There were something like 14 tornado warnings in southern Missouri today.  We left at lunch to head to the Lake to visit That Man’s family, so we weren’t even around for the festivities.  Tornadoes were supposedly sighted within a few miles of our house, but no damage was caused.  Whew.  The drive home was rainy, sort of a gentle to medium rain, nothing that made it dangerous to drive.

I’ve read two Kim Harrison books in two days.  *grumble*  I stayed up until 2:00 a.m. this morning to finish book 3.  Now I’m relieved that I don’t own the others or I’d be reading them instead of working on my novella!  Which is still progressing.  I was stuck on this scene–the infamous build to the love scene.  It’s a big deal when these two get together.  The cost is high.  So it’d better be pretty damned spectacular.    Thinking, planning, worrying.  I’m getting there.  I don’t have word count–I’ll fess up on Monday.

Have a great weekend!

P.S.  LM went to bed crying tonight because she wanted Santa to come.  Nothing like Christmas in almost July, right?  Or rather, no nap and exhausted little four year old monster.

Week One
Week Two
Week Three

Kermit’s large bulbous eyes blinked and rolled independently, a sure sign of Quag agitation. “Are you sure, Rack? Must you go back?”

“I’m sure. The suns and eclipses were the clues.” He laughed raggedly, running a hand through his hair. “The clues were there all along. I didn’t even need the last journal, although it helped clarify exactly how many full night hours she saw. It was the third night that she put herself into cryo, right after the Captain died from his injuries. In the eclipse, it must have been Fades that got them. All along, she was right there…”

“New Haven and Im-Muir, the same?”

“Remember the ruins we saw in the tunnels?” Just thinking about the escape made Rack’s hands tremble. His stomach churned with bile and the scar burned viciously. The poisonous wolf was only the first obstacle they faced in their escape. “I think that’s where she is. To protect the colonists from beasts on the surface, they set up command in a cave. A cave, just like those under Im-Muir! They didn’t know about the Fades beneath ground until it was too late.”

“But– but–” Kermit shrilled. “The only way– You–”

“The only way I can possibly find my way back to those ruins is through the prison.”

“If you go back–” Kermit twittered so fast, so broken, that Rack couldn’t understand him. “Death — Worse — Suffer — Wolves — Fades!”

Rackman patted him on the back, humming beneath his breath. His human vocal chords couldn’t manage the exact soothing sound, but it seemed to help. “I know, my friend, I know.”

“They will lock you up again!”

Grimly, he nodded. “That’s exactly what I need them to do.” He pulled out the comm he prepared earlier and smiled with genuine affection as he pressed it into the Quag’s hand. “The Obsession is yours, Kreee-meeet.” Deliberately, he tried to mimic the whistles of the Quag, to pronounce his name correctly. One last sign of respect. “My only request is that you name her something else.”

Kermit calmed, blinking at him slowly with his head cocked. “I shall name your ship the Redemption.”

Wordlessly, Rackman nodded, his throat tight. If his life was the price for finding Hope’s Haven, he’d go with a smile on his face. Hope would redeem him.

I hope she’s still alive.

#

Rackman landed the shuttle exactly where the Quag rescue ship first picked up him and Kermit nearly ten years ago. Last time he was an inmate at Im-Muir, they allowed him to keep the clothes he came in with but took away all his water, food, and marks. He stuffed a few more tokens in his pocket–not enough to make an obscene bribe, since he wanted them to believe his story, but respectable. Enough to earn him a few days’ reprieve until the eclipse.

Although from the red lip along the bottom of the second sun, the eclipse wasn’t far away.

His gut tightened and shivers raced down his spine. He wouldn’t think about the Fades. Not yet. He needed to worry about the wolves first. To be safe, though, he guzzled all the water he could hold. He’d need the extra fluid in the tunnels. If he made it that far.

Before venturing outside, he took out Hope’s last journal entry.

The suns are gone.
The search party, butchered.
Captain Killian is alive but so badly injured I know he’ll die before I can stabilize him enough for cryo. He’s the last crewmember still alive, other than me.
So many dead.
I’m a doctor. I save lives. Yet I couldn’t save my husband and seven-year-old son from a virus on Tentar. I couldn’t save these poor colonists. I can’t save myself now. All I can do is sleep, and hope. Hope that you will find these journals. Hope that you’ll come looking for the idealistic fools who set out into the wilderness, were lost in space, and tried to find a new life here in New Haven.
I hope you find what you’re looking for.
Don’t forget me, trapped in my cold, dead sleep. I will live until you find me.
The suns are gone. The beasts come. Please hurry.
Find me!

Rackman ripped out that last page, carefully folded it into a neat square, and placed it in his inside pocket next to his heart. He took a deep breath, opened the shuttle door, and ran for his life.

Thirteen Lame Excuses for why I wasn’t going to do Thursday Thirteen tonight 1. I have a headache. 2. It’s already after 11:00 p.m. my time. 3. I worked late tonight for the EDJ and I’m still behind. 4. I haven’t had time to write tonight which makes me GROUCHY. 5. I was on the phone with my Dad tonight for nearly an hour. 6. I’m trying really hard to stick to my diet.  Which means I’m STARVING.  7. I didn’t have time to work out today. 8. I didn’t have time to read for pleasure today. 9. I owe e-mails to several friends and family, but just didn’t have time. 10. I want my novella finished by the end of the month!  *panic* 11. I’m almost out of my favorite coffee, Caribou. 12. I have to get up early for the EDJ. 13. I think I just screwed up my TT template.  GAH!

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here! The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

I’m still making slow but steady progress on The Fire Within.  I revised a section last night to turn a boring conversation two warriors would probably never have like two civilized adults, and changed it into a sparring session with the important dialogue tossed like weapons.  Works much better.   

Since I’m running behind today, I’ll just give you a little snippet of what I think is one of the tenderest, angst-riddled moments in this story yet.  Malum is Zahak’s friend who’s been sparring with him, the friend who’s been prodding him all along to challenge his brother for the tribes.  First draft, likely to change, yadda yadda.  I still love this snippet.

“She belongs to Amin,” Zahak muttered, running his hands through his hair. “She’s not mine.”

“Sands swallow him, and sands swallow you too. Do you honestly believe Amin would make such a sacrifice for you? If you refuse such a gift, you deserve every moment of hell you suffer.”

“What do you mean?”

Whirling back toward camp, Malum jerked to a halt. Following his gaze, Zahak saw Eleni on the ridge of dune, barefoot and wrapped in a taamid with her hair blowing loose about her shoulders. Her pale, wan face tugged on his heart, even while his dragon surged for freedom, clawing and screaming in fury at the cage of flesh imprisoning it.

“I felt your injury.”

She had come to make sure he was all right. Alone, unarmed, weak from exhaustion and exposure, she came to his aid. Stunned, Zahak touched the wound on his cheek reflexively. “It was nothing.”

She flinched and dropped her gaze. He wanted to rush to her, fall on his knees in the sand, and bury his head against her. It wasn’t pride that rooted him to the spot. It was fear.

Fear that he would love her more than honor or duty or blood.

Raising her chin, she opened her arms, revealing the discarded taamid he’d left in the tent. Holding his gaze, she stretched out her hands and let the cloth flutter to the ground. Without another word, she turned back to camp.

In turmoil, Zahak climbed the dune, slowly, so as not to run after her. He picked up the taamid she’d brought and noticed a damp spot. Curious, he raised the cloth to his face and inhaled her sweet jasmine scent. She must have held it quite a while to give so much scent to it.

Suddenly, it dawned on him. The cloth was damp with her tears.

Moisture, so rare in this blasted cursed land, and she wept. For him.

Muttering fiercely, Malum stomped back toward camp. “Open your eyes, saif, before it’s too late for all of us.”

Hurrying after him, Zahak grabbed his arm, turning his friend around. “If I take her, you know what I’ll have to do.”

“Iyeh,” Malum replied steadily, his eyes glinting with challenge. “You’ll kill your brother to keep her.”

 

How many times have we heard that we should write from the heart?  That we should put our hearts in our books?  There’s even a contest by the name.

I’ve got a different take: put Hearts in your books.

By Hearts, I mean the card game that is likely free on your computer, one of the few games I can think of off the top of my head where the goal is to avoid points.  I was playing Hearts the other day (one of my favorite ways to procrastinate), and thinking, sort of in a sleepy bored way.  In one game, I managed to shoot the moon three times.  And suddenly I wasn’t so sleepy.

“Shooting the moon” is a risk in the game of Hearts.  It’s nothing to take 25 of the 26 points, which hurts your score in a big way.  You can lose big, in a hurry!  But if you can manage to take all 26 points, you give your opponents 26 points instead.  Cool, huh?  And I was thinking about strategy.  How at a glance, I had to decide whether I thought I could shoot the moon or not.  I passed my three cards depending on that strategy.  I might keep entirely opposite cards if my goal was…

to play it safe.

How does this affect writing?  Are you playing it safe, following all the rules, staying under the radar, and most of all, avoiding that Queen of Spades?  Or are you taking the risk, keeping the big cards, and playing them to take it all?  I don’t know about you, but I want to take it all.  I want to shoot the moon every time I write a story.

Immediately, I started thinking about how to up the stakes, twist the plot, make everything even more extreme.  Shoot the moon.  My new motto.

With the weekend trip to St. Louis, it was a struggle to get much done. 

Over the past few year or so, I’ve started writing first drafts in sections that roughly match my outline.  So if I have 20 sections outlined, I end up with 20 individual files of roughly 1000 words, and usually a few additional “rough start” sections that aren’t quite right.  When I’m really rocking and rolling, I’ll do a section a day.

Since I’m obviously not rocking and rolling–I’ve been working on this novella for about two months now–I had only 7 files, each of which contained more than one section.  For whatever reason, that’s how this novella is going, so I went with the flow.  I also had a main file that I started early on, and then split out to individual sections when the writing slowed to a crawl.  While making the 3+ hour drive to and from St. Louis, I took all those sections and smoothed them together, expanding here and there, fixing MRUs, changing wording, until I have a single nice “first draft” document that’s not really a first draft at all.  It’s up to 10,500 words.

I also added another fine little layer of conflict between Zahak and his best friend, who’s pushing him to challenge his brother for position of azi. 

Then I continued my new section, which I thought was going to be a love scene.  Oops, nope, more conflict happened and Eleni cursed at him.  Ha.  So while SMF has a love scene in the opening 10 pages, I’ve managed to go 36 pages with nothing but angst in TFW.  Sigh.  At least no one will be able to accuse me of writing “cookie cutter” stories that are too formulaic.   

Trust me, when Eleni and Zahak finally get together, it’ll be nuclear meltdown.

So TFW is at 11,300 and counting (not including a dream sequence I cut earlier).  I’ll be pushing as hard as possible to finish this first draft by the end of the month.  I don’t know if I can make it, but that’s my goal.

How was your week?

P.S.  I dreamed about TFW last night, a most excellent sign.  When I can fall asleep thinking about the story, the characters, my brain will resolve all sorts of issues for me in my sleep.  If I can remember them.    My dead story file contains those stories that never sparked my imagination enough to cross into my dreams.  Needless to say, I dreamed BloodRose for YEARS, long before I even started writing it.

After the monsters came up to the room from swimming, we had an unexpected fireworks display right outside our balcony.  The finale was so loud that MM came flying back inside holding her ears (she hates loud noises–two rounds of ear tubes).  We let them stay up late to watch the end of Finding Nemo, and they all went right to sleep, LM and MM sharing the pull out bed and PM on the floor in her sleeping bag.

I only had to get up twice in the night to keep MM and LM from kicking each other, their whining and stirs woke me up before full blown battle had everybody up.

We slept in this morning and headed downstairs to breakfast, only there were people everywhere and no tables to be found.  So we returned to the room, packed up and loaded the van.  The breakfast area was still crazy.  No plates, no food, messy tables everywhere, but we finally got everyone fed.  Meanwhile, Grandma called from the hospital and said that Papa was definitely getting released today, and we should just head on home.  She was already packed up herself, and they were waiting on the final paperwork.  So we finished breakfast and were headed out much earlier than we planned.

It rained on us off and on all the way home, and it took over an HOUR to find a Starbucks!  Grr!  But we made excellent time and I had the first load of laundry going by 3:00 p.m.  Unfortunately, Grandpa’s release was delayed and they didn’t get home until nearly 6:00 p.m.  We also learned that he fell getting out of the car.    He’s fine, but they were both pretty shook up.  If he’d been seriously injured, That Man’s Mom would NOT have been able to get him up alone.  I guess we should have waited around and followed them over to the Lake, and then still faced the 1 1/2 hour drive home….  Well, that’s what the guilt tells me.  They adamantly refused to have us stick around and didn’t want anybody to follow them, but still.  I’m going to feel horrible if FIL suffers any repercussions from his fall.

I watered my hay bale garden as soon as we got home.  Just in the short weekend’s absense, my tomato plants are looking rather… yellow.  I hope they don’t die.  The zucchini are looking great, though, with the big yellow flowers indicating they’ll soon have little squash growing.  My basil plants must be extremely tasty, because the bugs won’t leave them alone.  I’m not sure what I can put on them to protect them that’s still edible, and I haven’t had time to research anything yet.  If you know of a safe organic bug repellant for spices/herbs, please holler!

We’ll pick up the dogs from the kennel tomorrow.  Meanwhile, I have at least four hours of meetings to look forward to tomorrow, and documentation that I still haven’t finished.  Sigh.  And much more laundry.  No groceries in the house.  Happy Monday.

P.S. Writing wise, I got all my small sections smoothed and put into the main draft, which is a pretty solid 10,400 words.  I’ve started the next section, nearly 500 words.  So not as much as I hoped, but seeing all the pieces put together into a smooth story makes me feel a little better.  I really want this first draft done by the end of the month!!

We’ve lived in and visited some big cities before.  We drove through Dallas regularly when I was at TAMU.  Went to Houston once.  Lived in the Twin Cities area for nearly five years.  Drove through Kansas City many times when coming home to visit family.

None of these cities are as “bad” as St. Louis.  Every time we get in the car, That Man checks to make sure the doors are locked.  St. Louis just has that kind of atmosphere to it.

The traffic was horrid today, no matter where we went.  The hospital is within sight of the Arch.  Getting there and visiting Grandpa was no problem.  Leaving the hotel and finding the zoo–which on the map was a very short distance away–was an entirely different matter altogether.  Leaving the zoo and finding I44 again….  Insane.

I might complain about That Man a lot, but he can certainly find his way around a city much better than me.  I get turned around and can’t tell East from West.  I have no sense of direction.  We do much better with me acting as the eyes–watching for signs, reading directions–while he drives.  Of course, another adult in the van to manage the monsters would have been ideal!

Grandpa had a huge incision but is doing better and better.  He might actually be discharged tomorrow afternoon.  We visited him briefly, had breakfast (at the hotel) and lunch (at the hospital) with Grandma, and then finally headed to the zoo around 12:30 or so. 

I was rather disappointed.  The zoo admission was free, which sounds great until you start adding up all the “extras.”  Parking was $10.  Drinks and foods are always ridiculous at any kind of park (that’s why we ate in the crappy hospital cafeteria first).  We bought a big zoosipper mug for around $6 and all shared it, with $1 refills.  Unfortunately, MM chews on the straw, so it’s already a little dented.  The children’s zoo was $4/person.  Since the monsters really wanted to pet animals, we paid the $20 and were highly let down when we found only a few goats (no food to give them) and rabbits.  If I’d paid to get in the zoo and then paid again for the children’s zoo, I’d have been extremely hot.  As it was, I figure $20 admission to the whole thing was worth it.

The animals were mostly asleep and hidden, typical in miserable MO summer weather.  The giraffes and zebras were gorgeous, and I got several pictures of the monsters with them.  The gorillas, tigers, lions, etc. were all impossible to see or asleep in dark corners.  Bummer.  The air was sticky and humid, but the weather held until about 3:00 p.m.  We heard the thunder and headed for the gate, unfortunately missing the elephants.

Oh, and another ding at the gift shop when each monster picked out a small stuffed animal.  And That Man had to buy a hat because his bald head was frying.  Not to mention the disposable camera when we first entered the zoo.  All for less than 3 hours of entertainment and lots of whining.  (MM was crying as soon as we got out of the car because it was so hot!)  But questioning the kids in the van, they really did have a good time.  They were so tired that both MM and LM fell asleep on the way to the new hotel.

Which let me tell you, the extra $30 that this hotel cost for tonight is totally worth it.  The room is clean and large.  Still have free wireless internet.  The bed is a king with a pull out for the kids (last night we had two double beds–MM and LM ended up sleeping in Grandma’s room, and PM slept with me).  The shower and bathroom are spotless, unlike the moldy shower curtain last night.  *shudders*  And best of all?  The monsters and That Man are down at the pool and I’m enjoying the peace and quiet in the room alone!! 

Priceless.  If I hurry, I might even get a little writing done.

Guess how many bathroom trips we had to make in the 3+ hour drive?  Answer at the end. 

Hello from a crappy hotel in Maryland Heights.  Ugh.  We joined our family already here, and the monsters are disappointed because there’s no pool.  Also, the weekend forecast is rain.  We planned to hit the zoo tomorrow, but if it rains… and we have no pool…  we might be looking for other indoor inexpensive opportunities.

Nothing like walking up to your door, which is propped open, with tools and junk spread out, water jugs leaking all over the desk.  Evidently, the maintenance man was using this room as his “home base” tonight, and the front desk accidentally rented it out. 

At least we have free internet!  I’m going to use it shortly and look for another hotel. 

We ate a very late dinner with Grandma at the Fuddruckers beside the hotel, and we’ll plan on seeing Grandpa at the hospital first thing in the morning. 

Oh, and the bathroom trips?  Counting the first one at home and the TWO trips at dinner, that makes FIVE.  Nothing like having three girls.

Week 1
Week 2

Eyes aching and his back a mass of knots, Rackman lowered the lights and stood up to stretch. His back and shoulders popped, and the mark on his face burned as fiercely as when the wolf first spit acid on him. At least the damned beast missed his eye.

Something rustled outside his door. A thud. He glanced at the clock. Too early for the shift to change. Silently, he edged over to the wall and drew his stunner. With his back pressed tight, he waited. Surviving–and escaping–the worst prison in the galaxy taught him never to ignore his instincts. Right now, his instincts screamed at him to dial the stunner up to kill.

No, enough killing. I’ve done enough killing for a dozen lifetimes.

His door swooshed open. Had he forgotten to lock it? He might have in the rush to read Hope’s last journal. Someone crept inside, a gun in hand. Rackman waited, barely breathing, as the intruder scanned the room.

Filling his lungs as quietly as possible, he let loose a shrill, piercing call that would have made Kermit fall into a dead faint. The sound still haunted Rackman’s nightmares, too.

The intruder flinched, covered his ears, and Rackman struck, hard, the butt of his gun to the back of the man’s neck. He went down in a heap.

Not taking any chances, Rackman crouched back against the wall. The door was still open. His knees ached, and his lungs screamed for loud, deep breathing, but he kept his body tight and silent, just in case the intruder had assistance.

“Frank.” The low whisper barely reached Rackman’s ears, but he knew the voice.

Son of a bitch. Briggs slipped into the doorway. He didn’t have the courage to play chicken with a massive, slow frigate, but he thought he could pull off a mutiny?

Rage tightened Rackman’s face, splitting the scar in a blaze of fire. Pushing away from the wall with the stunner aimed carefully at the bastard’s chest, he spoke. “Come get your murderous friend.”

“Captain.” Hesitating a moment, Briggs strode inside and bent down to check Frank’s pulse. “We didn’t violate your primary rule. His weapon was set to stun.”

“As was mine.” Rackman grimaced, his face twisted by that hateful scar. “Repeat to me our code on the Obsession, Briggs, the code I gave you when I hired you. Let me hear it from your traitorous lips.”

Swallowing nervously, Briggs replied, “The crew is family. The ship is our home. We kill only to protect the life of our family or our home.”

“Ah. And yet you come in the dead of night to eliminate your Captain, the father of this happy little family?”

“Not eliminate, Sir.” Briggs raised his chin, his eyes glinting in the low light. “We were merely going to incapacitate you.”

“Oh, well, that’s all. Mutiny.”

Briggs flinched. “You’re unfit to Captain this ship. You take outrageous risks, putting us up against a massive gun, taking considerable damage, for a few casks! A few thousand marks at most! The ship alone is worth ten times that, Captain.”

“You have no right to question me or my orders. None.” Rackman bit off the words, fury tightening his face even more. “I am owner and Captain of the Obsession. Since you object so strenuously to my leadership, you will disembark at the next port.”

“You listen to that Quag, that Bullfrog, making him first officer when he can’t even communicate with us. What did he get out of this insane strike? What hold does he have on you, Captain?”

Rackman slowly stroked a hand down the horrible scars on his face, forcing the other man to take a good, long look. “He saved the life of the Butcher of Fen-Ddai, even when I single-handedly killed thousands of his people. If I’d known what a racist you are, I would have kicked you out of my ship without an interview, let alone a position.”

“He’s a Frog. We defeated the Quags.”

“Did we?” Rackman shook his head. “You don’t understand your history very well, then.”

“Wait a minute.” Briggs searched his gaze, shock sagging his face. “If you’re the Butcher, then you– you–”

Rackman stepped closer, deliberately leering that warped smile. “I escaped from Im-Muir. With Kermit.”

“You’re worth–”

“Nothing.” Shame burned as fiercely as the scar on his cheek. He turned away, his gaze falling on the fragile journals, tattered with age and so priceless. Hope. She was all he had left. “Last I heard, my bounty is well over a million marks, but my life is worth nothing.”

Briggs launched at him, one arm going hard around his throat, the other grabbing his hand with the gun. Surprised, Rackman wheezed, trying to bring the gun up against the other man’s body.

“Suns, Captain, you’re a fool. I’ll gig the Frog and hand you over to the Republic. Then I’ll own a dozen shitty ships like this one. A whole fleet.”

Now he knew where Briggs found courage–in greed. Spots danced before Rackman’s eyes. His will to live was strong, thanks to Hope. He must find her.

He heeled the small depression on the inside leather on his right boot, once, twice, to fully arm his weapons. A small movement against the bottom and sides of his foot confirmed the razors and spikes in the sole deployed. He stomped straight down on Briggs’ foot, piercing through his boot with an inch-long barb.

Briggs howled but didn’t let go until Rackman used the heel blade to slice open his kneecap. He jerked the gun up hard into the man’s abdomen. “Why do you hate him so much?”

No answer, just a growled, frantic gasp of pain and anger.

Drawing a deep breath, Rackman searched the man’s face for some redeeming quality. No Quag hated as violently as this man who’d never even seen the atrocities of Fen-Ddai and the bloody work of the Butcher. Rackman carried the weight of countless deaths on his soul that dragged him closer to hell every day. Eliminating such hatred would lighten his load somewhat.

Rackman pulled the trigger.

The blast shoved Briggs back, stumbling, until he fell flat on the floor. A stun at such close range was a painful way to die. Gasping, twitching, it took him several minutes to finally stop breathing. While Rackman watched, silently, feeling every convulsion himself.

How could he face Hope with so much blood on his hands?

Despair weighed on him. Perhaps Kermit was right. No one knew more about Hope’s Haven. Nobody. Yet Rackman couldn’t find her. He didn’t even have one solid lead where her resting place might be. Even if he found her now, cryo would’ve failed after nearly one hundred years. Hope was dead.

Suns, Captain, you’re a fool.

His head jerked up. Of course, the suns!

Rackman dug through the stack and opened the first journal entry she wrote after landing on the barren wasteland they dubbed New Haven. He had most of Hope’s letters memorized, so it only took him a moment to pinpoint the full eclipse of the two suns hanging above New Haven, and then the next.

Twenty three days between eclipses. Exactly like–

Terrified yet giddy, he entered the search parameters into the computer. Which planets with two suns had a cycle of exactly twenty three days of full daylight and three of night?

Only one known planet. The planet he still dreamed of and woke screaming. The planet to which his return meant a sentence worse than death.

Im-Muir. 

 

Via Tambowrites, this is just *scary*:

Your Score: Orpheus

33% Extroversion, 80% Intuition, 72% Emotiveness, 80% Perceptiveness

You are an artist, an aesthete, a sensitive, and someone who has never really let go of that childlike innocence. To you, all of life has a sense of wonder in it, and the story of Orpheus was written about someone just like you.

When the Argo passed the island of the Sirens, Orpheus played a song more beautiful than the Sirens to prevent the crew from becoming enticed. When his wife died, he ventured into the underworld to charm Hades but, in his naivete, he looked back becoming trapped there.

You can capture your unique world view and relate it to others with the skill of a master storyteller. Your sensitivity and creativity make you a treasure to the human race, but your thin-skinned nature and innocence can cause you a lot of disenchantment and pain. What’s doubly unfortunate is that, if you try to lose those traits, you never will, and everyone will be able to tell that you’re putting up an artificial shell to prevent yourself from being hurt.

Famous people like you: Hemingway, Shakespeare, Mr. Rogers, Melville, Nick Tosches
Stay clear of: Icarus, Hermes, Atlas

That Man’s Dad came through surgery with flying colors yesterday.  That pesky gallbladder that nearly killed him a few months ago is finally out.

I had some last minute EDJ stuff come up late yesterday that sucked up my evening and I just couldn’t get up early to write this morning.  I hope I can squeeze some time in tonight.