Getting a bit behind with this! Someone recommended Dabble to me and I am trying the 14 day free trial. So far its great! I decided to add all my notes etc and rewrite, tighten Kingdoms Lost. So this is the opening now, edited and tightened. Smoke hung in the air, thick with the stench of sweat and stale beer. She stepped into it as Hegard smiled and nodded a greeting. “Be with you shortly, lass.” She slung her pack from her shoulders and set it at her feet, keeping her sword buckled firmly in place. It wasn’t the worst tavern on the road, but men and beer often ended in violence. “You want the usual?” Hegard asked, grabbing a tankard from the shelf behind him. “You mean you have something different?” He chuckled and shook his head, drawing the ale slowly to create a perfect frothy hea, just the way she liked it. At least he kept a good barrel. She was hot, thirsty, and in need of something cool. “It’s busy,” she said as he placed the tankard before her. “Any food left?” “Soup and bread is about all.” “That’ll do.” “You wanting a room? Only the attic’s free.” “I’ll take it. What’s going on?” “There’ve been reports of dragons in the mountains. All these daft swines think they’ve a chance of killing one!” She raised an eyebrow as she drank. “Perhaps I’ll stay awhile. Might be entertaining.” Hegard smirked and grabbed another proffered tankard. She stayed at the bar rather than find a table. Most were taken anyway. The crowd was a strange mix: local farmers, two tall, white-haired elves in quiet discussion with an elderly well-dressed man, and two tables of dwarves, the rowdiest of all, bellowing a drinking song about wenches, gold, and mining for good measure. In a shadowed corner beside the chimney breast, a lone hooded figure bent over his drink. He looked up. She quickly turned back to her ale. The skin along her neck prickled. He was watching her. Stay calm, she told herself, forcing slow, steady breaths. A bowl of soup and a hunk of bread appeared before her.

This is a series of quotes from the ancient wise crystal mushroom people, The Circle of Origin, in the fantasy novel I am writing. These aren't so much unsent messages as unreceived. “A Frenite’s shape is often determined by the incongruous edge between the human desire for self determination- individual freedom of choice -and the collective awareness of interdependence of all other living things on the planet.” Dendra “Ethical reclamation is ridiculous and necessary, just as the heart asking permission before pumping the blood cells through the body would be ridiculous but necessary if the blood cells were trying with all their might to swim in the opposite direction, like humans have done for millenia.” Geo “Fire does not persuade. It ravages, renders, and restores. It is the final guarantee when persuasion fails.” Pyri “Fire does not dominate. It cooperates with life’s instinct for growth, igniting change, fueling movement.” Pyri “Domination is a temporary illusion. The balance of shared power will eventually restore itself. It is inevitable.” Obsin “Collective survival will outlast and outsmart even the most stubborn self destructive individualistic impulses. The Earth is bigger than us all.” Flouri “The song of life cannot be ignored, silenced, or corrupted without consequence. Don’t be surprised when the price of these transgressions comes due.” Lapus “Creatures of the deep waters sing and swim in the currents of Earth’s blood. Who sings in your veins?” Moon “When you remember that nothing belongs to you, not even the solidness of your body, you can let others carry what is heavy for a while and fly.” Angeli “Light does not need to be seen by eyes to exist. It will speed through the emptiest darkness with glee.” Seleni

The mirror didn’t lie. You did. But only to yourself. Some truths wait for you to stop running before they speak.

This is for the ones who are just starting, coming back or are in a moment where the blank page sits and waits: For the days the words don’t come. Sit with silence like an old friend. Start ugly. Begin broken. Finish gently. Let it go. And when the world asks what you made... say only this: “I made a way back to myself"

(I missed last week, and I think I'm late to this week, but here goes...) Dear Pam, I know you would like me to call you Mom or Mother, but in the time we’ve gotten to know each other, I still am not comfortable with that. Maybe if we had met sooner, or if our ideologies better aligned, I could find that spark of connection they say mothers have with their children from the nine months in the womb. Or eight, in my case. As it stands, the only thing you and I have in common is one half of a DNA strand, and while I cannot deny the test results, when I look at you, I see none of myself there. Maybe, when I look at pictures of you at my age, maybe there is a hint of the eyebrow, and I cannot deny that I have your sister’s nose, which must have come from an ancestor because you do not have it. Possibly the darkness of my eyes, one of the many things about me that proves I do not match the family I was raised with. Everything else must have come from the other half of the DNA strand. Just some man, not the one you named, for DNA doesn’t lie, and though I spent my whole life believing the lie you told the people who arranged my adoption, and learned a heritage I thought was my birthright, I now know that the one part of myself I was sure of was nothing more than a lie. A lie I have believed so long, it makes me feel lost to admit it isn’t true. A lie that I have told so long that it shaped who I am even though it wasn’t true. And while you have fought with your own mother for over 40 years over her part in your giving me up, the truth is, you wouldn’t have recognized me had we met on the street. For that matter, I am sad to say, we wouldn’t have anything to say to each other if we had met randomly on the street as strangers. You cling to your faith with anger and vengeance. Yours is a vengeful hateful God who judges instead of loves, and only punishes, while mine exists in the light between heartbeats and is felt most in the kindness given willingly to those in need.