A Year Without Magic

No, the title of the post doesn't mean I didn't practice magic at all this year, although I did a lot less than usual, to be honest. Today marks the one year anniversary of the day I lost my beloved Magic the Cat, Queen of the Universe. (And then her brother, the gentle giant Mystic, eight days later on the day after their 16th birthdays.) It has been a tough year in many ways, but probably the toughest was that she wasn't here to comfort me when things were bad.

Mystic and Magic as kittens, soon after they came home with me

 I have been fortunate to have many wonderful cats in my life, but the relationship I had with Magic was unlike any I've ever had before. I doubt I'll find it again, although one can always hope.

They got bigger. Especially Mystic.

She was my nearly constant companion--sleeping by my head at night (and nap time),  and was the only true familiar I have ever had. She came to every ritual we did inside.

She looked like a completely black cat, but in the sun you could see she had darker stripes and a gray undercoat. She was so beautiful.

She also supervised my writing, sitting next to me at the computer with her head on the edge of the keyboard (or right in front of the screen, as you can see here), and sitting either next to me or behind my head on the couch when I used the laptop. I haven't written as much or as well since I lost her.

I got the kittens along with their mother Minerva, who I lost the year before, from a local shelter. I went in for one gray kitten, but Magic insisted on coming home with me (and the shelter folks begged me to take Minerva, who was terrified and sickly and completely unadoptable, but loved her kittens more than any mother cat I've ever known). She bossed me around then, and for almost another sixteen years.

The whole family

 As a kitten, she used to leap from the floor to my shoulders (especially so she could supervise me in the kitchen) and continued to do so as an adult until the last few years of her life when arthritis made it impossible.

She was as magical as her name, and I have missed her every day of the past year. The new cats, and 13 year old Angus, are great. But she left a void no other cat can fill. I expect to continue missing her (and her brother) in every day of the year to come, another year without Magic.

Miss you, baby.

 (I should add, lest this seem too sad, that I am beyond grateful that I had them at all, and that I got almost 16 years with them. It was one of the greatest gifts of my life. I can still feel her presence very strongly, mostly in bed at night, which is the only place I also sense Mystic, and sitting behind me on the couch. No doubt she is still supervising me. I'm grateful for that too.)

Updates, Thank You, and an End of Year Blow-Out Giveaway

Well, it has been a hell of a year, hasn't it?

Raise your hand if you're glad it's almost over...

I won't kid you--this was a tough one for me. I lost Magic the Cat and her brother Mystic in early January, then my friend (and stepdaughter's mom) Jo in February, my friend Bethany in October, and one of my favorite artists, Gail, last month. And a friend lost his 10 year old son. Plus I had some unexpected health issues, and frustrations with my writing career, and you know, stuff.

But don't get me wrong. There were a lot of good things too. Time spent with family and friends, including a fun trip to Coastal Magic in February and to Stuart, Florida in September to hang out with my friend Terry (and do research for a book). And I got three new kitties!

On the writing front, I've had a blast working on the upcoming Everyday Witch Oracle Card deck with illustrator Elisabeth Alba, and of course, just signed a contract with St. Martin's Press for a goddess empowerment book for women that I will be starting work on in the new year. I'm hoping to write and self-publish another Baba Yaga book in 2019, too.

I am blessed with great friends, and readers who support me here, and on Facebook and Twitter, and over on my PATREON. I can't even begin to express my gratitude to you all. Authors are nothing without their readers. (Speaking of which, if you've read one of my books this year and liked it, I would be REALLY GRATEFUL if you could zip over to Amazon, Goodreads, or B&N and leave a brief review. Especially for the Little Book of Cat Magic, which only ended up with nine sad little reviews, probably because of the mess that occurred when it came out in October, and for Dangerously Driven, my most recent Riders novella. Pretty please? Thanks in advance!)

As a thank you, I'm going to do one more big blow-out giveaway to end 2018 on a positive note! There are going to be not one, not two, but FIVE prizes, so more people will have a chance to win. Check out this pile of goodies.

All the prizes!

The grand prize is a Fire Tablet! (You know, so you have something to read my books on...). There is also a $10 Amazon gift card (so you can buy more books), and signed copies of A Year and a Day of Everyday Witchcraft (to start your year off right), Circle, Coven & Grove (my first book), and Reinventing Ruby (my contemporary foodie romance). Plus some fun bookmarks and things.

But wait, you might say, two of those covers look different! Good eye. Thanks to my assistant Sierra, we've finally got Circle, Coven & Grove out in PRINT (I got my rights back from Llewellyn when it went out of print, but we hadn't gotten around to putting out a print version with the new cover by Mickie Mueller until now), and changed the cover of REINVENTING RUBY to something we thought better reflected it's romance themes. Don't they look great?

Ta da!

What do you think?

Tell me what the best part of 2018 was for you--and I hope to see you in 2019. Thanks again!

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