I've been waiting a long time to finally, finally be able to package my sci-fi YA Yesterday and its sequel, Tomorrow, together but that's in the works right now. The book cover and interior are all ready to go and when I'm back from vacation at the end of the month I'll be putting together a Goodreads fall giveaway. If you've already read Yesterday and want to know what happens to Freya and Garren afterwards, you can of course simply order a copy of Tomorrow. But if you happen to want the whole story all in one shot, this is it! 516 pages and a whopping 170,000 words.

And if you have no idea what I'm even talking about, here are the blurb and book trailers to clue you in:

Yesterday: The future’s fast collapsing. In the United North America (U.N.A) of 2063 sixteen-year-old Freya’s losing her brother to a plague that threatens to bury a world already crippled by nightmarish climate change, terrorism, mass global migration and severe unemployment. But when Freya wakes up seventy-eight years earlier – the dystopian future entirely swept from her mind – her life is one of high school cliques and crushes, new wave music and television repeats. Until she meets a boy (Garren) she’s sure she knows yet has never met. Suddenly nothing about her life feels right. Soon Freya and Garren are on the run from people they believed they could trust, struggling to uncover the truth about their lives and fighting for their very survival.

Tomorrow: The sci-fi adventure that began with Yesterday continues with an eco-thriller where no one is safe. The future's reach is long.

A couple of years ago I wrote a blog entry about the science and technology behind Yesterday and Tomorrow—stuff that inspired  my vision of the United North America of 2063 (hint: nanomedicine and Kiva) you might find interesting if you're curious about the books too.

Last but not least I can't talk about these two books without mentioning how 80s infused they are. A sci-fi book about the future set in the 80s, uh-huh. If that sounds cool to you, and if you have BIG 80s love like I do and still get chills listening to Space Age Love Song, know all the words to Talk Talk's It's My Life and 99 Red Balloons (yeah, even Nena's original German version), this book might be your kind of thing. But don't take my word for it, here's a snippet from the Kirkus review of Yesterday:

"A vivid infusion of 1980s culture gives this near-future dystopia an offbeat, Philip K. Dick aura...The cultural homage is nostalgic fun, from Care Bears to MacGyver. But for delivering that uniquely ’80s flavor, nothing beats music. Fans of the Smiths, Depeche Mode, Scritti Politti—this one’s for you."

It looks like I need to do some dusting around here. Yep, it’s been a long time since I posted to this space. Mostly I’ve been saving up the words for my fiction writing. In recent months that means work on my young adult horror novel. But for the most part that’s not what I’m going to talk about here today. The subject I want to get into is the other thing that’s been eating up a good chunk of my time on a daily basis—the health problems that originated almost three years ago and became markedly more severe in April, 2014. If you’re interested—and particularly if you’re suffering from what medical professionals are telling you is plantar fasciitis but that won’t budge after years of severe pain—you can read some background on my feet/health problems here: The Pain of Standing Still.

Since the writing of that fall 2015 post my diagnosis is still the same—idiopathic polyneuropathy that’s causing numbness, pain, tingling and other weird sensations in my feet AS WELL AS something mysterious and as yet unidentified that the three neurologists I've seen swear isn’t caused by neuropathy but which has been creating a sensation of constant tightness and weakness in my legs, mainly below my knees. The results of these multiple issues are as follows: because I can’t feel my feet properly, I tend to stumble over them, particularly the right one. My feet hurt to a certain extent all the time but stiffen to an incredible degree if I’ve been off them for more than half an hour to forty minutes, and then stand. The odd tightness near the back of my legs which makes walking feel exceptionally weird and tiring also worsens once I’m off them and then stand again. Unfortunately, remaining on my feet for long periods isn’t a solution either because after a fairly short period walking or standing results in even worse pain.

All of this means I have become a Jack in the Box, constantly popping up!

Topical magnesium and daily Vitamin B Complex pills seem to have greatly reduced the painful foot and leg spasms that were waking me in the middle of the night. But as for the rest of my issues, unfortunately I don’t have solutions—I definitely don’t want to fill the hardcore prescriptions I’ve been written for Gabapentin and Lyrica which would only mask my symptoms, and judging by the list of side effects posted at the People's Pharmacy potentially create more problems than they cure.

So if I don’t have answers, why am I writing this post? Basically, SHOES. If you're having problems with foot pain, whether due to plantar fasciitis, neuropathy or another condition, it's enormously important that you find supportive footwear that helps take the sting, ache and electric zing out of walking. Some foot-pain sufferers swear by New Balance running shoes, others by Oofos recovery sandals, or Vionic Orthaheels, or many other brands.

What has worked best for me—the only reason I’ve been able to stay on my feet as much as I have, limited as this is, are Z-Coils. They reduce impact by fifty percent because of their unusual coil heel and as a result have helped me stay mobile where orthotics failed miserably (even though they were designed by a professional C-ped and revamped on four separate occasions). Z-Coils aren't the answer for everyone. No such single answer exists. They aren't cheap either, but they have definitely cut my pain and elongated the amount of time I can spend on my feet.

 

About a month ago, a poster on a Foot Pain message board I visit put Adidas Tubulars on my radar. I picked up a pair on sale and personally have found them very comfortable too. As you can see below, they also have a very unique heel which is quite good at absorbing impact.

I'm going for a back MRI in late September and have recently started acupuncture. I'm still fighting for my health, still trying to pin down exactly what's happening in my body, and in the meantime am still looking for helpful tools (like good shoes!) to help too. I hope if you're dealing with mysterious health problems that you keep fighting and searching for answers also. And, more than anything, I hope you feel better in the future than you do today!

 

Now, for the people with no health concerns, and no sore feet who have made it this far into the post, here are the first two paragraphs of my creepy horror novel.