Author Guest Post with Lyn McConchie, Some Other Traveller

When the world’s civilizations collapse from a lethal pandemic, being old can mean you have the experience and wisdom to survive and to see that friends and family do as well.

Welcome to one of the April 13th stops on the blog tour for Some Other Traveller by Lyn McConchie with Goddess Fish Promotions. Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for spotlights, reviews, author guest posts, and a giveaway! More on that at the end of this post.

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Author Guest Post

Where Do I Get My Ideas

As an author I get asked – a lot – where do I get my ideas from. My response tends to be along the lines of – where don’t I get them from. From a start, there was the mystery of the disappearing bodies.…

On a small farm, there are invariably minor mysteries. Currently, mine was vanishing bodies. Through lockdown I’d had traps set and had been catching – after the initial influx – about three mice a week. On catching one, I’d remove the body and toss it out of the back door. It stays there until late afternoon when I go out to feed the hens, geese, and Daisy duck, at which time I collect the body or bodies and dispose of them properly.

However, after the original mouse deluge and once that was down to three or four a week, I noticed the bodies were vanishing. The third time that happened it actually dawned on me that this was odd. I’d tossed a body out only an hour ago. Surely the geese hadn’t taken to eating dead mice? (Although there isn’t much I’d put past that lot.) Next time I found a mouse in one of the traps, I tossed the body, and checked. No, the gaggle was parked around the corner. I went out before they started gathering for dinner, and – the body was gone again. Wasn’t that interesting?

I tossed the next body where I could see it from the kitchen window, went out later that day, and it was gone. Whatever was collecting mice was better than I was at this. For two weeks, I tossed out bodies and had them vanish without ever seeing what was doing it. I was spending more time at the kitchen window and still seeing nothing. Week four dawned, and I saw a neighbour while putting my mail out for collection.

We waved, and walked towards each other, pausing six feet apart to exchange gossip. Had I more mice than usual? I assured her I did, what about her? Oh, yes, her little black cat was hauling them in every day. She was a keen mouser because she was “paid” in cat treats for every mouse. And over the last few weeks she’d had twice the usual number. We parted, I went inside, found another dead mouse, laid it out, moved to a window and settled there. I was going to see this one vanish if I had to sit there all day.

A small black shadow slipped from behind my hay barn, padded silently down the path, gathered up the body and disappeared again, all in seconds, and even watching I barely realized what was happening. I sat at the window grinning. The neighbour’s cat had realized I dumped dead mice. She must have checked the path several times a day and grabbed any discarded mouse she found. It was the other part of that which left me chuckling. She then returned home, pranced in yowling “look at me,” and traded her plunder for cat treats.  No wonder my neighbour thought she had more mice than usual. I haven’t told her. I wouldn’t spoil a small cat’s clever plot. But if the mouse influx continues, I’d say by the end of winter, that is going to be a decidedly plumper cat.

Now think about that. Can’t you see an SF or fantasy book, where it’s an alien stealing bodies, or a local wizard? Or a mystery, maybe the bodies are rabbits and you have a starving injured convict in the barn. Where do I find my ideas – everywhere!

About the Book

Some Other Traveller
by Lyn McConchie

Published 23 February 2022

Genre: Post-Apocalyptic
Page Count: 334

When the world’s civilizations collapse from a lethal pandemic, being old can mean you have the experience and wisdom to survive, and to see that friends and family do as well. Donal and Sheila McArn are seventy when most of the world is dying, and they mut hold the line for everything they know. They may not have long, but so long as they live, they’re going to do their best – and anyone against them had better step back. NOW!

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Excerpt

She did another painting on that one’s heels, asking me beforehand of the subject’s character. I had shown her a photograph, taken when Donal and I had returned permanently to the glen. It was of the four of us in our sixties, with Jamie Tamman – eleven years older than our quartet – and had been taken by Janet.

“Why did he really attack the invaders, do you think?” I did my best to explain, and she listened, her eyes on my face as I talked, recalling Jamie in that instant when he rose to fight and die – like a wolf, his teeth in the foes’ throat. That was the painting Joss called Scotland the Brave. It showed a kilted Jamie Tamman, claymore raised as he charged, his mouth open in a shout of defiance, white hair blowing wildly. The enemies he faced were men in modern clothing, stained and ragged, their faces twisted in savage sneers, guns in their hands as they advanced. Above them, the skies were grey clouds, but the sky was blue above Jamie, and he was lit with faint sunshine. The grass under his flying feet showed a brighter green, the sheen on his blade a brighter grey. The picture was painted on a slant, so you saw both sides, and some-one behind him held up the Scottish Flag so that it blew in the wind.

About the Author

Lyn McConchie started writing in 1990 and within a year had short stories and poems published. In 1993, her first book – a humorous true-life work (Farming Daze) about her farm, friends, and animals appeared – this was followed by six others in that series. As a joke between them, a long-time friend of Lyn’s, Andre Norton, was given a book Lyn had written set in one of Andre’s worlds. Andre was impressed with the work and took it to her agents who sold it to Warner books. This led in turn to Lyn writing another six books in Andre’s worlds, which were published either by Warner or TOR. Lyn has won seven short story Muse Medallions from the (International) Cat Writer’s Association, and six Sir Julius Vogel Awards for her books. Since the original book, Lyn has seen almost fifty more books appear plus over three hundred short stories, and says she has no intention of stopping so long as she is able to write.

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Giveaway Alert!

Lyn McConchie will be awarding a $10 Amazon or B&N gift card to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

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