Actually, I tried again just now and Word let me open up a blank document! Yay! I defragged the hard drive last night (it took 6 HOURS) and I didn't reboot afterward, so of course it still locked up when I tried to get into Word this morning. So, I may actually get to do some more writing tonight while the words are hot in my brain.

I'm grumpy. My computer is still acting up. I can't get into Word, so I've been using WordPad to type up my drabbles. It doesn't have a word count function, so I'm having to count and recount my drabbles as I write them. Very annoying. Still, never let it be said I'm lacking for words!

No skin off my nose. That's exactly what I'd said when Terri told me she wanted to go for some botox treatments. Maybe if she hadn't spent so many years on the front lawn, slathering herself with a mixture of iodine and baby oil, she wouldn't have so many wrinkles on her face. Really, with all the advertisements by plastic surgeons on the TV these days, you figure she would have realized what she was doing to her face years ago!

The scab on my nose? A few months, I think. It was originally a bluish color.

Are you...melanoma?

Sail, that's creepy. A friend of ours' sister had a mole removed and it was diagnosed as cancerous. And my daughter has a very cavalier attitude toward sunscreen.

Brrrrrrrrr.

The older three fled long ago. Any sleep the youngest two find is fleeting—all their dreams disturbed.

He stumbles in. She's quiet; the dead always are. She tells herself she’s keeping the peace, but knows the truth. There’s no right way. A wrong word, an extra word, an unspoken word—glance—or lack thereof, and it begins.

Two little boys squeeze their eyes shut. The first lesson they ever learned from the older ones was to breathe slow and deep. They’re sure he can hear their hearts pounding. He cannot hear their silent prayers: There’s no place like home.

(wc 100)

OMG Cindy, what a stomach punch. So good.

Thanks, Ailleann.

Cindy, that's gorgeous. I do have a question about one line:

She is quiet—telling herself she’s keeping the peace, but knows the truth—the dead always are.

The dead always are....? Is there a reference I'm missing, or a word missing, possibly? (Which, entre nous, is entirely possible, since no coffee yet.)

I didn't know how to structure that deb, so I'm glad you brought it up. I meant to ask, anyhow. The "the dead always are" refers back to the beginning of the sentence, "She is quiet."

She's not actually dead, just dead inside.

Note about writing contests -- I just got this from a friend who'd entered the Golden Heart (RWA contest for best unpublished manuscript).

Last year, I finalled with one entry, and got five 9's and a 5 on the second. This year, in the GH, I received the worst scores I've ever made in a contest in all my years of entering. On BOTH entries I submitted. And the entry that garnered four 9's and a 5 last year garnered 3's and 5's this year.

Same woman, same writing, revised and improved manuscript. It's a total crapshoot.

Ah - yes, definitely a structure issue, because as it's put together, the dead are always keeping the peace.

She is quiet—telling herself she’s keeping the peace, but knows the truth—the dead always are.

Hmmmm. I count seventeen words in that phrase. Maybe:

She's quiet; the dead always are. She tells herself she’s keeping the peace, but knows the truth.