Huh. No, there you've got me. Unless you're thinking about his astronomy stuff?

(/dumb)

Thales of Miletus is believed to have measured the height of the pyramids (well, one pyramid at a time) by measuring its shadow at the moment when his *own* shadow was his exact height.

Keen, huh?

OK, that really is cool.

I am not going to be the first off the draw on the new challenge today, though, because I've just written close to two thousand words on Cruel Sister and I need both a breakfast break and a beta read.

Bev? Anyone? Usual beta stuff, feedback, does it flow, is it suspenseful, does it ring true?

this could be fun . . .

A Conversatation

Remember the legend of Peter Schliemel?

She responds to the interior voice. "No."

Yes, you do.

"Go away. Be quiet."

Schliemel was a German boy, who hated his shadow. He was afraid of it; he wanted it gone. He managed to get rid of it.

She thinks about memory, about grief, about loss and reclamation. She's already sure this story has a moral, one she won't like. "And?"

He was miserable forever after.

"What does that have to do with me?"

If you don't know, you aren't paying attention. Now go play with your nice shadow. Your past? Is now.

deb, that gave me the shivers and the willies.

Excellent, deb.

Thanks. Chi, why the willies? Is it the substance of that conversation, or the fact that she's having it with herself, and can't shut her own shadow-voice up any better than she can shut the shadow memories away?

My fourth novel, And Then put Out The Light, had an ongoing conversation between the protagonist, Emily, and her nagging inner voice, Emmy Deer.

Willies because of thinking that my past is eating me up now. For me, my past is something that I like to think of as over, not something I want weighing down on me all the time. While I understand that my past has influenced who I have become, I want to keep my past as just a hint of influence. Kind of like liquor in a recipe. You want some for flavor, but you don't want it to overpower with an alcohol flavor.

Ah. Yep, I can see that being willie-inducing. But if the girl's past is - as her inner voice suggests - just a shadow? It can't damage her. Just her own psyche's way (hello, Professor Jung!) of telling her to stand in shadow as much as light.

Of course, it's fairly hypocritical, coming from me, because I need my past back, I lost too much of it, I'm tired of snatching at shadows and I want the full ghoulish creature, meat on its bones and all.