Reasons to be Cheerful

1. It's still nice in the garden in the morning when I go out to water.

2. I have peppers. (How else can I put this? "My peppers are fruiting?" That doesn't sound right.)

3. There's a agent out there reading the full of How to See the Elephant.

4. I've been hearing a lot about The Dark Divine by Bree Despain and when I looked it up in the LV library catalog it said "14 holds on the first 8 returned copies." So I'll probably just go buy it. New reading!

5. Blogfest! From Amalia T. -- the theme of which is dreams. I found out kind of late, but here's my contribution, from The Poison Hill. The dreamer is my MC, Gertrude. She's living in Italy, about 30 years after most of the action has taken place.

The water is inky black, tossing against the dock. It’s the dock at the lake, the same dock after all these years, but the water goes on forever, all the way to the horizon, under a dark sky. When I get to the white raft out in the center of the lake my mother will be there. I have to be out there at exactly the right time. Clark Gable takes the towel from my shoulders and I dive into the water and swim with great speed, waves bobbing in my face. I see the raft just ahead, dirty white from the dark water. The crowd of people on the dock is screaming, cheering me on. I have to be up on it before sunset. One moment later and my mother will be gone…Something is knocking on the side of the raft, making it shake…the ladder is right before me; I grab at it and begin to climb up… the knocking, again …There is my mother, with long hair and a long dress, like an Edgar Allan Poe illustration… The sun is not down yet; I’m still in time…
But I'm not in time, and Zita is pounding on the door. I know she's standing out in the hall, wondering, knocking and waiting, and knocking again. It’s no good to call avanti. Zita never avanti’s; she waits for you to let her in.



Fun Fact: this actually came from a real dream, although it's been much altered. Have a good weekend and check out the other Dreamfest posts!