Novel Updates and a Very Cold Picture for a Hot Day in Austin, Texas

Hello there!

 I have been very hard at work in the last year, crafting not one but two new novels. 

The first one is a sequel to Wolves and Men. Yes! I had originally told myself that there would never be a sequel, but I stand corrected. My manuscript is edit-ready. And the third and final novel to the series is already in the works. 

I am very excited to share the continued story of my characters! 

The sequel mostly focuses on new characters, interwoven with main characters from Wolves and Men. It also revolves around the fictional Willow's Bend wildlife refuge in southeastern Oklahoma's Ouachita mountains. You are going to love it! 

I also have been deeply immersed in the work of getting Wolves and Men back in distribution. As much as I passionately love writing, I passionately despise the minute details of the business side of things. I also deeply resent the negative aspects of social media (don't we all?) and am continuing to wrestle with the problem of how to best share my work with readers, without violating my conscience by encouraging use of something which contains extremely deceptive and harmful side-effects. It may sound as though I'm overreacting, discussing something as common as a microwave as if it were an illegal substance. What else can I disparage? The television? Amazon? Hip-hop? Corn syrup? Well, not today, anyway. 

As mentioned in The Social Dilemma documentary, there are two topics people mention in terms of "using": drugs and social media. I have not used social media in quite a long time, but am aware that the majority of people in fact rely on it as part of the very fabric of their everyday lives. It is deemed absolutely essential to business as well. What was unimaginable to Jane Austen is crucial to today's writers. Perhaps this is so! 

If you have a chance to watch the documentary mentioned above, I highly recommend it. 

Recent Reads: 

The Illumined Heart by Frederica Matthews-Green

Come, Let Us Worship: A Practical Guide to the Divine Liturgy by Patrick B. O'Grady

Currently Reading: 

Know the Faith by Michael Shanbour

The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe

Aggressively Happy by Joy Marie Clarkson

What are you reading this week? 

What books have you recently read that you are just dying to share with someone else? 

Leave a comment below! 

Blessings,

Natasha Wittman

An Unexpected Ending

The End

did not come 

with a big bang, 

a loud clanging, or alarms sounding. 

It did not come with exclamations,

was not followed by echoes of indignation. 

The End 

did not come 

with tornadic force

did not take 

a dramatic course. 

It did not fill you up with rage;

you did not cry out, react or engage

in theatrics as you might have expected. 

It came quietly and slowly,

was punctuated only with two last cups

of coffee touching, like two purring cats,

with quiet murmurings of mutual understanding, 

with long pauses and silent looks held too long. 

It came like the very slow dwindling

of a favorite sad song. 

And then it was over,

and the two cups were one again;

not a multiplication, but subtraction and division.

And it was quiet.

And it was (almost, nearly) okay.

And it was very simply, just

The End. 

Good Cry

Don't be

afraid

to have a life emergency

to live your life with urgency

to be 

big

for yourself

to be love, uninterrupted

to have it on authority

that your light is 

always in the majority, uncontested. 

No, don't

daughter, don't be

afraid.

But if you are,

then go ahead,

and have yourself,

for yourself,

a really good,

good cry. 

Ex Pedite

I freed myself from the footpath:

the old neural pathways remembered,

they had to be interrupted;

new paths formed, 

clearing back the old brush and bracken,

the entanglements perpetually beckoning.

I freed myself but found

that the path was a traffic loop,

the signs all there.

And the breaking away,

the bracken brushed away,

was a practice not unlike 

a new kind of breathing. 

Magnificat

  Josiah holds his skinny teddy bear, named Toothpick, under his arm like a football. He sits in his high chair wearing his snoopy Christmas pajamas in July, eating a bowl of cheerios, scooping them out of his rubber bib with a spoon, while Vivaldi's Magnificat plays in the background, echoing around our nearly empty house as we prepare to move. I'm reminded of the grandeur of the passing moment, the profundity of the details of our lives, the sacredness of life, the gift of breath, the consequences of getting milk in Toothpick's furry ear.     It's been said that one secret of great art is the use of contrasts. It's been said that God the Creator is the ultimate artist. And Oh, how He uses contrasts!     I study the movement of our lives from state to state, from house to house. I study the movement of Josiah's spoon from bowl to mouth, from bib to bear. I study the tapestry and allow myself to be wrapped up in it, enwreathed by its mystery, resting in its music. I study the rhythm of Josiah's sleeping habits, the rhythm of my temper, the movement of the seasons' change, the ebullient flow of mood and thought. I expand with the swelling of the tempo of the Magnificat and hold tight to Antonio's passion, the passion of man, the passion of Mary.     I rise and I rest and I live on these words: My soul doth magnify the Lord.

What I Didn't Mean

i did not mean

to damage the good leaves

when i pinched off blossoms of yesterday

to tear un-gently at the life-source stems

to be cold-hearted, to be rushed and hurried

to hurt the plant i love, to jostle and shake 

the leaves still flavorful, still good. 

But rather meant to un-inhibit life growth

to make space and room for abundance

to be a good gardener, to be grateful 

to steward well, to do only the very most right thing.

Clock Reflections

"He did not want the seasons to change,"

I reflected as I fingered the marigold dead heads, crushing their brown and roasted calendula scent. I could understand, then, as I felt the life-giving sun beat against my forearms, warming my numb-cold sedentary spirit.

I could understand as I felt the atrophied muscles of memory give way to the overflowing generosity of crepe myrtle blossoms and the garden of basil and flowers, and flowering, licorice-scented basil.

(My life had gone to seed, scattered in places I didn't look for, scattered about like lost time.)

But I knew, too, as I watched June’s border collie figure fighting a battle against fleas, that the seasons must change. We must accept the loss of the trees’ verdure with open arms to the next thing, and only the very next thing. We must embrace it until it is taken away again. We must learn this letting go practice, this taking on of something new and frightening, this releasing control of a universe we were never meant to manipulate.

I released the little clocks into the wind. I scattered the soil of time into the air, but took some with me as a token, into my skin, into my wanderer spirit.


I am the recipient of good things. 
I am the endurer of hard things. 
I am Pilgrim; I am Adventurer.


The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.