ita, that was gorgeous, but I'm not placing the fairytale. It's a bit scary, how much I loved the damned things growing up and how hard it is for me separate them as individual stories at the half-century mark. Snow White?

edit: I meant to comment on this earlier:

Yeah, I think that only works when somebody is coming in from outside. Like in one of my fics, I have Jimmy McNulty, coming in to Gee's shift for the first time, refer to Kellerman as an "Opie-looking detective,"

erika, in one of Nicholas Blake's (the pseudonym Cecil Day-Lewis used to write the Nigel Strangeways mysteries), he uses that technique in a way that is so beyond perfect, it's mind-blowing. He's introducing a character, with a particular set of features, and he shows them through Nigel and his sculptress lover Claire's POV. But rather than describe what they both see, he has them thinking the same thing, and when the guy turns away for a minute, Claire whispers "fruit bat!" out of the corner of her mouth, and Nigel grins and nods.

And that's as masterly a piece of "show" as I've ever come across. In two sentences, we see Claire and Nigel and how easily they communicate, after long acquaintance. We see the character's face, very vividly, because those two words - fruit bat - show a particular set of features and quickness.

I love stuff like that. I strive for it.

That's the one, Deb. He brings back a boar's heart or something instead.

This one's just for fun.

Voice and Guitar

Christmas 1976, Kate and I are listening to KSAN.

"Bleah." Kate's disgusted; it's been ten straight songs by male groups. "There aren't enough women playing good hard rock and roll."

"There's Patti Smith." I'm trying to be fair-minded. "OK, she's not exactly head-bang. Debbie Harry? Have you heard Blondie?"

"That's punk. Not the same." Another male voice, screaming Stratocasters. "And don't give me Siouxsee, either."

Out of nowhere, the room fills with raunchy guitar, kidney-grinding bass, a killer voice: He's a magic man....

Our eyes widen. When the song's over, the DJ sounds smug. "That was a band called Heart..."

ita, that was chilling and lovely. And I love Deb's.

Heart Drabble

She’d wanted urgent, hot, even rough. Something to take the edge off her restlessness. He looked the part, with that five o’clock shadow, and eyes so dark she’d fallen into them without a second thought. He looked like rock ‘n’ roll, the kind of boy you didn’t bring home to mother.

But he’d given her a lush adagio, playing her everywhere, in places she never imagined would make a sound. He murmured into the hollow of her throat, words she felt rather than heard. He kissed her.

The one place she hadn’t planned to let him touch was her heart.

(dying with love over Amy's)

Damn, I love a good hot music drabble. Am I a freak, in that the more rock and roll the men were, the more likely it was my musician father would drag them off into a corner to discuss 'trane?

Oh Deb, for all my sins, I heart Heart. Annie's voice is unlike anyone else, and though some do some things better, she always yanks at my gut and spine like nobody else can.

Amy... um. 'Scuse me while I go jump in a cold shower. Again, after Deb's earlier one.

Wrod, Bev. Woo hoo! Know who the killer is.

Is it the butler? Or the first character the detective meets? Or the second victim? Or an orangutan?

Now, if I told, what kind of suspense mistress would I be?

My muse is damnedably clever. So far since sitting down with every intention of writing I've

• spent half an hour looking for the details of the Borgia coat of arms (I've learned it contained a golden bull, but no one has seen fit to tell me what the other colors are, argh!)
  
• done my credit card payments
  
• and laughed at the critics and viewers ratings of current movies.

And now I've got the munchies and want to go to the grocery store.

My muse doesn't want to write intricately plotted Renaissance chicanery, she wants to write schmoop. I told her she couldn't write schmoop until we got the Ren-angst out of the way. She's being stubborn. I may have to let her get a little schmoopy scene out of her system. She's normally so dependably angsty. I let her watch "Smile Time", but that apparently isn't enough. I may have to give her "The Girl in Question" and snicker at Italian farce.