Writtenwyrdd

Contest results!

2009-11-10T00:44:00-05:00

Okay, results are in. First, congratulations to everybody for some really great entries! And thanks for participating and making this fun for me, and (I hope) fun for everyone else, too.

Congratulations to the winners!

THE WINNER (with the most votes, and who wins a large Chthulu plushie and bragging rights):

NAME!!!

THE RUNNER UP (second highest vote count, who gets a choice of a small Chthulu plushie or a book by Charles Stross): (If there's more than one, we're going to have a random number generated winner for the prize.)

NAME!!

THE WINNERS OF A COPY OF "CHILD OF FIRE" BY HARRY CONNOLLY (Mention made in this post):

NAME & NAME!

I have to say that at the 11th hour, four people [Sylvia, McKoala, H.R. Holsclaw, and Amanda Toth] were tied for second place, and first place was only edging out the others by one single vote! That's close!

And, if you want, please share something about how you came up with your story idea. (For me, I have had dieting on brain so I thought of Evil Food. And then Armageddon. Whereupon Armageddrox popped into my head. In couplets.) How did your process go?

THE PLAYERS:
Entry 1: "Pea Soup," by Candace McBride
Entry 2: "Armageddrox," by Writtenwyrdd
Entry 3: "Child Find" by jjdebenedictus (whom you also might know as Goblin)
Entry 4: "Phantom Scratches," by Bevie James
Entry 5: "The Haunted House," by Amanda Toth
Entry 6: "untitled," by Whirlochre
Entry 7: "sleeping souls," by shadow
Entry 8: "Vengeance On The Unknowing," by  Sara Daly
Entry 9: "Priest Of Parker's Knoll," by   H.R. Holsclaw
Entry 10: "The Fear Of Monsters," by   H.R. Holsclaw
Entry 11: "Relief," by Fairyhedgehog
Entry 12: "As I Pondered," by Sarah Laurenson
Entry 13: "Lost In Greenery," by Charles Gramlich
Entry 14: "Bottomless," by  S.E. Sinkhorn
Entry 15: "Facing the Nameless Eldritch Horror," by Daniel Jarrell
Entry 16: "The Camera," by Shona, aka McKoala
Entry 17: "Nothing," by Anna Rae
Entry 18: "Lost Cases," by Pacatrue
Entry 19: "Maria," by Sylvia
Entry 20: "What I Seed," by "Laughingwolf"
Entry 21: "When Twilight Has Come," by Sabrina

Congrats again winners! Please email me (writtenwyrdd AT live DOT com) with your snail mail address so I can send your loot.

NaNo reveals your real writing style...at least the phase you are currently inhabiting

2009-11-09T18:02:00-05:00

I'll say one thing for this NaNo project: I'm getting much better at just writing editorial notes instead of revising. But I haven't been going full bore ahead with nary a look back. Can't seem to make myself do that with an established project.

Still, doing good getting in the writing time. In fact, it's almost time for today's daily dose!

There's a four-way tie for second place in the Chthulu contest, and first has only a one-vote lead!

2009-11-09T09:27:18-05:00

So, blog friends, it's still anybody's game! Voting ends tonight, so get the votes out.

And I have to wonder: What the heck am I going to do with four second place people? Use a random number to generate the runner-up prize winner? I could also hold the baby plush Chthulu for some other day.

Which option do you guys think is fair if there's a multiple-person tie for second place? Discuss.

WINNERS!!!

2009-11-09T06:01:40-05:00

The random drawing winners for two copies of "Child of Fire" by Harry Connolly are:

jjdebenedictus

and

Deb Smythe!!

Please email me at writtenwyrdd AT live DOT com with your snail mail addresses and I'll get these off in the mail to you on my next day off when the post office is open. (That's a week from tomorrow. Sorry.)

Last Day to Vote!!!!!

2009-11-09T06:00:00-05:00

Hey, gang, if you haven't voted on the contest entries yet, today is the last day to do so. After midnight Eastern Standard Time*, polls are closed and I'll be announcing the winners tomorrow. I love them all, but only one can be top dawg, so best luck to all of you.

AND DON'T FORGET: IF YOU VOTE, YOU GET A SHOT AT WINNING FREE SWAG, TOO! I'm also giving away two copies of "Child of Fire" by Harry Connolly.

*Okay, so I'm pretty flexible. So long as the vote's in the comment section before I get around to tabulating tomorrow morning, it's going to be counted.

Such sweetness, after nearly drowning my laptop!

2009-11-08T19:58:36-05:00

Molly, who doesn't like my lap but does like the desktop (hence the indulgence of the blankie) just knocked over a bottle of water, only missing my laptop with the splash because I grabbed faster than a speeding kitten. The thing wasn't even close to the computer, either...but with kittens, horseshoes and hand grenades...

Busy day today. Charity auction at my UU church, Fall potluck (and I ate pie! and cake! and cheesecake! but only tiny amounts) and a bunch of errands like spending godawful buckets of money on general supplies and food. I gave away twelve hardback books to the auction, books I didn't plan to reread. Didn't know there were so many people who liked fantasy and sf in the congregation. Our congregation is tiny, less than 40 members, many of whom cannot afford to pledge. So I donate what I can to our sales. I have enough crap accumulated for three or four people anyhow.

Nano update: I'm supposed to be writing for NaNo at the moment, so I'd best get back to it. Still behind. And it's been like pulling teeth to get the draft down, because there are unstarted threads that I have to backweave in later. I've been bad and made plot notes on one particularly vital one so I could move forward and make sense. This makes me come to the conclusion that I don't write the same way others seem to. But the goal is to sit and write for two hours. I've got another half hour to go tonight, and maybe a thousand words new added.

"I don't give a sh*t"

2009-11-08T00:59:00-05:00

"[A]bove all, in an ending, the reader/audience has to CARE. A good ending has an emotional payoff, and it has to be proportionate to what the character AND the reader/audience has experienced." Alexandra Sokoloff

I highly recommend reading the linked post. Ms. Sokoloff discusses why readers will accept your ending (if you do it right) and what you need in a climax/ending for them to be happy with your story and how you end it. Basically, you have to give them an emotional payoff that takes into account things like who dies, who doesn't die, who suffers and transforms, do the characters suffer enough to make the catharsis of the ending/climax emotionally satisfying, etc. (Not that she spells out all these things, but you can infer them readily enough from the text.)

And a reminder to please read and vote on the entries for the Chthulu-inspired Halloween Horror Contest. Entries here. Voting needs to be in by end of day, Monday, November 9th. And please feel free to repost this information and/or mention the need for voters. There are some great entries, and your horror-loving friends will thank you!

Your mystery's a joke (nyuk, nyuk!)

2009-11-08T00:51:00-05:00

"A murder mystery is like a joke. In both cases, the storyteller sets up a situation, carefully leads the audience down a false path only to deliver a big twist at the end. We know we're being duped, and we go along willingly, happily even! That gap between expectation and delivery touches some deep and primal sense of human enjoyment.

With a joke, the gap is a twist of words ('Nope, I'm a frayed knot'), of situation ('Shut up and keep swimming') or perception ('But this one's eating my popcorn!'). With a mystery, the twist is finding out who the *real* killer is, and why. In both cases, the storyteller is deliberately lying to the audience, and the audience is happy to go along with the lie." Steve Malley, his Full Throttle & F*** It blog

Nano Progress

2009-11-07T08:23:24-05:00

Yesterday I had to drive to Presque Isle for an errand after I got home from work, so I didn't get any writing done in the evening. (It's an hour each way.) I did get up at 3am for some infernal reason and got several hundred words down early; but that was it.

I do have tomorrow off, however, and plan to place butt in chair for at least two hours...after church, UU coffee hour, a charity auction and potluck...which might take most of the afternoon. But I have to be there for that and support the cause and socialize and drink coffee and hang out with my friends... (Truthfully, if you cannot make time for your friends you live a sad life.) So it's a commitment of two hours writing this Sunday.

That's my commitment for NaNo this year, by the way: Butt in chair, writing, for at least two hours daily. Which, so far, I have done. Hang the word count if I can get the writing habit back! It's remembering I like to write, and the habit of focusing on writing, that I am NaNo-ing for. :)

How do you learn to write?

2009-11-07T07:15:00-05:00

"[H]ow I learn is subliminal, I guess you could say. I just sort of absorb it like you learn language as a baby. Then the light bulb pops on for the "Oh, of course!" moment and I congratulate myself on being so wise and chug along again until the next mini-epiphany!...But you never stop having the epiphanies. I think that's because any artistic pursuit involves context and intent so intimately with the braiding together of technique and ideas. Very complex, just like conducting a full orchestra--with cannon!" Me

Natasha Fondren (Spyscribbler) asked a question in her blog the other day about how we all learn to write. I liked what I said about my process, so I'm sharing it here.

Check out the many interesting and insightful comments here.

Cool site: Welcome, White Folks

2009-11-06T22:07:00-05:00

A blog by a black author (Carleen Brice) who is sharing information about books by black writers. Very cool. If there's speculative fiction, I'll be a very happy gal. Let me refer you to this post which says all I could and more. Oh, and she's declared December to be "National Buy a Book By a Black Author and Give It To Someone Not Black Month." I love that!

Waxing a bit political

2009-11-06T15:38:36-05:00

It's my blog, so after days of disappointment, I'm going to just say it: I am sorely disappointed that the gay marriage law was overturned here in Maine (after being so proud it was drawn up and passed in the first place)--and I'm 99% certain it was overturned because people are gullible and believed the blatant falsehoods bandied about regarding the consequences of allowing same-sex couples the same legal protections and opportunities as non-same-sex couples. Because the radio ads made me sick, sicker than the the election result. Lies saying if you vote for gay marriage (equal rights) you are going to have gay marriage, gay politics, or gay everything and anything taught to your kids in school. Give me a freaking break.

Rant over. But, for my birth state (California) and my home state (Maine) I do apologize to those of you who don't get to have equal rights yet. We're trying.

2009-11-06T08:22:04-05:00

"Lots of people write too long--I think it's about 6 times as common as writing too short--so you must not feel alone in this. In almost all of these cases, it's excess wordage in a sentence, not excess plot or excess character development, that leads to the the bulk... Unfortunately, whittling writing down to the bare necessities takes a lot of practice and, in 98% of cases, a second pair of (ruthless) eyes who can help point out your personal bulky passages. If you're striking what you see as important material, my question is can you take what's important and say it in fewer words." Moonrat

I heart you, Moonie. I do that. Most of us do, and I imagine even highly experienced writers still do it, too. (But I bet they spot the dross faster and probably hit the delete key more frequently as they are doing the first draft). I have that (strong) tendency myself. I look through any given draft and find a zillion instances of little 'tellings' as I like to call them, bits of prose telling the reader what's going on, or--most commonly--telling the reader what the character's thinking or feeling. These little asides feel to me as I'm putting the reader in the character's pov more securely, more into their headspace; but in reality it's really just telling in an inelegant and club-like fashion.

P.S. Don't forget to vote for the Chthulu horror-writing contest winner...you also get a shot at winning one of two copies of "Child of Fire" just for voting. And there's a separate contest for "Child of Fire" in the post here.

"Love Your Body" poster contest by NOW

2009-11-06T02:24:00-05:00

For over a decade, the National Organization for Women has been holding a contest for their Love Your Body poster contest to celeberate Love Your Body Day. The day is an effort to combat negative body images in women, and the winning poster will be sent out to schools and individuals as part of the awareness campaign. Per NOW, "The grand prize winning poster will be used as part of a national campaign to challenge the media's use of violent, drug-addicted, starved, surgically-enhanced images of women and to fight against industries that profit from women’s dissatisfaction with their bodies."

"Posters should be graphically attractive and use a dynamic message. We especially look for images that demonstrate beauty is not limited by body size, body type, ethnicity, age or physical appearance."
Artwork: Poster should be no larger than 9" x 12". The poster must include the words "2010 Love Your Body Campaign" and the NOW Foundation web site address, www.nowfoundation.org.
Deadline is December 1, 2009.
Prizes up to $400 (see web page for details).
Past winners here.

And, if you need some assistance in understanding why NOW is running the Love Your Body campaign, check out these advertisements that NOW has (rightly) branded as offensive to women.

Nano updates

2009-11-05T14:36:04-05:00

Well, I'm behind but not behinder. Meaning, I still haven't been getting my 1,666 words a day, but I'm improving, lol.

One observance of this getting-back-into-writing process for me is that I tell myself that things I love to do (writing, art, whatever) are a bother; that I don't wanna. Whatever is that destructive, non-accomplishing lazybones inside of us that does this? The Will To Fail, if you will? WTF is up with that? When we were kids, we did what we enjoyed; but now we start thinking ourselves out of doing them for dumb reasons, like "it's too much effort," "I don't have time," "My feel hurt," "But my family needs my attention, too," or "Oooh! Shiny" (that last seems to be my personal favorite if you substitute 'internet' for 'shiny.' )

Point being, that exhiliaration of doing something fun that you enjoyed seems to have been mired in a bunch of negative clutter. Our socialization and stressors keep us from doing the purely fun. And it's not difficult to have fun; just like it isn't difficult to smile. But sometimes you forget to do it.

So NaNoWriMo for me this year is all about relearning to love my hobby, the avocation for which I mostly abandoned so many other things I enjoy because I love to write more.

And I dropped below 200 pounds, which really made my week, let me tell you. I still have a lot of weight to lose, but I feel pretty darned good.

Guess what arrived in the mail today?

2009-11-04T20:46:39-05:00

Betsy Mitchell, Editor at Random House, has kindly provided me with several copies of Child of Fire to give away. [And--to keep the FTC happy--I received as 'compensation' a copy of Homecoming, the first graphic novel in the Mercy Thompson series. It wasn't part of the deal, it was just a nice gesture on Ms. Mitchell's part.]

So, to get the free swag...comment on this post and you get a chance to win a copy of Child of Fire, selected by a random number generator. I'll give away two here. And I'll give away another two copies of Child of Fire to randomly chosen commenters in the voting poll for the Chthulu horror contest. So if you vote for one of those fantastic entries, you can win a book, too!

That leaves one copy for a bit later on... I shall consider carefully what hoops are required to give that last copy away. Deadline for comments end of day Sunday.

Writing update

2009-11-04T15:16:51-05:00

I'm getting some writing done on my break aat work. A couple frustrating things have gotten in the way, to include an annoying problem with my cell phone's memory chip and my laptop's dvd/cdr drive breaking; but now those fixes are set up for the future I've got some writing done--not enough, but it is something! So far it's about 3000 words this month... And tonight I have an appointment (3, actually) for the fixes I mentioned...

Alas! Never enough time in the day.

SOUNDTRACK: Lady GaGa's Fame. (such a cool album!)

2009-11-04T01:27:00-05:00

(Do you want to know a secret? It doesn't go away, that feeling of wanting to stroke your new book. I stroke mine and hold it to my heart, a bit like a baby, and smell it and breathe it in. There's one thing I don't do, though: open it. God, you never know what you might find.) Nicola Morgan

Yep, I hear that. I can just imagine how horrifying it would be to open the published novel and see something that you find horrifyingly [fill-in-the-blank]...yet you can do absolutely nothing about.

Which might make an hilarious scene in a movie about a newbie writer, come to think about it...

2009-11-03T01:56:00-05:00

"That's the tricky thing with fiction. I have gotten into more mild arguments with critique partners, my editors, myself (nothing like arguing with yourself) over motivations and characters and so on . . . on this and this alone. The believability issue. I think newer writers find this particularly galling. In other words, we ALL know people capabale of being yes, THAT horrid, and yes, THAT eccentric. But put them in a fictional world and it starts to stretch readers' minds as far as believability." Erica Orloff, from her blog

The above quote is from a great post by author Erica Orloff on characters and believability. The salient point of the post is that what might be documented fact can come across to readers as false and unbelievable.

She's so right. And it's because readers' sense of what is believable is affected by other factors than reality. Writing serves in part to make sense of the world. And this is an unvoiced, unacknowledged, subconsious expectation. Whereas the real world does not have to make sense. We deep down want order instead of randomness, instead of chaos...but the real world denies us this. So in made things, we want order. We want logic. We want A to follow B and Slot C to be the proper form for Tab D.

Even in a memoir, we can't just write the facts. It has to be a good story! In other words, memoirs have to make that sort of sense, too. So the memoir or biography writer needs to make the facts make sense. Needs to interpret these things that happened in a manner that is acceptable and sensical for readers.

As Ms. Orloff says:

"I have come to the conclusion watching the behaviors of people who are really just ugly at times . . . that many people's cruelties are banal. As if they are blithely unaware they are rude or mean. Do I REALLY think the snarky woman who finds a way to insult to me at cocktail parties has nothing better to do than think of insults on my mothering skills? If I repeated to her what she said now, months after the fact, she would likely say, "I never said that." Or . . . "I must have been kidding." Or, like the lady who moved out of the neighborhood, I have a sneaking suspicion that excuse would be, "I must have been drunk." Some people's cruelties are completely banal. They don't even think about them. They don't lose sleep. They just wander through life that way.

But in a fictional world, writers set up REASONS for dismemberment and cruelty. We very often even give serial killers motivations of some sort (look what Thomas Harris did when he RUINED the Hannibal Lechter franchise). Give reasons . . . and people will BELIEVE your fiction.

But real life? A lot more banal."

Amen to that.

fingers in ears

2009-11-02T21:57:49-05:00

I can't hear you, I can't hear you, I'm not reading your blogs... Well, it's NaNoWriMo, and I'm going to be a bit absent from your blogs. Point of fact, two days not reading blogs and google reader has 416 unread blog posts. Ack! Ack! Ack!

Sunday and today's word count is about 2,000. I cut at least half as much as I wrote, so it's not much forward. I'm behind to the tune of about 2,000 words already. Yikes!

Molly, dreaming of flight...

2009-11-02T18:24:33-05:00

Molly, dreaming of flight... (I fixed the photo size so you can her front paws dangling.)

Edit Torrent's "Why I Write" contest!

2009-11-02T00:22:00-05:00

Today is the day to check out Editor Unleashed blog's contest. Cool prizes, lots of fun, and an opportunity to define for yourself why writing feeds you, or even what it feeds inside of you.

On October 27th they said:

This time around we’re looking for great essayists and evocative theme-based nonfiction. This contest will feature a popular ranking on the forum along with final judging by an editorial team. The 50 best essays will be included in the “Why I Write” anthology on Smashwords. And one Grand Prize winner will receive $500 and promotion here and on Smashwords.

The Rules Posting Toay: Monday, November 2
Post Your Entry: Monday, November 9 – Thursday, December 31
Popular Ranking: Monday, January 4 – Friday, January 29

Have fun!
And a reminder to please read and vote on the entries for the Chthulu-inspired Halloween Horror Contest. Entries here. Voting needs to be in by end of day, Monday, November 9th. And please feel free to repost this information and/or mention the need for voters. There are some great entries, and your horror-loving friends will thank you!

Contest Entries!

2009-11-01T07:58:20-05:00

And here's what you've been patiently waiting for: The entries for the Chthulu horror contest! And there are exactly twenty-one entries--more than I actually expected, although I hoped for at least twenty participants to broaden the voting pool.

TO VOTE: Just list your top choice in the comments. We'll give the voting a week and I'll announce the winners next Monday. You get one vote. Winner selection is all on you guys. So get your friends, blog buddies and family to vote, lol.

If anyone sees a typo or something missing from their entry, please let me know asap, as I had to remove a ton of html code from most of the entries in order for them to format. It's possible I accidentally cut your piece! (and I'm not rereading at the moment, as it's 11:30 and time for all good witches to prepare for bed! besides which I stink at proofreading so even though I really DID look these over, it's possible I missed something obvious!)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ENTRY 1: "Pea Soup"

When all had become clear again, the boy was alone. The circle was empty, and the candles at the seven points of the heptagram lit the room with a cheery glow. He tossed the book and chalk across the room with a growl.

"Law-RENCE! What's that noise up there? I heard a thud," his mother's shrill voice floated from downstairs.

Stalking to the door, he whipped it open and then said more meekly, with his customary horrendous stutter, "Nuh-n-nothing, muh-muh-mother. Ah t-tripped.

"Well, keep it down young man. Your father and I are trying to have a nice dinner party.

Yuh-yes, ma'am." He shut the door much more gently than he wished he might, picked up the book and chalk, and tiptoed back to his bed. Not for the first time, Lawrence bemoaned the stutter he'd been cursed with since childhood. Not only did all of his classmates at the high school tease him about it, not only did it cause his mother to bar him from her fancy parties for fear he would embarrass the family, but now he couldn't even use black magic to right the injustices that had been inflicted upon him by his treacherous tongue.

Whatever he'd just summoned had been nothing recognizable and certainly nothing that seemed interested in talking to him about his problems. Lying in the circle like a puked up puddle of pea soup with eyes, confined by the parameters of the chalk outline of the magic circle, it had bubbled occasionally in response to his attempts to communicate until in frustration he'd dismissed the thing with a few waves of his hands. It sure hadn't looked like he'd imagined a shoggoth. For one thing, it'd been kind of dinky. Now all he had to show for his efforts was a circle on his floor that looked like it had been burned into the wood by acid and his mother mad at him. No doubt, he'd hear about it tomorrow at breakfast, and again when she chanced to notice the scorched floorboards.

Or not...

Lawrence smiled as he heard screams and the clatter of his mother's favorite soup tureen striking the floor. He sighed contentedly as the thunder of panicked feet passed through the front door. The pea soup monster had understood his directions after all! He began to giggle madly as the house grew silent. Maybe a stutter wasn't such a bad thing to have when trying to pronounce the glottal tongue of the Old Ones. He sat on his bed and began to page through the book at his leisure, flipping the piece of chalk through his fingers.

Mary Alice would be sorry she'd mocked him in homeroom this morning...

He wondered what a flying polyp looked like.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ENTRY 2: "Armageddrox"
I was born with a spoon made of silver indeed,
but, before you get snooty, just let me decree
that I worked like a slave at my father's behest
so I'd know how a fortune as made--not bequest.

I learned early on to like challenge and work
though looking back now I can see I'm a jerk.
For pure tunnel vision and selfishness ruled,
leading me to presume and be played for a fool.

(I digress. Pardon me, I'll get on with the tale
cautionary and filled with just how I have failed.)

Starting out on my own, twenty-three and a bit,
I'd seed money earned and inherited wit
which using parlayed into real estate equity.
Selling out gave me funds which I invested carefully.

My big break came next when economies tanked:
I bought out the rights to a promising bank,
then a lab, and a plant that made baked goods and things
such as cookies and pies and cheese doodle strings.

My goal was for billions to rival Bill Gates
and leads to the tale I'm about to relate.

My plant started failing, my products were dull;
so I found a consultant to help me retool.
"You need a new product," he said with a grin,
"Something delicious that tastes like a sin."

We went to my lab with its chemical wiles,
gathered the staff--whom we met with our smiles--
and telling our wants got them working next day
on a product designed to blow rivals away.

My consultant bought in and became my new partner.
His know-how and mine meshed like cash and investors.

I left him to guide the lab's efforts to make
us a product to sell, pull the plant from the brink.
Sooner than later he called up and said
"We've something, come taste it. You'll be most impressed."

"A cookie! Delightful!" I said when I saw.
He heard my sarcasm and glared, clenched his jaw.
"Just try the damn thing." And I did. Then I smiled
as it melted like butter, so flaky and wild,

ambrosial and perfect and-- "Calorie free!"
interjected my partner. (And I squeed a high squee.)

"We've really struck gold!" I predicted, so happy.
"Time to package and market and sell these new puppies!"
Visions of billions accompanied my thoughts
so I failed to see things that I probably ought

like the way his smile quirked and sent frissons to creep
down my spine, fluff my hair on my shivering nape.
Or the way that his eyes gleamed, impossibly red
just a moment...but then my distraction was fed

when his arm squeezed my shoulers and the handsome guy winked.
(And my heart palpitated--for the reasons you think.)

"You and me, girl--we'll sell big, make a mint.
'Cause these things are so good that they'll swear they have sinned."
(Which he'd said once before--but now I bought in.)
The techs in the lab cheered us loud with a din,

and I laughed and we joked and thanked our lab techs
before calling the press with our marketing specs.
"We'll corner the globe!" We high-fived with glee.
"First the promo," he answered. "A box each for free."

I replied with, "Quite nice.
And also a contest with some sort of prize?

All we need is a name. Something cool with pizzazz.
Something that's catchy and creates a huge buzz."
"Armageddrox," he answered with devilish wit.
"Wow, I like it," I said. "It's a wonderful fit!

Our logo can be something wicked and sharp."
"No, something angelic." He air-strummed a harp.
"We'll play on the themes of Good and of Evil
by selling how no-cal will 'save' the good people."

(Something here bothered. I glossed over it quick--
for I hungered, so greedy, to win, grow more rich.)

Yet soon all my worries were cast far away
as sales met our guesses then blew them away.
Our calorie-free, crumbly, cookie delights
outsold competition and soared to new heights.

Record-breaking became our new hobby of sorts
and my partner and I became more than cohorts.
We got married, expanding our product lines, too,
with both foodstuffs and children--Son 1 and Son 2.

'Til something new marred our connubial bliss:
Our no-cal productions were linked with some deaths!

"Good Lord," I opined, "we can't let this go on!"
"Sure we can," hubs replied, "our lawyers have brawn.
Our PR is fine and the public's true greed
will see us through this time of worry and need."

"Doesn't matter," I say, "if they're dying we owe
everyone to discover what causes the woe!"
And he turned to me, palm cupping cheek like I loved,
saying, "Trust me my darling, my dear turtledove.

"I'll fix it all better and make them all think
they've mistaken the matter so our profits won't sink."

What he said made me cold in my heart just like ice.
"You cannot! It 's wrong!" "Businesses don't play nice."
My sweet one, it's time to see all that I've hid:
That my nature is evil and you'll do as you're bid!"

Whereupon his dark glamour did fall from my eyes
and I saw his true nature: The Father of Lies!
The horror I felt made me retch on my shoes
when he drew me much closer, explaining his ruse.

that mankind, so greedy, was eating up sins
quite literally, readily, up to their chins!

"I must stop this before it keeps on, goes too far.
I can stop the production, I can close the plant doors!"
But my spouse (known as Morningstar, Satan, or Jack)
waved a gesture which caught me and drew me right back.

"I'm afraid that you don't understand what's been done,"
he whispered against my neck, giving a hug.
"We've planted the seeds of the Horsemen too deep
so Pestilince rides on the heels of their Greed.

"And Famine has been here because they all buy
our yummy, no-calorie, sin-bearing pies.

"No matter the outcome, the seeds are all sown
for mankind's demise. We'll knock God from His throne
and succeed at long last with destroying His Grace:
Man's so full of sin now from our foods full sin laced!

"Soon it all ends, Armageddon will start
when War is let loose by the loss of our tarts.
So let us close shop if you will, wife of mine.
I'll relish the chaos: Armageddon, it's time."

So, friends, if you see this, I hope you Believe
and pray for we sinners to gain a reprieve!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ENTRY 3: "Child Find"

I have lived long years; twenty-eight of them, plus a multitude of sevens. I watched young men build this street up around my home. I worried over my foundations every time the city dug to lay in some new set of lines. I saw the trees grow tall and the neighbours wax and wane in health.

It seems an eyeblink ago I watched Kyle carry Monique across their threshold, her white lace train brushing maple leaves off the step. Soon they were parading a baby with feathery curls and surprised eyes around, their faces shining with joy.

I watched the child grow, and I watched her parents grow cold. I witnessed the fight when Monique threw Kyle's clothes on the snowy lawn. I saw the police car slide up the day Kyle came to shriek his drunkenness at the front door. I watched the couple's fury chill to loathing as they traded the girl on alternate weekends.

And, by luck, I was the one person who saw Kyle scoop his daughter off the front lawn one Wednesday, put her in his car, and drive away.

I didn't wait to see Monique's terror confirm my suspicions. I got out my old betsy, and I followed him.

Like my car, I am old, and I prefer constancy and careful planning to surprises. Nevertheless, I am still nimble enough of mind to deal with the vagaries of luck, and regardless, a shortage of time pressed upon me that October day.

Anxiety curdled my stomach during the long drive past farmlands and into foothills. Would Kyle note the distinctive car trailing him and try to shake his pursuer? Would my old betsy, with her rare usage, still be up for this journey? She is all I need, with her large trunk and dark windows, but she has not tasted the highway in decades.

The little girl's disappearance murmured over the radio just as Kyle turned onto a gravel road. I drove past to allay his suspicions, then painted a half-circle of rubber on the pavement a quarter mile further on.

My luck held, for the setting sun lit Kyle's dust plume and allowed me to follow him from a safe distance. Once darkness fell, we were too far from civilization for it to matter when he finally spotted the dark car ripping after him with its headlights off.

Fear made his vehicle shimmy, and despite my age, I felt my anxiety fade into a grim pleasure. But his fear changed character also; Kyle jarred his vehicle to a halt. He flung open the door and stepped out. His tail-lights breathed a bloody glow over the road as I pulled to a decorous halt behind him.

Every line of Kyle's body implied a threat as he paced toward the betsy. The little girl's forehead rose in Kyle's back window, and worry and bewilderment warped her eyes.

I got out and stood, hunting in my purse.

Recognition rumpled Kyle's brow, and confusion eroded the malice of his stance. "Miss Fitzreid?"

I smiled, stepped to him, and stabbed him in the heart.

It takes a few delicious moments for a person to die with no heartbeat. By the time he stopped spasming, Kyle's eyes showed white around the irises, and spittle ringed his mouth. The little girl's shrieks warbled like an air-raid siren.

She regained the presence of mind to leap for an escape only after I opened her car door. I snagged the girl's ankle, dragged her back, then tucked the kicking monster under my arm.

"My daddy! My daddy! Why'd you hurt my daddy?"

I hauled her to the betsy's spacious trunk. "Because this way," I said, "he gets the blame, and I get you."

I have lived long years; twenty-eight plus a multitude of sevens. And I will live a multitude more, so long as the thing trapped in the foundations of my house stays willing to trade me seven years of life for every life I feed it.

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ENTRY 4: "Phantom Scratches"

Mardea didn’t believe in the Shudderghast. Otherwise she would never have come to this place. But Raya and Ruth were her friends, and they were hiking through the Turbid Hills, reported home of the Shudderghast.

The plan was to cross and reach Fort Echo, somewhere on the other side. Raya had argued with Creighton about the best way to reach Fort Echo. There was a road, but it went around the Turbid Hills and not through them. The road was safe. It also had to have added at least a dozen leagues to the journey. Raya had asked why no one had made a road straight west. Creighton had laughed at her, calling her a silly and stupid girl. Raya didn’t like being called any of those things. She wasn’t silly and she wasn’t stupid. And she was nineteen. Hardly a girl. So, with Ruth and Mardea in tow, Raya set out to prove there was no danger in the hills.

They made good going in the morning, but by afternoon they found the land was against them. Rugged openings barred their way and they were forced to detour. The depressions were smooth and even, and always appeared in sets of three, as though some great creature had been clawing at the ground.

The sun glared into their eyes, beating them back in warning of the coming night. The soft shadows behind them beckoned them home. But Raya was set on their course and pulled them forward.

Of the three only Ruth was openly frightened. She hadn’t thought she believed in the Shudderghast, but standing here in the Turbid Hills she found herself imaging all sorts of demons. Raya was visibly unaffected. She didn’t believe in the phantom. It was just a story to scare children. And Raya wasn’t a child anymore. Mardea wasn’t sure what she believed. Probably not in a Shudderghast. That was just too fantastic. But legends tended to be born of some kind of truth. The most likely truth to this legend was that some wild creature, perhaps a wolf or bear, was present in the hills.

“We will need to find a place for the night,” said Raya, stopping to catch her breath at the top of a rise.

“Do you think it’s safe?” asked Ruth.

“Of course it’s safe,” snapped Raya. “Do you know the real reason there is no road through these hills? It’s the land itself. It’s hard to navigate. All the cuts are dangerous. Fall into one and you could break a leg and be lost forever. That’s the real danger.”

“You’re probably right,” said Mardea, but even as she said it she wasn’t sure. She was wood crafty enough to know when she was being watched. Something was stalking them. “We should keep a guard. I think there’s a wolf or a bear about.”

“Good thinking,” said Raya. “Should we make camp here on the top of this rise? It gives us a commanding view?”

Ruth pointed down the hill to the west. “Why don’t we stay in that cabin?”

“Good idea,” said Raya.

“That wasn’t there a minute ago,” said Mardea.

“You mean you didn’t see it a minute ago,” said Raya. “Come. I doubt it’s occupied. Nobody lives in the Torrid Hills.”

“Maybe there’s a reason for that,” mumbled Mardea.

They hurried to the cabin and found it empty. It was just a dusty, one-room thing, long devoid of activity. They each found a corner and set down to sleep. Raya took first watch. She would wake Ruth who would later wake Mardea.

Mardea had fitful dreams filled with frightening images of death and mutilation. Whispering sounds tormented her and made her skin crawl. She fought to escape not only the illusions of troubled sleep, but sleep itself. Slowly she began to wake – until she realized the whispering sounds had not come from her dream. Rather, reality had been infiltrating her dreams.

She awoke fully, sitting up in the dark. What was left of the moon was hidden behind clouds so the cabin was completely dark. But the whispering sounds were all about her. Dust wafted across her face. Someone, or something, was moving and stirring it up from the floor.

Her pack was at her side. She moved to retrieve it. Slowly. Do not draw attention. Whatever was here was across the room, at Ruth’s corner. Ruth was supposed to be awake and on guard. Her torch was out. Quietly as she could Mardea withdrew her torch and her tinderbox. She struck the flint to the stone, hoping beyond hope to ignite the torch in one try. No luck. The whispering paused. Now it was back, but moving toward her. Mardea struck feverishly. Light, damn you!

With a burst of relief the torch took a spark and then began to burn. The fire grew and lit the room around her. She held it up and gasped.

Ruth was laying in the corner. Her eyes stared without appearing to see. Then Mardea saw her throat. Blood issued from three slashes. Mardea sat to her knees. She turned to Raya, and saw she was in the same condition. Then she heard the whisper beside her. She turned in time to see the snout, teeth, and fire red eyes coming at her. She thrust the torch at it.

Mardea woke to see Raya and Ruth standing at the cabin door.

“Ah. You’re ready to get up now?” said Raya. “Sorry about falling asleep. At least we’re all rested.”

Mardea got up and hurried to her friends. Ruth had her hands over her mouth.

“It’s cold up here in the morning,” she said.

“No matter,” said Raya. “You’ll warm up soon enough once we get going. Still afraid of the Shudderghast?”

Ruth’s hands dropped to her side and she turned around. Mordea pulled up short. There were three long scratches on Ruth’s neck. And her eyes seemed to glow.

“No. Not anymore. Let’s go.”

Raya and Ruth started away. Mordea instinctively put her hands to her throat.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ENTRY 5: "The Haunted House"
I always enjoyed cheap thrills. Not that you could call this place cheap. The ticket was thirty dollars. Thirty dollars for what seemed like a super crappy haunted house, it was pathetic. But I was willing to give it a shot, because I loved haunted houses, good ones anyway. Even though I was so used to the shock of having costumed people jump out at me at random intervals, I couldn’t help but love that involuntary twitch I got every time it happened.
Walking in the dark door, I tried to look around. Except for an occasional red light, partially hidden by the smoke from fog machines, the place was too dark to see too far. I shivered, enjoying the darkness, and pulled my worn out old jacket tighter around my small, too-girly frame. I could hear screams somewhere ahead and above me. I found the walls with my hands, feeling my way forward, only to have a man in some pathetic looking costume jump out at me. I gasped, hands moving in front of me, like I could protect myself. Only then did I remember these people weren’t allowed to actually touch the customers. They could jump out at you, even follow for a few feet, but no touching allowed.

I continued down the hall, twitching every time someone jumped out at me. The only one that really freaked me out was the guy- I guess it was a guy- that came so close he breathed down my neck. He knew how to scare a girl. I finally came to the end of the hall, and saw a sign. It was written in some sort of neon ink, so a black light would give it a faint glow. It pointed to my left, to a set of stairs with a faint glow so people wouldn’t fall. The place was lame enough that I didn’t want to continue going upwards. It would just be the same stuff, over and over. I leaned against the wall to my right, debating my choices. Leave or continue.

I slammed at the wall with my hand, pissed beyond belief that I had wasted hard-earned money on this crappy place. And then I heard it.. a strange clicking noise. And the wall opened, just enough for a slim person to slide through. There was a rush of air, whether it was being let into the small opening, or out, I didn’t know.

I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I stepped in, and before my eyes adjusted, the door was closed behind me. And I had no clue how to get out. I pushed at the door, even felt around for a handle. There was nothing. I forced myself to calm down, I could hear something, but it was too faint, too hard to catch over the pounding in my ears. My heart back down to a somewhat normal rate, I listened. Chanting. I couldn’t make it out, it didn’t even sound like it was in English.

Maybe this was just another part of the haunted house. If so, it wasn’t as lame as I had first thought. In fact, I could even call these people geniuses. Yes, that had to be it. Well I could handle that, and everything else they tried to throw at me.

I continued down the hall, the chanting getting a little louder with each step, but I still couldn’t understand what they were saying. Slowly, I could tell it was getting a little brighter, there was a faint glow now, enough I could see the details of the walls. Stone, it was actually stone, like some medieval castle, nothing but stone. It wasn’t until a few moments later that I realized I didn’t know where the light source was coming from. There had been nothing on the walls, on the ceiling, and it didn’t look like there was a big enough light ahead to be able to see all the way back here. It had to be some sort of trick, mirrors or something, reflecting the light.

I pushed on, sure I would come upon the people chanting soon, but what I saw wasn’t right. It was a big room, red and black drapes hanging from the wall, with two rows of chairs, facing each other, running through the middle of the room. In each chair was a person, eyes closed, still as a statue, dressed in a robe the same red color of the drapes. Funny, I had sworn the chanting was coming from here, but no one’s lips were moving. No one in the room was speaking, but I still heard the words, coming from nowhere. A tape, it was a tape, right?

“I guess I’m supposed to investigate?” This was eerie, walking down behind these men in their robes, so still I thought for a second they had to be dummies. But I would see an occasional movement from each, usually shoulders lifting just slightly as someone took a breath. I couldn’t help myself, I was drawn to them, to see what they were, what they were doing. The chanting was just egging me on. I didn’t know what the words meant, but I felt like they meant for me to keep going. Like they wanted me to touch one of the robed men, to see if he felt like stone.

I did it. I reached out and touched the man nearest to me on the shoulder. He felt cold, dead. Just that one touch, even when I was just touching his clothing, it was enough to make me feel sick. I yanked my hand back, shoving it into my jacket pocket to warm it. This was too much for me, I had to get out of here. There had to be another door somewhere, and if not, I’d kick that passage way door down if I had to.

I turned to leave the way I came, when I saw a glint of something out of the corner of my eye. I turned, and stared into the eyes of one of the statues. Eyes that had been closed before, and I saw why now. They were ruby red, glowing with some inner light. Not only that, but the mouth, that formerly frozen mouth was pulling into a snarl, revealing not teeth, but fangs. Two rows of fangs, two in the top, two in the bottom, every tooth sharpened into something I knew would kill me.

I shrieked and ran, but I had barely gotten two steps when I was knocked to the ground. Claw-like nails were digging into my legs, freezing me as quickly as warm blood dripping down my legs was warming me. This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t real! They weren’t allowed to touch the customers, it was a rule. I rule I had thought stupid, now I wanted it back. I screamed, kicking, scratching at my attacker, begging for help. But all I saw was the rest of the statues rise from their chairs and turn towards me.

I let out one more scream before my throat was ripped open. As I lay there, knowing I was dying, I wished I was numb. I wished I couldn’t feel every last fang ripping into my arms, my legs, my sides.

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ENTRY 6: Untitled

The Great Old One studied the rows of subs on display, his thoughts indescribable.

‘What can I get you?’ said the girl behind the counter.

Cthulhu heaved a sigh. Ham and mustard or cheese and pickle? Sooooo hard to decide. After much deliberation (and some eeny-meeny-minying of his dangly cephalopod wibbly bits), he finally settled on the soup. Tomato and coriander. Sounded nice.

The girl took his order. ‘Would you like a roll with that?’

‘What do you have?’ asked Cthulhu, producing his wallet from between two blubbery flaps of pustulent vileness.

‘Plain white, brown or crusty.’

Cthulhu thought hard. Given his loose bowels, brown was a no-no, and plain white held too many dark memories. In any case, mucusy discharge dripped from his body in globules and he needed something to soak it all up.

‘Crusty,’ he said, finally, and handed over £1.75.

The café was barely half full; a twilight world of custom between breakfast and lunch, and as Cthulhu slithered over to a seat by the window with his tray, he couldn’t help thinking how dowdy the place looked.

‘Could do with some pictures,’ he muttered. ‘And maybe a few potted plants...’

While his soup cooled down, Cthulhu spread out his newspaper on the table.

‘Iran close to nuclear weapons...Obama voted sexiest man...Cowell signs singing amputee dance troupe...’ Nothing but bad news again. He turned to the crossword. ‘Seven down. Evil Tome. Twelve letters. Third letter, C.’ A smile burst from the rolls of fungoid flesh he called lips, staining the paper doily beneath his soup spoon. ‘Know that one! N-E-C-R-O-N-O-M-I-C-O-N...’

He filled in another half dozen words, looking up every now and then to pull faces at a toddler stuffing her face with chips and ketchup.

‘She’s mad for it,’ said the child’s mother.

‘Aren’t we all?’ replied Cthulhu, with a knowing nod.

The Spawn of Vhoorl gave his soup a gentle stir then set the spoon down, and with a gurgling sound to rival all Jeff Goldblum’s best scenes in The Fly, two trails of viscous slime drooled down his fattest tentacle in a double helix and sank the tips of their foulness into the soup. A row of flaps in Cthulhus’ octopoid head gaped open like spiracles on a maggot, and he sucked hard till his eyeballs spat vomity tears. Nice soup — if a tad overseasoned.

He was toying with the idea of a treating himself to a nice iced bun when a chime rang out over the café’s idle chatter.

11am. Time to go.

With a sigh of resignation, Cthulhu wiped his fingers on his napkin, folded away his paper and stood up. Then, after a cheery wave to the girl behind the counter and a last comic gurn at the toddler, he undulated out through the door.

Moments later, the neighbourhood burned like an inferno, and flapping, gibbering horrors burst from every charred corpse.

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ENTRY 7: "sleeping souls"

a warm desert wind is gusting through trees

to the flashes of lightning far

the beating drums that pulse through the air

brings fear to the minds ajar

and you hear the keys unlocking the gates

of souls long fast asleep

and moments later you pick up the stench

as they through doorways creep

then shadows around you move with stealth

one blink and the scenery’s changed

invisible footsteps that cause a creak

leaving your mind deranged

with nerves on the edge of a deep abyss

you feel their touch on your back

the icy breath that skims your cheek

you flee from the blind attack

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ENTRY 8: Vengeance on the Unknowing

Each stair creaked more loudly than the last as my foot touched it, my attempted stealth failing completely. As if it would help me now. The air grew steadily colder as I descended into the basement. The stainless steel knife clutched in my hand would hardly be helpful if my tormentors where, as I believed, ghosts. The sense of safety that comes with holding a sharp weapon slowed my shallow breathing though, and I wished to be as calm as possible. I hoped everything was in my head and maybe if I calmed down it would all go away, though I feared, and indeed knew, otherwise.

A door upstairs slammed and I jumped, dropping the knife which clattered down into the darkness. I stifled a scream as ice cold water ran down my back. A icy sweat glistened on my forehead. "Keep going." The ethereal, childish voice whispered right next to my ear. It almost sounded lyrical as she goaded me on. The eerie sound, enough to tear down the spirit of the staunchest warrior, nearly killed me itself.

"Why." I cried. "What do you want of me?" My tears froze on my cheeks.

"You will see when you get there. You will see quite clearly. Keep going or I will make you go." The voice threatened to make me fall down the stairs with a strong breath of wintry air pushing against my back, almost strong enough to topple me.

I continued the descent, quaking with every step. The voices of the dead whispered in my ears the whole way down. I knew not why they tormented me so. I wanted to run back up the stairs to my fireplace, but the threats kept me in the downward motion.

Suddenly a white light burst from the dankness of the basement where no light bulb had ever worked. As the light receded slightly I saw a pile of corpses at the bottom of the stairs. Their faces shrouded in shadow even as the light shown upon them. By this time my teeth chattered uncontrollably, both from cold, and from fear.

"This is your doing. You killed these innocents." The voice intoned, "I am one of them, and I have seen firsthand how it is all your fault. You will find me at somewhere in there. I am the four foot tall blond girl with the green eyes. You will find me and you will know."

"But I've never hurt a soul in my life! I'm a church woman, I work for charities."

"And by that you killed us, and you continue to do so with every family you turn away."

Ice enveloped my body as I tried to grasp her meaning. I would lie among those ghostly corpses forever perhaps. Never dying, yet never again living. My own personal hell within my most beloved home.

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ENTRY 9: The Priest Of Parker's Knoll

Mine has been an unhappy lot these past several months, but as the parish priest, it has been my duty to tend to the sick and the dying, offering what solace I might in their long, dark hours of suffering and need. There have never been so many as there have been of late, however, and I found myself collapsing into bed early each morning from exhaustion.

But, now, there is only one: our village physician, Dr. Matthew Forrest. He had been feeling poorly for a month before taking to his bed, sick with the terrible illness from which I fear he will never recover. I feel quite badly for the poor gentleman as I sit by his sickbed and hold his cold, damp hand in my own for whatever comfort such a paltry gesture may provide. He is upon his last suffering now, and as much as I wish to speak to him that he nears not his end, but another beginning, a transformation of spirit, my heart is no longer in it.

Once, only a few months ago, I uttered such words with a gentle, pious spirit as I envisioned the glories of God's Heavenly Kingdom, but it wasn't long before the emptiness of such comfort became evident. The shining gates of Heaven seem distant and tarnished things to me now, and of them I will not speak to a living soul. There is no peace or solace in contemplating them. It is true that a remarkable transition awaits him, as it did for all those whom I comforted, but of it, I do not speak. He already knows what shape the end of his illness will take, for he is the last of them, save for myself, and has seen it with his own eyes.

I have been feeling poorly, myself, for a little over a month, now. I know that I should take to my own bed, but I cannot. I must see Dr. Forrest off before I do, and for this, I have pushed my own endurance nearly to the breaking point. I watch over him as his breathing becomes ragged, and a rattle sounds deep within his chest at his every breath. It has become familiar to me now, and the sound no longer holds the dread it once did. There is only sorrow, and a desperate feeling that we have been forsaken here.

At length, Dr. Forrest's breathing slows and becomes shallower, as the rattling rises. His complexion has grown waxy and bluish. He looks at me now with an interminable sadness, but I can muster no more tears. I am nearly spent, myself. The rattle dies in his chest with the last breath he will ever take.

It is the end of Dr. Forrest. His last mournful gaze is yet locked on me, and I see the dark, lambent, reddish stain fill his eyes that I have seen so many times before. His clammy hand is hard and sharp. I feel his muscles stir.

I do not like to speak of death, for it has been a comfort denied us. Indeed, death has had no hold upon our parish since that terrible night, those long months ago, when we received our strange visitor. The only prayer I have left is that the Reaper may yet come to us again and save us from our living nightmare, for our graveyards cannot feed us forever.

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ENTRY 10: The Fear Of Monsters

I recall my childhood with an unwonted clarity. There are things in it best left forgotten, but often these are the very things which call themselves to my mind when the shadows grow deep and strange around me. I was a sensitive child, given to nervous fits, and try as I might, I could not convince Mother that all I experienced was real. When the night was at its blackest, I would often hear the faint rustling of furtive things moving against the floorboards, and the susurration of hushed voices issuing from tiny mouths that sounded as though they held too many teeth.

At first, Mother simply smiled at me in the gentle way that mothers have of dismissing the fancies of youth. A fertile imagination combined with too rich a dessert at dinner and the nocturnal sounds an old house will make to concoct these horrors, she would say to me. But I became insistent, and when a change in diet and long, patient explanations of the noises pipes and joists and furnaces made wrought no change in me, Mother became concerned for my sanity, and I learned at length the value of silence.

“There are no such things as monsters,” she’d steadfastly declare each night as she switched off my bedroom light. Her conviction was meant, I’m certain, to comfort, but all it did was fill me with dread and a terrible realization of my isolation, for it meant I would always be alone to face whatever it was that scratched and scrabbled along the floors each night.

It did not cease.

As I grew older, I set mouse and rat traps to finally see what it was that bedeviled my nights, but I caught nothing but more dread. Mere rodents do not twist the traps meant for them into mangled masses of uselessness. Still, I did not catch sight of them, and I wondered at times if perhaps Mother had been right to question my sanity.

Thus the matter continued until the days of my youth were almost spent. I was nearly 18, and I had grown lean, pale and haggard from a decade and a half of poor sleep, when I finally spotted one of the “monsters” that had plagued me for so long. It was as if frozen in place in the center of the floor as I switched on my bedroom light one night, caught in its imprudence. Standing some ten inches tall, it was a thing with a spindly and strangely spidery build with long, clever hands. It stood on two long, thin legs with reversed knees, and long, bony feet ending in widely splayed toes bearing sharp, curving claws that glistened blackly in the stark pool of electric light. For long moments, I stood in my bedroom doorway and stared at this night-black, imp-like beast with savage teeth and talons. For long moments, it did not move. The creature’s face was a mask of terror, its overlarge eyes too widely opened, its needle-like ears too sharply pricked beside sinuous horns.

But, gradually, a presentiment of a dread greater yet crept upon me. My heart’s pace, already rapid, quickened further still, and every hair at the nape of my neck became a harsh bristle.. I could feel in those terrible moments every molecule in the air around me colliding with my hypersensitive skin, and the sensation became a maddening torture. The monster’s eyes, so wild with fear, were not fixed upon me at all. That which inspired its mad fright waited in the corridor behind me.

The light from my bedroom spilled only a short way into the hall, and I turned to face whatever half-lit terror lurked there. My relief upon seeing Mother’s face was palpable.

My relief was short-lived.

A bloodcurdling scream issued from the thing in my room, but Mother’s expression never changed. She could not hear it. Too late, I saw my bedroom light flash across the steel edge of the knife Mother wielded. The next moment, I stared dumbly at the weapon, imbedded in my chest to its rune-inscribed hilt.

I wheeled about, and stunned, fell to my knees. The spindly creature of darkness tentatively stepped toward me, and I could see tears glistening in its saucer eyes, as Mother laughed. Gently, the thing took one of my limp hands in both of its own, and I marveled at the comforting coolness of its skin, and the sympathetic touch of its curving claws against my flesh.

“I’m sorry,” it whispered to me. “We tried.”

It scrambled up my arm to pull the blade free, and for a moment, held its long, clawed hand over the wound. Mutely, I watched my blood flow over its night-black skin. It was, I mused, an oddly beautiful sight. The blade clattered to the floor and in an instant, the creature was gone.

I recall the light wavering uncertainly as I collapsed to the floor, and the rhythmic thunder-crack footsteps of Mother as she approached to watch me die. At the time, I thought it my imagination, or the strange final sensations of death, as I felt my body twist and shrink, and my knees reverse direction. Oddly, there was no pain, save for the cold, ruthless memory of Mother stabbing me and the delight and hunger that gleamed in her eyes. But, I took some measure of solace in the ragged cry of dismay, fury and frustration that escaped Mother’s lips as she saw her ritual blade lying on the floor, rather than buried to the hilt in my heart. She stood bathed in electric luminescence as I slipped forever beyond her grasp into darkness.

There will soon be another child, we are certain, and we will wait. This time, we would not fail. We are furtive, as we must be, and vicious, for we have formidable enemies who would destroy us. But, darkness is still ours, for those things which really are dangerous to humankind never hide where they are most sought.

“There are no such things as monsters,” Mother always told me. And then, I saw one. Now, I creep upon spindly legs with curving claws where the shadows grow deep and strange. We dream. We imagine. We inspire. And someday, we will win our freedom from the true monsters that lurk in the light.

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ENTRY 11: Relief

The flapping of leathery wings filled the night and was gone. Frank saw Lyn shiver and pull her coat tighter round her.

"I hate those things," she said. "I'm always scared one's going to get caught in my hair, specially with all this wind."

"Cobblers," Frank said. "It's an urban myth. Bats don't get caught in people's hair." He wondered what rubbish she'd been reading now.

The wind tormented the trees around the car park and tangled Lyn's long fair hair across her face. She looked at Frank appraisingly. "It's all right for you."

Frank ran a hand over his bald patch. Trust her to prod a sore spot. "Let's get home," he said. "The trick or treaters will be gone now."

"I wonder what they'll have left us with. Probably eggs on the door, or maybe worse."

He sighed, worn down by her pessimism. "Just get in the car--"

A sudden gust of wind blew dust and leaves into their faces and Lyn shrieked and batted wildly at her head. "It's in my hair! Get it away from me!"

"I can't unless you stand still! Where's the scissors?" Frank reached into the glove compartment for a pair of scissors then clipped away at Lyn's hair until a bramble branch came free. He threw it to the ground in disgust. "It's only a bit of twig," he said. She made such a fuss.

"Look what you've done to my hair! I'm going to have to get it cut short now." Lyn's eyes were filled with tears. "I knew something was going to get in my hair tonight."

Frank put his arm round her. "Let's go home and get to bed," he said. "You'll feel better after a sleep."

***

The house was dark as they pulled up outside. Frank was sure he'd left the porch light on. "Maybe the bulb's broken," he said. "Something must have blown into it in this wind."

Lyn fumbled inside her handbag, searching for a comb Frank guessed. "You hear these stories about empty houses at Halloween," she said. "There was one where someone got in the house and trapped this man inside and before he could get out the intruder took his wife away and he never saw her again."

"You read too many magazines," Frank said. He went to the front door leaving Lyn rooting around in her handbag. Before he could turn the key in the lock the door swung open. His heart thumped.

"I'm sure it's OK," he called back.. "We must have forgotten to lock it." Or she must have, he thought. For someone who worried about intruders she might try locking the doors a bit more often.

Frank stepped inside and a gust of wind blew the door shut behind him. He tried to open it again but he couldn't. He flicked the light switch but nothing happened and he felt panic rising. He told himself that he wasn't a child now to be afraid of the dark. The door probably just needed a good shove from outside.

He called out, "Lyn? Lyn! Give me a hand. The door's stuck."

The wind had risen to a scream and he wondered if she could hear him. She didn't come to help. He tried again, first shaking the door then banging it and finally, after some frantic scrabbling with the catch, wresting it open. The car stood in the driveway, headlights on and blinding him. Lyn wasn't in sight.

"Lyn?" he called, shielding his eyes. "Lyn?"

This is it, he thought. It's all happened just like Lyn said. She said something would get stuck in her hair and it did, and she talked about that woman disappearing and now she's gone. It didn't make sense but then nothing made any sense tonight. An unfamiliar feeling stirred in his stomach. He'd better turn off the car lights, check that she really was missing, and then phone the police.

The wind was howling as he reached the car. He opened the passenger door and saw Lyn's bottom stuck up in the air as she rummaged for something on the back seat. She'd been there all along.

Frank slumped. He told himself it was relief he was feeling now, and that what he'd felt earlier was despair. Given time, he'd even believe it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ENTRY 12: As I Pondered

My foot grated across the thick dust of the bell tower landing. I dragged my other foot up that last step, leaned over, grabbed my knees and panted. The backpack banged against my elbow. I shoved it back. The smell of dirt and bird droppings tickled the inside of my mouth.

Two hundred steps from above the midpoint to the top of this ridiculous climb. How many steps from the bottom? Too late to go back and count from the beginning. Hitching my stomach on top of the middle rail, I stuck a finger out at arm’s length and pointed at the bottom stair. My finger wavered and I lost count of the switchbacks. Closing one eye helped, but I wasn't sure if the bottom floors had the same number of stairs as the top ones or if the stairs were of a uniform height. Accuracy could not be guaranteed with this method. I put my full weight back on my shaky legs. Starting over was not an option. Mother was right. For once. I should've spent more time in the gym.

The backpack slipped from my shoulder. I let it clunk to the wooden floor, only remembering the glass bottle when I heard it break. Too late, again. The drab green bottom darkened. Rivulets of liquid courage gathered dust as they coursed across the floor, unerringly seeking the lowest point. I followed one stream to the end and started a slow count as a drip let go of the baseboard and fell to the earth.

I unzipped the bag and whipped out my journal; followed by the heady aroma of whiskey. I grabbed a sheet of paper and ripped it down the edge. Bits of white fluttered to the floor. Approximately five seconds in free fall. No idea of the mass of a drop of dirty whiskey. Nor what value to use for air resistance. Gravity is thirty-two feet per second per second – at sea level. This isn’t sea level. If distance equals half the gravity times the time squared, that would be one half times thirty-two times twenty-five.

Sinking to the floor, I bit the end of the pen. Four hundred feet seemed excessive. Using four seconds yielded a distance of two hundred fifty six feet. Too many unknowns and substandard measuring methods. I crawled to the edge and looked down. It was high enough for my purposes. I hoped. Besides, I could come back later and measure; providing there was a later.

I balled up my calculations and tossed them in the corner, then beat my filthy hands against my jeans. Sinking back on my heels, I pondered a new page, a blank page. This needed to be a clear message for those who would read it. I needed them to understand, to empathize, to forgive – just in case I was wrong. My knees objected to my position. I sat down, straightened my legs out and sighed. Not a good time to get writer's block.

CRAW!

My butt bounced off the floor. Damn crow.

CRAW!

I waved my journal at the bird. It settled down on the railing and stared at me. I didn’t have the energy or the ambition to get up and chase it off.

“Suit yourself.”

CRAW!

It spread its wings and flapped them, claws gripping deep into the wood. Then it launched and flew above the bell into the rafters. I leaned over and peered around the bell. No bats in this belfry. The bird sat on the edge of its huge crow’s nest and stared back at me.

“Great. You can be my witness.”

CRAW!

“Yeah. Whatever.”

I leaned back and closed my eyes. My hypothesis was simple. Floating was prevalent in dreams. It could be prevalent in waking life, too. It required the right mindset, the right circumstances, the right opportunity to present itself. I was here to give it that opportunity. I crawled to the edge and looked down again. What price failure?

Staring at the ground some two hundred fifty six to four hundred feet away, I pondered that question. I could easily be wrong. The more practical side of my brain noted I was probably wrong. But my powerful dreams – night after night – were too strong to deny. At least they seemed so every morning when I first woke up. Now, when my feet were complaining about the climb and my lungs about the quality of the air, I was having second, third and fourth thoughts. And that was antithetical to my hypothesis. I had to believe in order to succeed.

I pulled away from the edge and sank to the floor once again. Pen poised, I gathered my thoughts.

To Whom It May Concern;

The soundness of my mind, while questionable from your point of view, is not from mine. I am a scientist first and foremost and willing to pay the price to prove my theories whether that be in hours at the lab, in lengthy discussion of the pros and cons, in mathematical delving into the secrets of the universe. Today, I seek to prove my theory of the human ability to float through the air and land safely on the ground.

I ripped the page out, balled it up and sent it into the same corner as the first. Pompous crap. Delusional. That’s what they’ll say. At best. I hung my head. It was a long way down, but I preferred the stairs. Maybe. I would hate to get to the bottom and have to climb back up again.

I had to make sure of my decision to abandon this scientific quest. I stood and leaned out; my toes dangling over the edge of the platform. Tightening my stomach muscles, I pulled back. Yep. I was not ready to die for science. But I wanted to prove my theory. I believed in my ability to fly. Didn’t I? I leaned out again; holding myself at that point between staying and falling.

CRAW!

Shit.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ENTRY 13: Lost In Greenery

The wind uses the forest to voice its thoughts. It uses the pinions of owls. I hear the words, though I do not know the language. The dragonflies understand. The geckos do, with their flanks working like bellows.

Sitting on my deck, I listen to the clack of wooden wind chimes, the tink-tink of copper ones. Something caws in the distance. I think it is a crow. Or something mimicking a crow. My ears keep me grounded. But my eyes are lost in greenery.

Not twenty yards from my chair, the woods rise. Pines. Oaks. Magnolias. Other trees I cannot name. Spanish moss twists along their limbs like the beards of old men. Blackberry brambles fill the underbrush, gravid with yet unripened fruit. Things are hiding among the green, though with a little effort I can see them.

Shadows sweep across the world with wings. Perhaps there are birds high in the air casting them. My human mind tells me there are birds. But I do not see them; I cannot swear they are there. And the shadows are large. I think perhaps they are fossil shadows, leftovers from the time of pteranodons and pteradactyls.

But the living things that fill the woods are not fossils. A moment ago a long silken blackness raced down the bare trunk of a pine. I saw it clearly, an animal shape some three feet long with a sleek head and long tail. It took a while for my human mind to say anything about that. It told me I’d seen the shadow of one pine swaying past another in the wind. But I don’t believe it.

I don’t believe it because of the god who conceals himself just below that spot in the bushes. He is painted many shades of green and black, and blends so well with his surroundings that I cannot tell where the god ends and the world begins. Sometimes I see only his eyes, which are like specks of sun reflected in tear drops. Sometimes I see his torn cloak and the ratty top hat he wears. I have never seen his mouth. I don’t know if he smiles. I wonder if he has teeth, and if they are long.

The god is watching me, very very quietly watching me. I suspect the silk-black animal is really one of his angels. I’m sure there are more. The are hiding from me, even as the god is trying to hide. I believe he has planted the forest on his back in an attempt at camouflage. But the wind reveals him. I think the voices in the breeze are prayers coming in from worshippers all over the world.

I wonder if the god would join me on the deck if I invited him for a drink and smoke. My mind is divided on the subject. The human part of me suggests that he will not leave the woods, that without the glory of his surroundings he would appear only shabby and small. He could not tolerate that. The animal part of me, though, says he’s already here, hunched over and dripping behind me.

I wonder if I should turn my head. I wonder if I should show him my own teeth. I don’t want to scare him off. I’m very hungry, and it has been a long time since I’ve eaten a meal as fine as a god.

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ENTRY 14:  Bottomless

I have been falling for ages.

It began as these things often do – mind elsewhere, a stumble, a collapse. My throat had gone raw from screaming and vomiting before I realized there was no end. The world was ink, gravity was of no matter, and death was coming. Perhaps not in the way my crazed mind had anticipated when the ground first broke beneath me, but it was coming nonetheless.

Several hours may have passed before I was able to adjust to the sensation of constant freefall, and several more went by before I understood that I was not alone in my fate. Debris and creatures rose and fell around me, seemingly oblivious to the laws of physics. The world is strange, but stranger still when darkness and the downward pull are all that keep the crawling, wretched beings at the edge of thought from reaching out to pluck you, allowing you to hang, gasping and broken, before they devour you.

A day might have gone by when my drive for survival kicked in. Hunger and adrenaline had made me weak, and I began to listen. The coiled, venomous, slithering things surrounded me. I could hear their hissing and sense their ooze. By this time, I had spread my body wide and fell belly-down, adopting a lazy spin, and I waited. I learned about them, these falling things, and my hands clenched and flexed. When the moment was right, my fingers burst into the darkness and closed on something surprisingly dry and unsurprisingly serpentine. The devil was between my teeth before my revulsion could cast it away, and I gorged. It may have screamed; I do not remember. All my memory holds is gritty organ and salty flesh.

The fall stretched on. I’ve no idea where I managed to find the fluids to survive. There must have been enough in the life and blood of the tunnel beasts I could get my claws on. I urinated and moved my bowels when necessary; the stink never lasted long. Sometimes I slept the restless sleep of one who knows their predator rests close by. One fateful morning (as I began to think of them), my arm struck an outcropping and shattered. Oh, how I howled. I sang to the terror-fish and horror-snakes to distract myself as I bound the ruined limb with cloth stripped from my flapping shirt.

In time, they began to understand me, these things of anti-gravity. They understood that I needed them to survive, and they moved closer to confide that they needed me. There were great secrets to share; incredible information they had held in their whirling minds for eons. My singing was greatly admired, and often my performances were greeted with the slap and hiss of applause. One of the largest, who I had feared from the beginning, wrapped me in flat, sheet-like arms and whispered great knowledge to me – solutions to the ailments of the world that were so painfully simple I could not fathom how I had never considered them before. We fell together, he and I, his soft, dry skin protecting me from the elements and cradling my destroyed arm.

There came a time when a villain, a jealous rat with a slimy tail, decided to destroy me. He felt me an outsider; unworthy to taste the flesh or hear the whispers of his brethren. As the wind whipped by and I fell, deep in discussion with a bold creature, he floated behind me and sank his vicious teeth into my good arm. I clawed at him, reduced him to shredded hair, but his poison had taken effect. He has driven me mad, that rat. The comforting darkness is gone, replaced by burning light. No more do the whispers of my companions lull me to sleep; now there are only moans and howls. I am confined, and I scream for my sanity yet.

And still I fall.

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ENTRY 15: Facing the Nameless Eldritch Horror

How quickly can joyful excitement turn to terror? Think of the sky-diver whose chute doesn’t open or the bathyscaphe pilot who hears the first crack in his window. Think of me, a spelunker, crawling down a previously unexplored tunnel only to have the quickest glimpse of a slime-covered tentacle as it struck from out of the darkness.

This unnatural appendage gripped my right wrist and drew me down the tunnel toward a lightless, glistening hole. The animal part of my brain knew it did not want to be born into whatever world awaited it on the other side of that vile fissure. I writhed and clutched at the unyielding rock. My fingernails splintered and my bloody hand left a thin scarlet trail in my wake. It was to no avail, I was borne away.

For several long seconds I hung in the void – suspended by my strained and tortured wrist. An unnatural chill crept up my arm as the gelatinous tentacle drew the warmth from my body. Only the nearest wall was visible in the wan light of my glow-stick, the ebon crevice now so near, so heart-breakingly near.

I turned my head and beheld my captor’s pulpy cephalopodan-like body. As if it had been waiting for me to watch, with slow and exquisite cruelty it wrapped me in a second frigid tentacle. Its other tentacles, appendages that appeared wholly unsuited for maneuvering around a cave, propelled the reeking mass over glistening rocks; carrying me away from the fissure through which I’d been drawn.

It was the eyes that struck at my mind. As I stared, I realized that it never blinked. Its gelatinous eyes resembled two enormous albino slugs embracing lightless voids in space. There was neither mercy nor empathy in those eyes, and the soul upon which they were windows was dark, pitiless, and alone.

Its mouth was a long lipless slit. This gash opened and the creature’s breath enveloped me in an icy miasma. Its exhalations were colder than the air in this lightless lithic womb. I pressed against the monster’s grip without doing more than feeding it with my body heat. As I started to shiver in its grip I realized it was content to extract my life, slowly, dispassionately.

This was a creature that was clearly outside of any world known by man. It might have lurked here in this Stygian crypt for millennia, its gelid heart beating to the rhythm of some ponderous and sluggish metronome. There was no name for this monster.

No name. This is the monstrosity vomited out of some other, darker dimension. This would have been the very image of the Nameless Eldritch Horror in Lovecraft’s nightmarish imagination.

In that instant I deduced a way out.

“I see you! I know you! I name you,” I uttered through chattering jaws. The tentacle tightened momentarily and with the breath it squeezed from my body I declaimed, “You are Pat!” As I named it, its pupils contracted in surprise.

“Now, Pat, set me down.” Pat’s mouth turned down in confusion and then, reluctantly the tentacle lowered me to the cave floor. “Let me loose, Pat!” Pat’s eyes widened and its frown deepened, but the tentacle loosened, and pulled away.

I began to back away toward the crevice. “Stay here, Pat. Do not move.” Pat shuddered as it fought against the compulsion of my command. Then it relaxed and its tentacles slumped to the floor. I reluctantly turned my back on Pat and carefully picked my way through the slime and mud on the floor. I glanced back from time to time to reassure myself Pat hadn’t moved but it remained still and quiescent. With each step I felt both warmth and joy again.

As I reached the wall and made the short assent to the crevice it suddenly occurred to me that I now controlled the most momentous discovery in decades. I knew that I would soon return and extract Pat from this lightless grotto. Thousands, no, millions would pay for the chance to look into those soulless eyes.

Behind me, in the dark, Pat's mouth turned up in a malevolent smile.

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ENTRY 16: The Camera

Afterwards, Dena could not remember how her son had committed suicide, only that he left no note.
She couldn't remember the funeral either. The day that had signalled not only the end of her life as a mother, but also the end of her life as half of a divorced couple connected by an almost-grown son. An ending Tony had underlined only a few weeks later by becoming engaged to Elena. 'My rock,'he'd said. Now Elena had a rock. It sparkled indecently on her finger.

Dena's forgetting was psychological, her doctor said, an emotional shield generated by her mind. He offered her an appointment with a psychiatrist,but she refused. Then he offered her tranquillisers. She refused again. Instead, she carried on, washing once a week, looking after the garden,shopping for one. It was almost as if there had been no Philip.

Only one loose end remained. Six months after his death, Dena drove the two hours to the city where Philip had been studying, to clear out his room.

The landlord had left the key under the mat and she let herself in. The flat was empty, Philip's flatmates long gone. Open doors lined the polished wood hallway. Dust motes danced in late afternoon light that was the golden colour of toast. Dena passed the empty rooms until she came to the one at the end of the hallway, the one with the closed door. Philip's.

The hinges whined slightly as Dena pushed the door open. Then, as she walked into the room, Philip walked back into her life. The room was full of him; the floorboards strewn with shoes, socks, underpants, books and sweatshirts;the bed unmade, the desk scattered with notepads, leaflets, empty chip packets, tumblers, mugs, pens, pencils, mouldy-crumbed plates, CDs, files,more socks, papers and crumpled tissues. Under the staleness of the air, she smelt him too, the blend of earth and ripe apples that she remembered from the moment he was first laid, crying, on her empty stomach.

She almost wept, but, no, there was too much to do. The crockery on the desk must be washed and bleached. That was the place to start. She found Philip's wastepaper basket - empty - under a discarded sweatshirt and started sweeping old tissues off the desk. But, these tissues, all had a little bit of Philip on them, should she keep...a shocked giggle rose in her throat,but died when she picked up an empty chip packet to reveal a photo of her.

Philip had taken it the last time he'd been home, with the digital camera he'd picked up at a garage sale. A deceased estate, he'd said. He'd been so proud of the little gadget, showing her the screen that displayed the photo of her standing in front of the blossoming apple tree. The camera -maybe it had a photo of Philip on it too. Something to add to the photo albums that had once seemed so full, but now seemed so finite.

Dena rummaged through the desk drawers and swept the junk off the desk -uncovering Philip's laptop - but found no sign of the camera. She crawled across the floor, through the crusty cast offs and broken-spined books, and peered under the bed, finding only dust and tissues, and a couple of magazines she didn't much want to look at. She sat back on her haunches. No camera. Maybe one of Philip's flatmates had taken it. Stolen her memories. She cried, briefly, harshly, her face buried in her hands. That was when she realised she had to know everything. Everything about those final moments when Philip had decided that he didn't want to be her son any more.

She tipped her head back and wailed at the cracked ceiling, at the dustylampshade, at the camera, in a blue neoprene case, hanging from its strap ona hook high up in the corner of the room.
Why hadn't she noticed it before? Dena struggled up from the floor, her stiff knees making her wonder how long she had cried. She scrubbed the tears away with her sleeve, streaking her cuff with mascara, then stood on tiptoe and unhooked the camera. She unzipped the case with trembling fingers and fumbled for the 'on' button.

The lens sighed open. The screen was blank. Nothing.

The camera tumbled from her numb fingers to the floor. Something in the mechanism whined and the screen, face up, flickered into life. Dena saw the photo of herself in front of the apple tree. She dropped back to her knees,ignoring the flare of pain, and grabbed the camera.

She was right. After the photo of her came photo after photo of Philip, more photos that she could ever have wanted, photos that told her everything she needed to know. She scrolled through them with urgent fingers; racing through the microseconds the camera had caught, the last flashes Philip had left of his life. Of his death.

Dena watched again and again, her own photo flashing past at the beginning and end of Philip's story, the story told in the photos that showed him moving jerkily around his room. First looping his old school tie into a noose, then tying one end around the curtain rail, then standing on a chair,then placing the noose around his neck, and, finally, kicking the chair away.

Eventually Dena rested the camera on Philip's bed. She was surprised by her calm, by her smooth movements as she gathered what she needed. Philip's jerkiness, she realised, must have been due to the shutter of the camera,opening and closing as it captured his actions. Dena hummed as she worked. The camera clicked gently in the background, a nice counterpoint to her voice.

Later, her body spun gently through the golden dust motes. From the bed, the camera watched. Until, after a few minutes of silence, the lens closed and slid into the body of the camera with a whir that sounded almost like a self-satisfied sigh.

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ENTRY 17: Nothing

Arian Station was frightfully busy. Beings moved in a roiling absence of pattern - striding or gliding with purpose towards boarding platforms or exits, eddying back and forth, admiring the preserved baroque architecture, the vendors of all pleasurest, the subtly flowing lights. It wasn’t possible for any one creature to stand out among all that roiling sea. Yet there she was.

Thalin put on a burst of speed, reaching her side just as she turned dark violet eyes towards him. Her face reflected recognition – and, perhaps, mild annoyance. He stood his ground, awkward behind his thick corrective lenses and worker’s clothes.

“Shaleen! I wanted to see you before…”

She sighed. “Yes, before I’m deported. We’ve been together a long time, and I know you warned me against defiance. I appreciate your care, but, as you see…” and her slim right hand rose in a sweeping motion, pointing out the four cleancut men in grey suits even now moving towards the pair, “…the State has insured my good behavior. You shouldn’t have come.”

Thalin frowned, his light brown eyes darkening under darker brows. “Shaleen, I…” and he bent forward quickly, to whisper in her gently curved ear, “I’ll see you soon. I have a tourist pass for Faic, where the camps are. I…I love you.”

As he straightened again, he felt the hard hand of the law upon his right shoulder, but he was satisfied. As the hand finished separating him from her, and the other three gently but firmly escorted her to the special transport, she looked over her perfectly proportioned left shoulder at Thalin, and wonder was in her eyes.

All in all, she’d been treated rather well, she thought.

Shaleen settled into her roomy coach seat, little bothered by the handcuff securing her left wrist to the specially-added pole beside her. The guard took her papers from the grey suit – and then, of a wonder, they both left her alone in the car. Blissfully alone for the first time in years, she watched idly out the clear, unshuttered port as the transport left the station. Her thoughts sped up with the increasing speed as the stars began to blur and twist under acceleration.

Thalin. His bold declaration of love had surprised her. He’d always been meek, mild, self-effacing, remembering his awkward earnestness, grey eyes blinking telegraph-fashion behind his lenses. He’d always been there with her, for her. He’d sensed her growing anger, and he tried – oh, how he tried! - to help her. But she’d rejected his advice to stay low, to go along to get along. She cared for him, but she cared for her integrity and her people more.

Was she sorry for her treason? They’d asked her that at the trial. She could feel the stares from the video ‘bots, waiting to broadcast a dramatic confession, perhaps a tearful repentance. The penal colony that took up half of Faic had a fearsome reputation, not lessened by the harsh natural beauty and stunning views of Ardri that drew the tourists. She’d disappointed the bots and the remotely located judge with silence and an unwavering stare. The gavel swung down, pronouncing her sentence of eternal exile to the camps at Faic.

Whatever Faic might be, it probably wasn’t the State, she thought.

She turned a little, her attention captured by the atmospheric effects outside the port as the craft descended towards Faic. Rather like northern lights, charged auras in reds and greens eddied past her eyes, twisting and weaving in and around each other and reflecting on the cabin’s polished walls. As her eyes followed the serpentine weavings, her breath came more slowly, and her heart assumed a solemn, almost formal rhythm. The effect was soothing, almost…hypnotic…

She didn’t even blink when they came for her.

Thalin’s heart pounded loudly in his ears as the sealed craft traveled towards Faic. The normal tourist shuttle was scheduled to land only an hour behind the regular penal transport, and he was sure that he would catch a glimpse of Shaleen again. Then…then, who knew? Perhaps he’d “vault the wall” and go native with her – it was whispered that people did so, occasionally. He’d do anything to see that look of wonder again in her eyes. As his body notified him of descent, he wondered idly why the tourist shuttle didn’t have any windows. :Perhaps they’re afraid of photography?:, he thought.

The craft shuddered with landing, and a robotic voice announced departure protocols. Thalin stood up slowly, allowing his body to adjust to the lesser force of gravity that was all Faic could muster. He joined the line of disembarking tourists, presented his tourist pass (good for four hours) to the reception agents, and glided past the desk to the main dome.

Almost everyone else on the shuttle was already gaping at the view through the specially darkened dome. Ardri hung low in Faic’s sky, wreathed in magnetic auras that veiled her beauty as a dancer veils her body from prying eyes. But Thalin eyes’ were scanning the main dome, seeking violet eyes and sandy hair among the crowds. In a second miracle, he found her, standing quietly with her back to him between two guards.
Disbelieving his luck, he moved purposefully towards her, no longer caring about the guards or his future. When he was near, he called her name.

“Shaleen.”

Although he *knew* her – knew her shape, her curve, her hair, as well as he knew his own face in the shaving glass – she did not turn. Disbelieving, he called again.

“Shaleen!”

As the guards grinned, she turned her head to look at the sound - and Thalin reeled back in shock and a dawning horror, for nothing was in her eyes.

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ENTRY 18: Lost Cases

“Mrs. Moore?” the gentleman asked.

“Yes, that’s right.” Mrs. Moore looked him over. A long coat with vest, delicate hands smudged with a little bit of dirt. “Are you another journalist?”

He smiled as if he had to tell himself this was an appropriate moment to smile, but the result was warm. “No, no, not at all. I am an investigator of sorts, of my own sort, who takes up lost cases.” Her face fell as he spoke. He could see that she was at stage D-prime in his schematic: wanting to move on with life but hating herself for wanting to move on. I’m fairly good at what I do. I will find your daughter, Trinket I believe you called her, even though two years have passed since…,” he continued.

“Since she was murdered.”

“Well, quite possibly.”

“Look, whoever you are, I don’t need one more quack bringing this issue up. I don’t need you offering sympathy or nosing around for your own amusement. Do you understand what’s happened? A 10 year old girl taken, abused, assaulted, until-” the anger could only push her grief down so far.

“Titterdon.”

“What?”

“Titterdon is what people call me.”

Mrs. Moore answered, “I don’t care.”

“As you shouldn’t, but many people do. Because that was also the name of a girl who disappeared 53 years ago. My older sister.”

Mrs. Moore stopped. And sighed. “I suppose you want to search our house or something?”

He smiled again. Sincere if odd. “No, I’ve reviewed the case and all. Police are very thorough nowadays. Not like before. I just wanted to know about Sunlight.”

Mrs. Moore paused.

“Sunlight brought my hunger to me.”

One of those disgusting notes scribbled in hidden places all around Trinket’s room.

Sunlight brought my hunger to me.

I watch her over breakfast. So yummy.

I shouldn’t want her. I think of sinking in every day.

I live with them and they do not know.

It made her shudder in fear and disgust. Titterdon’s arm supported her as she sank. Therapy couldn’t take this away. Whoever had taken her baby had been sneaking into their house for weeks, months.

“The psychologist’s best idea was that he saw her in the morning. Maybe-” her throat constricted, “the morning school bus.”

“I observed that location. A bundle of azaleas sit due west of the stop. If you sit behind them, the sun would be directly behind the children.”

The police had never said this to her, but they’d searched that whole area in great detail.

“Could Sunlight be a thing, like a bike or car, Mrs. Moore? A nickname of a person or animal?”

Mrs. Moore shook her head slowly. Then Titterdon watched her head stop shaking and her hands begin to. The shaking spread throughout the poor woman’s body.

“Her horse! Oh my god, her horse. Her horse at camp. Sunlight. Some counselor did this!?”

“Call the police. I will proceed to Camp Mezuma.”

Mrs. Moore stared at him, fists growing. “I am going to tell the police about you as well, Titterdon. Why do you know about her? Is this a game you play? Killing children and then pretending to solve their crimes? I will tell what you look like and every single thing you’ve said.”

Titterdon stepped back from her. “Yes, but please also tell them of Sunlight.”

Mrs. Moore now flipped to the other side. “But Mr. Titterdon! If you find the man, he will kill you. He’s a monster!”

Titterdon smiled again. “I stay armed, legal of course.”

Titterdon drove slowly down the entrance to Camp Mezuma. The police had it cordoned off as he had hoped. He would lose a few hours to questioning when he approached them, but no need to rush about when looking for a body. To his surprise, he found Agent Chang in charge and was allowed to start his search after only an hour of warnings and disapproval. They were now looking for the man who handled the horses for the camp, Randall

I watch her over breakfast. So yummy.

Titterdon retrieved his kit from the car. He’d be looking for remains.

Five days later, there was little evidence. He’d seen signs of humans off the trails, with regular patterns of movement. But this was a camp full of teenage girls with another camp for teen boys 3 miles away. There was probably a lot of human movement at nighttime here. Then on Day 9, he found the skeleton of a fawn, stripped clean, with human teeth marks along all the bones.

So yummy.

Day 11, he found her. Alive.

He could barely tell it was her; he could barely tell it was human. Skin painted on to a skeleton with eyes ready to explode. She lay inside a cluster of rocks, chained. Her arms and legs were covered in wounds with bite marks surrounding the pus and scars.

Titterdon vomited.

She was moving though, sitting up. Staring at him. Titterdon closed his eyes, tried to calm himself, and stepped over his vomit towards her.

“I’m not with him. I-I’m here to find you, take you back to your mother.”

She recoiled.

“Don’t. Leave me here,” the voice was as unhealthy as her body. He stretched his half empty thermos to her slowly. She eyed the water suspiciously as if she wasn’t sure what it would do to her. He reached into his pockets for the lockset. As he picked at the padlock keeping her chain together, her raspy voice came out again. “I told you. Don’t. It’s not safe.”

“I’m armed,” he said as he popped the lock off. She just stared at the chain as he took it from around her neck and arms.

“It won’t help you.”

He decided to ignore that. “I can carry you back,” he explained. “You don’t look more than 50 pounds.” And 12 years old.

However, he was surprised as she stood. Her muscles looked as if they were uncoiling from lethargy, but she had more strength than he had expected. Good for her. Maybe she wasn’t lost like his sister had been.

Titterdon looked outside the little cave. No sign of anyone yet. It was possible the monster had some form of surveillance, but he had seen nothing on the way in. As he studied the surroundings, he noticed a key. For a padlock. As if the man had locked her up and simply tossed the key out from the back of the cave. Titterdon looked back in the cave for cameras hooked to a satellite system. That’s when he noticed the scribblings where Trinket had been chained. Barely scratched into the rock.

Don’t die.

Will eat her. Don’t let me.

He looked at her emaciated body, lips retracted so that her teeth glared forth. And blood under her fingernails.

She had tears. “It will hurt a lot,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

He stepped back a bit and she lunged at him. Her teeth were already into his body, sinking into his collarbone. He cried out and pushed away at her. She ripped at a muscle. He grabbed her and threw her into a wall. Running out, he heard her after him. She leapt on him from behind, sinking her teeth into the back of his neck. He spun around and around as she clung to him. streamed down his body. A slam into a tree knocked her off. He reached for his gun and fired it at her as she came off the ground. It went through her leg and came out with virtually no blood. She leapt at him as he fired wildly. She was on him again, knocking him to the ground. He looked at her wild skeleton face, teeth covered in his blood. She sank her mouth around his throat squeezing at his voice box. He was being eaten alive. She came up covered in blood and ecstasy. He saw his hand moving the gun towards her, towards himself, as he pulled the trig-

***

Agent Chang read the note from the officer. “Mrs. Moore still not answering, sending a car around.”

She slid a glass of water over to Billingham as her interview of him wound down.

“Yes, I’ll never forget that horse, Sunlight,” he said. “Something was wrong with that one at the end. Went sick in a way I’ve never seen. This thing started taking bites out of other horses. Then fixated on its own mother. Biting her every time she got near. Following, watching, biting. Later ran away, but we found her and put her down. ‘Bout year and a half ago. Best thing we could do. Totally lost case.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ENTRY 19: Maria
Carmen scrubbed the remains of the burnt huevos rancheros from the
frying pan while Ana played with her dolls at the kitchen table and nibbled on a tortilla. "Maria says that my eyes are very pretty."

"They are, darling, they are." Carmen was sick of hearing about Maria, the new teacher at Ana's preschool in Santa Fe.

"Maria says that white dresses never go out of fashion."

Carmen nodded absently as she strung the clothes line across the corner
of the kitchen and tugged the mountain of damp clothes out of the washing machine. Including the damn white dresses that she foolishly agreed to get for Ana in a moment of weakness. Maria says, indeed. Maria didn't have to wash the damn things.

"Maria says that she'll take me to see the river."

"That's nice, darling, but right now, I need you to put your dolls away."

Ana carefully placed the dolls into a box under the table and then wandered to the hallway to checked her reflection in the mirror. "You look fine," sighed Carmen. Four going on fourteen.

"Maria says she wishes she had a pretty girl like me. She only had boys
but they are gone now."

Carmen bundled the girl into the backseat and rushed to the preschool.
Ana couldn't wait to get out of the car and into the school, with a
quick "Bye, Mama" over her shoulder before she disappeared into the crowd of children. That was the one good thing about Maria.

***

Ana wasn't at the preschool when Carmen arrived to pick her up in the
evening. The staff were bewildered by her questions. Carmen struggled to keep her panic under control but how could they possibly not know where Ana was?

Finally a young teacher piped up that she'd seen Ana about ten minutes
previously. "She said that she was going to see Maria."

"She's quite taken with Maria," Carmen said, trying to keep the jealousy out of her voice. "But I really don't think it's appropriate for Maria
to wander off with my daughter when you all know that I'm on my way."

The preschool manager interrupted, clearly quite distressed. "What did she say, exactly, Tanya? Did you see who she was with?"

Tanya shook her head, no. "I didn't let her leave with a stranger," the
teacher said in a frightened voice. "Ana was alone when I saw her, telling me how happy she was that Maria was there. I didn't realise... She was playing in the back..." Tears began to drip down her cheeks. Carmen resisted the urge to slap the woman - it wasn't her child that was missing. Why didn't they just go find Maria? She stared at the pale faces as it began to dawn on her.

"She talks about Maria every day," Carmen said in a trembling voice. "Every day, she sees her. She must ..." The panic welled up in her chest. "She doesn't work here?"

The manager shook her head, no. One of the other carers confirmed that she'd heard Ana talking about Maria and assumed it was a friend at home.

Carmen stared wildly. "She said..." All those evenings of "Maria says," and now Carmen couldn't remember anything about the woman. "She said she was going to take her to the river."

"La Llorona," whispered Tanya. The manager gasped.

"Don't be silly," snapped Carmen. La Llorona was a local legend: a weeping woman dressed in a white gown with a veil covering the black holes of her eyes. The old women said the woman drowned her two young sons and now haunted Santa Fe in penance. They said she searched for boys to throw into the river, after her own. Carmen's thoughts ground to a halt. Dressed all in white. Snatched young children. Dragged them to the river. Drowned them.

Strong arms caught her as she sank to the ground. "La Llorona," she whispered.

At that moment, just as she thought her chest might burst from fear and confusion, she heard a familiar cry and then the rush of her daughter into her arms. Carmen knelt on the ground, gripping Ana tight, the tears streaming down her face. "Ana, my darling, Ana."

Ana squirmed out of her grasp, confused by her mother's tears. "Don't cry," she said. "Why are you crying? Are you hurt?"

"You must never, ever leave without me again. Where were you?"

"I was with Maria," she said. The other women stepped back a bit but
Carmen's moment of superstition had passed.

"Can you take me to meet Maria? She shouldn't really be taking you away
from the preschool."

"She's left," she said. "She's gone back to the river, she's trying to find her little boys."

"And she didn't take you with her?"

"Maria said that little girls couldn't help," Ana said, aggrieved. "She took Toby even though he didn't want to."

"Toby?" A woman in a business suit entered the room. "That's my little boy." She gave Ana a fond smile. "Are you friends with Toby? Where is he, anyway?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ENTRY 20: What I Seed
Trish was never one for mincing words, and told the realtor exactly what she thought of the outrageous rental fees the owner of the building was charging. "For that kind of money, I'd expect three furnished bedrooms, free groceries every month, a live-in cook to do my bidding, a fully furnished media-cum-living room, and a chauffeur to drive me around in a Rolls Royce.

"I need a small place, no more than $1000 per month, for six months, til my divorce is finalized. A place big enough for me and my two dogs. Can you do that for me, Ralph?"

"Uh...er..." he stammered, "I'll see what I can do, Ms. Price. You sure you're not related to the late Mr. Vincent Price?"

"If I am," said Trish, "it's only through marriage. My maiden name is Becker. That's German, if you must know. So, not related to Vincent, not by a long shot."

"Not very many owners allow pets, you know, Ms. Price, and especially not the size of your two bull Mastiffs, but I'll ask around some more and call you before the end of the
week, for sure," he continued.

"Mutt and Jeff are sweet, to me at least, and I won't leave them behind, no matter what. They've saved my life on three separate occasions already, so, where I go, that's where they go."

"Well," he said, "I really don't think I can find anything in your price range that allows dogs, but we may both get lucky."

"That line better not be about anything more than business," she growled, "I'm not looking for a sport fuck!"

"So sorry," he profused, "of course it's about business. I just..."

"Never mind, then," she said, cutting off his further apology, "I've been on edge for some months and not in the best frame of mind. Here's my cell number. Call any time you have something in my price range, k, amigo?"

"Uh... sure," he said, still worried.

"I'm going back to my motel room, now," she said, "have a good evening."

Without a word being said, both dogs followed her back to the battered pickup truck, one jumped into the tailgate-less box, the other waited for her to open the passenger side door, then assumed his "shotgun" position.

She drove slowly up Cemetery Road, the old V-8 shuddering and wheezing from the incline, and turned into the gravel driveway that led to the Motel Ritz, which was anything but.

Back in her room with her canine companions, Trish locked the door behind them. Suddenly felt in need of a hot shower, she stripped down to her undies, and stuffed the
clothes into a handy garbage bag she could later take to a laundromat.

Closing the bathroom door, she dropped her bra and panties on the toilet seat and was about to turn on the shower water when she glanced into the mirror above the sink
and nearly screamed. A girl of about five stood looking out at her from there, and Trish felt a cold shiver run down her spine as she stared at the girl, uncomprehending.

"Wh... who are you?" Trish managed to croak, covering her breasts with an arm and hand, as if that would make any difference to a ghost, or whatever else the little girl might be.

"Don't matter none," the voice in her head replied [for how else could a nonentity speak?] , "since I seed what I seed. An' I seed ya took dat toy from da boy."

"Now just a goddamn, frigging minute here," Trish snarled at the image, "you're me, thirty years ago! Took a while for me to twig to that. And I know, even today, no one saw me in his room."

"True," replied the child in the mirror, "just testing ya." Giggles.

"What do you want from me, thirty years later?" Trish asked. "And why at this particular time?"

"Just came to warn ya not to leave here til late tonight," said the girl, "there's to be a runnin' gunfight tween bank robbers and cops in a while. There will also be a hostage taking, and many will die. All is to happen along the road ya use goin' back and forth."

"And you know all this because...?"

"I'm magic, o' course!" More giggles.

"Oh right, why didn't I think of that?"

"Cuz y're too growed up, and lost yer touch," she said, and disappeared.

"Uh-huh."

Trish blinked a few times trying to make sense of it all, could not, and found herself trembling.

To counter that she brewed a fresh pot of coffee.

A check of the fridge showed the last of the cream was gone, so she grabbed her jacket with the keys in its pocket and climbed back in the truck, Mutt and Jeff in lockstep beside her.

It wasn't until she rounded the corner on the road that she remembered the warning and drove straight into the gunfight, where she and her companions were killed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ENTRY 21: When Twilight Has Come

“I’m ready,” Maya announced in a happy, breathless rush. “Let’s go!” She bounced past Derek, her skirt fluttering around her, echoing her excitement. Her wavy, brown hair was loose. She looked ready to fly off on her old-fashioned broom, a LED light-stick taped to the end.

Before Derek could argue, Maya was out the door, almost barreling into his fellow ninja. He rolled his eyes and followed for a block, then pulled Ikaika and Simon aside.

Every kid in Bridgeton knew the abandoned house. It was built on the edge of town. Past that house was nothing but trees, and an old road, weeds growing through the cracks. No one ever left Bridgeton that way.

The house had been empty for decades. If there was anyone stealing the cats of Bridgeton, they’d hide there.

Ten feet from its leaning, gray fence, Derek turned to his sister. She had a stubborn look on her face. “You can come with us, Maya, but no telling Mom."

“There are no treats in there,” she said with a pout. “And I don’t like tricks.”

“We’re looking for the cat-napper, Maya. It’s not some prank.”

“We didn’t even know you’d be coming with us,” Ikaika added. Maya was a year younger than Derek and his friends, and they were just beginning to think girls weren’t gross.

Derek rolled his eyes. “So you coming, or are you our look-out?”

She answered by sticking out the LED-lit end of her broom. The whole fenced moved as she swung open the creaking gate.

The three boys followed. Derek almost ran into her when she stopped on the top step of the porch, dropping her candy bag. She waved her light-stick at the threshold of the door.

“What’s wrong? Keep going.” He pushed her forward.

She grabbed his arm. “Look.”

Simon turned on his flashlight. The mangled remains of a cat was squished between the door, open a few scant inches, and the frame. Maggots crawled out of its eye socket, but the movement brought Derek’s attention to its face. “Harry Potter,” he whispered.

“What?” Maya stepped behind Simon.

“Look at its forehead. Phillip’s cat, Harry Potter, had that orange lightning bolt.” Harry disappeared a year ago.

“Maybe we should just leave,” Simon suggested. Maya gripped his arm.

“No way.” Ikaika moved closer to the door, nudging it open his foot. “This is a clue. We have the right place.”

Derek nodded, then flicked on his flashlight and stepped over the cat. Ikaika, a shadowy twin, entered without hesitation. Maya gave an inarticulate sound of argument, but after a few seconds she and Simon followed.

Seconds inside the house, Derek bent over in a coughing fit. Dust covered everything in a thick blanket and seemed suspended in the air.

Ikaika thumped him on the back and took the lead. When Derek’s fit abated, Ikaika asked, “Which way first? Stairs to the second floor, or door to the basement?”

“We aren’t splitting up,” Maya said sternly.

“Basement,” Derek rasped. He straightened and tried to wipe away the tears stinging his eyes. Already the dust settled on his clothes and black gloves, irritating his eyes even more. He flashed his light towards the door. “There.” As he pulled the light back, he swore as a small shadow, cat-like, crossed the beam and disappeared up the stairs to the second floor. He glanced to the right, into the kitchen, and thought he saw Phillip’s new cat, Weasel, but his eyes were too watery to see clearly.

Ikaika led the way. The door revealed a set of wooden stairs, a handful of steps rotted through. They stepped down slowly, their backs against the wall, far from the broken railing.

“What do you think you’re going to find here, Derek?” Maya whispered angrily. “If there’s a crazy cat person, they probably already know we’re here.”

“Not if you’d be quiet.” A shuffling sound silenced them both and the group paused. Simon slowly shone his flashlight down, step by step. The beam reached the dirt floor and caught a bushy white tail whipping out of range. “At least one cat’s here,” Derek said, his vision finally clearing up.

“They wouldn’t be here for no reason, though.” Ikaika inched forward again. They heard tiny clacks and a light whispering, but most of the noise came from the four children trying to move silently.

At the base of the stair, they all pooled their light and shone it over the ground, back and forth. Just before reaching the middle of the room, something jumped on Derek’s left shoulder. He jerked away.

“Get off, get off!” He kicked up dirt trying to dislodge the large cat from his shoulder. Something else scratched his hand and he dropped his flashlight. Maya skipped backwards as Ikaika jumped forward to help. Simon frantically passed his flashlight over the ground, but moved too fast to catch sight of anything. A cacophony arose, the sound of a hundred cats yowling in anger.

Maya held her broom like a baseball bat, the bristles near her elbow. “Stop shouting, Derek. Stand still."

A thump and Simon flashed his light on the spot. Derek rolled on the ground near the middle of the room, like he was on fire. Instead of flames, there was a dark mass on his back.

Simon swore and ran back to the stairs. Ikaika, a few feet from Derek, stumbled and fell as Weasel jumped at his chest and slashed him. Maya ran forward and jabbed Weasel, prying him off and flinging him into the darkness. Ikaika scrambled to his feet then ran, up the stairs and out of the house. A door slammed shut.

The darkness was almost absolute, the yellow lights from Simon’s shaking flashlight and Derek’s fallen one, the weak green LED on the end of Maya’s broomstick, leaving trails of afterimages in their wake. Maya caught flashes of yellow and green pupils. The room was full of cats.

“Derek, Derek, get up!” Simon shouted from the halfway up the staircase.

Derek moaned. It felt like there were scratches all over his body, and the heavy weight on his back sapped his strength as he tried to shake it off.

“Hold still.” Maya’s voice was unshaking, and he stilled.

She hit the large cat with a thwack. It didn’t fully release Derek, but swiped the bristles of her broom. She used its distraction to pry it loose with the end. Woden’s single eye glared at her in the dim illumination. He’d been the first to “go missing.” Maya frowned and jabbed the gray cat hard in the ribs. His claws retracted and he rolled off Derek’s back. Without waiting to see where Woden landed, Maya grabbed Derek’s black-dyed karate robe and hauled him up. After a moment, he steadied himself and they ran for the stairs. Simon was already by the door, his head flicking back and forth from the basement to their escape route through the empty parlor. Maya turned back once and saw a one-eared cat cross the beam of Derek’s abandoned flashlight, then they ran, barely remembering to jump over Phillip’s dead tabby as they fled.

The trio didn’t stop running until they were back in front of Derek and Maya’s front door. Simon smiled weakly, but didn’t look either of them in the face before racing to his front door three houses down. Ikaika was nowhere in sight, hopefully home. Derek trudged up the steps and rang the doorbell while Maya glared into shadows, holding her broom in both hands.

“Derek! Maya! You’re home early,” their mother said as she stood in the doorway. “Did you fall, honey?” With one hand, she absently wiped a spot of blood from a scratch on Derek’s cheek, but didn’t notice worse scratches on his hands and body. “Look who’s back kids.”

In her other arm, she held Woden—dark grey, one-eyed, one-eared—staring back at brother and sister. A cat yowled in the distance.

NaNoWriMo starts today

2009-11-01T01:36:00-05:00

November 1st means...National Novel Writing Month! If you wish to participate, get thee to www.nanowrimo.org and sign up. You can 'friend' me as wyrddsmith. Don't know as I'll be up to the challenge, but I generally sign up anyhow. And I cheat; I just commit to 50k of any writing at all. I don't make myself start a new project.

This year, I was going to finish a novella called "Blood Shot" but changed my mind and will work on my military sf story, "A Lighter Shade Of Pale," about a young soldier who discovers he has some dangerous talents on a planet in revolt against his Imperial government. I hope to make it to The End during NaNo this year. Or at least add 50k onto it. I spent yesterday figuring out where I wanted the plot to go, and tried something a bit different: visualizing the key scenes and jotting notes for them down as well as their purpose. I think it helped me get some of my beloved purple frothy prose trimmed out.

AND FOR THOSE OF YOU RABIDLY ANTICIPATING THE CHTHULU-INSPIRED FLASH HORROR CONTEST, ENTRIES WILL BE UP AT 9a.m. In the meantime, start writing your daily NaNo word count.

Cool Site: how to write badly well

2009-10-31T14:05:00-05:00

How to write badly well. Found this one via a blog link (sorry, forget who) and I also find it hilarious. The author, Joel Stickley, has some hilarious yet pointed means to do just what the blog's title suggests. To whit:

Always use a thesaurus;

Write thinly-veiled, self-aggrandising autobiographical fiction;

Describe every character in minute detail, taking no account of narrative pacing;

Use as many adjectives as you can;

Change sentence structure for the benefit of your rhyme scheme;

Create subplots which bear no relation to the main story; and

Begin yoru novel with the protagonist getting out fo bed and seeing that it is raining outside, which perfectly mirrors his life.

Good times, my friends. I remember those writing sessions well. In fact, I was just going through some of that old crap stuff this past weekend while organizing my office.

Prepping for NaNoWriMo

2009-10-31T09:08:52-05:00

Tomorrow begins National Novel Writing Month and the NaNoWriMo frenzy. If you are joining in, a number of we blogging friends are doing our own bit of support network at NaNo for Blogfriends. Feel free to drop by and join in the fun. We hope to at least give ourselves a bit of peer pressure and deadline pressure to perform up to the NaNo standard; but most of us aren't starting something new, we are seeking to finish or make significant progress on an existing WIP.

Today I'm getting my novella/possible novel, Another Shade of Pale, prepped for NaNo. It's already at 51 pages and 20k; but there's a lot of flab. So today I plan on outlining the extant sections and plotting out the framework for the rest of the thing, including mapping out a few key scenes and the ending. I want to blast through the first draft for NaNo and get this puppy ready to edit.

Sadly, I still haven't finished Magus of Athlinar, the short story I was going to set down and work on. I confess to not being very writerly of late. Like, for the past year. So NaNoWriMo is serving two purposed for me this year: getting me to finish a story I really want to see in print, and getting me back into the writing addiction/habit.

By the way, in addition to being National Novel Writing Month, November is American Indian Awareness Month. I'm somewhere between 1/8 and 1/4 of that heritage, and this particular awareness month always makes me think thoughts about how my white ancestors mistreated my indian ancestors...yet they married them. (My heritage is a bunch of Morman missionaries on madre's side, and they had indian and white wives. Oddly enough, only the white woman had any children to her name in the paper records! Prejudice, anyone? Yet verbal family history and our appearance tells another tale!)

Happy Samhain!

2009-10-31T02:26:00-05:00

That's happy Halloween for you pagan-challenged types, and it's pronounced either Sow-wen or Savven depending on who you are speaking with.

(Don't you love the nod to Star Wars in this pumpkin? Geekalicious!)

Contest submissions are closed at the end of today

2009-10-30T23:18:00-05:00

Hey all! Thanks to those of you who have submitted entries to the Halloween horror writing contest! Submissions in my email box dated today will be accepted. even if if the internet or email provider makes them late. I decided I'm not going to worry about exact cut off times. Too much effort. Sometime before I get up at 5am EST will do.

I'll compile all of the entries tomorrow and post no later than the 2nd. You'll have a week to read and vote on your favorites.

Thanks in advance for your voting participation, too. I know there's quite a bit of reading involved!

Mainely Maine links and such

2009-10-30T09:55:00-05:00

The Maine Writers Org has a page with lots of useful links here. You can also find some interesting workshops and retreats which are not just in Maine. They also have a blog, which, ironically enough, has been up since February 09 and has merely ONE SINGLE POST!!!! [Good grief, you'd think noone up here blogged. I'm sure my copious posting habit hasn't sucked the wind out of their sails; Maine has enough wind to be one of the best states for wind generation, lol.]

And there's also the New Hampshire Writers Project, which has some great links and opportunities listed. Their calender is here with workshops listed here.

A couple of upcoming events:

Speed Dating-Style Pitch Session - November 2, Boston, MA, Hotel 140. Join Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance on Monday, November 2 at the Hotel 140 in Boston as it brings its successful Speed Dating-Style Pitch Session to greater New England. Fifteen literary agents and/or acquisitions editors from respected establishments in New York, Boston, and Maine will be available to hear manuscript or book proposal pitches. Writers will pitch projects in 7-minutes or less. While there are no guarantees, this event is designed to bring new writers together with business professionals who can help them succeed.

Live Free and Write: A New Hampshire Getaway for Poets and Writers - with Peter Murphy and Mimi Schwartz. November 6-8, Dexter's Inn, Sunapee, NH. Just a few spots left. Limited space available. Register today. For more information and to register go to: www.MurphyWriting.com

I cannot attend either as I can't get the time off; but perhaps some of you will be in the area.

Contest submissions due tomorrow!

2009-10-30T00:57:00-05:00

Hey gang, if you are procrastinating but still want to submit for the Halloween contest (details here) please do so by witching hour (that's midnight) tomorrow, October 31st. UDATE: Just have it postmarked midnight on your email. Not going to be too picky so long as it's here before I get up at 5am (EST) the next day.

Contest Status

2009-10-29T16:00:00-05:00

Well, so far, so great! We have fifteen entries, all looking ookey-spookey and horrorish to my undiscerning eye. All fun reads. A couple poems, a bunch of monsters, a touch of purple here and there, and some really strange things happening slightly askew from our normal reality. I think you'll love 'em all.

If you are intending to enter to win the cuddly Chthulu plushie, you've got two days--up until midnight on Halloween.

Send it to me, baby. You know you want to. ;)

Charlie Stross explains why Earth is basically uninhabitable

2009-10-29T13:03:39-05:00

You've got to read this post. Both informative and humorous.

Steampunk...with visual aids

2009-10-29T12:39:00-05:00

Natalie Whipple has a very cool discussion on Steampunk on her blog from last week. Check it out--especially the 'hot Asian guy.'

Opportunity Thursday

2009-10-29T07:21:07-05:00

Another contest opportunity. I've been having trouble getting access to my database service and so haven't dug up new submissions opportunities for you guys. Sorry! I'll get back to it eventually.

In the meantime, lots of contests out there. (And you can thank my homie, Sue G for this bunch. She's more a poetry gal, but sends me good links here and there for other stuff.) The ones listed here have short deadlines, but I thought that I'd give you a heads up in case you had something gathering dust or hot off the press.

Writer's Digest 10th Annual Short Story competition.
We're looking for fiction that's bold, brilliant...but brief. Send us your best in 1,500 words or fewer. But don't be too long about it—the deadline is Tuesday, December 1, 2009. Go here to enter.

PRIZES
First Place: $3,000
Second Place: $1,500
Third Place: $500
Fourth Through Tenth Place: $100
Eleventh Through Twenty-Fifth Place: $50 gift certificate for Writer's Digest Books

DIAGRAM announces the second Hybrid Essay Contest, with a deadline of October 31, 2009. "We still don't know exactly what we mean by hybrid, and we would certainly prefer to leave definitions up to you. We don't like them. We think the term hybrid suggests a resistance to definition. I guess the only way to describe it is we're looking for essays that are in some way outside the traditional boundaries of the genre. The lyric essay is a great example of a hybrid form: an essay that is essay but also poem. So we're looking for fusion of one sort or another. In particular we'd like to see work with greater visual components, or perhaps audio, or something that will amaze and beguile us. You can check out the issue with the finalist essays in early 2009 if you like, though again, we want crazy, awesome (maybe nixing the comma between them) stuff." $15 entry fee. $1,000 and publication to the winner. Email submissions okay. Deadline: October 30, 2009.

Dana Awards Literary Competition. "We offer our three $1,000 awards annually in the Novel, Short Fiction, and Poetry, our traditional awards....Whether fiction or poetry, it must be work that is original yet not merely sensational for the sake of sensation." Guidelines page. Deadline: October 31, 2009. No email submissions.

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Poets & Writers has a wonderful page, "Grants & Awards: Upcoming Writing Contests." I got most of this post info from there. And considering there's more money up for grabs on these contests than the small amount you get from a 'zine for a short story, it is worth looking into these things! (Note: some of these are out of date, but the magazines and entities cited appear to have recurring contests, at least some of them.)

Might I recommend...?

2009-10-29T00:26:00-05:00

The Aware, by Glenda Larke. This fantasy is guaranteed to be different from most of the other fantasies you've ever read.   And there are two sequels, Gilfeather and The Tainted, which I have in the TBR pile while I re-read the first volume. The Aware came out in 2005, so you may have seen it before, but it's one of those fantasies set in a truly unique world. In this case, it's an archipelago, and a group of magic weilders, acting as the law, has banned inter-island breeding to prevent the proliferation of their magic. Blaze, our heroine, is a halfbreed and working on the fringes of the Keepers' world at their behest, as she is one of the Aware who can see magic where actual magic weilders cannot. The things at stake are her life and the dangled carrot of promised citizenship tattoo to the Keeper Isles, which cannot be faked and which would give her a real home for the first time in her life. The problem is, she's got a conscience, and the person she's sent to retrieve (a lost princess) doesn't want to be rescued...
Interesting animals, fully developed cultures, religions and scenery make the excellent characterizations and dialog just drag you along.

Control the Proles?

2009-10-28T23:23:00-05:00

ScienceDaily (Oct. 5, 2009)— A vaccine to treat cocaine dependence appears to reduce use of the drug in a subgroup of individuals who attain high anticocaine antibody levels in response, according to a report in the October issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Saw the above article in Science Daily that made me think 1984 or Brave New World could have used it. Instead of drugging people into compliance, you could control them by vaccinating them against things the government doesn't like. Such as illegal drugs. Or booze. Or tobacco. Or greasy fried foods. Or even relligious-linked choices so that you have to eat fish on Friday or avoid pork so you remain kosher!

These things aren't going to the be main thrust of your plot, but such sorts of governmentally enforced behaviors would affect your characters,and they are definitely a sign of eroded individual freedom and other sorts of socio-political issues that lead to larger plot issues--like your character being in conflict with society because, perhaps, he sells an antidote so your cigaretts give you that nice nicotine rush?

A new sort of drug dealer could be someone who deals in reversing immunization.

Or, a different idea, what if autism really is affected by components in vaccinations? What if you had a character who knows how to reverse it? Why would the govt do such a thing on purpose (if they have in your story)?

How to know you are rejected.

2009-10-28T11:26:19-05:00

"So, how do you recognize all rejection letters now and forever more? Look for the phrase 'Please send your novel to me now.' Not there? That's a rejection." Janet Reid

On a form letter that confused the recipient as to whether or not they wanted the book.

An easy how-to for self promoting book tours

2009-10-28T00:26:00-05:00

Blood Red Pencil--one of my favorite informative blogs--has a great couple of articles on self-promotion. They are particularly good because the information is framed in such a way that it doesn't look too daunting for someone who hadn't had to do self-promotion before! The first article is here.

From the most recent article:

First, make a list of all media outlets in a 40 mile radius of the area where you will be speaking or signing. Call local libraries to find the local papers, use the Internet.

Call each outlet and ask for the name of the Features Editor. Hopefully, they will put you on the line with that person. If not, ask if Community News has a FAX number or email where they would like to receive announcements. If you send a FAX, have letterhead stationary. The library letterhead I use always gets a positive response.

When you send a FAX, never let it fall into the hands of whoever goes by the FAX machine. It can wind up in the general file or the trash. Always put the name of someone on staff so they will receive the paperwork. It may get lost on their desk, but at least it will make it there. Make the effort to change the name on each FAX you send. No generic “Features Editor” in the routing.

Editor Unleashed is having a cool contest

2009-10-27T17:35:00-05:00

The "Why I Write" contest is an essay contest, details to be announced November 2nd. I'll remind you then. In the meantime, here's what they have to say:

This time around we’re looking for great essayists and evocative theme-based nonfiction. This contest will feature a popular ranking on the forum along with final judging by an editorial team. The 50 best essays will be included in the “Why I Write” anthology on Smashwords. And one Grand Prize winner will receive $500 and promotion here and on Smashwords.

Mark Your Calendar:
• The Rules Posted here: Monday, November 2
• Post Your Entry: Monday, November 9 – Thursday, December 31
• Popular Ranking: Monday, January 4 – Friday, January 29

The Bad Boy

2009-10-27T14:01:27-05:00

Natalie Whipple has a great post today on her blog about Bad Boys and Cheerleaders and why kids (all of us?) are so attracted. Particularly noteworthy as a reminder for those of us who are *ahem* older and havent been crazy nuts over boys and never-been-kissed in, like, several decades.

The Bad Boy is really a symbol. He stands for the mystery and unattainable quality that ALL boys seem to have when you're a teen girl. Just like the Hot Cheerleader is that symbol of unattainable for teen boys.

I remember all too well how guys seemed to be this whole other creature when I was younger, like we weren't even the same species. And it felt like if I could just crack the code, then maybe I'd get their attention...maybe one would like me. Because I sure liked them, except I didn't really have any idea why other than the fact that they were all so cute. Having a boyfriend was like the ultimate status symbol; it meant you cracked the guy code. Or something like that.

That is the center of the Bad Boy trope—girl unlocks the mysterious guy code and thereby obtains the ever-coveted Boyfriend. It gives girls hope that love is attainable, and that is why it's such an effective plot.

She goes on to talk about things to think about using the bad boy trope, and it's fun and makes good sense. Go read the whole thing and bookmark it if you, like me, are having to unclog the dust bunnies around your teenage angst. (Generally, I'm glad for the dust bunnies; but when you want to write YA, you need to have some sort of clue about boy/girl dynamics...right? Am I right? [Is there an echo in here?])

Troubleshooting your plot holes

2009-10-27T00:59:00-05:00

Mary Buckham*, co-author of Break Into Fiction, is guest posting over at the Romance University site. Her excellent article on troubleshooting plot holes is here. *(Attribution corrected 11/9/09.)

She gives a few tips on dealing with plot and story issues that keep your story from working:

Trouble shooting a novel length commercial fiction story and rejection letters:

- The infamous “sagging middle” indicates a lack of plot, lack of turning points, lack of stakes rising and possibly a lack of character development.

- A rejection that says “Interesting story concept but I didn’t connect with the characters” means character development is lacking.

- A rejection that says “…not big enough to be single title” may indicate a large enough premise for a single title but what you consider subplot is not significant to the central story line.

How do you find these holes? A good place to start is with the character to see if he/she is truly motivated or just “doing things the author needs them to do.” Or, ask yourself if your character’s external goal is really strong, or worthy of an entire book.

Another problem we see often is that the central character(s) don’t really accomplish anything or move the story forward – they just go from one non-escalating action to another that has no true impact on the story.

I'm not alone in disliking the co-opting of Jane Austen

2009-10-27T00:09:00-05:00

"Hey, I love clever ladies kicking ass, too! But I love clever ladies kicking ass in the real world. The "Austen & Male Rewriter & Monsters" formula is no way empowering. Quirk Books, a male-edited and -owned publishing line, is hiring male authors to co-opt women's fiction and marginalise women's voices to achieve press, visibility and shitloads of money. And I mean shitloads of money. New York Times-bestseller-list, movie-deal shitloads of money. And they do it by stomping all over women's fiction." A Second Judith

A while back, I mentioned I didn't like the trend of Jane Austen+Monsters. I was having trouble articulating just why. Well, in Ann Genoese's Viva Love! blog, she links to an article on the blog A Second Judith (a feminist-oriented, no nonsense blog) that explains some* of the problem I have with it.

*I changed this from 'much' because that wasn't what I meant. This feminist issue is just a small part of the 'what bugs me' package.

Shona/McKoala has a new story out

2009-10-26T21:35:15-05:00

Our favorite blogging marsupial has a new story out. You can read it here.

Yes, I train my cats...

2009-10-26T20:40:38-05:00

See, I've got this system: I do whatever it takes to make them happy and they leave me alone. Except I haven't yet figured out how to get a little "me" time when I'm on the toilet, sitting down to eat, trying to read a book, sleeping/napping, or on the computer....
Well, I solved that last one, at least*.

*New blankie for Molly's napping spot brought to you by the letter G(ullible).
Here's another angle:

Musical Monday wink and nod.

2009-10-26T17:41:15-05:00

I could watch this again, and again, and again. And I have.

Cute Overload provides again.
(We're going to call this Musical Monday, because there IS a toot involved.)

Yes, I actually spent time writing today.

2009-10-26T16:04:17-05:00

After I got the trash run, the snow tires on the Vue, the donations donated and the passport renewal application mailed, I went to our local health food store/organic bakery/coffee shop and soaked in the cool atmosphere of tin ceilings and 150-year-old-woodwork while rocking out to my mp3 player...and I worked on my short story, "Magus of Athlinar." Yes, I did. Didn't really add much, but I fleshed out the brilliant (*polishes nails on shirt*) plot direction notes I left myself a couple of weeks ago. That sticky transitional spot in the first act needed work, and I needed to nail it down while my subconscious chews on how exactly to write the next bit. I swear, steam was coming off my forehead there. And I was working diligently for Two Whole Hours, too.
I then had a friend drop by and we caught up for a bit before I headed home, fully intending to sit down at home and continue the trend.
But then what? I hear you asking, because, with a lead-in like that there is always a but attached. (Stop smirking, you know what I meant.) Aaany how, Sue and I arrived at my house and the septic guy was there to find my septic tank so we could get it pumped out. It is definitely due, judging by last Spring.
And then there was the bad news: Our town's only septic pumping company doesn't dig out the caps to the tanks. Owners need to do that themselves.
Me and my bad back grumbled. But he found the cap, right where I suspected it was. Even recalled when it had been pumped last, which was seven years ago. We were indeed due a visit by the pump truck. And it appeared that the cap was only a foot down. Yay, team me!
Well, the ground was soft, my back was feeling okay, so I figured WTH and started digging. And digging. And digging. At about 3 feet down, I hit the cap. Appears he'd gotten a rock with the test pole, and the metal detector that found the handles doesn't tell you how deep they are!
3' deep by 3' wide = lots of messy, muddy digging! But I have a hole and a mucky pile of dirt on the lawn now; and I'll have a septic cover for the next time so I don't have to move all that dirt again, either. Well worth it.
And now I'm going to soak in the tub while my muddy clothes wash. I'll get back to writing later tonight.
I promise.

Is your plot drifting?

2009-10-26T12:52:00-05:00

Another great post on Blood Red Pencil by guest blogger Kathryn Craft.

How do you find out if your piece is drifting?
The easiest way is when a test reader says, “I’m confused.” But the piece itself has many ways of telling us “this isn’t working.” As you re-read, look for the following indicators that your structure needs reinforcement. See if you might have:

included language that smacks of an authorial “note to self.” These can be rather entertaining, once you look for them. Possibilities include “Before I tell you more about that…”, “This may seem off-topic, but…”, “The point I’m trying to make is…”, and “All will soon become clear.”

reiterated aspects of the story because you were so off-track you felt compelled to remind the reader where you started.

stated the subject outright—yet never referenced it again.

put a line break in a short piece because after several misfires you needed to start again.

introduced too many notions for the length of the piece, thus exemplifying the very definition of “scatter-brained”—in shorter works, think depth, not breadth.

included sentences whose topics open up a whole different world—they may need their own story.

said you would “show” something when you’ve only shown the opposite—as in, “what not to do.”

used passive voice, which can obscure the cause and effect which creates structure.

Each sentence must tip the reader into the next, but from any one sentence, the possible directions are legion. It is up to you as author to pick one and guide the reader on the journey. If you find that the possibilities inherent in your prose are too numerous for one piece, great! Dump them into a file on your computer for development into other pieces at another time.

Cool Site & Free Read - The Freelancer's Survival Guide

2009-10-26T01:06:00-05:00

Angie mentioned in a recent post about Kristine Katheryn Rusch's free ebook, The Freelancer's Survival Guide. Ms. Rusch has been an editor at F&SF and has been around the biz, both in publishing and as a writer, as I understand. I've heard other mentions of this book around the blogosphere. It appears to have garnered respect and Go Here Now And Read status from many of the insiders who've mentioned it. So I mention it here in case you haven't heard.

In any case, she offers the book with its excellent advice for free, with the optional Tip Jar where you can donate to the cause if you choose.

NaNo Participants: what's your user name?

2009-10-26T00:27:00-05:00

Hey gang, if you stop by here regularly and are planning being a self-flagellating member of the NaNoWriMo club, would you drop a line in the comments as to the handle you go by if you want me to add you as a buddy there.

Cool site - Lit Drift

2009-10-25T18:58:00-05:00

I received an email the other day from Julia at Lit Drift, a website devoted to writers and literary conversation. I replied I'd check it out (because, after all, I was flattered to be asked) and I think it looks like a cool place to visit. Besides, as I was informed, they give away free swag on Fridays.
To quote the email invite, Lit Drift is "a brand-spanking new blog, resource, and community dedicated to the art & craft of fiction in the 21st century. Besides editorial content, we've got daily creative prompts, daily short stories, and a weekly free book giveaway called Free Book Friday. This week, we're giving away a copy of Couch by Benjamin Parzybok. We also accept reader submissions-if you or your readers would like to contribute anything from fiction to doodles to mixtapes, we'd be happy to showcase it on our website."
So...check it out and see what you think for yourselves.

Writtenwyrdd

Contest results!

NaNo reveals your real writing style...at least the phase you are currently inhabiting

There's a four-way tie for second place in the Chthulu contest, and first has only a one-vote lead!

WINNERS!!!

and

Deb Smythe!!

Last Day to Vote!!!!!

Such sweetness, after nearly drowning my laptop!

"I don't give a sh*t"

Your mystery's a joke (nyuk, nyuk!)

Nano Progress

How do you learn to write?

Cool site: Welcome, White Folks

Waxing a bit political

"Love Your Body" poster contest by NOW

Nano updates

Guess what arrived in the mail today?

Writing update

*fingers in ears*

Molly, dreaming of flight...

Edit Torrent's "Why I Write" contest!

Contest Entries!

NaNoWriMo starts today

Cool Site: how to write badly well

Prepping for NaNoWriMo

Happy Samhain!

Contest submissions are closed at the end of today

Mainely Maine links and such

A couple of upcoming events:

Contest submissions due tomorrow!

Contest Status

Charlie Stross explains why Earth is basically uninhabitable

Steampunk...with visual aids

Opportunity Thursday

Might I recommend...?

Control the Proles?

How to know you are rejected.

An easy how-to for self promoting book tours

Editor Unleashed is having a cool contest

The Bad Boy

Troubleshooting your plot holes

I'm not alone in disliking the co-opting of Jane Austen

Shona/McKoala has a new story out

Yes, I train my cats...

Musical Monday wink and nod.

Yes, I actually spent time writing today.

Is your plot drifting?

Cool Site & Free Read - The Freelancer's Survival Guide

NaNo Participants: what's your user name?

Cool site - Lit Drift

fingers in ears