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hrtsmom · 4 minutes
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cats camouflaging themselves
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hrtsmom · 2 hours
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Kitty Skill
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hrtsmom · 4 hours
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NEW: Sun & Moon bookmark
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A silver-tone bookmark hook holds a strand of sunstone, bronzite and copper-colored glass beads. It's finished with an antiqued brass tag charm, with a stamped picture of a crescent moon. Find it here.
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hrtsmom · 5 hours
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Fall Colors 1 bracelet
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The first of two bracelets upcycled from one of my necklaces. Warm autumn tones of orange, copper, red, and golden brown make the perfect accessory for fall. Find it here.
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hrtsmom · 7 hours
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Royal Purple earrings
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A simple pair of earrings with deep purple polymer clay and wooden beads painted with a leopard-spot pattern, accented with gold. Find them here.
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hrtsmom · 9 hours
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Dragonfly Love pendant
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Heart-shaped silver-tone tray pendant, embellished with purple seed beads and two glass dragonflies. Find it here.
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hrtsmom · 11 hours
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“Which one is it?” I asked, more to humor her than because I was truly interested.
“That one, standing in the boat. I saw him in the street, and somehow I just had to follow him.”
“The man in the boat?” And I stared at him as she had been staring, but for a much different reason. He stood full in the light, and I saw that his face and arms were sun-darkened, as those of an elf would never be. And his hair shone gold in the sunlight.
“I heard one of the others call him Radjann,” Arathel went on. “Do you think I could find a way to meet him?”
“You cannot be serious!” I burst out, in a tone I never would have used if anyone of the court had been nearby. “That man is a mortal!”
“So are many of the seamen who trade here,” she replied calmly. “Surely you have seen mortals before, Kahri.”
“Of course I have,” I said, trying to show the same calm. “But you know as well as I how your father feels about them. It would be foolish for you to be seen speaking with one – especially a common sailor.”
“Then I shall take care not to be seen. What harm could it do to speak to the man?”
We had begun to attract the attention of other people near the dock now, and I made our conversation more private. No harm at first, perhaps. But somehow I feel it would not end there.
We shall see about that when it happens, she answered lightly. All I know is that he is handsome and strong, and he has a kind face. I would like to know more. And she started away from me again.
I went after her. “My lady Princess,” I said, using the formal title so she would know I was serious. “You should not do this.”
She frowned. “I am not doing anything wrong, Kahri.” And before I could stop her, she was speaking to one of the sailors at the head of the dock, quietly enough that I could not hear what she said.
But when she came back she told me, “I have sent a message for him to meet me tonight, outside the castle grounds.”
“I will not go with you,” I told her firmly.
Again I saw that little frown. “I think you forget: you are under my orders.”
“And I think you forget,” I said, rather coldly, “that you are not yet queen.”
After returning to the castle, Arathel and I did not see each other for the rest of the day. I thought more than once of telling Queen Cynan, or at least Dariel, what Arathel planned to do, in the hope that they could discourage her. But at last I decided not to tell either of them. I hoped I might be able to prevent her from doing anything foolish by myself.
That evening I waited near Arathel's door, after most of the household had gone to bed. When she came out at last, wrapped in a dark cloak with the hood over her head, I stepped out of the shadows. She smiled faintly, and said, “If you really wanted to stop me, you could have locked me in.”
I shrugged. “Perhaps you are right. Perhaps there is no harm in this. But I would rather make sure of it for myself.”
“Then you will come with me?” When I nodded, she said, “I am glad, Kahri. Truthfully, I was a little afraid of going alone.”
We crept out of the castle through some of the more private passages, and left the grounds by way of the kitchen garden. From there Arathel led the way to a small public park. Near the middle of the park stood an old weeping willow, the branches of which hung down to make a kind of living tent. I could just make out a figure standing in the darkness under the branches.
“Radjann Corthinn?” Arathel called, when she had drawn close enough.
The light of a lantern shone out suddenly where the stranger stood. “Yes. Are you the woman who wanted to see me?”
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hrtsmom · 15 hours
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The Throne of the Sun, chapter eight: Queen Arathel
In the families of the elven royal courts, most positions and occupations are hereditary. Although the elves never die of age, they will often hand down titles and responsibilities to their children when they are old enough. My father before me was personal bodyguard to your grandfather, King Buquerle, as my mother was to your grandmother, Queen Cynan. So I naturally took the same position for your mother, Arathel, when I was old enough.
I grew up with the two princesses, Arathel and Dariel, and with the children of other people close to the royal family. Arathel and I were the two eldest, the leaders of our group. We both knew from an early age that she would become queen one day, and that I would be her bodyguard, and in many ways we played at those roles as children. Even though I was the younger by a year, I looked after Arathel as an elder brother would have. We had our disagreements, as real siblings do, but they never lasted long.
As we grew older, our relationship became somewhat more distant. We were well aware of the differences between our social classes. But we remained friendly, and I began to take over more of my duties as her bodyguard. The Throne of the Sun is peaceful enough that those duties seldom consisted of more than serving as Arathel’s escort, both at social functions and when she left the castle.
Although it did not seem particularly necessary at the time, my parents and some of the castle guards taught me how to fight and how to use the bow and other weapons. All of the royal bodyguards were required to learn these things, and I discovered a particular talent for the arts of war. However, I never grew to enjoy fighting, as many of the other guards did.
Some other races who know us in Morstan have said the elves are too gentle to fight, but in most cases the opposite is true. Our people simply try harder than mortals do to repress the blood lust when it comes upon us, because in an elf it can be so much more terrible. I think our ability to control anger can make us better warriors.
But as I said, my duties as Arathel’s bodyguard had little to do with defending her or myself. The silver knife I carried, a gift from my mother, served more as my badge of office than as a weapon. It did, however, keep the crowds away from us when we ventured out into Ballansong, the capitol city of the Throne of the Sun. Arathel loved to walk in the city, especially in the Port Quarter. She always wanted to be surrounded by people, and she would observe and speak to them for hours, from the rich merchants and royal courtiers to the sailors and beggars in the streets. Dariel was the same way, so that often her bodyguard Mancus and I would have all we could do to keep up with the two sisters as they went about their public tours.
One day I did lose Arathel, while we walked in the Port Quarter. One moment she was beside me, and in the next I turned and she had disappeared. I tried to remain calm, although I could imagine what would become of me if any harm should come to her. But I was angry with her as well. In six months she would be of age to take over the throne, and she was acting like an irresponsible child.
I could not see her anywhere around me. But when I concentrated I could sense her, somewhere near the docks. Guessing that she had gone to see the ships being unloaded, I went after her.
The crowds were so thick there, I had to search for her by her mind-trace. I called to her more than once, but she did not answer. I sensed that something else held her attention.
At last I found her, near the head of one of the docks. She seemed intent on some sailors loading cargo onto a boat tied up at the end of the dock. When I took her arm, intending to lead her away, she refused to move. And I heard her voice in my mind: Do you see him, Kahri? He is the most handsome man I have ever seen.
I was used to this, for she and Dariel seemed to always be infatuated with someone new. They would even flirt with the most common men in the streets of Ballansong. But I sensed something more in Arathel's mind this time – something that went beyond infatuation.
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hrtsmom · 17 hours
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We made love again, slowly and gently this time. We kept the link between our minds open, and as before it doubled the pleasure for both of us. We fed each other’s senses and emotions, our passion growing and binding us together. I remembered the words of the unicorn: Your two ways are one. You will go where you are meant to. I found it easy to believe that we had been meant all along to come to this, to discover our love. And I knew it was better for the wait.
Afterward, I felt tired but exhilarated. The room had grown darker, so I knew the sun must be setting.
“It is growing late,” Kahri said at last, rolling away from me to lie on his back. “I think we may just as well spend the night here.”
“I don’t want to move now anyway,” I told him.
We lay there for a little while longer, kissing and caressing each other lazily. Presently Kahri asked, “Are you hungry?”
“Yes. But where do we get food?”
In immediate answer to my question, a small lantern appeared, standing on the flat stone. Just as suddenly, plates of fruits and bread appeared beside it, along with a pitcher of wine.
“I see this path is more ours than we thought,” Kahri said, sitting up. “We receive what we ask for.”
“Or perhaps what we need,” I suggested.
We found our clothes dry, clean and mended, and we dressed before we ate. Only my sandals were missing, replaced by a new pair which fit perfectly.
After eating, we went outside and sat in the grass to watch the stars come out. I missed Igiran, but Kahri explained that it was too low on the horizon for us to see over the treetops.
“There is another story I want you to tell me,” I told him. “Now that this has happened between us, I want to know the rest of my story.”
“Do you mean your mother and father’s story?” he asked.
“And yours.”
He nodded. “Very well. There should be no more secrets now.”
If you’re enjoying The Throne of the Sun, please consider picking up a copy of your own! You can find it in the Kindle store here or in paperback from my Etsy shop here.
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hrtsmom · 19 hours
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2/24/12
So. The giveaway contest had maybe 10 entrants. As usual, more than I expected but fewer than I hoped. ‛Tis ever thus. I let the PTB choose the winner. As luck would have it she lives in London, so it’s going to be a bit expensive to ship. I hope she likes the books, or passes them on to somebody else if she doesn’t. So all in all, not sure if I got anything useful out of that. Maybe one new fan. Who knows.
I got permission to post a link to the podcast on CoreCon’s Facebook page. The “listens” have bumped up roughly another 10,000 since Tuesday, but it seems to be leveling off now. I still find it a bit difficult to believe that many people have listened to it.
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hrtsmom · 20 hours
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He smiled, then said, “It had been a very long time for me, you see.”
“How long?” I asked, casually curious.
He raised his eyebrows as if surprised by his own answer. “Before I left the Throne of the Sun. Never since then.”
“Twenty years?”
He laughed outright at my startled exclamation. “It does not seem so long to me as it might to you,” he said. “Yes, it was difficult at times. But this is a very serious thing for the elves, you see. We do not enter into it lightly.”
“I’ve never entered into it lightly myself,” I protested, sensing a rebuke. He knew I had been with other men before him. But there had only been three, and friendship had come first with all of them. I knew married women who had more partners in a year’s time than I’d had in my life.
“Of course not; I know you better than to think so.” He kissed me, slowly, by way of apology.
“Do you know,” he went on after a moment, “in my grandfather’s time, in the Five Kingdoms, we would have been considered married after this?” I stared at him in disbelief, and he went on, “Of course, there could be a ceremony later, if the couple wished. But as long as there was a witness – ”
“What!”
He laughed heartily at my shock, and I couldn’t tell whether he was teasing me or not now. “Oh, the witness would be most discreet. It was only a formality by then, but still required. The legitimacy of children was very important, even outside the royal families. But by the time my parents were wed, the custom had changed to a simple marriage ceremony.”
“Before, or after?” I asked, before I could stop myself.
“Nature being what it is, the answer is often after.” He looked down to where he had wound a strand of my hair around his finger, playing with it for a moment. Without looking up, he said, “But the preference is, before. As I said, lovemaking is a very serious thing with us.”
I took his hand, kissed it. “So, you broke custom today. Just for me?”
“I have never met anyone in all this time whom I desired as much as I did you. Never in all my life.”
“Oh, I don’t believe that,” I teased. “You’ve had a long life, after all.”
He raised one hand in protest. “I swear, it is true. Nearly from the moment we met.”
“When you were so cruel to me?”
“But I did come to know you better,” he reminded me.
“And when you sent me back to Tarin? And the time you found me with Fenik?” I prodded. I wondered for a moment if the questions might hurt him, but that wasn’t my purpose in asking. I truly wanted to know what he would say.
“I did not feel I had a right to speak then,” he told me. “For too long, I was sure you felt nothing more than friendship for me. It was not until you decided to come west with me that I could hope you felt more.”
“Only then?”
“Perhaps a bit sooner,” he admitted with a laugh.
“Maybe I didn’t know until then either,” I said. I remembered that night on the dock in Ipha, looking out at the sea as we spoke of him leaving Morstan. And I remembered how I had felt then, what I had nearly said.
“I didn’t really know your feelings, or mine.”
“And now? What are your feelings?” His tone was quiet but serious.
I leaned over to whisper it in his ear. “I love you, Kahri.”
And I love you, Zania. My love. I heard the words in my mind, and the emotion was there too: a warm, quiet feeling, but strong and steady. He pulled me down and kissed me again, wrapping his arms around me.
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hrtsmom · 22 hours
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2/24/22 Thursday -12° Mark Valley
6:55 AM
Still feeling weary this morning. I had such a violent dream – something had definitely built up in my brain. I was both the victim and the (vengeful) perpetrator. A garage/hangout I was fond of was burned down, and I was going after the gang of thugs responsible. The image I’m stuck with is me holding a guy’s face down in a puddle of his own blood, trying to drown him. It’s revolting and twisted, but at the same time my writer brain is thinking hmm . . .
Breakfast: frosted Mini Spooners, dried golden kiwi fruit, Ruby Red grapefruit juice
Lunch: sour cream & onion Ritz Toasted Chips, dill pickles, peach cup, everything bagel, hot chocolate marshmallow ice cream, brownie
Supper: pizza, Dr. Pepper, Bottle Caps, Russel Stover coconut almond chocolate egg (with very little almond)
Watched: Shameless, Resident Alien, Mad Dogs, QI
9:10 PM
People keep asking if I’m okay. “How are you?” Honestly I think they expect me to say . . . well, I’m not sure what. I tell them I’m okay. I don’t really want to talk about it yet anyway. Yes, I’m sad. But in a way I’d been getting used to the idea, the possibility, for a while now. It was a shock, but right now, I’m okay.
I am slightly miffed, though I would never tell her, about the way Mom broke the news to me. She actually said, “I have some kind of bad news.” I mean. “Kind of.” So my first thought was, “Oh, he took a little turn for the worse and he’ll have to stay in the hospital longer than they expected.” I know, she was still in shock at the time. It just strikes me wrong, that’s all.
Greg made an announcement on Facebook. Of course he has friends there, like from high school or Carla’s family, who actually knew Dad. My Facebook friends either already know or they wouldn’t care. So there’s no point in me saying anything publicly. And infinitely more so on Twitter. If I said anything on Twitter, I would get polite but disinterested sympathy. Or even worse, nothing at all. That would just make me feel like shit, so why bother?
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hrtsmom · 23 hours
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hrtsmom · 23 hours
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2/24/23 Friday -18° Philip Winchester
Breakfast: Oatmeal Squares w/blueberries, white grape peach juice
Lunch: saltines, green olives, string cheese, peach cup mixed w/half a pear cup (left over from an Alyssa lunch), blueberry-fruitcake toast, Danish butter cookies
Watched: Supernatural
Supper: glass noodles (meh) w/cabbage (bleah), carrots & fried egg, popcorn
Listening to: “And I Love You So” by Perry Como
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hrtsmom · 1 day
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2/24 Saturday 21°, wind chill 8° Jason O’Mara 189
6:35 AM
Looks like we’ll have one more warm-for-February day after all.
Alyssa-ism of yeterday: She wanted to weigh herself, so I let her do that. “42 pounds!” I said. “You’re growing!”
Then she wanted to see how much I weigh, so I stepped on the scale. “And you’re growing too!” she said.
She’s starting at Head Start in a couple of weeks. Should be interesting for her and for the teachers.
Breakfast: apple cinnamon oatmeal, strawberry banana cottage cheese, Fireside Vanilla Spice tea
Workout: 45:23, 4.73 miles
Lunch: Mexican street corn Pringles, green olives, string cheese, pear, whitish bread, banana peanut butter chocolate chip ice cream
Supper: tuna burger, sour cream & onion potato chips, coconut pineapple Bubly (not bad. weaker flavor than I would like, but no chemical taste)
Watched: Leverage, Abbott Elementary, Not Dead Yet, Ghosts, Old Enough
Listening to: “Kiss of Life” by Sade
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hrtsmom · 1 day
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The climax came for both of us together. Kahri cried out loudly, echoing my own passion. Then at last we lay spent, my whole body trembling even as I relaxed.
After a time Kahri sat up to pull a blanket over us and we lay curled up together, warmed by more than the fire. We were both silent still, but I could feel his happiness in my mind, even greater than my own. Contented drowsiness filled us both, and after a time, we slept.
I awoke to a greenish light. With my first glance around the room, I wondered where I’d been transported to. I still lay on the rumpled bed, with Kahri asleep beside me. But everything else had changed.
The poles supporting our shelter appeared to have budded and sprouted in the short time that I slept. Green leafy branches now formed the walls and ceiling of the room. Climbing flower vines decorated the walls with the same bright colors we had seen in the woods. The fire-pit and the furniture had gone, but our clothes lay spread out on a large flat rock in the middle of the bower. The packed-earth floor had grown a soft carpet of grass in just a few hours. The light remained dim, but I could tell the sun was finally shining again, making a dappled pattern of leaf-shadows on the floor.
I leaned over and kissed Kahri to wake him. Without opening his eyes, he pulled me closer, returning the kiss. Then he blinked, and looked up. “Is that sunshine I see?”
When he saw what had happened to our shelter, he looked as astonished as I had been. At last he said, “It seems our path has changed for the better.”
“Well, it’s stopped raining. Maybe we should go and look for the others.” I realized, with surprise, that I had nearly forgotten everything outside of this place. It might have been days since we left the others.
“I think they are safe enough.” He smiled lazily, an expression of contentment such as I had seldom seen on his face before. “Do you really want to go?”
I shook my head, smiling back at him and stretching out a bit more. “I’m comfortable enough here. But it must be nearly evening by now.”
He shrugged. “I think we will know when it is time to leave.”
For a long time we lay there without speaking. I found myself studying Kahri’s face, his dark hair and his green eyes, as if I had never seen them before. To me, his body seemed the most perfect I had ever seen, slender but muscular. Now more than ever I knew the strength in him. His skin was reddened where it had been exposed to the sun and sea-spray – he would never turn brown the way Risch, Jain and I did – but everywhere else it was fair and smooth. The only interruptions were the iron-scars circling his wrists and ankles. But although I knew the pain those burns had given him, the scars were as much a part of his skin as the unmarred areas. They were additions, not imperfections.
I lay with my head propped on one hand as I looked at him, and suddenly he reached up and ran one finger along my cheek. “You are so beautiful, Zania.”
I felt my face grow hot, though I wasn’t sure why. I had heard those words before, from other men. But Kahri said them differently, simply and directly, with no motive other than to speak his thoughts. I knew he meant what he said: to him, I was beautiful, just as he was to me.
“I think I must apologize,” he went on after a moment.
“For what?” I asked, puzzled.
“For my . . . well, shall I say, my hastiness earlier.” Now he blushed in his turn. “I hope I did not hurt you.”
Then I understood. “Oh, no; it’s all right, Kahri. I would have said something if you had.”
“It is only because . . .” He paused for a moment, watching his hand as it slid down from my shoulder and along my hip. At last his eyes met mine again, and he finished, “Because I was rather too eager.”
I laughed at that. “Well, you weren’t the only one.”
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hrtsmom · 1 day
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2/23/18 Friday 3°
Reading: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain, A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Watching: QI
Listening to: Was This Always Weird: “Back To the Future”
weight: 215
Well according to my journal I’ve actually only lost 13 pounds in the last year. Just thought I’d note that for posterity.
So the past week was mildly harrowing, It started on Sunday (I think?) when, in response to somebody tweeting about a YouTube stunt he was doing, I dared to state my opinion that male privilege exists. I pretty much expected that said statement would have the same impact as 99% of my other online statements; i.e., roughly that of a pebble dropping into soft mud.
Instead, people started to “like” it. And retweet it. And then, lest I start feeling too positive about it, men (and a woman or two, for balance) started crawling out of the woodwork to tell me that my opinion was so, so wrong. I was just making assumptions, jumping to conclusions, based on nothing.
No, said I. I based my statement on my own experiences, as well as those of many many other women.
No, the men informed me, I was literally doing anything but that, because there’s no such thing as male privilege. And here, stupid woman, let me explain to you exactly what you said and exactly what you meant, because I can read your mind and explain your own thought processes much better than you can with your stupid liberal feminist brain. And of course you’ll agree with me, if I just keep explaining your own thoughts to you, that there is no such thing as male privilege. And YouTube guy got yelled at while making his video too, so that also proves you’re wrong that worse things would happen to a woman if she said publicly that male privilege exists.
Also, you’re obviously fat and nobody likes you.
Basically.
I do not exaggerate, although I do paraphrase a bit.
I see other women put up with this shit all the time on social media, and now I honestly don’t know how they do it. I realized that I was actually getting physically sick because my adrenaline would ramp up every time I opened TweetDeck. So after a particularly long exchange with one of these mansplainers yesterday, I decided to just mute the whole “conversation” so I won’t hear about it anymore. It’s a relief.
This whole thing even rated a mention on one of the Cheezburger pages, and yes, I was quoted – without anyone asking my permission, naturally. But I think what really upsets me about it, more than the constant aggravation for five days, was something that I really shouldn’t have been surprised by. I mean, I got all those “likes” – well over 1000 when I looked on Monday or Tuesday. But even though all the attacks on me were visible in the public thread, nobody once spoke up to defend me. Plenty of people showed up to defend the people who attacked me, after I was so cruel as to respond to them in kind. (No, you don’t feel attacked, you stupid woman, and I’m going to tell you why you don’t.) And I know I shouldn’t expect to be defended, because probably most of the people who saw it don’t even know me. But it definitely added to the sense of frustration.
Anyway. I wasn’t even going to write about all that. But what the hell.
The writing is progressing nicely. I finished with Sebastian, apart from a few little echoes. And Thel’s battle is almost over. And I have the one final scene queued up to write for Harry. So there’s a strong possibility that I could finish a draft by the end of the month.
The exercise has been irregular this week. Monday, and today, I had to shovel snow. Wednesday, it was too cold to go walk on the treadmill. I should really be much further along in Tom Sawyer by now, but the weather prevented. I haven't read that book at all this week. All my other activities have kind of taken a back seat to the writing lately, to be honest. Sort of a reversal of the usual.
Of course Twitter took up an unusual amount of time this week.
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