Thanks For Believing In Me Who Believes in Aliens

Now that the designated seasons of giving thanks and believing in Santa Claus and the spirit of Christmas have passed, it’s almost time for new year’s resolutions. But given it’s also what many don’t realize is only the third day of Christmas—of “Twelve Days of Christmas” carol fame—I’m still going to espouse on gifts, and give thanks.

Not the gift of three French hens, which I snark it up about in my first novel (and first Christmas scene) Alienable Rights, but the gift that comes from all those who believe in me enough to support my writing endeavors, including this Luna Moth Woman blog as well as my six Other Worldly novels since 2020 featuring aliens among us. And now the seventh, imminently incoming with the new year, Aliens Watch.

I got the idea for this post from a gift of whimsy I bought myself earlier this month, which is shown in the accompanying photo. Both I and my Other Worldly protagonist Rowan Layne collect coffee mugs, and we also believe in aliens and those diminutive creatures some like to call little green men—though Rowan has seen them but I confess that I have not.

I’d like to think that Greens would gift Rowan with this mug expressing thanks for believing in them, once she became their pal in book two, Feeling Alienated, after gifting them with one of her (and my) rubber stamps that says, “It ain’t easy being green.”

Oftentimes, it’s not easy writing novels and continuing to believe in oneself during the learning process it takes to tackle both your first leap and launch before braving the decision to turn the endeavor into a multi-book series.

It’s also not easy writing books that involve aliens of the extraterrestrial kind. Mostly because these days I cringe at the thought of being lumped in with rightwing conspiracy theorists—who are definitely the bad guys in my Other Worldly story. It’s all too easy to deduce that in real life, hateful bigots would not be singing kumbaya with aliens or advocating for alien rights like Rowan Layne. They would not be thankful for the gifts that aliens and their technology brings to our lives in my novels.

I also somewhat fret that in writing speculative fiction with present-day as opposed to futuristic aliens, I’m nonetheless appearing to write traditional sci-fi when it’s never been my jam of a genre to read. Perhaps that’s why I began branching out into other fantastical realms by the fourth book set mostly in Scotland, Being Alien, to include fairies, unicorns, mermaids, krakens, and shapeshifters.

Now a few more (supposedly) mythological creatures will debut in Aliens Watch. I can’t say for sure that I believe in the actual existence of all the entities I’ve incorporated in this upcoming novel, as many have not been lifelong interests in the way aliens and UFOs are.

And while I’ve seen a UFO and even a ghost, I have no personal experience with these magnificent beings. But that doesn’t mean I can’t believe in the possibility of them…kind of like Santa Claus. One does exist, after all, in a famous early 16th century painting hanging in the National Gallery of Art, which you can learn all about in Aliens Watch as well as the next work in progress, Alien Origins.

Hence, I’d like to say thanks to my readers who have believed in me and the possibilities of my imagination to have gotten me this far. I appreciate you, and believe in you, too. Onward to the new year and the next story. Or, as Rowan recalls in Aliens Watch what we used to say in Austin in our college days, Onward: Thru the fog!