How Mermaids Moved into My Life

Hey Joe! How’s everything in the Four Corners? glowed the message on my laptop. It was my friend Nick an ex-marine turned cryptozoologist (the study of uncertain species- Bigfoot, Loch Ness Monster, and, yeah, mermaids).

Things are good! I’ve just started a teaching position at a new school. Where are you these days?

I’m in Scotland checking out a supposed mermaid burial…actually wanted to connect with you. Would you be interested in helping with the excavation if Scotland authorities give me to go? I figured with a background in archaeology you might be able to help.

Way cool! Yeah, I’d be willing to assist. It sounds like an interesting project!

There are archaeological reports and historical documents from the early 1800s related to the burial. Seems the whole town showed up.

That sounds really fascinating!

Let me send you related documents and you can get back to me.

Cool! Yeah…let me look them over.

So that’s how it all started. It was at a time when I was trying my damnedest to break into the writing world. This was pre-electronic publishing and writing back then somehow felt more real, alive, and fun: I enjoyed every bit of it. Of course, waiting months to receive a rejection letter was right up there with the five-year colonoscopy in terms of vulnerable anxiety.

This also was a time of much upheaval- I had decided to make a big move back east from the Four Corners area of the American Southwest. I lived so many years on my own in pretty much complete isolation and decided moving back east made sense…an aging mother, closer to New York publishers and wanting to get away from a known source of mercury exposure—the Four Corners power plants.

Anyhow, back to how all of this relates to me and mermaids. I decided to live off my retirement funds and fix up an old house I’d bought while also pursuing writing professionally. I had a couple of books I was working on but thought it’d be neat to write a YA novel connected to the mermaid burial on Benbecula. I had the money and time so I booked a flight into London and planned to get a cheap flight to Edinburgh from there.

The month before I left I went to Letchworth State Park and rented a cabin to start writing the book. The park location I’d chosen was very isolated and cheap ($22 a night for a cabin with electricity). Anyhow the week got me writing a bunch which in the end I’d end up tossing.

So, I headed to Scotland with a location some fair amount of research and a mermaid to dream on. This was the start and would lead to my book Beul Nam Beinn: a Merworld Fantasy.

The actual writing- now that’s another story!