blogging

Respectful Fear

Well, I’m in the United States of America, using a new and adorable miniature laptop, also known as a net-book, and finally catching up with this blog. I cannot, sadly, keep up with my usual schedule of all the blogs I usually read – I hardly have time to write, let alone browse at my leisure. However, if I happen to find the time, I will definitely pop over and say hi to you all. Hopefully, I will be forgiven for my lapse of attention for the time being.

I would like to share some thoughts I had while on the long [long, long, long] flight to the US.

Some people are afraid of flying. Mortally afraid. Many know how unreasonable their fear is and how safe air-crafts are these days, but still, something about being so very high up in the air in a vehicle they cannot control on their own – something about all this terrifies them in a way they can’t deal with, and it is enough to make them give up travel to distant countries altogether.

I am not one of these. As one who has traveled back and forth to Europe and the US at least once every year since birth, I suppose I could be considered quite the veteran on airplanes. Heck, I even remember the days where you could go to the back of the plane to a “smoking row” if you so wished. So, as I say, I’m quite confidant about flying.

HOWEVER-

I still believe there is a healthy amount of fear and respect due to a few tons of aluminum that manage to rise into the air and race across the face of the Earth for hours. I suppose you could say that I regard airplanes like I would a horse – handy mode of transportation and all, but hurt it or disrespect it and you might just end up in the mud. And, in the case of airplanes, probably very dead too.

So every time the airplane stars to shake with turbulance, my stomach can’t help but get tied in knots, my jaw clenches of its own accord and my hands squeeze each other for comfort. That’s jut the way it goes, I suppose.

Taking Off

Reader, beware! Following is something that very closely resembles a regular, boring, dull and dreary diary entry by yours truly [if yours truly kept a regular diary.] This is due to weariness of mind and very little time in which to write. Your forgiveness and patience are asked for. Thank you.

Well, it’s April 9th, and at 11:35PM Jerusalem Time, I will be taking off from the state of Israel and beginning the long journey to the United States of America to commence my two week trip of seeing universities and colleges. My excitement is currently a tight ball somewhere on the inside of my ribcage, and is being pushed back by the necessity of keeping my head as I go about the last check-ups of luggage, carry-on bags, and house.

In less than one hour, my mother and I will be entering a taxi with all our baggage and making our way to the airport, where the usual boring routine will commence: check-in, security, passport, one-more-coffee-and-then-bathroom stop, and then finally, the Ritual of Boarding the Airplane.

I am carrying with me a few good Terry Pratchett novels, my notebooks for writing in, my beloved IPod to soothe me and lull me to sleep and a variety of necessities.

Hopefully, I will be able to blog regularly on my trip and perhaps, if I feel it is interesting enough, even tell you anecdotes about my travels.

Spam [Part II]

Part I

Ladonna had walked down several blocks at a very brisk pace before she stopped, shook herself both mentally and physically, and tried to pull herself together. It was weird, true. It was even extremely strange and unlikely. However, there was no reason to panic. In fact, quite the opposite: perhaps her lottery ticket would really be worth something.

Still, she was spooked. As she slowly made her way home, she shook another cigarette out of her pack and lit it. The smell and taste of smoke calmed her nerves, but only out of habit. She considered smoking as a sort of meditation. That argument had never worked on her friends who told her to quit smoking, but it sounded good anyway.

It was still early in the day, and Ladonna had the day off for her birthday. In the evening, she’d have a few friends over. They were all taking the train down to throw her a little bash. She was appreciative – she knew train tickets weren’t all that cheap and that the two hour train ride was a hassle for them. She comforted herself with the knowledge that she’d be taking the train over to them soon enough as well, and so she shouldn’t feel guilty. It was her birthday, after all. She was allowed to be indulged, at least a little.

Thinking of the evening, Ladonna’s mood improved as she walked along the streets back towards her apartment. She meant to cook up a good meal for her friends, and even bake a cake, and she wanted to get an early start on things. There would be alcohol, of course, and plenty of it. Her friends were planning on staying the whole night and get raucously drunk (though not really, because there were neighbors who wouldn’t appreciate that). Ladonna smiled to herself rather grimly as she envisioned the hangover that would follow and the too-familiar feeling of that odd and illogical peace that would settle in the house as she and her friends would drink cup after cup of coffee at her table and try to sober up. They had spent many nights and mornings together in this fashion.

Well, they’d all be nursing headaches and queasy stomachs together, at least. Oh, oops, Ladonna realized. All of us but one. Kate was pregnant, and wouldn’t be drinking. Damn, Ladonna thought, that means none of us will get as much drinking as we’d like done either because we’ll all feel she shouldn’t have to suffer us extremely drunk. She felt guilty immediately afterwards, and slammed the heel of her shoe down on her dwindling cigarette. She had reached her apartment.

As she was climbing the stairs, a man exited a door on the next landing. He had a dog with him, an obedient golden Labrador who sat quietly as he fumbled with his keys one handed. He seemed to be having difficulty getting the key into the lock. Ladonna then realized the type of leash he was holding – not a leash at all, but a harness. The dog was a seeing-eye dog, and the man must be blind. She stepped sideways on the staircase to allow him and the golden Lab to pass her, but the stairway was just too narrow and the man bumped into her just as his Lab sensed the danger of it and sat down to warn him to stop.

“Sorry, sorry!” the man hurriedly apologized. “My mind was elsewhere, didn’t hear there was anyone else here, I’m so sorry.” He gazed at her unseeing and smiled slightly, trying, she felt, to gauge her mood somehow.

“No, it’s no problem at all!” she mumbled shyly back, trying to edge around him. She hadn’t meant to distress him, and he seemed so worried.

“Say,” he began again. “Your voice is a new one. Are you new here or something?” Ladonna felt ashamed of herself again. Here was a new neighbor, a person that would be tromping up and down the stairs here just like her, and she was acting like a complete ninny, just trying to get away from him because she was nervous!

“Yeah, I am, actually.” She decided to do the thing properly, put a smile in her voice and kept on bravely. “My name’s Ladonna Trent, I just moved into the apartment right above you, sir, and I’m glad to make the acquaintance of a neighbor.” She then took his hand and firmly shook it.

He smiled widely. Ladonna noticed how sweet, open and friendly that smile was. This big man, wearing a white t-shirt, blue jeans, and black tennis shoes looked simply boyish, despite being very much over fifty years of age.

“Well then! Welcome to the building, Ladonna! My name’s Steve, Steve Solomon. This good girl here,” he gestured to the Lab, who was sitting quietly beside her master with her tongue hanging out, “she’s Anibal. Anibal Solomon, really, since you could say she’s like a daughter, helping her dad around and all.” He grinned widely again. “We’re going out to the corner store. Need any milk or anything?”

“N-no, thank you, sir.”

“Steve’s fine, Steve’s fine – we’re neighbors, after all! If you ever need a cup of sugar or something, just knock on my door. Anibal here will get me if I’ve got my headphones on. She’s good about noticing the door. Come on, girl!” With his command, the Lab started to walk slowly and carefully, her harness gripped firmly by Steve, and led him down the stairs and out into the street.

Ladonna stared after them until they had left the dimly lit interior of the building. When they were out of sight, she ran the rest of the way up until she reached her apartment. It took her three tries to get the key in the lock, and she felt a pang of sympathy for Steve, needing to fumble like this all the time. Finally she managed it, and wrenched the door open. Without bothering to take the keys out of the lock or close the door, she rushed to her computer.

The screen was writhing with strange snake-like pipes that were moving and growing and then collapsing on themselves. Impatiently, Ladonna jerked the mouse aside, stopping the screensaver from it’s endless patterns of pointless animation. She stared at the spam folder in her email. There were still five emails there, from five different supposed senders.

Ladonna Trent was her name, of course.

Ronda B. Clements had been her waitress.

Ricky Charles had been the sole survivor of a freak tractor accident that she had happened to catch in a convenience store on the shortest, silliest news report of the day.

And now, Anibal Solomon had just happened to be her downstairs neighbor’s seeing-eye golden Labrador.

This was turning out to be the strangest birthday Ladonna Trent had ever had, and that included the one where her older brothers had tried, and succeeded for a few hours, to convince her that aliens were attacking the earth because she had turned eight.

Spam [Part I]

Ladonna Trent sat staring at her computer screen, which was displaying the spam folder of her email account. There were five emails there. Four were advertising something called Rx Meds [At Your Fingertips Today!] and the other one was advertising fake watches. The emails were from a variety of names: Anibal Solomon, Rubin J. Keith, Ronda B. Clements and Ricky Charles.

The rather odd thing was that the last sender of one of the emails advertising Rx Meds seemed to be from herself. The name Ladonna Trent was neatly listed next to the subject of the email. Ladonna stared at the email a while longer, wondering what the odds of THAT happening were. She decided the odds were some big number to one. How odd that it should also happen today, of all days, her birthday.

Ladonna abruptly abandoned her computer, grabbed her coat, keys and cigarettes and dashed out the door, only remembering when she got to the end of the hallway that she should probably lock the door, especially as she actually remembered her keys this time. The door made a satisfying click when she locked it and Ladonna wondered how just a small, round, metal bar could lock a door so thoroughly. As she walked down the stairs of the building, for the elevator was broken yet again, she continued to marvel at the incident of the spam email. Why would a woman with her exact name be sending out advertisements? Actually, the advertisements probably weren’t sent by actual people, but just by some company’s computer, and the names were probably just generated randomly. Still, it was strange to see your own name advertising something like illegal medications.

As she stepped into the late morning sunlight outside her building, Ladonna wondered what she should do now that she was out. It was her birthday, after all, and she wanted to have a nice day in this city of strangers. She had just moved to the city a week before. She worked for a large company who did big and important things, though Ladonna didn’t quite care what those things were. She only cared about what she was supposed to care about – whatever her boss needed. She was one of the CEO’s secretary, which meant that she made him coffee, took his phone calls and made appointments. She never really cared what those phone calls or appointments were about. The Boss had moved here to run one of the local offices, and as she had nothing much tying her down in her old city, she came along.

The Boss had met his mistress at a café near her house, Ladonna knew, for she had made the appointment with the mistress herself, so she decided to head there for a cup of coffee and a smoke. The café was a pleasant place with little white tables out on the sidewalk for those lowlifes of the American society who still needed to puff smoke into their lungs. Ladonna didn’t really mind being one of them. She sat down at one of the tables and waited to be noticed by one of the laughing waitresses inside. Eventually one of those fresh faced young women came out, still smiling from whatever joke had been shared by her and her friends.

“Hi, would you like a menu or do you just want coffee?” She asked, her smile changing to a long practiced polite little uplifting of the corners of her lips.

“Just a coffee, thanks. And an ashtray, if you could be so kind,” replied Ladonna, imitating without realizing it the empty little smile. The waitress came back within minutes with the frothy cappuccino and a small ashtray. Ladonna thanked her with the fake smile again, and sighed with delight as she took a sip of the coffee. It was good, better than the ones she made herself at home. She took her cigarettes out of her coat pocket, shook one out of the soft pack, and lit it with the lighter that inhabited her jeans pocket perpetually. She took drags in between sips of coffee and enjoyed a moment of quiet in a public place, something she had not enjoyed for a long time. It was nice to go to a café on your own – she had always thought this, but she hadn’t gotten around to doing it in a long time. She watched the traffic flow by lazily, with the occasional halfhearted honk, for who could be rushing on a lovely sunlit morning like this? A homeless man across the street pushed his cart in a seemingly chipper way, though he was probably just rushing to the nearest soup kitchen before it closed. A woman with three blubbering children walked by, trying to wipe the nose of one, pull the other from the curb and stop the third from spitting out his food at the same time. Ladonna smiled indulgently on it all, knowing that it looked lovely to her only because she was in a good mood and thinking how nice it would be if good moods really affected the world in some way.

Her coffee and cigarette finished, she waved the waitress over, and asked for the bill. As the waitress was bringing over the bill, Ladonna noticed her name tag. It said RONDA on it. The name tickled her memory so much that when the waitress came back to take the money and her tip, Ladonna decided to ask her what her name was.

“Ronda,” She smiled and pointed at the name-tag.

“Yes, yes, but I meant what’s your full name?” Ladonna caught the look of confusion on Ronda’s face and added quickly “It’s just that you seem familiar and I was wondering if you were related to someone I know.”

“Oh, then my full name is Ronda Bantam-Clements. I got both my mom’s and my dad’s last name. Could you be related to one of them? I know my mom’s got a bunch of family she doesn’t speak to.” Ronda nattered on about her family history for a while before Ladonna cut her off, saying that she must have been mistaken and she didn’t know her after all.

Ronda Bantam Clements. Ronda B. Clements. How odd. Another of the spam emails that morning had that name listed as the sender. What a strange day this is, Ladonna thought to herself.

The discovery of Ronda B. Clements made up Ladonna’s mind. She would go and buy a lottery ticket. Who knows, she thought to herself, perhaps a coincidental day is all that’s needed to get lucky. Ladonna found a convenience store, and asked the large man behind the counter for a lottery ticket for tonight’s drawing. He looked at her strangely, as if it was a very odd request, before tearing off a ticket with numbers to be filled in and handed her a pen.

“Here, love.” The man said, revealing his strong English accent and his penchant for calling total strangers by pet names. Ladonna filled out the lottery ticket, thanked the man and was about to leave when she heard the tune of the beginning of the noon newscast come on the television across the counter. She hadn’t even opened her newspaper that morning, so she paused and looked at the off-color screen to listen to the five minute news edition.

“It’s twelve o’clock, and I’m John Irving with the news. Three people died and a fourth was severely injured last night in an accident involving a tractor. The details of the incident haven’t yet been released, but Ricky Charles, the sole survivor, exclusively told our reporters that the incident revolved around a drug induced cult act. More details will be released later.

In other news, ‘Cereals are in danger’ says specialist…”

Ladonna didn’t want to hear any more. She walked briskly away from the shop, shaking her head and trying to understand what was happening to make today so strange. Ricky Charles, the sole survivor of whatever freak accident happened with that tractor, was another of the names on Ladonna’s spam emails that morning, and Ladonna was getting uncomfortably aware that something strange was going on today. Something she could not explain, something she did not even know how to describe. After all, it might just be a very odd coincidence. But what are the odds of finding your own name on a spam email, finding another spam-sender serving you coffee and discovering a third as a name on the news? Something about today is definitely off, Ladonna decided.

From My Notebook

The title of this post could alternately be “What I Do At Work.” Meaning, I often do a lot more than answer calls and explain the inner-workings of credit limits during the hours sitting at a computer with a headset murdering my ear. I have a notebook, currently a sweet red one, that I keep with me at all times in my backpack. This notebook is a constant companion as I sit and work, and whenever I can, I scribble in it. Oftentimes, I’m just rambling about nonsense. At other times, I’m actually trying to write something of substance – a well phrased thought or a story, say. Today was one of those times when I was struck with a concept, and I started writing it. However, unlike other times, I ran out of what to do with it very quickly. I’d still like to put it down here, if only for future reference; in case I happen to think of how to continue it one day. And so, I present the following, copied from my very own hand-writing:

Corinne was dreaming again. She often dreamt, but normally didn’t remember her dreams. This was different, though.

She dreamt she was dressed in an elegant and very sheer white cloth. It was fastened over one shoulder with a golden clasp, leaving her other shoulder bare. On her head rested a crown, a delicate one, almost a tiara really, that was also made of gold. Corinne dreamt she was in a large and airy white building. There weren’t any walls, only many columns holding the roof up.

As she dreamt, she knew without a doubt that she was in a temple, and knew with even more certainty that she was a goddess. Which temple, which goddess – these were mysteries that didn’t seem to matter at that moment.

In her dream-world, she looked about her, trying to find either peers or subjects, but the temple was utterly empty. She was standing on a dais at one end of it, and had a good view of the whole space, so she had no doubt that she really was alone. With the same strange knowledge that told her she was a goddess, she knew also that she wouldn’t remain alone, nor the temple remain empty, for much longer.

She was right, and very soon, the temple filled.

This is as far as I’d gotten before my inspiration ran dry. I hate when that happens, but perhaps one day I’ll figure out if this leads to anything, and, if so, what it leads to. This is one of the things I’m learning as I go along – I discard many of my ideas, but I may come back to them, so I’m better safe than sorry by writing down the silliest of them even if it leads to naught.

The Baker

The Baker had been known for years as just that: the Baker. Some knew his name, of course, but most didn’t. He didn’t mind. Being a baker was his pride, his profession and the thing he loved most, and he was pleased to be so well known amongst the others of his trade so as to be the only man called The Baker in the whole market. He knew he was a good baker. Little girls begged their papas to buy his cinnamon rolls, boys filched their mama’s coins so as to get a raisin filled treat, youths brought their blushing young ladies to his stall for a warm apple turnover to share on wintry days, and the poor, eyes wide with hunger and bellies swollen, came to his back door for the many loaves of stale bread that he would have leftover at the end of each week. The Baker was a warm-hearted man, and always made too much bread – accidentally, of course.

He awoke every day of the week before the sun had even risen. He liked to work that early, because the mornings were cool enough so that the sweltering hot oven didn’t make him sweat too much at first as he began to heat it up for the long day. He had different assistants over the years – some stayed and some left. They all left in the end, though, to marry, to have children, to open their own stall or to change trades entirely. The Baker stayed constant, and could never envision doing aught different.

When he had been a child, he’d been rail-thin. He had been the kind of boy who had arms as thin as sticks, a belly-button that puckered out because his stomach was so flat, and ribs that seemed to almost poke out. As he grew, his thin arms developed muscle and his belly rounded a little, all while helping his uncle in kitchens of the big house they lived in. His uncle taught him to bake. Not to cook, no, the Baker never enjoyed cooking meals, but he loved working with any and all kinds of dough, and he became good at it. When his uncle died and the rich family they worked for kicked him out, he’d found work at a smith, as an assistant. It was his strong arms, muscled with constant kneading of dough, that had gotten him that job. He worked, and worked and worked some more, hating the smell of burnt metal and hot coal and the mixed, unpleasant scent of sweat-soaked leather aprons and smoke. But the Baker worked, and when he’d saved enough coin, he opened his bakery stall in the market, as far from the smithy as possible.

He stayed, and his stall grew, and his rolls and pastries and cakes became known, and he became a real baker, The Baker. He never knew aught else – for even as a servant boy and later an assistant smith, he was always thinking of the way clean flour looked on a wooden board and the way dough felt in his hands and the the way a freshly baked loaf would be just that perfect shade of golden-brown. He never knew aught else, and he would never do aught different, not if it were up to him.

The Countess

The Countess sat stiffly upon her throne-like chair. Her face was unreadable, except for the eyes. Those eyes were like endless black tunnels, drowning whoever dared look into them – the iris’s were such a dark brown that they seemed black, and it was difficult to tell the difference between them and the pupils. The Countess’s skin was a smooth, deep shade of bronze, perfect and without blemish. Her face, although expressionless, was built of contrasts: her eyebrows were a shade too thick for fashion, but were arched strongly and proudly above those cold eyes; her mouth was wide, her lips full, though her nose could almost have been seen as hawk-like on a less imposing woman; her cheekbones were high and sharp, though her chin was more rounded. The Countess’s hair was a tumble of ebony curls, pinned in an elegant knot at the back of her head and covered in a sheer veil.

The Countess was resplendent in a black gown, cut low to bear more of her smooth skin and to accent her long, slender neck and full bosom. Although black, the gown shimmered with a hundred points of light that came from the tiny crystal beads that were sewn into it, making the Countess glimmer and blind those who stood before her with every shift of the cloth, as those beads sparkled in the light coming through the tall windows.

The Countess was feared through-out several lands, and respected and feared in her own. She knew this. She used her power. She wrote laws, built bridges, waged war and made peace, all while sitting stiffly on her hard, wooden chair, gilded in gold paint that was never allowed to chip. Her power seemed limitless to those who were in awe of her, and unnaturally so to those who feared her. The Countess alone knew, and pondered, that a day would come when her stiffness would give way to fatigue and her convictions would shatter in the face of weariness. She alone knew that she would not last forever. But until the rest of them realized it, she would never, ever, let it be known that she knew it.

Security, and Lack Thereof

As some of you may know, I’m flying to the United States in a week. I’m extremely eager for this trip, which, of course, makes the time move all the slower. I’ve been obsessing, planning and re-planning, mentally packing and making lists for days now – and with all that came the comparisons between here and NOT here. In musing about the differences between a country fraught with chaos, namely Israel, and a country fraught with a different sort of chaos, namely the US, I stumbled upon a very small but fundamental difference between the places. It’s something I almost never remember until I’m actually in the US.

When most of you walk into a grocery store, a theater, a mall, a cafe or any other public place – you just walk in. You open the door, and walk in. Here, it is not so. Here, there will be a guard. There is always a guard. There will forever be a guard. No matter what public place you enter here, you will have to surrender your bag, purse or back-pack to a guard’s cursory glance, their hands feeling inside it or weighing it to see how heavy it is. In places like the Jerusalem Central Bus Station, you’ll have to go so far as to pass your things through a metal detector. At the entrance to most malls, you yourself have to go through a metal-detector.

After being used to handing over your belongings everywhere you go, I’m always struck by how odd it feels in the US, or anywhere else for that matter, where you don’t have to do that. You can just… walk in. Incredible.

In Love With A Voice

Interviews, photographs, different costumes and looks, different words and ideas… None of those seem to matter. Rather, they matter, but they’re not the most important thing. It doesn’t matter what she looks like. It doesn’t matter what she wears, really. Her words and ideas and opinions matter, if only because I agree with them – though more so because they come to light in her lyrics. But even if those ideas didn’t sit well with my view on life, I still don’t think I could help it.

The first time I heard her, I didn’t appreciate her. I truly, honestly think that I was too young. I couldn’t yet hear the beauty, the emotion, the sheer and utter strength that was in her voice. A few years later, and a need for something different, brought me back to her. One song was all it took. Her voice, without instruments, without accompaniment – she drew me in, and I was in love.

I am speaking of Tori Amos. Many don’t like her. I can understand why. I didn’t like her, once upon a time. Now, though? Her voice sends shivers down my spine and makes my vocal chords quiver with jealousy. Her lyrics, filled with emotion and spirit, make me smile or laugh or want to hug something or need to cry. She is an enchantress, and as her tenth studio album comes nearer to being released, I feel the call of her music to me, and I respond.

It may be insane, it may be silly, it may simply be typical-teenager-stuff, but I can’t help it. I’m in love with a voice.

Guest Post: J.W. Nicklaus

When I first came to WordPress I did what I suspect most people do pre-blogging—I did some ‘reading around.’ If you’ve never ‘read around’ then you’re missing out; it’s much less complicated than other ‘around’ activities and the worst thing you can contract is a screaming case of lost time.

Anyhow, I came across a blog titled SlightlyIgnorant. The name alone was enough to intrigue me. I couldn’t tell you what the first post was that I read but to this day I frequent her blog, and I am genuinely thrilled to have been asked to guest-post here. Anyone who has read my comments to some of her posts knows of my appreciation for her talents—yes, I’m something of a fan :^)

This is the first of two guest posts I’ll be doing for Ms. Slightly. Beginning April 1st I’ll be doing a blog tour in support of my debut book The Light, The Dark, and Ember Between. Appropriately she has asked me to relate how the book went from nebulous thoughts to bound printed word.

It was a stormy night, filled with the kind of thunder that makes the stars shake . . .

Okay, not really, but I’ve always wanted to lead off a story with something like that. Truth is I hadn’t the slightest inkling I’d ever attempt to have my stories published. Each time I’d write one I’d stow it away and re-visit it some time later, for revising or perhaps just out of simple nostalgia. What I discovered, though, was that when I shared this story or that, reader response wasn’t so much positive as it much as it was mostly emotion-based. This was a pleasant, if not unplanned, outcome; an ego-stroke, assuredly, but you didn’t need to spray me with India ink to make me realize the upside to such a gift. If I can make only one person smile, or another warm from the inside out, then how could I not want to repeat it?

I suppose the deeper question is Where does the inspiration come from? The easy answer would be “from experience.” The more esoteric answer, and more revealing, is that I draw from my personal well of hopeless romanticism. Where that comes from I can’t honestly pin down. Some stories are indeed based on actual experience: Blind and In the Name Of Love are two such examples. I could regale you with summaries of each one but then it wouldn’t be as fun to read them, would it! I will tell you that Blind stems from an incident that occurred one night as I left work. I happened upon a blind man who lived nearby but who wasn’t sure where his house was. Turned out we were standing right next to it. The oddness of the encounter prompted me to work it into a short story, mostly because I had the distinct impression I was meant to run into this gentleman.

Other stories, like Emissary and Winter Rose had their genesis in stories of utterly disparate narratives. I had entirely different ideas about each of them when I started writing each one,  and both evolved into something much more meaningful as I worked through them. Emissary, a story about a man who loses his beloved wife at sea, began as a story about a man who scales a suspension bridge at night only to sit atop one of the towers and question his life’s purpose—the original title was to be Bridge and Emissary. While I may return to the initial concept someday I am very pleased that Emissary is the first story in the book. Without a doubt it showcases my ‘voice’ and reveals a sliver of the romantic in me.

Winter Rose began as a tale about a man who’s capacity for hope had gone fallow, until he finds a solitary rose growing from under a blanket of snow. Suffice to say you’ll find no such imagery in the final story of the book, but I think the end result is far more emotionally gratifying.

Eventually I came to realize, after looking at a good number of short stories I’d written, that there existed a common thread of Hope that ran through most all of them. Some were just fun, some clearly uplifting, and a couple slightly darker. As the idea of querying possible publishers began to fester I lit upon the title and stuck doggedly to it: The Light, The Dark, and Ember Between. It is nothing less than fitting. While the idea of putting my words out for all to see can indeed be frightening, I have come to the calm acceptance of two key facts:
(1) Not everyone will like my style, much less the stories themselves
(2) Conversely, there will be some who do . . .on both counts

I hope that many of you will tag along this month as I make my way through this virtual tour. I can’t possibly dream of having the kind of readership that Ms. Slightly, <a href=”http://joyerickson.wordpress.com>Joy Erikson</a> (you’ve <i><b>got</b></i> to see the one-way glass toilet!), <a href=”http://goodbadandugly2.wordpress.com”>The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly</a> (she’s <b>not</b> a morning person, but she’s got a wicked sense of humor),  or <a href=”http://uglyassopinion.com”>Ugly Ass Opinions</a> (a veritable Zion of Common Sense) have. But I hope, in my own way, to entertain those of you who choose to follow along or even read the book. I’ve vowed to be as punctual as possible about posting tour stops on <a href=”http://avomnia.wordpress.com”>my own blog</a>, so I certainly hope to see some of you along the way! :^)

My thanks again to Ms. Slightly for the opportunity to prattle on about my book.