A Reprise

Today was my first day of vigilantly trying to keep my weekly schedule. Mon and Tues are writing, Wed is sewing, Thurs is Internet. It looks like weekends might be erhu, since my interest in playing is increasing. Today—when I thought of the fact that I was going to write after work, I was filled with relief and happiness. This morning I woke with the dreadful feeling again. I wondered for the first time if that feeling arises because my writing is what I am supposed to do, and something deep within me knows that, and makes me miserable till I write. Because I definitely do not have that feeling when I write daily. Today, I did not write. I edited the first twenty pages of Red Rose. After I am finished working on my stories every time, I feel like they are good. My post-apocalyptic stories, at least. I also got the idea for a new kind of romance. A post-apocalyptic like one. Setting romances in rustic scenes, like Amarillo, Route 66, Illinois, Kansas. Something deconstructed, ...

Red Rose ends with an epilogue . It's my first epilogue and more the kind of vignette I have missed writing for A Fine and Private Place. I have made it a cycle, or I hope I have. I believe the reader will know after all that Rose, the watcher at the window, has done that of course she will follow Jude and Scarlet into the wilderness, and there the calamity will begin, culminating to crisis once more. The fullness of summer had waned and all was still in the old house as the first autumnal rust curled the edges of the surrounding trees. One figure moved in the old house. She kept the fire glowing, an inviting flicker to tired or curious passersby. A long braid hung comfortably over one shoulder as she lit each taper along the wall with a long match. She extinguished the match with a blow, leaving the smoke to curl in the near-darkness. She was perfectly still, listening. Outside of the old house, a figure made his way around the perimeter. His was a shabby form, careworn. He...