Monday Miscellany

Expect to see a couple of posts about word use in the near future. I'm working on them now, though they're currently in one massive post, so I'll be splitting it up. It might even get split into three posts, I'm not sure yet. Anyway, I went to review some word use rules, and I thought, "If I could use the refresher, chances are, so could other people." I even learned a few new things!

I am finally making some real progress on "Invitation to Eden" and I am so happy. Here's the unedited beginning of the story:

"The heat of the Louisiana summer pressed down on Celeste as she lay in bed. She stared up at the ceiling, where the ugly words her mother had spoken seemed to float like angry ghosts. They haunted her. Angeline's voice played over and over, confirming what Celeste had always suspected. She counted the days until her eighteenth birthday, when the law would free her parents of the burden of her, and she found the time between the present and that far-off day to be unbearable. There had to be another way to escape."

The story still needs a lot of work, but that opening paragraph is a hell of a lot better than it was just yesterday.

Did you see this? Justin Timberlake is going to the Marine Corps Ball with a Marine who asked him out via YouTube. That is so cool.

As soon as I finish The Book of Lost Souls (which I'm hoping is soon, because things have just gotten seriously interesting), I plan to post a review. Even before I do that, you should all buy it and read it, though. Seriously. It's so much fun. It really does have a Buffy the Vampire Slayer feel to it. I loved Buffy. Anyway, I was reading a little but this morning, and I kept thinking that I can't wait for my daughter to be old enough to enjoy it.

If you're looking for royalty-free stock photography, you should check out Dreamstime. I've found a ton of great free images there, and the prices for the paid photos are very reasonable.