I just read a headline that said, “DHS is a Menace,” and practically spit my coffee. My first thought was, Ya think? Also, isn’t that pretty much what I’ve been telling everyone since this dubious and ridiculous—and wholly unnecessary—new department of the federal government was formed in the wake of 9/11, back when its first idiot of a so-called secretary (as in supposed leader at the helm) told those of us living in the DC area to duct tape our houses against a potential chemical weapons attack.
Seriously.
Readers of my Other Worldly novels probably won’t recall at this point that Rowan Layne mentions this duct-tape disaster in Alienable Rights, published back in February 2020, but I’m all too aware as I revamp this first book of the series in hopes of relaunching the story. Now that it’s no longer obsolete and instead highly relevant, in part because…DHS is a menace and anti-immigration idiots are so vile, so toxic, so anti-humane that I am loathe to even read headlines these days, much less the articles that accompany them.
But burying my head in the sand is not an option, though I admit I’m also reading three books at once while revisiting Alienable Rights and moving right along in drafting book eight, Alien Origins—all while I’m still not completely unpacked after moving almost twelve weeks ago. All of which, it turns out, brought me right back to the angst of Homeland Security (I moved a tad too close to the border), and also made me realize I’ve lost a bit of time, much the same that Rowan Layne did in the last book, Aliens Watch.
I was talking to a new (also a writer) friend this weekend and told them Aliens Watch was published last year, but couldn’t recall when. Probably because it wasn’t. It’s true that I put the publishing process in motion late last year, which is why this seventh book in the Other Worldly series literally launched on January 2, 2025. As in this year. And I’d completely spaced that out.
Looking back, I now realize why. Approximately five days later, events unfolded where I was on the phone and simultaneously on my laptop online, looking at real estate in southwestern New Mexico when I saw the house in which I now reside. Ultimately, I made a snap decision that I didn’t want to wait to move. This house literally called to me in the weeks that followed.
As I sit here with mid-August rapidly arriving, it’s a marvel. My plan was ultimately to either relocate by May, or wait until at least September because of the drive across Arizona from Nevada at the height of summer heat. With one house to sell and one to buy, is it any wonder that I never really marketed Aliens Watch or even looked back on it at all? Also, how on earth did the universe align to let me pull all that off—not that there weren’t obstacles! Would that the universe provides similar symmetry for the republication of Alienable Rights. But please let the stars align for me to draft a decent synopsis and pitch first.
Usually when I’m writing the next novel as I am now—because when the creative urge and inspiration strikes, you also go with it—I’ve already reread the last book at least one since its publication, in order to keep me on track with the story line and character details. Not this time.
This time I was unexpectedly galvanized into working further on Alien Origins, and therefore ultimately needing to revisit Aliens Watch this past week, while reading a new fantasy series by Deborah Harkness (as discussed recently in this blog)—I’m still on book two, Shadow of Night, where the timewalking, as it’s called in her novels, has moved from medieval France to London. A bit closer to where I’m fixing to have Rowan Layne time travel some more in medieval Scotland, which brings up the sentiment in this blog post headline, dumfungled. A Scottish word meaning physically or mentally worn out, as in exhausted. Like many of us are by the current fascist regime and its DHS inhumane thuggery.
It turns out that DHS was mentioned in Aliens Watch, too, and not just because there’s an important secondary character throughout the series who was once part of that organization. During opening scenes on the Chesapeake Bay, Rowan Layne is teased not to hold it against the US Coast Guard that they are now part of the reviled DHS because, “You know it isn’t their fault.”
One thing I damn well knew back in 2002 was, organizations that got swept into this new department claiming to make our homeland more secure would all be indelibly damaged by association. One in particular, in addition to the aforementioned Border Patrol, definitely has been, and I’ve decided it will factor into Alien Origins. That organization would be the once renowned and respected—at least by me—US Secret Service. It’d be too much of a spoiler to reveal how I plan to tackle this, but let’s just say that faked assassination attempts are for fascists and I’m one fed up former fed. Not to mention worn out by the constant atrocities committed by current feds.
But they won’t keep me down, keep me from staying informed, or stop me from writing. We all have our ways and means of fighting back, of fighting against injustice, until it’s time to vote. For me the pen will be my mighty, this time partially medieval, sword.