A Reprise

To be buoyed up in a moment when there is no sensible cause for optimism, when everything in me feels as brown and withering and fluttering as the dead leaves of Fall which must come so soon. I wander through the almost-deserted building and never have I felt so alone and forsaken and lonelier still do I feel to guess that everyone must feel this way as they walk a momentary lonely road. Since I have been in the habit lately of challenging myself and testing my limits, I put down the gauntlet: be happy now, now! And I thought suddenly, I am lonely, but I am an island, and I am good, and no one can take this from me, the blood rushing through my veins, this fire. I can stand in two places at once. Here, and the far wild recesses of my mind, where I can hearken to those familiar spirits. I felt the great desire to run and never stop. How wonderful it is to feel this strange, restless energy. I decided to do as the ancients called and make a balance with body, mind and spirit: in doing I

Last evening attempting to write and failing at it did much for me. For once, really doing it, I finally realize what I should do. I am too burdened by past stories, many novels, to write any more. Difficult as it may be, I want to apply myself to revising these completed novels to my satisfaction before even touching the unfinished novels, much less beginning a new one. It has been on my mind for some time how many completed novels I have, and how all of them are unfit for human eyes-- Love's Shadow, Love's Image, Cymbeline, A Question of Honor, and Winter's Light, and the short stories, The Grove (lost presently), The Beekeeper, The Tower, Absinthe (also presently lost), and The Annunciation. And my two oldest, A Fragile Reverie and Winter Rose. I am starting to realize that with regard to revision and display, I can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear: nevertheless it gives me great pleasure to share my earliest work, whatever its flaws. Winter Rose was an attem

Blanche stepped into the ancient garden of delights, basket swinging from one hand as she surveyed the flowers for harvest. They would serve to adorn her simple gown for the fair, and perhaps accentuate her charm for Jean's appreciation. A crafty smile worked at her red lips as she picked the loveliest lily blossoms for her black hair. With or without her stepmother's approval, she would receive Jean's court. Suddenly he seemed her only means of happiness or survival. She relinquished the flowers and knelt suddenly at the small, old grave, feeling not for the first time a familiarity with the place. "Yes," she whispered suddenly. "I was here long ago clutching my father's hand, beholding you, mother, being laid into the ground. Oh, God, his face was terrible!" She closed her eyes and shivered at the memory. Sent from Amanda's Treo @-'-,--

There have been times in my life that have moved slowly, perhaps for good or bad. But now, nothing moves slowly. When I contemplate how little has altered for me in one year, I'm staggered. Soon, all too soon, it will have been an entire year since I have worked at Mary Kay, Inc., and yet it feels like just a couple of months. Days, weeks spin by at staggering pace. I remember something that happened to me, and I'll realize that months have passed since the event. I'll scan over my diary only to find that weeks have passed since I wrote in it, when I was sure it was only a few days ago. The feeling grows stronger with each passing day: it is near-insurmountable now, so that I am driven to find a way to slow the passage of time. It is almost supernatural, as though I'm on a legended fairy island where I'm being cheated of my life: while five minutes of my revelry passes, it has really been five years, and my very life is slipping through my fingers like sand. I know

I'm giving up momentarily on finding the best interactive fiction engine for my Treo-- it's just too frustrating. The Hugo engine only plays one game at a time and now I have the weird feeling that everything I uploaded to my PDA has become lost to me, but is undeletable. Besides, I'm more interested in prose than interactive fiction at the moment-- at least until I find some good software for both desktop and Treo and can play the games reliably. Despite Hugo's apparent cross-compatibility, there are bugs everywhere. There are other software to pursue, but I'm tired of thinking of all of it. I'm more interested in free fiction on the Internet. I thought today of what would make a successful free book, and this is my working idea: (1) the achievement of a whole work of fiction, short story or novel; (2) the available resources and education to edit/revise that novel to the best of one's ability; (3) comprehensive criticism and feedback for further improvemen

Blanche stood before her small mirror, lacing her corset herself for the first time as best as she could. She could not do it as tightly as Muriel might-- but Muriel was nowhere to be found. Likely she had gone out early that morning for some herb or other. Blanche, freed temporarily from Muriel's scrutiny, did not feel put upon to attend her chores, and with her basket flew from the house and down the road, before her stepmother might return and detain her. Once out of sight of the old shanty, Blanche relaxed her pace and lingered along the road, near Jean's stretch of farmland. He noticed her instantly: stopped where he worked the land, and waved a tentative greeting. Blanche felt in the moment that more than an expanse of grass parted them: it was her stepmother's ire: even his shyness for her was near-gone. Languidly Blanche leaned against the gate and watched him continue his work. Despite his obvious pleasure at her unexpected company, he looked almost cheerless: sh

How would I Iive without this resource? Yet its necessary source, oil, is our reason for my country's war with Iraq. I have read tonight-- and I intend to contemplate the possible truth of it-- that the USA wants to control what is left of the world's oil supply. Is this worth human lives? No. What can I do without this precious medium, the Internet, through which I express my life's passion? To have this thing which need be finite due to our greed is unsettling. What should I do? Will the world be as my post-apocalyptic imaginings describe in twenty years? Will we be bereft of electricity, on which every human is so dependent? I wonder if I am building my house on the sand in this event. Lately I have given myself almost entirely to electronica. If it were to end, much of my effort would be not only obliterated but obsolete. I wonder what I should do. For if our country should do something, I should do it first and wait for others to follow me, rather than the other way a

A passionate storm is at work; it calls to my mind the two weeks last year I wrote A Question of Honor , and how I finished its last pages in the midst of such a storm. I'm beginning to learn the way of the weather here: storms come up and break more violently than in south Texas. Since I have always appreciated a great storm, this is an enjoyment to me. I am reading "Mathilda" by Mary Shelley, having completed The Tenant of Wildfell Hall , and its writing, while not as eventful or enthralling as Bronte's, seems one long song to Romanticism, passion, and all its ideals. That the two were written in the same society at the same time amazes me; while their similarities are obvious, Shelley's is clearly devoid of the piousness that heavily characterizes Wildfell. In fact, I thought perhaps Anne Bronte's work might not be as popular as that of her sisters' because her clearly didactic tone is such a poison to modern scholars. All I have learned of Bronte makes