Paranormal Reality Shows and Shifting Societal Beliefs--And The Profits

No matter where you turn, it seems like reality entertainment based on the paranormal is everywhere. From long-running television shows like SyFy’s Ghost Hunters to Travel Channel’s Ghost Adventures and Dead Files and YouTube channels run by investigation groups, the options for the paranormal enthusiast are everywhere.

And while a segment of the population is strongly skeptical, a Harris Interactive poll indicates that 51% of the public, including 58% of women, and 65% of those aged 25 to 29 but only 27% of those aged 65 and over, believe in ghosts, while a Live Science article from 2011 indicates that 71% of Americans believe they have experienced some sort of paranormal phenomenon.

The popularity of paranormal-based entertainment seems to reinforce the empirical evidence. These shows are long-lived because the target audience is growing. And now that science is beginning to make a concerted effort to explain paranormal phenomena, that belief is growing. Whereas once, ghost hunting was done by groups seeking knowledge, now it’s big-time entertainment with big-time dollars – and not just in Hollywood. A October 31, 2014 Fortune article entitled “The Boo-tiful Business of Ghost Tourism”by Melissa Locker makes this clear.

Ghost tourism is its own cottage industry that stretches from coast to coast. San Diego’s Whaley House, home of the city’s first public gallows, runs ghost hunts for $50 per investigator with extra-spooky activities running throughout the month of October. Pennsylvania’s Eastern State Penitentiary is a boon for amateur and professional ghost hunters alike. The crumbling prison’s Halloween activities even have corporate sponsors, including the expected (Spirit Halloween stores) and the unexpected (Peanut Chews).

While supernatural attractions are cashing in on the public’s interest in the paranormal, theactual business of paranormal investigations isn’t really a business at all: “It’s a very expensive hobby.”

Paranormal tourism is taking off, and many families are starting to see the appeal.  John Williams of Kennesaw, Georgia took his wife and youngest son on a paranormal vacation last year. “My kid watches paranormal TV shows and was interested. My wife was thinking, ‘Whatever.’ But it was a great bonding experience for us as a family. We went to nine haunted sites in seven states. Best money I’ve ever spent. Great family experience, even though we had no experiences of our own.”

Many allegedly haunted sites offer ghost-hunting overnight stays if you’re an amateur investigator – another side of the ghost tourism business – and haunted location owners are cashing in. For example,The Sallie House in Atchison, Kansas is run by the local Chamber of Commerce and charges $189 per person per night.

Ghost-hunting groups have to pay those fees too, along with the cost of their equipment which can be extremely expensive. The added advantages of new video technology don’t come cheap. One night-vision camera can cost up to $500, while the thermal FLIR camera can cost anywhere from $1,000 to $8,000. These groups have tens of thousands of dollars of equipment without the benefits of a production company’s backing. And as most paranormal groups don’t charge to investigate a site, their hobby is very expensive indeed.

But most people live vicariously through ghost-hunting shows, and not all of those shows are on television. I’ve got a history of shredding poorly done paranormal shows like A&E’s Cursed: The Bell Witch(a legend I am intimately familiar with as I grew up in the area) and Destination America’s laughable Exorcism Live. Even the longest-running television paranormal shows have come under scrutiny amid accusations of faking evidence and hoaxing – both prospects being much easier with production company equipment and the drive to produce payoffs for each weekly episode.

Williams watches both televised ghost-hunting shows and online investigations. “It doesn’t seem like online groups have as much incentive to exaggerate,” he explained. “We love televised programs, but it seems like they would have more motivation to fake stuff. Shows like LiveScifi seem totally sincere.”

I agree. That’s why I believe the best paranormal shows can be found on YouTube. It’s where you’ll discover anything about ghost investigations you could possibly hope for – and in many cases in such a fashion as to preclude the possibility of hoaxing. To these groups, the money is unimportant. What they’re after is information – and knowledge. But you have to know how to negotiate the tangle of groups looking to cash in on the paranormal craze and find the few that balance more on the side of investigation than entertainment.

 
LiveSciFi Bloody Mary Ritual Investigation

One channel I enjoy a great deal is LiveSciFi. LiveSciFi offers a multitude of different investigative styles. Its founder, Tim Wood, does frequent Ouija Board sessions that he live-streams on YouTube. Feeling brave? Here’s a link to the terror. What makes those sessions interesting to me is that he also runs a voice recorder at the same time, and catches multiple EVPs (electronic voice phenomena) in most shows.

But even more interesting are the LiveSciFi live feeds from haunted locations, where viewers can watch uncut, unedited film for 48-72 hours as the investigations are occurring. LSF has done live feeds everywhere, from the infamous Sallie House to the Whispers Estate in Mitchell, Indiana. And for Creepypasta fans, his ritual live streams about legends like Bloody Mary or the Midnight Man are a lot of fun. LiveSciFi is the largest paranormal channel on YouTube with over 300,000 subscribers over its 10-year life span and over a billion views. The Sallie House alone provides hours of binge watching opportunities.

 
Living Dead Paranormal Investigation of Haunted Willow Creek Farm

The Living Dead Paranormal group is another outstanding online option. Comprised of three brothers – Josh, Rocky, and Shaun Fourman, who lived through a serious haunting in their childhood home – and a friend, Jeff Brown, their body of work is impressive. Their investigations are presented as documentaries, with high production values. The two investigations they’ve done at the Monroe house in Hartford City, Indiana are among the best work I’ve seen. (You can find those investigations here and here.) If you’re made of sterner stuff, a recent demonic haunting investigation is guaranteed to make you jumpy.

We’re not talking about Elvira, Mistress of the Dark shows here. We’re talking about regular guys in sweatshirts and jeans, alone in reputedly haunted locations, and only those guys. No tech crew. No directors. No producer hanging out in the background pulling fishing line attached to props. And trust me: You may watch for hours and see not one darn thing, which makes the things you do witness that much more interesting.

I approach most paranormal claims with a healthy dose of skepticism. You have to if you ever intend to sleep with the lights off. I’m not a gullible person, but my life experiences have led me to an interest in the paranormal – a search for validation of things I’ve seen or witnessed that defy logical explanation.

That doesn’t mean that I automatically accept everything I see; in fact, the jury is still out for me on Bigfoot and UFO sightings. I’ve laughed myself silly at some poorly executed hoaxes on television and at many, many paranormal “investigators” I’ve seen on YouTube. Kind of hard not to. Early Most Haunted  shows are great for that, by the way. Never underestimate the comedic possibilities with a Derek Acorah or a Chip Coffey.

But there are groups out there that might make you think – if you know where to look and what to look for. Hint: If the lead investigator looks like a high school sophomore or is obviously costumed in front of a set that looks like The Munsters, it’s probably best to just move on.

If, like me, you find the paranormal fascinating and entertaining, stop looking in your TV Guide and do a check on paranormal YouTube channels. You can experience all the aspects of an investigation from the comfort of your living room, and sometimes even simultaneously with the ghost hunters, without all the curse words getting beeped out. Because they can approach these alleged hauntings without the obligation to get bang for their buck, their credibility factor is higher. And believe me, if nothing has happened during the first three hours of a live stream, you’ll know that too – which is about 99% of what happens during any investigation.

That’s what this boils down to.

Instead of spending thousands of dollars on equipment and insurance, instead of staying up all night and evaluating scores of hours of footage, instead of walking around in the dark with instruments and talking to whatever inhabits an alleged haunted building, paranormal reality shows allow you to investigate without ever leaving your home. That, in turn, inspires some viewers to either explore paranormal tourism, at sites that now are charging fees so people can enjoy them for themselves – or to actively investigate, spending their money on equipment. And even if you stay at home and live secondhand through television, you’re subjected to commercials up to a third of the show’s running time. Paranormal investigating has turned into big profits for everybody involved.

Except the independents, the ones with their YouTube channels and blogs. That’s where the best paranormal reality can be found. But you have to know where to look as much as what to believe. And while each webisode has both creepy moments and uneventful ones, there’s unexpected fun too – the hilarity of finding out a big guy who hunts for ghosts is terrified of birds, or someone walking face-first into the corner of a wall, or sometimes just the nervous laughter that happens after they’ve been spooked. The entertainment factor of these independent channels is undeniable. The reality part I’ll leave to you to decide.

And that’s what paranormal reality shows are changing in our culture.

“My belief has definitely increased. I was a skeptic. I’ve gone from assuming it’s all BS to belief. Watching Ghost Adventures and then LiveSciFi shows – they’re hard to refute,” Williams explained. “In our family, we say, ‘Okay – whether it’s true or not, they seem to believe.’”

Originally published by Blogcritics, July 8, 2016

EXCERPT--The Asphodel Cycle 4: The Apostle of Asphodel

I jumped in front of Mariol, using my blade to keep the ferocious bird-women away while the mage muttered behind me. Before long, several of the Harpies deduced that I had the shortest reach of any of the attackers and converged on Mariol and I, their talons clicking together as they hefted the long spears to their shoulders.

“Any ideas?” I threw back over my shoulder, swiping at a grasping claw.

The Harpy screamed and fell back, blood dripping from her scaly leg. Another soon took her place. Mariol didn’t answer me, mumbling under his breath instead.

“An idea would be really good right about now!” I said more urgently, blocking a thrusting spear with my sword and reversing the blade, snapping the shaft in two so that the obsidian point fell to the floor at my feet.

Mariol grabbed my arm and pushed me aside. Surprised by the unexpected shove, I crashed to the floor with an indignant yell. Before I could clamber to my feet, a ripple of energy detonated over my head. With ragged screams and terrified shrieks, the Harpies tumbled across the chamber to fly against the obsidian walls, falling down heavily to the floor.    

“What did you do?” I asked in amazement.

Instead of answering me, Mariol hauled me to my feet and shoved me toward the nearest Harpy, who was struggling to rise while her wings fluttered around her shoulders. “Go...kill...Harpies!”

The effects of Mariol’s spell, whatever it was, were temporary. As the Harpies flapped around trying to regain their footing, Brial, Wilden, and I attacked them while they were on the ground and presumably weaker. I discovered that their speed of attack was undiminished, although their agility was hampered upon the ground. The first Harpy I confronted hissed at me and I barely avoided the slashing swing of one taloned foot as she lunged for me. Their handicaps lay in the fact that their wings were befouled and tangled, the feathers bent the wrong way and some missing.

But even on her back a Harpy is a formidable foe.

I was able to get close enough to the Harpy to penetrate the frenzied swipes of her claws. Watching the talons carefully and jumping over her flailing wings, I leapt upon her torso and sank my sword to the hilt in her breast. Instead of screaming like a human foe, the Harpy’s eyes dulled and she fell limply off my blade. A second later, I was knocked off my feet as a second Harpy screeched in anguish and launched herself at me.

She hit me hard in the back and I flew several feet through the air with her on me. We landed in the clearing, barely missing the stone bench. As soon as I felt the ground behind my back, I pushed up hard with my legs and the heavy body of the Harpy rolled from my feet and fell some feet away. Without stopping to think, I coiled back up to my feet and went after her.

Somehow, she’d managed to grab one of the spears, and I narrowly avoided being skewered as she thrust it at my mid-section. Sidestepping the spear, I swung the blade and it connected with the soft tissue on the inside of her upper arm. Screaming, she dropped the spear, rolling to her side and pushing herself up with her good hand. More agilely than I would have thought possible, she rose to her clawed feet, one arm dangling at her side, with her wings twisted behind her.

Another detonation sounded behind me, but I had no time to look. The Harpy leapt at me, snarling, one talon extended before her for my throat. I dove to one side, rolled up to my feet and planted my sword in her back between the crippled wings. As with the first, she slid silently to the floor, where she lay face down in the ashes.

I turned back to Mariol. He was under attack by two of the vicious creatures, who clawed ineffectually at the shield he’d erected around himself. I darted back toward him, stooping to pick up a fallen spear. Using it like a javelin, I hurled it at one of the Harpies. The spear struck her side and she screeched in pain, twisting this way and that as she tried to remove it from her flesh. Her companion swung to face me, and for a moment our eyes met.

There was nothing resembling humanity in her stare. She had the same intense glare of any other bird of prey, and it fell unblinkingly on me as I approached her, my sword held before me. I circled around the flailing body of the Harpy I’d felled, who thrashed upon the floor with the spear vibrating as she screamed.

Her attack, when it came, was swift and silent. The only warning I had was the abrupt narrowing of those emotionless golden eyes, then she launched herself into the air. Amazingly, her wings righted themselves and with a single hard flap she hovered above me. Those eyes never left me as the wings furled and she hurtled straight toward me.

A couple of feet away from my unprotected face, however, her headlong dive stopped as if she’d run into a wall. The impact jarred her head back with an audible snap, and the Harpy tumbled to the floor, where she lay dead and sightless at my feet. I turned to look at Mariol. He was pale and sweating, his hand extended toward me still resonating with the power of the shield that he’d shot between us.

Wilden dispatched the still-screeching Harpy I’d speared with an arrow to the throat. When she, too, fell silent, the room echoed with the sudden cessation of noise. I whirled around to look for Brial, and saw him wiping the blade of his sword clean on the feathers of another fallen Harpy. As he straightened, I sagged in relief. He was safe.

To my complete disgust, he grinned at me. “That was fun.”

Wilden snorted, whether in distaste or humor I couldn’t tell, but Mariol’s reaction was spectacular. “

Fun?” he repeated incredulously. “Fun! What would you have called it if we’d had to fight a dragon? Or maybe a tribe of cannibals?”

Brial shrugged. “Entertaining?”

Despite myself, and the carnage around us, I began to laugh weakly. Wilden joined in, his deep chuckle resonating against the obsidian walls with a comforting rumble. We fell against each other, laughing helplessly as we wiped tears from our streaming eyes. Mariol was hyperventilating, his nostrils flaring as he drew in deep breaths in an attempt to calm himself.

Then, the greenish-red flames of the huge, smokeless fire sputtered and went out, and our merriment disappeared with it.

Discouragement Brain--Cheating Authors Prosper on Amazon and This Is How

I have this thing called discouragement brain. 

Musicians, actors, artists, writers, dancers--we're all hypercritical of ourselves. We have to be. Art is a process, not a blast from some supernatural agency waving inspiration over our heads and daring us to catch it. We all edit. And while I edit words, musicians edit notes; dancers, nuance; actors, delivery;  and artists, technique. We have to. In order to create that perfect expression, we must refine until it feels as natural as breathing. 

Discouragement brain happens to everyone in the arts. 

This week has been tough. I've been writing a lot this year. A lot. My current yearly first draft word count exceeded 700,000 words last week. You're reading that correctly. Six full-length novels since January 1. I spend a portion of every day writing, a portion editing, and a portion doing all that other stuff authors have to do. I usually work around sixteen hours a day, seven days a week. Beginning Labor Day weekend, I *might* take Saturdays off--I don't give up college football for anybody. I also edit for a few clients--very picky about who I accept, honestly--and now I'm blogging and writing a sports column too. All that falls into the "other stuff" category.

But I am also self-publishing eight books in eight months, and that's feeding my discouragement brain.

All of this work takes a toll on a writer. Self-publishing is hard and expensive if you're going to do it right, and while it would have been easy to slap a cover on an old manuscript and put it out there that was never an option for me. If I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it right. Each book costs me hundreds of dollars to publish, but at least I know it's a product I can be proud of. 

 And yet--

Doing any part of all this requires confidence, and when discouragement brain rears its ugly head it's hard to justify moving forward. And this week has been that way for me. This week I find myself questioning my own career path. 

Let me explain.

With writing and publishing there is a right way and a wrong way to go about doing things. Right now, there's a growing percentage of self-published authors who are most assuredly making things difficult for everyone else. Aside from the content farmers and the spammers, there's a cross-section of self-published authors who have figured out how to beat the system. High Amazon rankings translate to bigger sales--and a self-published author who does well in sales may be approached by Amazon's publishing wing. The authors who manage that get preferential product placement, advertising, and direct marketing from Amazon--along with editing, standard promotions, professional cover art, etc etc etc. 

Any author wants that. But there's a quirk in the system. You see, on Amazon you don't have to actually buy a product in order to rate and review it. So authors have their friends go in and write tons of positive reviews with five star ratings. The book creeps up the rankings, which in the Amazon sales algorithm (based on the star ratings of the product) gives the book better product placement. 

Which leads to more sales. 

Which leads to more reviews and ratings.

Which leads to more sales. 

It's fascinating, in a sick sort of way, to find a self-published "Amazon bestseller" where all the reviews WITHOUT a verified purchase are glowing, and all the reviews WITH a verified purchase are critical. Even more interesting to me is the fact that after a critical review from a verified purchaser, there's a flurry of glowing reviews from unverified ones. 

Have to counteract that two-star with enough five-stars to keep that book's overall rating up, after all. 

And while the authors who cheat are rewarded, the authors who are doing everything the right way are penalized by a sales algorithm that was created for one purpose. Not to put great books in the hands of readers, but to increase sales for Amazon. They don't give two shakes of a pig's tail if the reviews are given by people who--you know, actually READ the book. All they care about is the obvious--books with high ratings and tons of reviews are easier to sell to more people who see all those huge ratings and erroneously assume the book is GOOD. 

In the meantime, authors who did things the right way, who paid for editing, cover art, formatting, interior design, copyediting, etc. stagger along in the cheaters' wake and wonder what they're doing wrong. 

You know--my writing isn't for everyone. I write genre, I write lots of gory battles, I don't write explicit sex scenes. And I don't self-publish all my work either. My new work goes to my literary agent, who submits them to publishers that are closed to unrepresented authors. I have a backlist of books that were small-press published, and that's what I self-publish. 

But I don't cheat. I don't ask all my friends and social media followers to run off to Amazon and rate/review my book. I don't manipulate the system. 

Hence, discouragement brain. 

Maybe I've been going about this the wrong way. Maybe I should manipulate the system too! Maybe I should get all my friends and acquaintances to run right over to Amazon and rate and review my books. You don't have to buy or read them. Who cares about reading them anyway? Just review them. And then maybe, just maybe, people who actually would enjoy reading my work will actually see my books and maybe, just maybe, they'll buy them.

Sure. Sounds kind of shabby when you put it that way, doesn't it? 

Food for thought. Unfortunately, discouragement brain binge-eats food for thought, and lately even looking at this situation has made my discouragement brain into a glutton. 

Quit Lying To Yourself--It's Theft, Not EPiracy

Stop right now and open up your Downloads folder. Take a look at what’s there. Apps, obviously.  Probably some memes and .gif files – my favorite .gif at the moment is Tommen jumping out of the window, thereby proving how King’s Landing got its name. And then most likely you have music, movie, and eBook files you’ve purchased.

But that’s not what untold thousands of people see. Many Downloads folders are full of music, movie, and eBook files that were not purchased. They were downloaded for free, from pirating sites that stole those files from the copyright holders. I chose the word “stole” deliberately. I realize that most people who download from torrent sites justify their theft by thinking, “It’s a big company. They’ll not miss my money. They’ve taken my money for years. It’s not stealing; it’s sharing.”

Well, no. It’s not. It’s theft, both legally and morally. And if you don’t think the copyright holder is missing the money, let me tell you a story.

I am in the process of self-publishing my backlist, starting with my first fantasy series. This is a reissue – the series was originally published in the late 2000s. However, I decided to get the books back on the market and to do it correctly. I paid to get each book (of the four-book series) re-edited – that was $250 per book. I paid for cover art and design ($140). I paid for formatting  ($80). I paid for promotional art and advertising ($300-$500). Each book has cost me a lot of money – almost $800 per book – money I didn’t begrudge spending because I wanted to make sure the quality of my product was as high as possible. I listed each 600-page book at $3.99, which I think anyone would agree is an extremely fair price.

The third book of that fantasy series was released on Friday afternoon. When I woke up this morning, one e-piracy site had over a thousand free downloads of it. Let’s put that into monetary terms on a personal level. As I am publishing these books myself, I make 70% royalties on each book sale. So those one thousand thefts of my intellectual property literally took $2,800 out of my pocket.

What makes this so sad is that they don’t think of this as theft. For example, from the Huffington Post article E-Piracy: The High Cost of Stolen Books by Karen Dionne:

But most file-sharers see themselves as a community. They believe they offer a useful service, and their hackles go up when authors and publishers take steps to shut their websites down. After one site bowed to pressure and removed their e-books section entirely, hundreds of users bemoaned the loss. One posted a warning: “One word to the Publishers and Authors who created original trouble — Do whatever you want you cannot Stop readers from getting free Ebooks. You people don’t stand a chance against [the] entire Internet. As Long as [the] Internet is alive, we readers will continue to share Ebooks.

Or perhaps this comment, from the article “Is Downloading Really Stealing? The Ethics of Digital Piracy” on The Conversation:

The same is not true when I download a digital file of your copyrighted property. In downloading your film, I have not excluded you from its use, or your ability to benefit from it. I have simply circumvented your ability to exclude me from its use. To draw an analogy, this seems more like trespassing on your land than taking your land away from you.

Criminal sanctions seem warranted in thefts where one person’s gain is very clearly another person’s loss. But things are not so clear when the relationship between gain and loss are [sic] more complex.

And of course there are ways that owners of intellectual property can gain, overall, from infringements of their rights. The more accessible their products become, the more people may want to consume them.

And therein lies the problem. Entitlement. Believe me when I tell you that I do not gain one single benefit if someone steals my intellectual property. A book thief isn’t trespassing on my land. He’s building a house on it and driving over my daffodils. He may enjoy my property and think it’s awesome, but that doesn’t give him the right to be a squatter – to think he is entitled to enjoy my work without somehow compensating me for it in some way. Because trust me – a book thief feels perfectly comfortable emailing me to whine about how a book ended, but will not take the trouble to rate or review that stolen book and thus provide me with some tangible benefit from his theft.

And even that would be like picking daffodils from my yard and giving them to me in a bouquet. Thanks so much.

E-pirates think they are entitled to enjoy an author’s books – books that represent hundreds or thousands of hours of work – for free. I’ve personally had people email me and ask me where they can download my books for free! I’ve had emails from readers who stole my book and then wanted to complain because the next book wasn’t out yet or because I killed their favorite character. God forbid I reply with what I’m really thinking, because then the Twitter outrage begins in 140 characters or less.

“She was so mean to me b/c I torrented her book. Never read her books again.”

Well, darn.

The IP Watchdog site is full of great material regarding copyright theft and piracy, as evidenced by this March 13, 2016 article by bestselling author Rhonda Rees called “An Awareness Crusade Against the Online Piracy of Books”:

According to the Association of American Publishers, the publishing industry as a whole has lost $80 to $100 million dollars to online piracy annually. From 2009 to 2013, the number of e-book Internet piracy alerts that the Authors Guild of America has received from their membership had increased by 300%. During 2014, that number doubled. I’m certain that in 2016, the statistics will go even higher.

I am too. All that being said:

There is a fly in the book thief’s proverbial ointment. Many of the free download links you find when you’re searching for your favorite author’s books to steal have all sorts of nasty little surprises in store for you instead of the actual book – malware, for example, or spam. A nice expensive ransomware likeCryptoLocker might cure a book thief’s criminal habits. At that point it’s either pay the hacker hundreds of bucks or lose all the files on your computer permanently. Some authors might consider that to be poetic justice, and I have to admit, looking at all the stolen copies of my book 36 hours after its release makes that CryptoLocker curse look like a nice little slice of karma.

Might make you wish you’d spent the four bucks instead.

But even if that happens, it’s not vindication for the author. Writers spend hundreds of hours working on their books, typing away in dark little rooms. We create worlds that enable our readers to escape their own for a while. But in the end, we are creating a product for sale, and rely upon those sales to keep working – to create those new worlds.

Think of it this way. What would happen if payday rolled around and your boss said, “We are a community, sharing our work with the world. So instead of paying you for your work, we’re going to give it away for free because the target market for our product is entitled to reap the benefits of what you do without paying for it.”

I can hear the riot beginning from here.

In the end, eBook piracy is a misnomer. The word “pirate” invokes imagery of courageous rebels who sail the seven seas online stealing from the rich. A Robin Hood with sails. That’s not what’s happening here. The proper term is intellectual property theft. Copyright infringement. And yes, it is a crime internationally, thanks to the Berne Convention, of which the U.S. is a signatory nation.

The author’s side of eBook theft doesn’t seem to bother intellectual property thieves, who are busily making money off clicks, malware removal, and ransomware because of illegal book downloads. But that’s not what you should be concerned with. What you should be concerned with is that intellectual property theft, if it continues unchecked, will drive your favorite authors away from continuing to write. And that would be a shame for all of us.

So many stories would remain untold.

Asphodel Meets Modern Fantasy

As I get ready to release the last Asphodel reissue, I'm starting to get excited about the publication of the sequel series. It will be interesting to see how fans of the first series respond to the second. 

Writers mature just like any other professional. As you progress, your writing changes. The Asphodel Cycle was my first fantasy series. The Black Dream is my latest. It was strange, to say the least, to revisit a world I first created as a teenager and wrote in the early 2000s. My voice is stronger, I think, and over a decade as a professional editor has made the writing tighter and cleaner. 

But just as the author matured, so too have my characters. I thought it best to keep the spread of time roughly equal to my own. So my protagonist, who was 18-20 in the first series, is 32-35 in the second, a mother of three, a ruler who's not had to deal with much turmoil since the end of the Ilian War. Fortunately, she's also an Elf so that decade hasn't really aged her all that much. 

Unfortunately for Tamsen, this second series will be punishing. 

I'm older and wiser in the ways of fantasy, and fantasy itself has changed. I literally used to get hate mail when readers thought I was being "mean" to their favorite characters.  Which, to a writer, is a great compliment. But the fact of the matter is that in old school fantasy, a group of heroes could get through an epic quest and emerge relatively unscathed. look at the Belgariad by David Eddings, for example. Only one major character was killed, and he was only dead for less than an hour. Otherwise, there were no consequences for any of those main characters except happily ever afters. 

Don't get me wrong--I love Eddings. Eddings was the first fantasy author I read back in high school, and in fact the world of Asphodel was created as a result. Not because I wanted to emulate Eddings, but because I wanted to see a female protagonist leading a fantasy quest. 

But now, revisiting Asphodel after more than a decade, I knew things would be very different. 

For one thing, Asphodel is Greco-Roman mythology re-imagined in a traditional fantasy setting. Anyone who knows anything about classical mythology knows that there are terrible consequences for mortals who oppose the gods. Tamsen has been living for a decade and a half as the most powerful mortal in the world. The only way to make a second series work is to make that no longer the case. And if her power is challenged on that level, there must be consequences indeed, not just for her but everyone. 

So for those of you asking if characters die in The Black Dream? Don't ask silly questions. Lots of people die. Lots of people are grievously injured. Lots of people suffer. 

In The Asphodel Cycle, the Huntress posed a single question: What gift can buy the redemption of the Elves? The answer hasn't changed. The answer is still everything.  And prepare yourselves--these characters will be asked to give everything they are, everything they cherish, everything they protect for a greater cause. They have to, or else there's no story. 

And, well--there's a reason this blog is called Elf-Killing and Other Hobbies. 

The Black Dream is darker, grittier, bloodier--more like the Greco-Roman world of its foundation than the fantasy idealism of its setting. The stakes are higher. The characters more dangerous...and in more danger. 

Yes, there will be consequences. Many of them. 

As a devotee of Joseph Campbell's Hero Journey monomyth, I firmly believe in the development of a hero through adversity and fear. But I think the monomyth is changing in current fantasy, and The Black Dream takes the hero's journey and goes several steps past it. 

So prepare yourselves, Asphodel readers. When Tamsen enters the modern twists of fantasy, the journey itself becomes a consequence. 

You have been warned.

The Climb -- Patricia Head Summitt 1952-2016 In Memoriam

Author's note: If it wasn't for a comment this morning from Spencer Barrett, outstanding UT Vols artist, this story wouldn't have been anywhere as good. Thanks, Spencer!And the incredible art was done by UT Vols artist Jeff Page, and just so encapsulates how Vols fans feel. This is a collaboration of artists in different mediums, in celebration of the passing of an icon.

Let me tell you a story. 

I'm not a particularly spiritual person, but I strongly believe in iconography. And some days, that type of story may work better than your standard comforts of faith. Today I wanted to see an image that represented how I felt, but I'm not an artist. I wish I was, just for today. I wish I could paint what I see. I even talked to artists this morning, grasping for a way to solidify what I felt. But I'm a writer, and I paint in words. And while I *never* post fiction on this blog, today is the day I am going to break my own rule.So let me tell you a story--an allegorical tale, the kind I never tell. But be warned--the real story is far better written than this poor one. The story's title is: 

The Climb
by Celina  Summers

* * *

A red-gold sun rose one morning on a woman standing alone in a field. She looked around for a moment, confused. She wasn't used to being alone, and wasn't sure if she liked the way it felt.

What the heck am I doing out here? 

The sun was hot--Tennessee in summer hot, when the suckers are climbing the tobacco leaves and the heat shimmers over the turned, red earth like fumes of gas. The woman didn't waste time worrying about why she was suddenly in that tobacco field. She took off through the rows, her long stride snapping with impatience and more than a little irritated. Irritation was a familiar sensation, just like the red earth that was cool between her toes. The tobacco leaves slapped against her as she passed, but softly--not the slicing shear she remembered in an abrupt flash of skinny arms and stinging slashes into tanned skin. 

As she marched through the field, the sun rose higher above her--rising oddly fast, searing into her skin with a pleasant heat. In time, those long, lanky strides relaxed--her irritation faded, and was replaced by a sense of challenge. 

How big is this darn field anyway? Not big enough to scare me.

She was going to find her way out of it. 

She topped a small rise, and just ahead a line of trees interrupted the endless monotony of the tobacco field. Her steps grew faster, longer, because anyone in a tobacco field in Tennessee knows that the only promise of escape from the merciless sun and the smell of the arid, pungent leaves lies under those trees. The woman turned back for a moment, surveying the immense field with its red clay and green plant stripes. As the verdant shadow of the century-old oaks darkened the ends of the infinite rows, the clay underfoot moistened and cooled until a trail of evenly paced footprints tracked her out of the field and into the breathless silence of the wood.

She breathed easier there, under the cooling caress of the shade, but when she thought about brushing the sweat away from her face she decided not to. She liked the feel of that sweat, liked the scent of it against her skin--infused with the unmistakable sting of the tobacco field and hinting at some greater promise.

She could rest here and no one would blame her. But herself. 

A breeze rustled through the trees, and the leaves' silver underbellies gleamed throughout the wood. As she passed under them, streams of sunlight gilded the path. The entire wood was a series of contrasts--silver and gold, cool and hot, light and dark. Like an imperfect checkerboard, laid out like a promise beneath her feet. 

She liked the contrast. She loved the conflict between the elements. This all felt familiar, comfortable and beloved. She had left the dusty monotony of the tobacco fields behind, and traded it for this elemental struggle without a twinge of regret. The golden light faded and the leaves turned back into their normal bland summer green, the breeze abruptly stopped and the woods began to rise into a steep hill. She came out of the shade into the scorching blaze of the afternoon sun.

As she walked, she thought: No one has ever walked here before. I am the first. 

Animals watched as she walked by, unafraid but hesitant--like they'd never seen such a thing in their forest before. Eyes everywhere, gazes fixed on her at first with suspicion or disdain, then comprehension lightened those feral looks. Other animals--small, shy, uncertain ones--emerged from their hidden dens. She stopped, crouched low, and smiled. 

And they came running to her, eyes lit in wonder and unaffected joy. She stroked their soft fur, ruffled their feathers, and turned them all to look up the hill. 

"That's where we're going to go," she announced.

They all stared at her, and for a moment they were all frozen in shock. 

"Up," she explained. 

With that, she stood up, turned her face to the hill, and started to climb. At first, only a few of the animals came, bounding alongside her without fear. But then the rest followed, running--leaping with her, proud to be in her company and elevated because she led them. There were pockets of shade around hinting at rest and relief from the heat, but she avoided them. She embraced the heat like a long-lost friend, welcomed the trickle of sweat down her spine as she continued her ascent of the stone-tumbled mountain she was determined to conquer.

Once something loud crashed in the underbrush, shattering the silent joy of the animals and the shade that had been so alluring was now threatening and dark. The woman stopped and leveled a hard, challenging look at the beast growling at her from its den. Her animals suddenly straightened and glared at the challenging beast without fear. 

"Don't even think about it," the woman warned the beast. "And shut up." 

She turned her back and continued her climb, and the animals that followed her burst forth around her, unafraid of the predator who'd slunk, chastened, back into its dark den. They swarmed around her, raced through her legs, jumped as high as they could for her approval. They couldn't keep pace with that unhurried stride, the constant pulse of determination that fueled her long limbs, so they ran instead. As the crowd swelled around her, the animals passed her and ran up the hill that was more like a mountain. Some that had followed her took wing, and soared through the trees into the sky. 

None of them looked down, afraid to fall. 

None of them looked back. 

And all the time the crowd of animals that had volunteered to accompany her on this ascent ran harder, flew faster, soared higher--because she willed them to. 

At last, the woman reached the summit of the mountain--and stopped dead in her tracks. A grim-faced man was sitting on the rocky top of the mountain, an old Bluetick Coonhound at his feet. The dog looked up at her mournfully from smokey-colored eyes, so she knelt and scratched his ears. His fur was silky under her fingertips, and he swiped her hand with a rough tongue. 

Best dog in the world.

The man's face was craggy, his short cut salt and pepper hair receded slightly from his weathered features. He glared at her and growled, "What the hell are you doing here?"

She glared back. "Had to get to the top." 

The man relaxed slightly. "Know what you mean, but you're here too damn early." 

She stared at him for a long moment, something whispering against her mind. The connection suddenly clicked and she laughed. "Butch looks a lot like you." 

The man laughed too, as if her comment had surprised him. The hound lifted his head, his ears pricked up. The woman looked down at the now-alert dog. 

"What's wrong with him?" 

The man squinted past her, his eyes twinkling. "Nothing wrong. Smokey always gets excited when they show up." 

The woman turned around. The forest was gone; the animals were no longer clustered on the mountainside. Instead, she, the man, and the dog stood alone on the summit of the mountain. Smokey got to his feet and lifted his muzzle in a loud, joyous howl. His tail thumped hard against the side of the woman's leg, as the sun illuminated an endless field of faces--faces of girls she'd known who'd grown into legends, of women she'd known who'd worked at her side, of men whose dismissal had turned into reverence, even people she'd known only well enough to smile at when they passed on the street or in the arena halls. But there were millions of face she'd never seen, never known--all smiling, all wreathed with the same expression of awe and love. 

"You remember 'em?" the man asked softly.

"I always remember the faces." And for the first time in what seemed like an infinite climb, she did. 

"You brought 'em with you," the man said. "Brought 'em all to the top--millions of 'em you never met have all climbed the mountain because of you." 

"Not me," she replied. "Themselves." 

"One increasing purpose, Coach." The man clapped his hand on her shoulder--an approving clap that wasn't lessened because she was a woman. "You kept everlastingly on the job." 

She turned to the man with a smile, a smile unlike her usual infectious laughing grin. A shy smile, the smile of a child seeking approval from a god whose maxims she revered. He extended his hand, equal to equal. Giant to giant. 

But his eyes softened, and glittered with unexpected tears as he said quietly, "Welcome home, Pat." 

Without hesitation, she gave him a huge hug. "Thanks, General." 

Between them, Smokey howled, and a final vagrant breeze brought a whiff of the heat-baked tobacco fields as the white-hot June sun finally slipped from the sky in a blaze of orange. The sea of faces flared in front of her one last time, gilded by the last ray of light, then sank and receded into the darkness. 

The last thing she saw was the tobacco field, tiny and deserted, its green rows fading into the blood red clay--distant, but still clearly visible. The foundation. The root. The impetus that began the climb.

Requeiscat in pace, Patricia Head Summit 1952-2016

Excerpt--The Temptation of Asphodel

It's excerpt day! The Asphodel Cycle 3:The Temptation of Asphodel

Coming July 1, 2016

Book 3--The Temptation of Asphodel 

The game of the gods is speeding up, and when Tamsen and Brial find a long-lost civilization of Elves, the pattern of the gods' game starts to become clearer. After a new magic evens up the odds of the foreordained battle, Tamsen begins to feel confident—until a lethal and forbidden possibility tempts her from her path. 

But that possibility is actually the opening gambit of an ancient, dangerous deity--a gambit that signals the emergence of a new foe into the game. 

When Tamsen is drawn into conflict with immortal enemies, she discovers that the line between obedience and temptation is much narrower than she thought.

Obedience is dangerous; temptation can kill.

Love Romances and More Best Novel of 2008 Nominee

Preditors & Editors Top Ten Best Sci Fi/Fantasy Novel  2008

***

A soft knock sounded at the red door. Tergen sped to it and I sat up, all of my sleepiness gone. A tall shape entered, muffled in a long, green cloak. It crossed to the center of the room and paused.

The figure fell to its knees, pushing the cowl back with a slim hand. Elven features emerged from the shadows: dark hair fell around sharply-pointed ears and green, slanted eyes stared keenly at me. He bowed his head but not before I caught a flash in those eyes that disturbed me.

The flash of a zealot.

“Regina Ka’antira, sancte me viam.” The Elf had a low, strongly-accented voice. He pulled a longbow from his side. Brial and Wilden both leaped to their feet in dismay, but the stranger laid the bow crossways on the floor at my feet.

“My Queen!” he said, a thrill rushing through his voice. “I beg you to accept the service of my bow and may the gods grant my arm the strength to defend you.”

I stared at him, stunned. The involved intricacies of etiquette came back to me and I lifted the weapon from the floor. I kissed the bow and rose to my feet. “May the gods grant you their blessings and glory in battle. Rise, revered Elder, so that I can greet you.”

The Elf rose to his feet. “I am Nige, of the house of Ka’merila, Tamsen Ka’antira. I am the Elder of our tribe, and I greet you in the name of our people.”

I was thinking quickly; I’d never heard of the Ka’merila. “I welcome the greeting of the Ka’merila. May I introduce my family and friends to you?”

Tergen brought Nige a glass of mulled wine and disappeared into the door behind the bar. Brial looked at our guest and I was surprised to note the black glitter of his eyes. For some reason, our guest had put my husband on his guard.

Brial’s voice was cool. “I was unaware that Elves lived in these mountains.”

“There were not many of us when we arrived,” Nige replied, unable to stop staring at me.

“How did you come here?” I asked, growing a little uncomfortable at his unceasing regard.

“When the Elfwars started,” the Elf began, sipping at his wine, “most of the Elves fled to Leselle. Several families who lived south of the great lake, however, found the path to the Elven forest blocked by great human armies. We built small boats and came to the feet of this mountain range. Our Elders decided to hide within them until such a time as the world was safe for the Elves once more. So, we came through the high passes and found a deep, secret place in the forests there. We have remained there ever since.”

“Why?” Brial asked. “The Elfwars were more than two hundred years ago.”

“The priestesses of the Huntress came to the Council one day and told us that we were to stay here. That is how we know your name, my Queen. The goddess told us to abide against the coming of the argent one, a scion of the house of Ka’antira, who carried the bow of the Huntress at her side. When she passed into the heart of the mountains, we were to guard her from pursuit and make ourselves known to her when she reached our tribe.”

“What did she say then, my friend?” Mariol asked, his eyes intent.

“That the coming of the Ka’antira Queen would lead the Elves once more to glory in the eyes of the goddess. She told us that the Queen would take us back to the tall trees of sacred Leselle and that our children would walk in the golden city again.” Nige’s eyes were lit with that strange fervor as he said this and I glanced uneasily at Brial.

 “Things are rather different from what you might expect, Nige. I am passing through the mountains, true, and I thank you for your protection along the way. I am bound for an unknown destination, at the far end of Tartarus.”

“We know of the purpose you follow,” Nige replied. “The goddess’s hand lies upon your journey and she catches you up in her will. Your coming is a sign to our people that our long exile is almost over.”

“Exactly how many of you are there?”

“Our tribe numbers more than thirty thousand now, my Queen. We have warded these forests in your name since we arrived.”

“Thirty thousand?” I repeated. “How did you stay hidden from us for so long?”

“The deep passes of the mountains are impossible for humans to traverse, save with our assistance.”

I took a drink of wine, in order to give myself time to think. Brial spoke up, his face set in those impassive lines that irritated me so. “Is there a path we can take that will lead us to the northern sea?”

Nige frowned. “There is such a path, but it is dangerous and difficult. Dark things lie hidden in the valleys of these mountains, and there are some places that even we do not venture.”

“If it is so dangerous, then humans would not use it. We could travel across Tartarus undetected.”

Nige shook his head. “You still would have to travel across the plateau near the great human city in order to reach the arm of the mountains that runs to the north,” he disagreed. “There is no other way to reach it.”

“How long will it take?”

“No more than a month, if the weather permits it,” Nige replied. “The season changes swiftly this year and it will not be long before blizzards block the highest passes with snow. The Council has sent me to bring you to our tribe. It is on your way and when you leave I will guide you through the passes myself. I am the eldest of the scouts and know trails through the mountains no others of our kind have found.”

“Very well,” I decided. “We’ll accompany you to the Elves of the mountains and continue our journey from there. I think it only fair to warn you that I do not have the time to delay with your people; I must be on my way quickly.”

“On the morrow, then, it will be my privilege to escort you to our people, my Queen.” When I nodded, he fell to his knees once more and kissed my hand. Then Nige rose and departed through the red-painted door of the inn.

*** 

“I don’t like him,” Brial announced less than a minute after we’d retired to our room.

“Why not? I thought he was very nice.”

Brial stared down at the burning logs with a creased brow and his arms crossed on his chest. “There is something about him that just isn’t right.”

I raised my eyebrows, poured two glasses of wine and handed one to him. “Well, we’re only following him to his people and then to the mountain pass,” I said, seating myself in the chair opposite where he stood. “It’s not like we’re moving into his house.”

“It’s just too convenient,” he muttered. “It doesn’t make sense that so many of our people would remain secret from us for all this time.”

“That is strange,” I admitted. “Of course, I’ve never met any Elves who liked to travel, except you, perhaps. When you think of it that way, it makes more sense. The feravir we encountered lends some credence to his story. Until tonight, I couldn’t figure out how an Elf came to be so far from Leselle. If large settlements of Elves live in these mountains, it explains a lot.”

“True, but still, why wouldn’t they have sent word? Any Elven scout who can roam these mountains could cross over to Leselle at the border.” He scowled. “And why would a feraviri be this close to as large an Elven city and not be taught the lore?”

“We’ll probably learn the answer to that when we meet them. Why worry about it? It’s helpful to find a guide through the mountains at this point. If this Nige proves to be as experienced as he claims, it can do nothing but lend us an advantage, don’t you think?”

Brial’s eyes met mine coolly. “You have already three Elven scouts in your party, Tamsen. One more shouldn’t make that much difference.”

“I’m not casting any aspersions on your abilities,” I retorted. “This Nige is more familiar with the area, that’s all.”

He set his wine glass down at the mantle and scooped me up in his arms, settling himself into the chair with me tucked onto his lap. “I’m just wary of accepting help from an unknown source. We know nothing of these Elves, and it triggers my suspicions that their existence is unknown in Leselle. You may be right; perhaps I am too mistrustful.”

I nuzzled the side of his throat. “I don’t think I’d love you as I do, Brial, if you weren’t the most distrustful Elf in the world.”

He laughed and took my empty goblet from me. I slanted a look up at him from under my lashes with a wicked little smile and felt triumphant when I saw the intensity starting to mount behind his glittering eyes.

“You’re trying to change the subject,” he accused, wrapping my long braid around his hand.

“It appears to be working.”

He tugged my head closer to his, his lips hovering over mine. “You are an evil woman, cariad.”

I brushed a swift, scorching kiss against his lips with a soft laugh. “After all, Brial, it has been a long time since we were in a room, with a bed—”

Brial cut off my words as he kissed me and with one easy movement, he rose from the chair and crossed the room to the bed. He laid me onto the soft mattress, his lips leaving mine only when the bed sank under my weight. I smiled and ran a loving hand along the strong line of his jaw. Then, he lowered his head to mine and I lost all awareness of anything but him.

The next morning, as we ate an early breakfast, I kept my eyes on my plate. The others were talking in low voices around me as I attempted to keep a gloating expression from my face. When I looked up, Brial caught my eyes and smiled. The heat rushed to my face and I dropped my eyes again. We were nearly done when Nige’s slender, cloaked form entered the common room.

“Are you ready, my Queen?”

I pulled on my gloves and got to my feet with a frown. “Nige, will you do me a favor?”

“Certainly, my Queen.”

“I have a name,” I pointed out. “Call me Tamsen; I get very tired of ‘my Queen’ or ‘your Majesty’ after a while. And please don’t bow to me every time you see me; it gets on my nerves.”

Nige looked at me in shock. “I could never treat you in such a discourteous manner.”

“Consider it a command, then,” I advised. “If we’re going to be traveling together, I don’t want you hung up on all this formality.”

“As you wish, my Queen.” He bowed and left the room.

“This one is going to get irritating,” Mylan noted to Anner, who nodded in agreement. Surprised, I looked at all of my companions and, to a man, they were all staring at me in disgust.

“What did I do?” I demanded.

“It’s not you, Tamsen,” Mariol replied. “It’s that sycophantic Elf.”

“Don’t you think you’re being a little harsh on Nige?” 

No one answered and I stalked from the common room with an irritated slap of my hand against my thigh. 

Pat Head Summitt: A Post I Won't Be Able To Write in Past Tense

When I was a kid, I met a young woman whose influence on my life could never have been guessed by any of the farmers or Saturday lawn experts gathered around the counter of my dad's store. She was tall, but she seemed more than tall to me. I was not quite eleven, and she was the head women's basketball coach at the University of Tennessee. My family knew hers very well: the Head family lived not too far from my grandparents, and like me she was a Clarksville girl born and bred.

But even in the late seventies, everyone knew Pat.

Girl's basketball was bigger in north-central Tennessee, because Pat Head Summitt had single-handedly built it. Single-mindedly too, because that may have been her most singular personality trait. What she focused on, she focused on absolutely.

Tennessee basketball, for example.

Pat was an All-American player at UT-Martin. Back then (the dark ages) there were no scholarships for women athletes, so her family paid her way through school. She went to UT as a graduate assistant--women's basketball wasn't even sanctioned by the NCAA yet--and became the head coach of the Lady Vols in 1974. Paid $250 a MONTH, she washed the uniforms, drove the van to away games, and completed her Masters. In 1976, she won a silver medal as the co-captain of the Olympic team, and began an unparalleled coaching journey by leading back-to-back 20-win seasons and earning the Lady Vols their first #1 ranking.

But this is public history. Any Vols fan, any women's basketball fan knows this. The girl looking up at the tall lady with the infectious laugh and flashing eyes was only vaguely aware of what Pat had done. She was only aware of how magnetic she was, with all those old gentlemen farmers clustered around her as she talked with her brother and my dad.

Publicly, Pat Head Summitt is arguably the greatest coach of all time in any sport. 1098 wins to 208 losses, 8 national championships, 16 SEC championships, 8-time SEC Coach of the Year, 7-time National Coach of the Year, Naismith Coach of the 20th Century, First Olympian to win a medal and subsequently coach a medal-winning team with the 1984 gold medal-winning squad. Winning percentage of.841 and a stunning .913 at home. 45 players who are now coaches.

Every Lady Vol who played all four years under Pat Summitt graduated with a degree.


Every Lady Vol who played under Pat Summitt played in at least one Elite Eight.

Every Lady Vol who played under Pat Summit went to the NCAA Tournament EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR.

Pat Summitt was such a great coach that she was offered the UT men's head coaching position. Twice.

But that was all in the future when I met Pat Head Summitt for the first time. Even then, though, she was a big deal--a hometown legend in the making for my hometown, which had already given the world the amazing Wilma Rudoph, Olympic icon and the first woman to win 3 gold medals in one Olympics.

Clarksville, Tennessee breeds strong women.

And yet, there was something so awe-inspiring about her even then--a woman who'd been to the Olympics, who'd just taken her first team to the IAIAW Final Four, who suddenly saw me looking at her from the end of the counter and who promptly said, "Is this your daughter, John?"

My dad said, "Yeah, that's my girl Celina. She's not a ball player because they won't let girls play football."

The men around the counter laughed, but Pat looked at me with a smile. "They will someday," she assured me. "And you'll be great at it."

And I believed her.

How many 11-year-old girls did Pat Summitt say that to? "You'll be great at it." Probably thousands. And for each one of them, that moment still feels as personal and pertinent to them now as it does to me today.  Especially today.

I'm writing this post today because I can't write a memorial post for Pat Head Summitt. I can't wait until she's gone because I can't believe she ever will be. I just can't process it--and the rest of Vol Nation won't be able to either.

I met Pat Summitt many times in subsequent years--in my dad's store off and on, in Knoxville, at games, random moments in the halls at school or the mall or in hospital corridors or at funerals. She always asked about me--about my grades and interests and talents--and she remembered them too. It was always, "Hey, Celina--congratulations on doing so well at that debate competition! Heard you beat the tar out of our boys--good for you!" or "I hear you're turning into a fantastic writer--you keep working at it!" or "I saw your wedding pictures; you looked beautiful."  With everything she had going, she had the ability to index information on an amazing scale--what to most legendary coaches would be minutiae: the everyday accomplishments of a girl who grew into a woman and who'd never won a game of HORSE.

The last time I saw Pat Summitt, I didn't expect her to know who I was. I stood by in silence, while the people I was with gathered around for conversation and autographs and all the things we Vols do when we meet one of our most beloved legends. Pat Summit could turn a group of 60-year-old businessmen into fangurls. She wasn't coaching anymore, and I hadn't seen her in years although my dad had. I knew she was suffering from early-onset Alzheimer's and what that meant. She acted the same as she always had, and I just watched from the outskirts--content just to be there. And when finally the group broke up to let her go on her way, she walked right by me.

And she paused.

We were at the same eye level, which seemed strange to me because I'd always remembered her as taller than me, a literal interpretation of looking up to this woman. She gave me a little hit on the arm and said, "Football. You'd be good at it, but writing--writing you're great at."

Then she walked away.

And I believed her.

Pat Summitt changed the world for women's athletics. She built not just UT but women's collegiate sports, and served as the foundation for both through four decades. She bridged the gap between the era when there were no NCAA-sanctioned women's basketball teams to the birth and growth of the WNBA, which is liberally stocked with her players. She is easily the greatest woman coach in any sport of all time, and one of an elite group of coaches whose achievements will never be superseded. On the Mount Rushmore of coaching greats, Pat Summitt's face will be there. But to generations of Tennessee girls, whether they played for her, or knew her, or even just heard about what she built for young women everywhere, Pat Summitt means so much more. And her loss will be correspondingly greater.

2016 has already taken so many greats. Too many. And this loss is personal for everyone whose lives Pat Summitt touched. But if you put this into perspective, the pain grows sharper. In a world where coaches are being busted trying to hide the fact that their players have raped women just to keep them playing, this coach and her impact grows commensurately greater. Because in the end, it won't be the scum like Art Briles who are remembered as the Greatest Of All Time coaches.

But Pat Summitt IS the Greatest Of All Time. Not just in coaching. But in life as well. And so to me she is, and must be, always referred to not only with unparalleled respect, but in the present tense. So I wouldn't be able to write this when she's gone. Only now, while we still have her, and when, hopefully she will know on some level what she means to millions of people--a true icon, with integrity and passion and the undiluted ability to not only do what's right but to inspire others to do so as well.

Today is a great day to make a donation to the We Back Pat Foundation for Alzheimer's research, not in Coach Summitt's memory but in celebration of who she is and what she's done.

You'll be great at it.