The glassy towers of Nexus shone like a mountain of jewels in the morning sunlight. Atop a dune some three miles out from the oasis valley, a bundle of linen under an exceptionally wide-brimmed straw hat admired the spectacle until the sun had fully risen, by his estimation, an inch or so over the horizon across the valley. The Architect came to ( Read more... )

A few tiny orange fish investigated each of Ethan’s toes as soon as he slipped them, as gently as possible, into the water. They tickled him a little, but he held still, and tried to let the sensation distract him. He could barely see their flighty shapes flicking about beneath the surface, which was opacified by the glow of the Luna blossoms all ( Read more... )

If it had been any more humid, the whole city would have been underwater. It was something one got used to, though; after a point, air any drier felt thin and insubstantial. Harry wondered if he hadn’t grown gills someplace. At any rate, the fact remained - he needed caffeine. But if the daily coffee ritual had been to any degree a standing bastion ( Read more... )

This was initially going to be a blow-by-blow description of an illustrated series. However, it turned into something a little more functionally descriptive, if written in the present tense (which I clearly lack a real feel for).

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Phaedri stands on the beach, letting the surf wash over her feet and watching the midday summer light dance on the ( Read more... )

The sound of the wind was deafening. It screamed and howled, slicing through the white-noise rush of waves crashing on all sides against an edifice of monolithic boulders. It whistled shrill through tiny holes in the porous volcanic stones, but low and ominous over the top of the unnatural tube they formed, and sucked any warmth from within so that ( Read more... )

a la this

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Writers, however easy some of us seem to make it look, must walk a very fine line emotionally. Luckily, this is a metaphorical line, and not some death-defying tightrope strung between two skyscrapers in the heart of a ruthless metropolis. Still, we have a lot of fear when it comes to falling.

We have to bring ourselves to a place where ( Read more... )

Seventy-five years ago today, my dad was born ( Read more... )

I received an email today, referring to the "Camp NaNoWriMo" thing that the crazy Office of Letters and Light folks are doing to make NaNo more accessible throughout the year. On a whim, I decided to log into my account on the site, which I hadn't looked at since failing miserably in November of last year for the third time in a row. Yes, step one ( Read more... )

no joke ( Read more... )