I like the way you're setting up the reveal, here. A little drib here, a little drab there. Also, "Mr. Inscrutable!" Hee. Are you looking for a beta? I would be more than happy to help, vampire stories are my favorite right now.

Erin, one thing to remember. If you're planning on trying to get it published, get it offline, and fast. Once it's up in a public forum, it falls under the heading of "already published" and major houses shy away for a variety of reasons.

Lock it down in an unpublic forum - locked-down livejournal - and give people the key. But a public board posting can invalidate some of your publishing options.

AH! Deb, thank you for your timely advice. I would like to, actually, this is my summer project.

Sail, I would love a beta. Email addy? I have 3 chapters, but schools out Tuesday, so I will be adding more since I will have time, sweet time, off.

Erin, email is dinky40 at charter dot net.

Deb - glad you caught that, I was thinking about that this morning with no time to post.

Hi Deborah. I've been given to understand that for non-fiction, having already published excerpts can be an advantage - so long as substantial portions remain unpublished. True? false?

TB, snippets and short excerpts are a different deal entirely. But entire chapters of fiction will get a number of publishers edgy; the rules changed radically with the inception of online publishing, and they haven't clarified yet.

Since we're still in In The Garden, I'm slipping one in. It's that kind of day.

The Scent of Memory

In the garden, my knees settling lightly into the loam we built from sand and mulch, my hands are covered.

We have cats, you see; raccoons come up from the Park, and the occasional possum. No wet gardening, not with age and a compromised immune system; I wear heavy gloves, protecting myself from bacteria.

In the garden, my hands working amongst the delphinium, the English comfrey, the irises, I can forget my age, my exhaustion, forget that I'm clumsy and tired.

The earth is the earth that took your coffin in. In the garden, even my memories smell of roses.

That's lovely, deb.

Erin, if you want another beta reader I'd be happy to volunteer with the caveat that I don't really know anything about anything.

SO, I'm pitching the idea of a book of drabbles - an anthology - to my agent. BenBella does great anthologies, and I'm thinking they might be interested.

If she wants to pitch it, and says it's doable, would people be interested?

I would!