marylowd – Page 66 – Deep Sky Anchor

The Freedom to Do What You Want with Books You Buy

If someone buys a copy of your book, they have every right to rip it into shreds, burn it in a trash can, roll it into cigarettes and smoke it, or scribble swear words on every page, regardless of how you feel about it.

If someone buys a copy of your book, they have every right to prop it up in front of a typewriter and retype it word for word, just for the fun of feeling how their fingers dance as your words flow through them. They have a right to read it out loud to their child. Continue reading “The Freedom to Do What You Want with Books You Buy”

Different Daves

Me: We should watch the movie Dave!

Child: Is that the movie that “I can’t do that for you, Dave” is from?

Me: Okay, we should also watch 2001: A Space Odyssey

Coming Up On Twenty Years

As of next month, I will have been seriously writing for twenty years.

To acknowledge this milestone, I’m brushing up and re-releasing the first three short story collections I self-published nine years ago with new covers and additional stories. Tonight I wrote prefaces for two of them.

Say the Poem

by Mary E. Lowd

A Deep Sky Anchor Original; written on January 25, 2015

Say the poem when it’s dark,
Pick up the fallen star,
The ground rumbles,
Some wishes should not come true.

Expert in a Dying Field

I’ve been listening to a song by The Beth’s called “Expert in a Dying Field” for months and only now realized that it’s really just a breakup song underneath a clever metaphor… as opposed to, you know, genuinely, literally being about your career becoming obsolete.

I’m a little disappointed… Continue reading “Expert in a Dying Field”

Annoyance and Adventure

Elder kid explaining to younger kid how it’s okay that we drove to the wrong school for their first soccer game because it’s an adventure:

“Indiana Jones did not want to be chased by a boulder, but it was awesome. So annoyance is sort of part of adventure.”

Otters In Space 2 – Chapter 33: Papa Fido’s T-Bone Steakery

by Mary E. Lowd

An excerpt from Otters In Space 2: Jupiter, Deadly. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, return to the previous chapter, or skip ahead to Otters In Space 3: Octopus Ascending.

“One district after another elected Alistair Brighton president — beating out both the competition and his own running mate.”

Through the glass of the door, Kipper saw the pointy ears and orange fur of her brother and sister. They faced the other way, seated at a table and watching a television screen on the wall. The screen showed a pug dog gesticulating wildly. Trudith and Lucky also sat at the table, but they seemed preoccupied with something Kipper couldn’t see.

Kipper opened the door quietly. Keith stood behind her. Before going in, Kipper stayed in the doorway and simply listened to the voices of these people she loved and hadn’t seen in so long. Continue reading “Otters In Space 2 – Chapter 33: Papa Fido’s T-Bone Steakery”

Buckaroo Banzai Theme

I love the Buckaroo Banzia theme music. It’s on my Otters In Space playlist. And also, many years ago as a kid at a Star Trek convention, my sister and I got a band to play it for us live by shouting it out as a request. Good memory.

Pre-Ordering Artisinal Plushies

Me: this expensive artisanal plushie will make me perfectly happy and solve all my problems!

Also me: what if this plushie DOESN’T solve all my problems???

Also me: it’s okay; it’ll take months for it to arrive, so that’s months of getting to pretend it will

The Future of Otters In Space

I’ve been feeling kind of lost and directionless lately… and then a friend said to me tonight with a truly bizarre level of matter-of-fact certainty that I should write twelve Otters In Space books. That twelve is the correct length for that series… Continue reading “The Future of Otters In Space”