A Healer’s Story (in Images)

Years ago, a woman drifted into the workspace where I host writing meetups every Saturday. She was dazed, floaty, and alighted on one of the couches. She couldn’t speak for a while, obviously utterly overwhelmed by something. She made to speak several times, then didn’t. Then again, and then didn’t.

Finally, she looked at me and said, “Iminique is so kind.”

Someone had recommended she read my book Heiress of Healing, but never had I expected it would elicit such a powerful response.

It’s not a powerful book. It’s a fantasy novel featuring quiet battles, inner battles, a love story, and it follows a main character from when she is a powerless yet nevertheless poised and loving young healer to a calm, competent, and still loving grown woman. Despite the cruelties visited upon her from all corners, she never returns violence for hatred. Rather, she heals wherever she can, even her enemies.

And in a literary world rife with heroines who are fighters–fierce, sassy, sarcastic, unapologetic and sometimes unforgiving–I think this makes Iminique unusual, because she is always quiet, compassionate and (not forgiving, but rather) understanding. She never makes anyone grovel. She holds no grudges. And yet neither is she a Mary Sue. She makes bad decisions and must live with them; she struggles with moral questions of whom to let die when she can’t save everyone.

And yet I usually tell people not to read this book. I published it in 2013, and sometimes I hate it as my old writing, and then sometimes I peek in and get a scene that sucks me in, and I feel guilty that I don’t show it to anyone at all.

I am daring to bring it out again by presenting part of it as a story in images. This is because I’ve been struggling with extreme anxiety the past–well, years, decades, but recently, generating little images to illustrate my stories has calmed me (or distracted me).

I hope you like it.

NOTE: AI images were used in this blog post, but I no longer support the use of AI, nor do I use it, because I don’t like the extractive direction big corporations are taking it and how they are trying to rob artists of work, and, also, people using AI only make generic things since they are derivative of what humans already created. And the data centers are terrible for the environment and anyone living nearby. AI is not at fault, but humans using it at the expense of other humans.

Thank you for reading my little story in images! I hope it brought a little joy to your day, and if you want compassionate Iminique’s story, it’s on Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Apple iBooks, Kobo, Smashwords, Scribd, Palace Marketplace, and Thalia.

Thrice the shadow. [No, I still do not know what this means but I like how it flows, and so!]

All the love to you all 🙂 Be kind this week.

Aaaaand if you want to give me some love (or feed me 😀 since I’m always low on food), you can ‘buy me a coffee’, that is, send $1 (or more) via buy me a coffee, or to support me regularly, you can join the patreon I’ve been seriously neglecting (but want to resume), or get daily snippets I like to share on Facebook, check out my books I don’t want anyone to buy, or join the newsletter I haven’t been writing (but intend to). THANK YOU for any and all love!