Writing Successes: Went to Sunday chat, and I'll post the only prompt I managed to do. Bush came on yesterday during it and distracted me. Did a bunch of editing today, all for Amazons. Long live the spell-checker!

Music Playing: K103 "Love Songs After Dark" I believe. It's a thrill.

I was just sick of doing other peoples work today. I spent the day with my step-mother, an interesting experience I'll speak more on later, teaching her Front Page. What was funny? I didn't know how to do what she needed me to do, so I was learning while teaching. Ah, irony.

Came home and was bombed by an Amazon in need of a hand-mixer. Apparently I was an expert on them and could offer advice. I find this funny. I use mine about once every 3 months. Real expert.

Then got wrapped up in a wad of Amazon work I would have done, had I not been gone. Editing this biography, fixing that post, emailing about this issue...whatever. Good writing fun, but man, I'm tired of doing CRAP work all the time and not writing for the sake of writing. I'm scheduling some for myself.

Spent the day with my step-mother. Kou says I should continue calling her this, since my father hasn't remarried, even though he's no longer married to her. She's the mother of my sister. I have no clue. Step-mother it is! I just call her by her name and move on.

But spending the day with Leo is so totally fun. For a little background, I'm an Aries. Fun-loving, chatty, outgoing....noisy. I live with a Taurus, and my best friend is a Taurus. This is an argumentitive lot. They know the best way to do EVERYTHING. Talking to them is like talking to an inflexible wall supported by encyclopedias. It's insanity. Leo's are just going to tell you everything. It doesn't matter what, they'll tell you. Anecdotes, gossip, truths, you name it. They fear nothing! And, since Aries fear nothing, we have a helluva time. I get on a tanget, she goes on a tangent, and we try to out-tangent each other.

She's divorced my dad. He apparently became "emotionally distant" from her, because to show emotion is to show weakness and to give others the power over you. He can't lose the power. This was all stuff I knew. I lived it, man. What I didn't realize is that my wonderful father was a passive-possessor. This was new for me...and sadly, something I totally recognized about myself. What is it? Let's say you have a favorite book. Let's say you have a husband (sister, brother, wife, whatever). Of course YOUR possessions are HIS possessions. He can read that book any time he wants......as long as he asks. This is passive-possession. You have to have the final control of the thing, even though you assure everyone you don't. You make sure they understand you DO. I'm this way about the computer. Everyone has access to it, I'm so nice and allow them all to use it. Long as they ASK ME first. LOL.

Now that was fun. No? It wasn't? Sorry....how about this? My mother sucked as a housekeeper. I mean SUCKED! This is news to nobody, including my mother. Well, my father and brothers lived in the house for months after mother and I left. My father took several 1970-something-Ford-Van loads of just straight-out TRASH to the dump. This did nothing to dent the hell that was that house. One day, my father was going to meet my stepmother and didn't show. She calls and he's sick. Being a kind soul, she decides to take him soup. She was absolutely appalled at the conditions in which he and the boys were living. It was beyond gross! She began a clean-the-damn-place campaign. My brother was 12 at the time, his closet was like chest-high full of ....who knows, I don't, I'm afraid. She found out. Down at the bottom of the pile? Dirty diapers, of course. I mean, ewwwwwwwwwww. Which is what she said.

No? Not juicy enough yet? Well, too bad! I'm going to post my story and sneak off to bed now. I do want to say that she gave me a book I plan to spend time snarking at here. Called, "And You Think You've Got It Bad", its a book about turn-of-the-century life for women. There are ads and comments from books compliled from the era. Like "Miss Manners" things. Oh, man, this baby is a jewel! I asked to borrow it from her and she gave it to me. What a woman!

Here's the prompt, it's not long:

Write about a character who is sick or injured. 15 min

The gray eyes opened and a hand shot up and wrapped itself around Ronic’s throat. He gasped and gripped the hard fingers, desperate to remove them. He tried to find any way around the lanky fingers, but couldn’t find anywhere to hang on.

“Where am I?” his voice was hard. There was no panic, quite the opposite.

Ronic choked and slapped the back of the man’s hand. He dragged in the remnants of a breath.

The man looked slowly around the small room. Ronic watched him take in the cluster of beds, the other few patients, the woman steaming herbs in the back. The gray eyes turned down to him.

He dragged in another pathetic draft of air and smacked the man’s hand again. The fingers relaxed a fraction. “He . . . a . . . ler . . .” he choked out.

“Mmmm,” he said.

Ronic fell backwards as he was released, the stool rocking with the force of the push. He put a hand to his aching throat and rubbed hard, trying to remove the fingerprints he knew were now bruising his skin. He stared at his patient, the man he’d been nursing back to health for over a week.

“Nice thank you,” he commented.

“Healer, eh?” was the return.

Ronic nodded.

“How long, then?”

“You came to us about a week ago. I was searching for herbs in the forest and found you broken and bleeding in a clearing. There was dead man nearby and a bloody sword in your hand. I did what I could and brought you here.”

The gray eyes took in Ronic’s dark hair, soft brown eyes and softer body build. “Sure you did, little Healer. All on your own, no doubt,” he sneered.

“Actually, no. I sent for help and it took four of us to get you in the pony-cart.”

“Only four?” he asked. Ronic was shocked to notice a hint of humor in his voice. “Well, I’ll have to work on that.”

That's from the Tetra saga, which I rarely write anymore. But I wanted to make a concentrated effort to do something fantasy-oriented this week. And something of my very own, as well.

Which reminds me, I'm the Toasted Cheese article author this month. Want to know how I made the Amazon language? How to make your own fantasy language? Give it a look-see.

Until next time, keep your sword sharp and your wits sharper!