Holo Writing

Authors Jacob & H.P. Holo

Cancer

Adventures in Co-Authoring with a Sci-Fi Legend: Origins – Act II: Monster Con

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Jacob's Well-Loved Copy of In Death Ground
My well-loved copy of In Death Ground.

Catch up on Act I here!

Act II: Monster Con

We arrived early to David’s signing, hoping to not only get my copy of In Death Ground signed, but also to whisk H.P. back home to safety and comfort.

This plan, as with many plans before it, did not survive contact with the enemy.

David had not yet arrived, but his signing was being hosted at a table run by The Royal Manticoran Navy—a fan club for his Honor Harrington series—and so, naturally, there were other David Weber fans hanging out, many in full military cosplay from the Honor Harrington universe. We began to chat about David’s books and the club itself, little knowing that many of the people we chatted with would become close friends to this day.

(Fun Fact from H.P.: It turns out that one of those impending friends was the person who suggested that Monster Con invite David in the first place, and he runs the shop that has since become the top supplier for my mild Funko Pop addiction. Which is to say, Jacob also owes this twist in his writing career to Richard at Richard’s Comics and Collectables, so be sure to swing by his shop and buy everything.)

The conversation soon swung over to books and my own aspirations as an indie author.

At which point, a member of the TRMN said, “Oh, you should talk to David’s wife.”

I was not keen on this at all. What business did we have disturbing David Weber’s wife?

That’s when they decided to drag us over to her table.

Surely enough, Sharon Rice-Weber had been hanging out there the whole time, chatting with the TRMN like they were close family.

I expected to say a quick hello and then leave, but one thing you quickly learn about the Webers is they love people, and they love talking with people.

We ended up chatting with Sharon for over an hour, well past the start of the signing, and nearly to its end. We chatted about writing, about the publishing industry, about the fan club, about recent surgeries—both Sharon and H.P. could sympathize on that one—and when it came time for us to finally break away to have my book signed …

Sharon invited us to lunch with David.

So … we set up a lunch.

Again, H.P. and I expected maybe an hour-long meal and chat in which David politely tolerated this weird, awkward fan’s questions.

We ended up talking for four hours.

Which proved not to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, because David and Sharon asked us out to lunch a second time. And a third. And a fourth. And so on.

At some point, we ended up popping over to the Webers’ house for David’s homemade spaghetti.

And now I can say that I have eaten spaghetti cooked by my favorite author, in that author’s house.

Never in my wildest dreams did I expect my wife’s short (but very frightening) bout with cancer to end there.

And, strangely enough, it didn’t.

Continue to Act III here!

My signed copy of In Death Ground.

Adventures in Co-Authoring with a Sci-Fi Legend: Origins – Act I: Cancer

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Signing preorders of The Gordian Protocol! Photo by Angi Clayton.

I’ve been writing with David Weber for six years—first on The Gordian Protocol, then The Valkyrie Protocol, and now on three more novels set within the same multiverse, the first of which will come out later this year.

Even after this long, the notion of writing with David Weber maintains a certain … surrealness in my mind.

David Weber is one of the authors who inspired me to write in the first place, and how many people get the privilege of writing with those who inspired them? There are still times when that aspect of my author journey doesn’t feel entirely real.

So here it is, the tale of how nobody indie author Jacob Holo went from that … to being “the other guy” on books with David Weber’s name on them.

Act I: Cancer

The story starts with cancer.

And, as my wife is fond of saying, “I do not recommend starting here.”

In the summer of 2014, we found a suspicious dark spot on H.P.’s leg. That spot ended up being a melanoma—the most aggressive form of skin cancer. Luckily for us, we caught it early enough that the dermatologist thought she might have caught all of it in the first visit. But with cancers this aggressive, it’s best to be sure, so H.P. went in to have the skin around the cancer excised and a lymph node biopsy performed to check for any signs of metastasis.

The good news is the operation was completely successful, and H.P. hasn’t had a recurrence since.

The week of waiting between the excision and biopsy results was miserable. For more than the obvious reasons. You see, of all the things H.P. likes to do, staying indoors in one place is not one of them.

For context, H.P. gets stir crazy on rainy days. I’ve been married to her for over a decade, and I still don’t understand this. She once went out to mow the grass during a tornado warning, with the reasoning, “The tornado’s not here yet, and I still have half an hour left on my audiobook.”

The excised patch on her leg wasn’t too bad, but the doctors had to cut through muscles to reach the lymph nodes, so she was basically recovering from a hernia that week. Walking was a chore at best, painful at worst, and required my help either way, which meant she was stuck on our couch with nothing but painkillers and me to keep her entertained.

Which, by the end of her prescribed recovery week, meant she was ready to go literally anywhere, as long as it wasn’t our house.

And by “go,” I mean hobble. Slowly. With lots of grunts. I wasn’t inclined to take her anywhere, but H.P. is stubborn, especially where cabin fever is concerned. And she isn’t opposed to playing dirty in order to convince me to go somewhere or do something (which is how we ended up with our beloved cat Nova, but that is a whole other story).

H.P. handles the scheduling for all our con appearances, which means she has a general working knowledge of all the conventions in our area. This meant she knew about a little event—the now-defunct Monster Con—that was happening close to our home that very weekend.

She casually mentioned this con the day before … while at that very moment holding onto me for support during a walk around the living room.

Naturally, I tried to convince her otherwise.

That’s when H.P. began to form her plan of attack.

She went to Monster Con’s website and brought up the list of guests, hoping she’d land on one that would change my mind.

She landed on David Weber.

I wavered—but again, considering her difficulty walking, I stressed her need to focus on recovering.

That was when H.P. put on a truly serious face and said:

“Jacob. You told me three weeks ago that David Weber was one of your favorite authors of all time. One of the authors who inspired the manuscript you’re writing right now. And your copy of In Death Ground is so well read we keep it in the cabinet to protect it from falling apart! WE ARE GOING TO GET THAT BOOK SIGNED!”

So … we went.

Continue to Act II here!

Adventures in One-Eared Cats

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Welp, it’s been a bit since Nova’s initial cancer diagnosis. That and her initial surgery fell in the midst of the Monster Punk Horizon series’ launch, so there wasn’t too much time for blogging. 😮‍💨

But now that there is, I’m delighted to let you know that Nova’s surgery went well! 😄 Her vet reports that the cancer didn’t spread beyond her ear, and Nova’s so chill about it all that, frankly, I don’t even think she realizes she’s missing an ear. 🤣

At the very least, when I brought her home the day of surgery, she was interested in only one thing and that thing was food:

If you missed the news back in November, you can read the original post here, but the short version is that we found a weird “scab” that ended up being squamous cell carcinoma, and when that shows up on a cat’s ear, the treatment is a pinnectomy – that is, to remove the external part of the ear entirely.

It sounds dramatic, but according to our vet, it doesn’t affect the cat’s quality of life, and the only real downside is that the cat looks a little more … characterful. (As if Nova needs any more character. 🤣)

The surgery itself was back in early December and went as smoothly as it possibly could. (The whole vet’s office loves Nova, and she loves them. Sometimes she comes home with cute little neck-scarves from the vet, just because. 🥰)

The only real challenge thereafter came from the Cone of Shame that Nova had to wear for 10 days – though, given the designs printed on it, it’s probably more accurate to call it a Cone of Encouragement. 😊

Her first night home was amusing, partly because painkiller-high Nova is always amusing. She loses her depth perception, tries to jump on Jacob’s lap … and frequently misses the couch entirely. 🤣

Jacob and I were also serenaded to sleep that night by the relaxing sounds of Nova bumping into literally every single surface inside our house. 😐 Which was hilarious, but also ensured that none of us got to sleep at a reasonable hour.

The cone was primarily there to keep Nova from scratching her ear and thus tearing the stitches.

We thought she’d get frustrated by it fast – but we also neglected to remember just how endearingly manipulative this little cat can be. 😂

Within twelve hours of coming home, she figured out that if she dipped her head a certain way in Jacob’s presence and made a pitiful “prrt” noise, Jacob would scratch inside her cone in the places she couldn’t reach. Which meant that, for the next 9.5 days, she had personal scratchers-of-itches, which she exploited to great effect.

Of course, doting cat parents that we are, we didn’t mind being exploited – Jacob in particular. He pampered the heck out of this cat.

When the cone made it difficult for her to eat from her regular bowl, he just filled up a whole huge bowl with kibble and let her eat whenever she wanted. (We normally only feed her a small amount once a day because her appetite is as limitless as her charm, and in normal circumstances, she will eat ’til she barfs, then eat the barf. 😐)

Normally Jacob also brings out a special bed for Nova when we play Digimon (so she won’t lay on our card gaming mats) but she got to lay on the Digimon table that week, too.

She spent much of the week in general lurking under our bed, which is where she goes when she’s not feeling so well. (Luckily the cone could fit under there with no trouble.)

Eventually, though, she started chilling out in my paper trash again, which is her usual hangout.

And she was back to lurking beside me on her designated #bosscat pillow in no time.

Now that the surgery adventure’s over, all we have to do is be vigilant about protecting her thin-furred parts from sun exposure whenever she follows me outside on writing days – but fortunately, that’s easy to do with a bit of cat-friendly baby sunscreen. 😊

So closes another adventure in the nine lives of Nova!

Adventures in Weird Cat Ears

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Here’s your occasional reminder to GET YA WEIRD SKIN SPOTS CHECKED, courtesy of Nova. (BTW, if you follow me on Instagram, you’ll see these reminders more often, in addition to other stuff like more pics of Nova, plants, book updates, and whatever I’m eating/drinking that day, so if that’s your jam, DO IT.)

Follow H.P. on Instagram

Anyway, earlier this year, I’d noticed a weird scab on Nova’s right ear that didn’t seem associated with any injury and, moreover, never actually healed, so I had her vet take a look at it. (After my run-in with melanoma, we don’t mess with weird skin stuff in House Holo, even when it comes to our cat. 😤)

It’s a good thing I did, too, because it turns out that it was a spot of squamous cell carcinoma. 😮

Which is to say, cancer. 😟

However, the important and encouraging part is that we caught it at a very early stage. 😮‍💨 There are still some steps to be taken – a check of her lymph nodes to make sure it hasn’t spread, and essentially, the removal of that one ear to make sure they got all the cancer cells – but given how quickly we caught it, it looks like the worst that’s going to happen is Nova’s going to look a little more badass. (All the better for cracking the #catboss whip.)

It’s also worth knowing, though, that this is apparently pretty common to cats that have light-colored or thin-furred ears like Nova does. 😮 This particular type of skin cancer is largely caused by sun damage, so her vet told me to put baby sunscreen on her ears, nose, and bridge of her nose whenever she’s going to spend a lot of time outside ☀️ (i.e. when she follows me to the writing porch).

All this to say, if you have a cat with pale ears, be sure to protect those ears during their sun time, and either way, be vigilant about odd things that are happening on their skin. The earlier you can catch these sorts of problems, the better, and in these cases, a little time often makes all the difference.

ALSO: Nova herself is doing well, with no apparent symptoms other than the one scab we had punched out. She’s in good spirits and doesn’t understand why she’s suddenly getting more treats, but SHE’S HERE FOR IT. 🤣

UPDATE 2/1/22: Read the follow-up here!

The Epic Tale of Nova

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If you follow our Instagram, you’re familiar with Nova, Novabun, NovaNO, Catboss of Holo Writing, Occasional Typo Inserter, Blesser of Shoes, Stealer of Socks and General Queen of House Holo, but you haven’t heard the tale of how she earned those titles.

This is that epic tale.

Prologue

This is a story of two people:

One who politely tolerates animals, but would rather not put up with their mess.

And one whose first adult purchase was a house, whose second was a cat to put into that house, and who renovated her house so her cat could have maximum windowsill space on which to stretch out. And then got another cat.

This makes “I love you more than cats” the highest compliment the latter could have paid to the former.

This makes her decision to ease her cats from indoors to outdoors that much more meaningful.

This makes the fact that that they ran away right after discovering the wonders of outside that much more crushing. 😭

But as the latter said to the former, “I love you more than cats.”

…

This did not mean she would stop trying to adopt a new cat. 😈

Part 1

H.P. here. I entered adulthood like any women’s-college-educated millennial feminist, which is to say that I assumed I would spend my life assembling a horde of cats so that I might one day achieve my final form as Craziest Cat Lady Who Don’t Need No Man.

Then I met Jacob, who was basically Me But An Engineer And Also Organized, and figured my first plan was hecka boring by comparison.

But see, the thing about Jacob is that he’s tidy. Not fold-your-underwear and line-up-all-your-socks tidy, but definitely tidy enough that the sight of all the cat hair in my house on our first date made him wonder if maybe he had not in fact found his soul mate.

Spoiler Alert: He had. He just didn’t realize it until later.

I didn’t realize it until later, either, when it occurred to me that I’d be willing to move my cats outside, should sharing a house with Jacob ever be a thing that happened.

Spoiler Alert: He proposed, and it did, and so I began the process of introducing my cats Locke and Peek to The Outside.

Problem was, Locke and Peek enjoyed The Outside a little too much, and the first day I left them alone, they ran for freedom. It was a sad loss right before the wedding, but as a cat lady, I fully understand: cat’s gotta cat.

But also, cat lady’s gotta cat lady, and it wasn’t long before my inner cat lady re-emerged.

Throughout the early part of our marriage, Jacob and I mostly talked about three things: writing, video games, and why I deserved a cat. The latter was a very one-sided conversation.

See, where Jacob is 100% tidy, I and 100% NOT, and Jacob didn’t want to put up with both wife mess and cat mess, especially since he was statistically unlikely to enjoy any cat.

So we came to an agreement: We would get a cat when I either 1) fully cleaned the house to his satisfaction, or 2) finished The Wizard’s Quartet.

Jacob thought he was being clever because 1) was unlikely to ever happen and 2) would very likely happen, but would at least buy him a few guaranteed years of cat-free life.

He did not plan for Nova.

Part 2

Life happens, and so does sh*t, and both happened to us for a taxing year. In June 2014, I was diagnosed with melanoma, the most aggressive form of skin cancer. We caught it early enough that, after months of worry and doctors’ visits and surgery, it was fully eliminated, but the fact that it crept into my body from a mole that had been on my leg since childhood was rattling. And then, immediately after, we received the news that one of my grandmothers had left a similar weird skin spot unchecked. It turned out to be a melanoma, and it had developed into terminal cancer. 

There are few experiences more disturbing than learning what you’re likely to die from and then having to watch as someone you love dies from that exact same thing. Her condition in her final days was such that, when she passed on Christmas Eve, the family all cried, but also released breaths we’d been holding for months – relief that she was no longer suffering.
Well. Most of us did. At the time, I saw too much of my own possible future in it.

Even though my personal experience with melanoma ended as well as cancer possibly can, those combined experiences unlocked a fear of every minor pain or ailment that rose up in me. Since cancer doesn’t necessarily hurt until it’s too late, I began to obsess over every minor unusual ache, wondering if each one somehow indicated a cell of melanoma that had escaped and metastasized into the hidden tumor that would be my undoing. In reality, most of these aches were simply weather or aging pains, but when one’s body is faced with its own mortality, one’s brain doesn’t necessarily handle it in a logical way. Those worries thus compounded and cumulated in the emergence of Generalized Anxiety Disorder, an ailment which affected me far longer than the cancer that incited it.

But this is not a story about cancer. This is a story about cats.

Part 3

Fast forward to July 2015. The cancer is done; the anxiety is in the process of being handled.

My intense desire to hug every cat is no secret, and it’s not uncommon for friends to send me info about cats in need of adopting and spoiling. Out of respect for Jacob’s emotions – after all, I’d put him through enough in the past year, and he’d been a marvelous support – I’d stopped asking for a cat.

But then my pal and beta reader Jennifer shared a fateful Facebook post.

Over the past several weeks, a cute little stray cat had come to visit her condo, deliver sweet little cat blessings, and then spirit off on her cat adventures, as cats do.

Until the day she visited with a massive gash torn in her side. 😧

To this day, we’re not sure what happened – most likely a fight with a dog – but luckily Jennifer was able to take her to That’s What Friends Are For, a local organization that provided the funds to stitch her up.

Jennifer wanted to keep the cat – who she’d named Nova by this point – and offered to house her while she recovered at the very least. However, it was not to be. Jennifer already had two other cats, and these cats were Not Having Nova. 

Thus the Facebook post. Jennifer was willing to keep Nova until she healed, but wanted to be rid of her by early August, for both her family’s sanity and that of her cats.

Even in those sad surgery photos, Nova had an ineffable sweetness that curled up right in the space left by my old cats – and by all the stresses I’d been through in the year prior – so, daring to be optimistic, I asked Jennifer for more details about Nova. In the process I learned of her ever-gentle manner, her talkative affection, her general cleanliness, her hesitance to even scratch – all in more detail than I’d ever learn from a shelter or adoption center. I knew that this would be our cat.

Of course, Jacob said no.

Thus began Operation Nova.

I began subtly, sending occasional cute gifs of cats, often with captions like “This could be life with Nova.”

Then I upped my efforts. I began to send articles about how research showed cats to be reliable stress-reducers (a significant point for me back then), among other data-backed points. Engineers love data.

Nova was even named for a Starcraft character – his favorite tournaments to watch on YouTube at that time – and as far as I was concerned, a coincidence like that could be nothing but fate.

At this point, Jacob began to see how serious I was about this cat, and so modified his earlier ultimatum: If I cleaned the house and kept it clean for a significant length of time, I would be a step closer to earning my cat.

He didn’t think I would do it.

I did.

But as the deadline approached, Jacob still wasn’t sure.

So I pulled out my nuclear option.

Your happy cry this morning set me to thinking about all the awesome and not so awesome stuff we’ve been through in the short time since we married.

Namely that time during cancer summer when we thought my cancer might be terminal. I planned on doing something practical like quitting work and finishing my novel…but you, knowing how much I wanted a pet, wanted to get me a cat with which to spend my last days.

All this to say, I love you, husband. 🙂

BUT ALSO THAT IS TOTALLY UNFAIR THAT I KICKED CANCER’S BOOTAY AND AM ALL SORTS OF ALIVE AND STILL DO NOT HAVE A CAT.

JUST SAYIN’

P.S. Here is a hovercat in case that made you sad.


I love you!
HP

I picked up Nova that weekend.

Epilogue

That’s not even the end of it.

For though Nova was supposed to be My Cat, we discovered within a week that Jacob is The Cat Whisperer and his lap is apparently far superior to the lap that drove for hours on end to pick her up and bring her to her new home in another state.

Only He can feed her.

She knows what time He comes home and waits at the door for him.

When He sits anywhere, she is on his lap in 2 seconds. We’ve timed it.

When Jacob’s not home to feed her or be her throne, she looks at me like “Well, I guess you’ll do.”

But then she cuddles up with me all the same. She is, after all, sweetness incarnate, and Jacob and I wouldn’t have her any other way. ☺️

***

BTW, if you’re the donating type, please consider donating to That’s What Friends Are For (or your local animal shelter). Without them, our little catboss wouldn’t be alive right now, and we’re eternally grateful for the services they provide. 😊😊😊