

Having generous although sometimes attitudinal Characters, I found out in the Mamm Books of They Are My Song. Using dual story-lines was handy in a couple of ways: 1) I got to know the Before and the After at one time; and 2) they bring the Story full circle.

I'm still a little spooked at finding out that things I 'made up' about the Dark Ages of these stories aren't at all 'made up' - but I'm getting used to it.

Twitter

  

https://twitter.com/Sidhelagh

The Mamm Books: Are we twisting the Balance of our Legacy? http://shielabranson.blogspot.com  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=598MBCGRMbI&feature=youtu.be … pic.twitter.com/ZiWFFFVQAl

 

YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCchp-

EdR3l9Fi1Ehq4h1Ueg

A random general search popped this one up!

Bismarck State College - cyclopaedia.net

www.cyclopaedia.fr/wiki/Bismarck_State_College

Résultats pour "Bismarck State College" sur Internet, dans les universités et ... AuthorShiela Branson offers a glimpse into the busier-than-you'd-expect life of ...

Book Trailer for the Mamm Books - first draft on this one ...

Hmm ...

Click on the link and see what you think of my experiment in Book Trailers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=598MBCGRMbI&feature=youtu.be

Here's another one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llr3t8voH2A


They're actually pretty fun to make when it comes right down to it!

Me, I'm hoping that against all odds I'll find the time to do some more of them, learning as I go until I get them right. 

It's a whole new thing for me and I kind of like it, but it's time-consuming. 

Just coming up with a general idea of what I want to present is a challenge, then comes the digging through my files of photos (can't use anyone else's without getting their official permission, which I most generally don't have time to do), then editing the photos so they're just right, then getting them lined up the way I want them, entering them into the program, setting the transitions and lengths of display, then adding text (although adding some to the still photos is something I do too) and deciding how I want THAT to display, and then the search is on for just the right kind of music, of the right length, and then getting the whole thing from being a project file into a final 'movie' file so I can actually do something with it. 

Then realizing something's wrong and having to go back to the original file to re-do it and having to re-locate all the photos that have mysteriously migrated in the meantime.

One thing I've found has helped a lot - and that is a suggestion I came across on one of the CreateSpace forums: about 'pitching' your book, the assignment was something called an 'elevator pitch'. 

One short sentence that gives the main gist of your book, something you could quickly respond with if someone on an elevator asked you about it - someone you may or may not ever see again but whom you want to be interested enough to take the next step and check out your book when they get time.

So it's got to be something that will stick in that person's mind, pique their curiosity, and give them enough information to be able to find your book.

And it just so happens that this is something I am TERRIBLE at. 

It doesn't help much that my Characters have landed me with a set of five books, either. It means I've got to pitch the set of them instead of just one. 

The same goes for making the Trailers.

People have to know that this is a set; each can be read independently but the Story runs through all of them. It doesn't really matter much which book you begin with - the circle will complete itself - but Mamm of Perth is generally the one everybody wants to start out with.

So.

There are any number of things that could be a focus.

There are the five individual books; the Symbol of the interlocked five circles of Faith, Family, Friendship, Freedom, and the Future which represent the Legacy; the SONG itself consisting of Choice (the Yew Tree) - Creation, Life, Death, Eternity (the Spiral) - Peace (the Dove) - Faith (the Celtic Cross) - Healing (the traditional Staff w/Snakes) - Hope (Rainbows)- Love (Bells) - Unity (the Circle); sunrises and sunsets; clouds; fire; sword; the circular nature of this set of books; the warning symbolized by the double spiral; the Spiral itself (PHI, Fibonacci, the Balance between enough but not too much); the 'history' of the times and the places; the Characters themselves; the significance of the heirloom oaken box and the messages it carries; the mystic quality of the Sidhe and other elements of the Story; fact vs fiction; . . . 

And how is a person supposed to decide?!?

The principle is the same for both the Trailer and the 'elevator pitch'.

'Pitch' as in 'sales pitch' by the way.

When someone asks me, 'What are your books about?' the whole bloody list goes through my head, plus some, and I'm flummoxed and look like a total idiot.

Because I'm supposed to 1) know what my own books are about for cryin' out loud and 2) be able to make someone want to buy them in thirty seconds tops, preferably fifteen.

AAAUUUGH!!!!!

The simple answer might be: Christianity and the Fall of the Roman Empire - but that doesn't exactly cover it.

It might be: A family struggling to protect and preserve their Legacy.

Maybe: A-holes trying to take over the world, first by force and then by manipulation, and what happens to those who resist.

Or answer with a question: What do the Dark Ages have to do with Today?

How about: Mystic Mythology Mixed with the Marvelous Mind of Mankind?

Maybe simply: Choices

How the heck am I supposed to know?

Geez.

AND how am I supposed to know whether to go with the Story line or the meanings behind it?

AND am I supposed to explain who the Sidhe are, and the Perchtanne (or Picts),  the Angles, the Celts, the Fienne ... ?

Blah blah blah.

Waaaaaaah ... it's five in the morning (again). This woman is going to go take a power nap.

I hope.

The last time I did that it turned into an epiphany of sorts regarding the relativity of the Fall of the Roman Empire to Current Events or some such.

Really.

All I want is to go to sleep and wake up feeling refreshed and energized without wondering if the Universe really is unfolding as it should or if we've managed to totally mess up the whole thing beyond salvage (at least our own little part of it, which is all we've got, you know).

The Lament of Sidhelagh

Was it so long ago

We danced in the early dew

Loving the dawning

With everything new

Was it so far from here

We danced in the dawning

now ‘tis the gloaming

and darkness is near

where now the singing

or melodies ringing

horses are screaming

eagles on  the wing

to battle  to battle

so sound the Horns

bells  add their crying

darkness draws nigh

where now hearth-home

where our sweet bairns

where our true mates

ah – we mourn

grieving and fighting

no new daylighting

side by side fighting

holding the day

 holding and holding

holding lest faith should fall

where now the future

for which we risk all

we fall and we fall

who now to stand

tomorrow tomorrow

now in your hand

I fall oh I fall

Hear now my voice

Hard in your ear

Stand you must stand

Kiss now my daughters

Hold close my own

Tell them their mother

Has gone down

Give them big boots

tell them they must  grow the feet

to stand in those boots proud and tall

and to hold

to hold

to hold

THE FOURTH GENERATION: MAMM OF DUNNOTTAR

Only daughter of LittleMamm and David of Iona, Mamm’s Story alone is long and complex – and exciting.

It is Mamm of Dunnottar who tells the Story of the generations of Keepers of the under-bed storage chest, carved from the wood of one of the oaks of Dunnottar by her great-grandmother Mamm of Perth many and many a year ago.

She becomes Keeper at a very young age when LittleMamm and David must finally Answer their Call to the Far Western Lands.

Her two eldest brothers, Davidson of Chattan and LittleEthan of Tarnos, have in their Keeping the holdings in Chattan of Albann and in Tarnos of Gaul. Her brother Ataulf is less than a year older than she, and the two of them are dedicated to the Holy Trinity.

Raised on Dunnottar, with the first years of their training provided by their parents themselves, LittleMamm and David, this sister and brother have Destinies that carry them far from Albann and Dunnottar, into the death-throes of the Roman Empire.

Mamm’s husband Alaric has a Destiny of his own to Choose and to fulfill, and she is at his side while he does it, along with her brother Ataulf.

When Samm and Sarr bring Wally of the West, the siblings are finally able to reunite and their Destinies intertwine. Although LittleMamm and David have to fulfill their own Destinies in the Far Western Lands, they are aware of certain events in the lives of their offspring, via that connection with Iona which they maintain.

MENTOR AND GUARDIAN OF THE KEEPERS: TALLULLIN OF IONA

Very tall, bald-headed, lean, and perhaps the most Powerful of all the Characters, TallUllin of Iona is Mentor to and Guardian of the Keepers of the under-bed storage chest that has become a family heirloom.

His far-reaching gaze sees more than he shows or tells as he accompanies this family through their adventures.

His true status is rarely revealed and he never seems to change as the generations of this family grow.

It is a mystery but no big secret that TallUllin of Iona is also the TavishUllin of Iona in the other story-line (the ‘present-day’ family of the Mamm Books to whom the generational Story is being told).