I had a fairy-tale childhood, which did not prepare me for reality.
We lived in an old rock house ten miles from the nearest town. The mighty Jacks Fork River—a trickle of spring-fed water winding through remote southern Missouri Ozarks—lay scarcely a mile from my back porch. Tourists hadn’t discovered the area yet, so my sister and I could wander the woods fearing nothing—except snakes and the occasional bear.
We had no phone and only one TV channel. The radio worked—you could get WLS in Chicago on a clear night.
But we had books.
To say Mom was an avid reader is to make avid readers look like slackers. She read A LOT. Bookshelves lined the walls of the guest room, and a To-Read stack from the library always sat in the living room. We got regular shipments from Readers Digest Book clubs and traded books with neighbors and relatives.
She read to me when I was a kid, and I watched her enjoy books from the time I was hatched. Pretty soon, I was reading on my own. From then on, we spent hours in lawn chairs on the cool porch, engrossed in our respective books.
Growing up this way gave me an incredibly skewed opinion of the world. I was supremely disappointed to learn that not many other people in the area valued reading as much as we did. I think it was, at least in part, this disappointment that kept me from writing books sooner than I did.
Oh, I always wrote- from first grade on, I wrote stories, articles for imaginary magazines, and even a Star Trek-inspired Interplanetary Times newsletter. But I didn’t share this stuff with many people.
And then life got in the way: school, work, marriage, kids, a mortgage, and car payments. Writing got shoved into a back room. It was a luxury I seldom took time for, so it languished.
One day, I read a piece of advice that has inspired me ever since. I can’t even remember where I read it, but it changed everything. I’ve paraphrased it here.
“Who were you when you were ten years old? What did you want? What made you happy? What happened to that kid? Find her—she’s still there—and let her remind you what’s important because she is the real you.”
So I went looking for that little girl who lived in the woods and spent her time climbing trees, playing Robin Hood, and mixing potions out of leaves.
I remembered a few things about her. She never combed her hair unless forced, and she wore cut-off shorts all the time. She went barefoot summer and winter. She wrote silly poems and stories. She believed in magic, and she laughed a lot more than I remembered. She had a friend (some said ‘imaginary friend,’ but now I’m not so sure)—a witch named Gibber—who vacationed on the moon every summer and came back on Halloween.
One day, that girl and I made peace with all the time that had passed, all the changes we’d seen, and all the good things and bad things. It turns out I’m still her, and she’s still me.
And we started writing again.
So my advice to you is the same—Find your ten-year-old self and look closely at how far from her/him you’ve strayed. Make peace if you need to. The sooner you bridge the gap, the better.
Your family may think you’ve lost your mind. You’ll find routines just aren’t cutting it, and you’ll make changes, big and small. You’ll float out of whatever rut you’ve fallen in and the way will seem much more manageable, much clearer. Only a few really good friends will understand when you giggle a bit more.
Second childhood? Maybe. But I never really caught on to being an adult anyway.
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Title Zoraida Grey and the Family Stones
Author S.K. Dubois
Genre Paranormal/Urban Fantasy
Book Blurb
How many Scottish witches does it take to stop one small-town fortune teller?
Granny’s dying, but Zoraida can save her with a magic crystal of smoky quartz. Too bad the crystal is in Scotland––in a haunted castle––guarded by mind-reading, psychopathic sorcerers.
Getting inside Castle Logan is easy. Getting out––not so much. Zoraida stumbles into a family feud, uncovers a wicked ancient curse, and finds herself ensorcelled by not one but two handsome Scottish witches. Up to their necks in family intrigue and smack-dab in the middle of a simmering clan war, Zoraida and her best friend Zhu discover Granny hasn’t told them everything.
Not by a long shot.
Excerpt
I survey the view of hazy Arkansas woodland from the window, but I watch her out of the corner of my eye. She looks as she has looked for the twenty-nine years of my life, yet ice crystals grow in my heart. The white light of her essence flickers and flutters like a moth’s wings against the window. What if she really is sick this time?
“Zoraida.” Granny’s voice snaps me to attention. “Stop gawking. I ‘spect you’re already plannin’ my funeral, ain’t you? More’n likely figuring out what you’ll do when I’m dead and you have all of this to yerself.”
I cast my gaze around the one room she calls home. The wood cook stove and sink on the east wall serve as a kitchen. Oak pollen lies in a fine, yellow-green dust, coating dried flowers, bottled herbs, and candles on the stained wooden table. Parchments and books cascade from two frayed wicker chairs onto the rough board floor. The corner of the window screen folds back, torn to allow easy access for cats. With each breeze, Arkansas black flies, freshly hatched and thirsty for blood, swarm in through the hole.
“Yes, Granny.” I swat a fly on my arm before it gnaws to the bone. “I’m living for the day when I can bask in all this luxury. It can’t come soon enough.”
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Author Biography
S.K. Dubois (Sorchia) writes from an airy room at the top of a witchy house in the middle of a piney forest. Her stories overflow with magic, mystery, romance, history, a little whisky, and a cat. She loves a good cup of Earl Grey tea or a small shot of Laphroaig scotch equally and is the obedient thrall of nine cats.
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Title Zoraida Grey and the Voodoo Queen
Author S.K. Dubois
Genre Urban Fantasy
Book Blurb
A Scottish wizard, stripped naked and painted blue—a Voodoo priestess bent on immortality—a yacht-load of Caribbean pirates. What can possibly go wrong?
With her best friend held hostage in a haunted Scottish castle by the magical Logan clan, Zoraida needs help. She can’t trust beguiling but dangerous Shea Logan, and Al, her over-protective ex-boyfriend, doesn’t believe in magic.
Granny says only one creature strikes fear in the blackened hearts of the Logan witches. Trouble is Jock disappeared five centuries ago leaving a trail of destruction across the Gulf of Mexico. Now he’s stepped into a steaming pile of Voodoo.
Can Zoraida drag wayward Jock back to Scotland? And what’s she supposed to do with two men who promise completely different futures?
She’ll need all the magic she can muster to get out of this predicament with her skin-- and her heart-- intact.
Excerpt
Fresh sweat pops out on my forehead. The powdered drug slows my heart, my breathing, my mind. Each second stretches into infinity. Colors spiral around a green face. My eyelids weigh fifty pounds each. I yield to the irresistible need to let them slam shut. Cigarette smoke on her breath. A cold hand on my forehead. I’m helpless, bound, and sedated.
This won’t do.
My toes dig deep into the rich Mississippi silt and curl around the bones of the earth. Ancient, patient life grounds me, reminds me who I am. A molecule at a time, I transmute the drug to saline, a trick I did not learn in high school chemistry. A trick I didn’t know I could do. The effort leaves me gasping but my mind is once again my own. I open my eyes.
“You got de juju in you, bébé.” Azili laughs, red lips wide, teeth white. Her coils tighten. “But I got de juju in me, too.”
This time, I can’t keep her out. Like rising floodwaters, she seeps into every corner. A scream gurgles in my throat and dies.
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Title Zoraida Grey and the Pictish Runes
Author S.K. Dubois
Genre Urban Fantasy
Book Blurb
Hostages in the tower, vampires in the caverns, witches in the drawing room.
Castle Logan lives up to its dark reputation when Zoraida returns to Scotland with vengeance on her mind.
To rescue her best friend forever, she’ll have to use every skill she’s learned. Will it be enough? How can a small-town fortuneteller hope to defeat the powerful witches of Castle Logan? The mysterious black crystal hidden beneath the East Tower offers certain victory––but the price is high.
The last book in the Zoraida Grey Trilogy finds Zoraida pitted against the entire clan of Logan witches. But if they think it’s going to be easy, they've got another think coming.
Excerpt
Dinner guests at Castle Logan look like a traveling Halloween party in search of a human sacrifice. Why am I surprised? A few of them stare at the looming figure of Jock in the doorway, but the majority seem to be people not put off by a giant wizard and his feathery familiar in the foyer.
Castle Logan looks much as I remember it, but I’m changed in more than appearance. The place is as creepy as it ever was. Dark shadows lurk in the upper hallways, a cold mist flows along the floor, and the prickle of magic crawls across my skin like a dozen tiny spiders. The first time I walked into Castle Logan, I had a severe case of the heebie jeebies. Now, the weirdness feels homey. I’m glad to be back.
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Title All the Pretty Knives
Author S.K. Dubois
Genre Paranormal Mystery
Book Blurb
(Coming soon)
Buy Links (including Goodreads and BookBub)
I don’t have a buy link yet, so I’ve included a link to the Books by Sorchia page on my website. Please stay tuned!