It was another ten years before I released my next book, Valhalla (since renamed Moon Dog Magic), which became the first book in the Rune Witch urban fantasy series. And I did have fun writing these zany, complicated stories about a blundering, headstrong teenage witch creating her destiny in the company of frustrated old gods with their own problems (like Ragnarok, for example). All six Rune Witch books are included in my lunar payload, and this series is part of an extended literary universe I’ve been calling “The Lokiverse”; maybe it will have a better name later, but I doubt it.

Also included are drafts of two works-in-progress set inside this same universe: Crooked Curse, which is the first of a paranormal cozy series (Haunted Coast), and The Book of Coming Forth by Starlight, which will probably be a standalone within this larger world.

The Haunted Coast stories feature a main character who suffers from chronic migraines, because I started having daily headaches—migraine, tension headache, ice pick headache, and/or ocular migraine occurring together on a constant basis—in November 2014. Unlike Suri (“Surly”) Mudge, I am not an active medium who communicates with spirits of the recently murdered, but a girl can dream.

To coincide with the revelation of autism spectrum disorder in January 2020 when I was 50, I incorporated this reframing and discovery of self into a new manuscript I had barely begun working on at the time. The Book of Coming Forth by Starlight is a modern version of the Orpheus myth, set within a deliberately confused Egyptian underworld, and told from the standpoint of a young woman who is trying to rescue her sister while contending with an ASD diagnosis.

The three sci-fi/romance MARS books are separate, and these books are a light-hearted, comical look at the combination of reality TV-show culture and colonization. I’d wanted to write more in this series and have ideas for those continuing stories, but writing sex scenes is a really uncomfortable experience and I literally sat screaming at the keyboard for those sections. 

And then there are some short stories, essays, and newspaper articles.

Photo subjects include myself and my partner, Mike Volk; my writers group, the Masked Hucksters (Dale Ivan Smith, Rebecca Stefoff, Wendy Wagner, and me); Laurel Standley and myself at the 2017 March for Science in Portland; at least one family photo; Barbara Bass from my 1988 St. Catherine’s School yearbook; and some of the cats and dogs who have been precious to me (particularly Nanook—if a dog can be your soulmate, that’s what he was to me). I could have easily filled my entire payload space with photos of people and especially cats and dogs who have enriched my life and touched my heart, and if I’d had a good bit more time to turn in my files I might have done precisely that.

The photo of Barbara Bass represents the wonderful teachers and other adults around me in my younger years who believed in me even at a time when I wasn’t sure I believed in myself. We might never imagine or appreciate the impact, for good or ill, that we can have on each other. Mrs. Bass taught me advanced mathematics for four years at St. Catherine’s, and the first book in the MARS trilogy is dedicated to her.

In my support document, I tried to give some context for this lunar time capsule and the times we’ve been living in. “Fraught” would be an understatement.

No one should have to point this out, but it was (and still is, to a slightly lesser degree) a terrible time to be a creative professional. Fear, deprivation, and trauma without end really aren’t conducive to prolific and quality productivity. Whoever came up with—and perpetuates—the romance of the “starving artist” can, frankly, suck it.

In other words, I have not been writing and publishing like a banshee during the pandemic. (Assumes banshees have any interest in storytelling, which I find unlikely.) I did briefly flirt with making and maintaining my own sourdough starter. I learned how to make mozzarella cheese and yogurt in the instant pot. I grew tomatoes. I read. We said goodbye to our old dog, Lakshmi, which is heartbreak I still feel more than six months later. I was more politically active than ever. I protested for the US Post Office—one of many things I never anticipated needing to do. We voted.

I also took up stargazing again—which has saved my sanity and given me healthy and much-needed opportunities to shift my perspective while engaging in a constructive hobby. When it feels like the entire planet is figuratively and literally on fire, it is a true relief to look up into an ancient, timeless sky that doesn’t care and will continue to exist long after our own sun burns itself out. And to be filled again with a sense of wonder and discovery, that’s good, too.

Summing up what’s included in my payload allotment is easier than attempting to sum up why being a part of the Writers on the Moon project means so much to me. From an early age, I had my eyes gazing upward—at outer space in general, and at Mars and the Moon in particular. As a teenager, I wanted to be an astronaut, though a series of misinformed decisions coupled with undiagnosed chronic illness and unrecognized autism spectrum disorder made realizing that goal pretty much impossible. Still, I kept “Go to the Moon” on one life goals list after another. I couldn’t seem to let it go, even though I saw no way for it to happen.

Although I will likely never set foot on the Moon myself, some of my writing and my photos—something of me—will make that trip and will (fingers crossed) touch down. However, I’m not sure how I feel about Lacus Mortis (“Lake of Death”) being the target lunar destination.

I don’t know how much time I have left in this life, or how much or little work I may yet produce. That was a more exciting prospect when I was younger, but it gets to be equal parts humbling and terrifying as time marches forward. My intention is to be always improving my craft and to be braver on the page with each successive story. I hope to continue to play to my strengths—I’m pretty good at subject/verb agreement, for instance—while also taking on new challenges, whether that comes in the form of writing in a different genre or trying to tackle difficult or frightening subjects. 

When I get stuck, whatever I’m attempting, I remember the words of Arthur Ashe (from my hometown): “Start where you are; use what you have; do what you can.” It’s good advice.

— Jennifer Willis

Portland, Oregon

13 February 2021