I hope you are finding a way to share your special light with the world, today and every day.
My word for 2017
I saw this idea going around the innerwebz and liked it: Choose an inspirational word for your year.
Not that I think one word means everything (if it did I’d get my word counts for the day done much faster!) or that one word should lock you in. But as a means of focus, I think it could be useful. Here’s mine, chosen in these closing minutes of the first day of the new year:
I confess, I sing along SUPER LOUD when the Katy Perry Olympics theme song comes on. And I do not have the voice for it. You have been warned. But I love the sentiment. So it’ll be my word for as long as it lasts.
What’s your power word for starting the year?
Freshest Christmas tree ever
We had a volunteer cedar growing too close to the house, and this weekend we decided it finally needed to come down. And voila! Christmas tree!
It’s a little too tall, but the top is very bendy. So we just curled it over. Somewhat Charlie Brown-esque. As is usual every year, Monster Girl is baffled by the sudden growth of a tree in her spot, but she’ll get in the spirit eventually. Probably that would happen faster if I stopped trying to put bows on her head. But she’s so cute!
Hope everybody’s holiday season is fresh and pleasantly scented!
Icy touch of winter
Portland doesn’t do much official winter, but we had a little bit last night and this morning, just enough to frost and quiet our world.
Happy winter!
Red berries on heavenly bamboo; icicles under lichens; dogwood buds slumbering; crystal droplets on last year’s asparagus; mugo pines snow cup; frosted Monster Girl!
An ARC of a Spark from Michele Fogal
[Note from Jessa: The noise to signal ratio for new books is, er, challenging to rise above. Author LOVE readers to share in the signal! So here’s a way to get involved with a maybe new-to-you author and help spread the words!]
Hello fellow story gobblers,
Root of the Spark – Blurb
Dell has an unexpected spark that masculine and feminine energies create when swirled and fused inside a single person. But will this be enough to stop the age-old tide of fear and violence as it rises again?
Born in the midst of the oldest human war, the war of the sexes, Dell is the first true hermaphrodite on the planet of Ameliaura. Dell has used the anonymity of the Fatherlander cities to survive, and the tight community of the Motherlander villages to manage, but reaching maturity means that neither of those are enough to thrive on anymore. After a vicious attack, and an unexpected love interest, Dell must step into the light to fight for a real home.
Warning: this book contains a child who is actually an ancient dragon made of fungus, a lovely villain imprisoned inside the creatureās body, a hasty clan gathering in the collective subconscious, a hermaphrodite orphanage on the brink, and some very naughty acts on a staircase.
Title: Root of the Spark (Wild Seed #1)
Author: Michele Fogal
Genre: Science Fiction, Romance, LGBT
Length: 88,000 words (Novel)
Publisher: Loose Id
Release Date: Nov 22, 2016
I was huffing and slugging the walls until I fell to my knees, and then I figured it was just as good to beat the hell out of the floor since it was all clearly the same shit. Its body. The whole thing was its lord-forgotten body. With me just like a tiny maggot inside a fart bubble in its gut. I started to shake.
It could probably turn this whole room into that harder stuff if it wanted. It could probably collapse the walls and crush me just like the bug I was. I put something extra into the next wallop I laid onto the floor when I thought of that.
āCome on, you son of a whore! Just get it over with. Come and crush me up like a worm. Iād rather die now than sit here waiting for whatever your sick, fat brain is thinking up for me.ā
I flopped out flat and rolled to look at the ceiling. There it was, glowing away like its own little sun was in behind a thin blanket of that stuff. What could I possibly do that would make the hugest beast sit up and pay me any kind of notice? Even if Iād had a knife or a sword, what good would that have done? A shock stick would have barely tickled that thingās tonsils.
It was time to man up to the fact that not only was I in the plink with no real date for getting out, not only was there no way out, but I was nothing. I had nothing to fight with, no strength worth a wit in here. I cried then, like a baby. Or rather, like a toddler. Any man thatās had kids of his own knows that no baby ever did crying the justice that a two-year-old can.
I gave in and let it roll outta me, snot and sobs and all. The red-hot shame of it was something terrible. I was nothing, and this thing that held me, it was seeing all of this and would now know not just how weak I wasāwhich, when you think about it, Acorn must have known before I was even in hereābut that I knew how weak I was and couldnāt keep myself from admitting it.
How long had it taken to break me? A few hours? It was pathetic how weak I was, the toughest of the hard-working guys. I was terrified in a way I hadnāt felt in a long time. No booze, no people. I had to have one or the other. To be alone with myself was just notā¦safe.
Author Site & Blog:Ā www.michelefogal.com
Twitter:Ā http://twitter.com/michelefogal
Story sweeps up the dust of our lives, moistens it with breath, and grows food for the soul.