Hilary Sifling-Insomniac Author

Blog

  • I Can’t Afford To Take the Sarah Winchester Approach To Writing.

    Migraines suck, for a variety of reasons.

    Unlike the main character of Amber’s Lure, my migraines are painful. As in, I’d best be locking myself in a dark room for a couple hours and God help you if you disturb me/turn on a light/make noise of any kind. Yeah, that kind of migraine. At least I know what they are now. Previously, my doctor diagnosed them as tension headaches, and gave me muscle relaxers. I had one come on during the school day, and took a pill (having never experiences muscle relaxers before), and hoo boy, I’m pretty sure my last classes of the day thought I was drunk/high/both. And no, I should not have driven home.

    I’m on a proper migraine medication now, Imitrex. Pretty safe, been on the market for decades, but it comes with some less than awesome side effects (like a lot of meds do). It kicks the pain, but leaves a tightness in my jaw and neck (not exactly painful, just weird), a funky disconnected feeling, and it cranks up my blood pressure a bit. I guess it’s worth it. I’m functional on the medication, and I won’t say the side effects are worse than the migraines, but they aren’t the most pleasant.

    Here’s the problem. Every time I take one of those stupid pills, another book pops into my head. If you look at my website, it’s a better than average chance that any given book you see was spawned by that medication. I have no idea why this is. ‘Makes your brain more creative’ is not on the documented list of side effects. This is why I have a backlog of sixteen books in my head. This is why I pray I don’t get migraines, because if I get any more ideas come through, I will be writing until the day I die. I did not intend to take the Sarah Winchester approach to writing, but my cerebrum has apparently decided that’s where we are going. 

    Hilary

  • Slow Fashion For The Win!

    So, I get asked this question a lot, particularly at the beginning of any school year by students who don’t know me yet (or don’t have siblings who had me as a teacher). Why do I always wear dresses, or the occasional skirt/blouse combo, and never pants? I haven’t worn pants, jeans, anything like that to work in years. The only concession I will make is the occasional leggings under a dress, and that is only when my knee is bothering me and I need to wear my brace.

    Partially, it’s a comfort thing. I prefer the feel of dresses and skirts to pants. I wasn’t always this way, but I started to make that shift in college. Partly, it’s a laziness thing. It’s easier to grab one item and throw it on than attempt to coodinate clothes when it’s 6 am and I don’t have my contacts in yet. Fun fact…I’m the next best thing to legally blind without corrective devices. Without them, I can discern color and rough shape. Patterns, not so much. One thing I do to freak my students out is let them try on an older pair of my glasses from 3 prescriptions ago. They are horrified (especially the ones who say ‘my eyes are so bad’). No, sweetie, yours aren’t horrible yet, and mine are worse now than what those glasses show. Mercifully, I stopped deteriorating two years ago, but I’m still considering Lasik at some point. 

    But, I digress.

    Lately, I’ve also taken to wearing only bespoke dresses. Expensive? Yes, much more so than off the rack. Worth it? For me, yes. Here’s my rationale.

    I’m a weird size. The clothing size that fits my bust is usually at least one size too big for everything else. So, I either have to live with that, or get the stuff tailored. Neither option is awesome. 

    The stuff in stores now is garbage quality. As in, wash it a couple of times and it starts to fall apart. Now, is that partially the idea behind fast fashion? Yes. These companies would rather you constantly replace stuff (as in, buy even more) than repair. That, and half the time the fabrics are so thin and shoddy that they don’t take well to repairs anyway. I had one dress from Kohls that, I kid you not, had the whole side seam open up after two washes. I pitched it. It was a 5 dollar clearance dress, but if I had paid full price, I would have been peeved. My husband had a similar incident with a brand new pair of jeans from the same store. A huge hole opened up in the leg, and not even at a seam. It was right in the middle of the leg. I don’t know if there was some massive flaw in the weave, but good lord. Even the clerk who accepted the return was dumbfounded.

    Now, I’m not saying fast fashion doesn’t have its place. For kids’ clothes, it is perfect. They grow so fast that they might get a season or two out of a given garment, so it wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense to spend a lot on something you can’t wear for long. Now, stuff like formalwear, that’s obviously a different story, but for everyday stuff for a middle school kid, fast fashion is the better option. Heck, I look at how quick my two kids grow out of clothes. With my older one, I’m lucky if something fits him for a couple months. And don’t get me started on shoes…

    WIth the bespoke clothes, I can build a relationship with my seamstresses. There’s two I go to almost exclusively, which I will link at the bottom. I pick the dress, send my measurements, and they let me pick the colors and other customizations (hello, pockets!). I am fueling an individual, a small business, rather than some multinational conglomerate that uses sweat shops. One of the designers, Angelina of La Feminite Dress, is also exactly my height, which is a bonus, since I can see exactly where a dress would fall on me. I prefer natural fabrics, and pretty heavily favor linen nowadays. I think I’ve become more sensitive to synthetics ever since I had Beren, and I don’t see that going away. So far, so good with the linen, and I’m branching out into wool and silk blends….we will see how that goes.

    https://www.etsy.com/shop/RoseAndLinen

    Emily is absolutely wonderful to work with! She’s based in Minnesota. She will even sketch out ideas that you have. 

    https://www.etsy.com/shop/LaFeminiteDress

    Angelina is based in Ukraine, and she is a rockstar! Anything you can think of to customize, any color, she can do it. At this point, I’m pretty sure she thinks I’m insane with the amount I order from her, but over half of my wardrobe comes from her shop. I am especially in love with the Ophelia dress.

    Hilary

  • Character Sketch-Natalie Forrester

    I want summer. Now. I have had it with winter, and we are barely halfway through February. Supposedly we are getting belted with ANOTHER winter storm early this week. Blech. Enough is enough. On the plus side, maybe I will get to the halfway mark for Moonstone Wish in the next few days. I won’t finish it before the Chicago conference in March, but I might be two-thirds done by then. Anyhow, here’s a bit about my main female character in Melusine’s Endgame, Natalie Forrester. 

    She’s a paralegal working for the Assistant District Attorney of Manhattan. She’s twenty-five at the beginning of Amber’s Lure, and while not truly antisocial, will not go out of her way to hang out with people she is not close friends with. Going out and drinking with colleagues is not something she normally finds enjoyable, though the one time she does, it is to her benefit. Natalie does not make friends easily. One has to prove that they are trustworthy before she will open up to them. She does have two people she considers close friends, and they are the closest thing she has to family. 

    Romantic life? Nonexistent. Natalie is a more than attractive young woman, though she will not take kindly to remarks about her appearance. She’s five foot six and small framed, with reddish-blonde hair that she normally keeps tied back in a braid-bun. She goes out of her way to make herself look severe and unapproachable, and for the most part, it works. She has her reasons for not wanting people close to her, though again, she will not open up as to those reasons unless she truly trusts someone. 

    Natalie has been on her own for years. She lost her parents to a drunk driver when she was eleven years old, and was placed in the care of her aunt and uncle. While her parents insisted on this placement with the best of intentions, it was to Natalie’s detriment. Those relatives did not welcome a child, and provided for Natalie’s physical needs, and not much else. They threw her out when she dropped out of high school, though that was only their excuse…they had been looking for reasons to not have to deal with a child anymore. It’s not that Natalie was a bad kid (quite the opposite). She simply put too much of a crimp in her aunt and uncle’s lifestyle. 

    Natalie is fiercely independent, and very little scares her. Fear is one of the few ways to get her to lash out physically, though this is a last resort for her…she knows she does not have the physical strength to win a fair fight. 

    Place a stun gun in her hand, however, and she’s more than a match for even a five-century old vampire. 

    Hilary

  • OTMA-The Romanov Sisters

    Another. Freaking. Snow Day.  

    Mother Nature, can you just chill out? I don’t want to still be in school in June.

    Wait…scratch that. Mother Nature, do what ever the opposite of chill out is. We do not need more chill. We need temperatures above fifty Fahrenheit thank-you-very-much.

    Among my research readings are the letters and diaries of Nicholas II’s daughters. Yes, there’s a reason I’m reading these. Yes, it will come into play in Melusine’s Endgame. Bear with me.

    Anastasia is the one that is nearly always remembered (I mean, how many movies have there been at this point?), but her sisters are just as fascinating. In photos, one sees a quartet of modern-day fairy tale princesses, aloof and untouchable. Their writings present a different picture. Each young woman had a unique personality, which gets lost when one only truly hears about one of them. I’ll post a more in-depth analysis once I do a deeper read of each book, but here’s my first impressions of the four Grand Princesses.

    Olga: 

    Smart, sensitive, and your typical oldest child. Perhaps not a natural leader, but not one to be shoved around, either. Musically gifted. A bit of a quick temper, though she seemed to recognize this was a trait she had to work on. Also stubborn, and could be a touch lazy about her studies. A keen desire to help others, and it didn’t really matter who they were. I get the feeling Olga was one of those people who you could tell exactly what she was thinking just by looking at her.  Were she allowed her own path, I could see Olga being a professional musician, though only if the pieces interested her.

    Tatiana:

    Closest in appearance and temperament to her mother, Alexandra. Considered the most classically beautiful of the sisters, and she did enjoy the attention that engendered, though she doesn’t come across as vain in her writing. Like her mother, comes across as distant and aloof, but very different among people she knew well. Along with Anastasia, the most natural leader of the group. Had a talent for hairdressing, and could wear ANYTHING and look amazing in it. Seems pretty unflappable. I could see Tatiana being a hair stylist today, and being the one people run to when ‘oh-my-god-I-forgot-about-prom/hot date/fancy event-and-I-need-my-hair-done-NOW!’ I can see Tatiana parking said person in a chair and working her magic.

    Maria:

    This poor kiddo got a bit lost in the shuffle. She was the middle child (if you count Alexei, her brother), and her writings do indicate she sometimes felt short-changed for attention. Given Alexei’s medical condition and the attention her mother devoted to him, an understandable perspective. A natural with watercolors, and she does seem proud of them (justifiably so…she was pretty dang good!). A more than pretty young woman, and may have given Tatiana some competition for beauty of the family had she gotten a bit older. Quick tempered, like Olga, and easily dominated by her younger sister, Anastasia. Loved kids. I could see her as a preschool teacher or childcare provider today, and loving every second of it.

    Anastasia:

    Oh my word, this young lady. She’s the type that would give a teacher like me fits. Very smart, academically capable like Olga, but lazy and less willing to apply herself. God help you if you got into a verbal argument with her. Clever and creative, and took selfies before we even knew they were a thing. To a degree, overshadowed by her older sisters, especially in terms of appearance (though like Maria, that improved with age). She made up for that perceived lack with her force of personality. Definitely the wild child of the sisters, and the one who got in trouble the most. Deep creative streak. I could see her writing for a living, with a strong bent toward the unhinged (I think something like Ren and Stimpy would appeal to her, if nothing else than to cork her parents off).

    I’ll post more in-depth once I get through each book.

    Hilary

  • Character Sketch-Amber’s Lure

    Rough week for all concerned. My older son got himself a nice case of norovirus. That delightful bug appears to be making the rounds at his school. I’m keeping a loose eye on him as I type this. I think he’s on the mend, and luckily the baby doesn’t seem to have caught it. I’m getting over one of the respiratory things going around my school, and if you want the truth, I’m not sure I entirely kicked the pneumonia from back in November. Gotta love being around the walking petri dishes.

    Since I can’t sleep, here’s a bit about my main male character in Amber’s Lure, Mikhail Romanov.

    He’s Russian, in case the name didn’t tip one off, and pushing five hundred years old. He spent the majority of his life in and around his homeland, though did wander the European continent off and on. He came to the United States shortly after World War Two, and hasn’t left since then. His English is fluent, though if one pays attention, his accent still shows through, particularly if he gets agitated.

    He allowed himself to be turned into a vampire in his early thirties. He had his reasons, and good ones, by his way of thinking. Prior to that, served in Ivan the Terrible’s court as one of his oprichniki, or secret police. Name the atrocity, that group committed it. Repeatedly. These were not nice people by any stretch. Mikhail doesn’t regret any of what he has done. He had (and still has) no reservations about taking someone apart slowly. His one red line is children. Want to get on his bad side in a nanosecond? Harm a child in front of him, or ask him to hurt a kid. That’s a surefire way to find out which afterlife is real. 

    Mikhail is an artist, and his favorite activities are carving amber, and creating jewelry. He has well over a hundred amber carvings sitting over his fireplace. It’s how he relaxes after a long day of drinking wine, running a nightclub, and other less pleasant endeavors. 

    His fashion sense trends toward later Victorian or Edwardian. His preferred outfit is a shirt, pants, and waistcoat. He does own other items (and still has a lot of his clothing from when he was still human), though the occasion rarely arises for him to wear such items. Mikhail will usually stick to darker colors, and my main female character has seen no indication that he owns anything pastel. 

    While he has no regrets, Mikhail does recognize that the past has a tendency to come back and bite a person, especially if one is pushing the five century mark and has done things that would make the most hardened serial killers pale. 

    But other than that, he’s a great guy! Right?

    Hilary

  • The Burning of Troy Opal

    Describing objects with no known images is hard.

    Case in point: The Burning of Troy Opal.

    This stone makes an appearance in Opal Serpent, and is integral to the plot. Here is the problem. No images of this stone exist. No photos, paintings, sketches, nothing. Here’s what makes that more than a bit odd.

    The opal was a gift from Napoleon Bonaparte to his wife, Josephine. It was…impressive. Contemporary sources describe it as being a black opal with loads of red and orange fire, and ranging in size anywhere from 700 to 3,000 carats. Yes, you read that correctly. 3,000. Even if the opal was ‘only’ 700 carats, it was still a massive specimen. There’s confusion as to where it came from. It may have been from Hungary, where most European opals are found. However, the coloration and size is more consistent with the opals that come from Central America. Either way, it was a spectacular gem, and reportedly one of Josephine’s favorite gifts. 

    So why the heck are there no images of this glorious gem? Good question, though I *may* have found one. It does not help that the opal disappears off the face of the earth right around World War Two. The last known location was Vienna, Austria. So, yes, a stone that could be used as a sparkly bludgeon just up and vanished into thin air. I’m sure it’s around somewhere…if the person reading this has the Burning of Troy, help an author out and send a picture? Pretty please? I promise not to share it! I just want to know that I’m on the right track with my descriptions.

    As to the image I may have found? I can’t be certain, but the stones in the portrait look an awful lot like I would expect something like the Burning of Troy to look. What if we aren’t looking for a single stone anymore, but one that was cut down into jewelry? If the image I found is indeed the Burning of Troy, that’s what happened. If they did…wow. The stones in the diadem are cameo carved, a bold move for a gem as fragile as opal. Those things will crack if you so much as look at them crossways. There aren’t a whole lot of orange gemstones out there, and the stones in the diadem, earrings, and necklace aren’t a great match for any of them. The stones appear to be either translucent or opaque, which rules out sapphires, garnets, zircons, topaz, and tourmaline. The closest visual match would be carnelian or coral, and, sorry, I don’t see Josephine wearing something as common as carnelian or coral. Say what you want about her…the lady had fine taste. If this painting does show the Burning of Troy, I would be inclined to believe that the original stone was closer to the 3,000 carat mark. 

    The painting in question is below. Draw your own conclusions!

    Hilary

  • Anastasia Romanovna and Maria Temyrukovna

    Here’s a study in contrasts…Ivan the Terrible’s first two wives, Anastasia Romanovna and Maria Temyrukovna. 

    Age compared to Ivan:

    Anastasia and Ivan were the same age. With Ivan and Maria, there was a 15 or so year age gap. Contrary to what movies and pop culture would have you believe, this age difference wasn’t exactly smiled upon, though it wasn’t uncommon. For example, when Henry VIII (yes, that guy) married Catherine Howard, he was 49 and she was between 17 and 20, though most historians place her on the younger end of that spectrum. Even then, that age difference gave contemporaries the heebie-jeebies. I guess the idea with Ivan and Maria was that she was young enough to have lots of kids? Spoiler alert…that didn’t happen. 

    Appearance:

    Anastasia’s hard to pin down. I’ve found references that say she was middle of the road in terms of beauty, and others that say she was stunning. Most seem to agree that she was auburn-haired, and had a sweet face. No contemporary portraits of her exist, though maybe at some point a reconstruction could be made from her remains. Maria was invariably described as exceedingly beautiful, but again, no contemporary images exist.  Based on where she was from, I would guess that she was dark haired and dark eyed, but that’s a guess on my part.

    Lineage:

    Anastasia’s family was not super high in the hierarchy of things, but respected. Maria was the daughter of a chieftain, so much higher up.

    Religion:

    Both were  Russian Orthodox, though Maria was initially Muslim.

    Personality:

    Anastasia had a calming, moderating influence on Ivan. Every historical source I’ve read agrees to that. She helped rein in the worst of his impulses, and the fact that Ivan started his rule somewhat well can probably be attributed to her. Is that possibly why Ivan chose her as a wife? It wouldn’t be surprising, or would it shock me if the people around Ivan pushed Anastasia. Would Ivan have some kind of psychiatric diagnosis today? Given his behavior, most likely, with bipolar and manic depression coming to mind first. Saying he had a volatile nature and temper would be the most generous way to put it, and the man did not get better with age. 

    Maria is harder to gauge. I recognize that contemporary sources might be biased against her, since she was foreign. However, I have found nothing to indicate that she was a nice person. She has been variously described as witchy, vindictive, illiterate, and manipulative. She was also not nice to Ivan’s children by Anastasia. Again, could some of that be bias? Sure, but she seems to have been as close to the opposite of Anastasia as it gets. She may have been the one who instigated the formation of the Oprichniki, Ivan’s secret police/torturers/executioners/band of psychos. So, yeah, not finding a whole lot positive about her.

    Death:

    Well, they’ve got some common ground here. Both were poisoned. In Maria’s case, it does appear that the poisoning was deliberate, though who was behind that assassination is still a mystery. It might have been Ivan himself, though sources of the time say that he went out of his way to find out who killed Maria, using the oprichniki. I don’t know…it would certainly be within Ivan’s character to poison someone he didn’t like, but Maria also had more than her share of enemies in the court.

    Anastasia also died by poison, specifically, mercury. Her death well and truly sent Ivan off the rails. Lots of people who he even suspected of involvement were killed in nasty ways, and he only got worse from there. For centuries, it was debated if Anastasia’s death by poisoning was accidental or intentional. Mercury was used at the time for medicinal purposes (yes, I know, and this chemistry teacher is internally screaming at that notion), though it was also used as a weapon. A modern forensic examination of her remains showed an abnormally high amount of mercury, which would be more consistent with a deliberate poisoning (though, if she had been taking smaller amounts for a long time, that could explain the level as well…mercury is not easily excreted). If it was deliberate, I would love to know what the culprit was smoking to think that was a good idea to remove the one real restraint on Ivan’s behavior. If they thought he was bad before, and he was certainly no picnic, he got infinitely worse afterward. 

    Hilary

  • Langedouc Grallator Double Dinosaur Track

    Yay 3 day weekend! Also yay from me and my students about the current unit being cut down to half! It’s not a particularly fun topic, and they are looking forward more to the astronomy and evolution units. So am I. Evolution and paleontology is kind of my wheelhouse.  

    The baby finally got over his delightful respiratory infection (probably gotten from either me or his brother) and promptly turned around and got an ear infection. Joy of freaking joys. Luckily for me, he’s really good about taking his medicine. So was his brother, now that I’m thinking about it. 

    A funny thing happened while I was doing research for Moonstone Wish. One of the books I’m reading for reference is a compilation of all of the primary sources on the Beast of Gevaudan. One place came up a few times…Languedouc. Every time it popped up, I swore I recognized the name from somewhere. Then it clicked.  I have a fossil from that region, or more accurately, a trace fossil. It’s a double Grallator track from Languedouc-Roussillon. I picked it up in Evanston, IL years ago.  Here it is. Don’t let the size fool you…this bad boy is heavy.  It almost certainly shows the activity of two animals, as the tracks point in complete opposite direction.

    Isn’t it a beauty?

    Hilary

  • Writer Rewards-Gemstone Bracelet Edition!

    Still getting used to the whole ‘writing 2025’ thing.  Still, nothing like starting the year with three snow days (or rather, icy road days). I know this is going to play hell with the curriculum that I need to cover, but it is what it is. I hope my kids are ready for a wild ride for the next week and a half. 

    On a more cheerful note, I’m about 25k words into Moonstone Wish, the fourth book in Melusine’s Endgame. It’s been fun, though a load of historical research is needed. It’s slower going than I would like, partially due to the research end of things and also because my younger kiddo is sick. Hopefully I can break at least 27k tonight.

    I’m still on the hunt for an obsidian bracelet that I really like. For those who don’t follow me on social media, I’m getting myself a bracelet for each book in Melusine’s Endgame that I finish. Right now, I have the right to wear amber, opal, and lapis. Full confession…I do already have the moonstone one…the seller had a BOGO sale, but I don’t wear it. I’ve been picking out a few of each stone type that I like on Etsy, but I’ve only found one for obsidian that I’m even remotely keen on. I might cheat a little bit and substitute moissanite for diamond, since I’m not wild about diamonds, and moissanite is just so dang cool! 

    Too bad by the end I’ll have something like fifteen bracelets on my left arm. It will be the next closest thing to a gauntlet.

  • New Website!

    1-5-2025

    Good evening, and happy Snow Day!

    Oh, wait, I forgot not everyone is in the Midwest. We just got belted by Winter Storm Blair, and Missouri’s in a State of Emergency. So, I don’t have school tomorrow. I’m sure my students are bouncing off the walls. 

    I’ll post here about the creative process, some books snippets, and life in general. Pretty much, if it’s too long to go on social media, it will be on here. I thought I would post first on how I did my banner graphics for Melusine’s Endgame. Most of them are simply closeups of my own jewelry, and as anyone who knows me well can attest, I’m a bit of a gem dragon. The only ones that are not pieces of mine are ivory (big ick from me…would never own the stuff), and obsidian, since I don’t own any pretty obsidian pieces. Below are the photos I used for Amethyst Mirror.  One is the original photo, and the second is the cropped, close-up version.  Not bad for someone who’s next to useless with computers!

    On a more serious note, stay safe, everyone. The roads are hideous here, and there’s loads of ice under the snow. All four of my greyhounds went on their butts this morning (they’re fine…just the pride got dented). 

    Hilary