That's only about 3-4 posts, so I don't think it's too long.

I'm going to try this again.

The first house I remember was the one I lived in when my parents were still married. I remember it like I remember my parents together, in bits and pieces. I can't picture the whole layout, how you got from one place to another. I only remember rooms or an event that happened in them.

It was so normal and middle class suburban. A two-bedroom house with attached garage in the south part of town owned by a former football player and a former member of the pom-pom squad. My room was small with beige carpet and a small window too high in the wall for me to reach. I had green painted furniture made by my grandfather, a bed, desk, and dresser, Kelly green with a dark glaze. I had a Holly Hobby bedspread with matching patchwork print sheets.

There was a small living room with a velveteen sofa and loveseat in gold, brown and red. A dining area was off the kitchen and was filled mostly by a heavy, rectangular oak table with matching benches and chairs. These sat in front of a window that looked out into our back yard where my father had built a sort of tree house on stilts and my cocker spaniel, Owen, played.

Mom made the garage into a large family room. Tile replaced concrete and a wall of windows replaced the garage doors. The windows angled out and met a long brick ledge. Dozens of leafy green plants filled the window-wall and lined the ledge where I played pretend that I was in a thick, lush jungle.

I only remember being in my parent's room once. I had had a nightmare and came in crying.

In the dream, a man in a suit came to our house. My mother was on her knees in the family room, the cut of her blue nightgown exposed her back to the man who stood behind her scraping her back with a large knife. He didn't draw blood but drew the knife horizontally down her back peeling away flaking skin. My mother cried but quietly and made no move to get away and didn't flinch. My father watched from the doorway, obviously unhappy, but not stopping the man either.

I climbed into bed while my mother slept and my father tried to hug and comfort me. I pushed my father's hands from me saying, "No, I don't want you! I want my mom!" I snuggled close to her back, which was still turned to me.

My mother says that when they told me about the divorce I told them I wanted things to go back to the way they were. I don't know how they were, now.

My parents sold the house and moved into apartments. In appearance they weren't that much different. Both had bare white walls, brown matted carpet and linoleum floors. The cabinets were dark fake wood with fake marble or fake butcher-block tops. The furniture was essentially the same too. The same mix of familiar and different. Mom got the sofas. Dad got the oak table. Mom bought a small glass and metal dining table. Dad bought canvas covered wooden folding chairs.

The feel of the apartments were different though. Mom had me during the week, and Dad had me on weekends and during the summer. Mom's apartment was early bedtimes, loneliness and dreary, gray days. Dad's was sunshine, sleepovers and night swims.

I rode the bus home on weekdays, walked down the street I was not allowed to cross, up the few feet of sidewalk to the concrete stairs to our apartment that overlooked the parking lot and the highway behind it. My grandmother would be waiting, and I would be expected to sit quietly and read until my Mom got home from work.

On weekends Dad would pick me up, sometimes in a car borrowed from Driver's Ed. He would take me to football practice where I played on the bleachers or the tackling dummies. Sometimes we went to his girlfriend Brevard's house.

It was in the nicer older part of town. The doors were all thick and solid and some had etched glass. There was a separate kitchen and breakfast nook, dining room. Some rooms I didn't have names for and so I called them by the color or content. Brevard had a dressing room where her daughter, Katherine and I would sit and watch Brevard braid our hair.

I thought Dad would marry her and we would live there. Katherine and I would walk to school together in dresses with smocks embroidered with our names or initials like the ones that filled Katherine's closet and the few Brevard had made for me.

But, in the summer after third grade, Dad was offered a job coaching at Ole Miss and I was offered a trip to visit a friend who moved to Oklahoma. When I came back, my father and the apartment of light and fun were gone.

My mom remarried when I was in fourth grade and we moved to a townhouse. Most of the house reflected my stepfather who was a bit cold but not unkind. Everything was neat and tidy, matched with very little fuss. All of my green furniture and my Holly Hobby bed linens were gone and replaced with brass and a rust colored comforter with tiny white flowers. Sliding mirrors the full length of the far wall opened into a large closet.

The neighborhood was filled with children, and I made friends quickly. My friend Angie taught me cheerleading, her older sister Nicole taught us about MTV, and a girl from another subdivision taught me what it felt like to be punched in the face. I made my first boyfriend, Jeffery, who took me to a minor league baseball game where we shared ice cream out of a miniature cap.

I still stayed with my dad during the summers and on some holidays. During those times, I lived in the football dorm. My cinderblock cube had bunk beds and a desk built into the wall. It felt like a tiny apartment I had all to myself. The nearly empty campus during the summer felt like my own town of red brick and stately homes.

Dad's new girlfriend, Annabelle, was a runner-up for Miss Mississippi. She let me dress up in her hoop skirts and tiaras. I ran around the campus like a blond Vivian Leigh. The Greek houses were my Taras and Twelve Oaks, and I sat in front and

read old college textbooks I found. I sat behind the bench with Annabelle huddled under a flannel blanket during home games and yelled the only cheer I knew. "Are you Ready? Hell yes! Damn right! Hotty toddy gosh almighty, who in the hell are we!?! Flim flam, bim bam OLE MISS BY DAMN!!!!"

By sixth grade my mother divorced again, and we went back to our old apartment. My ex-step father still lived in our old townhouse so I felt uncomfortable going to visit my friends from the neighborhood. This time everything in the apartment was temporary. We borrowed furniture and didn't even bother to unpack some boxes. We were on the other side of the building now and had a balcony that looked out onto the small patch of grass in front of the complex. I wasn't allowed out on it because the railing was loose and my mother didn't want to bother getting it fixed because she said we wouldn't be staying long.

When I got back from summer with Dad, Mom had already found a new town house. The entire subdivision was gated and nestled into a wooded area that had a lake behind it and a bayou that ran near the gates and into the lake. It was smaller than the first. We had a tiny kitchen with a breakfast bar where Mom put two stools. We didn't need a dining table since we were never home together for meals. Our bedrooms were upstairs and we each had a small room with a sink and a mirror that opened into a shared bathroom. Mornings, Mom and I usually spent fighting over the bathroom or tight lipped and avoiding each other.

There was a boy at the end of my street who was a year younger than me. We made fast friends and snuck out at night to walk around and around the subdivision, or into the woods, or into the empty house next door. We talked sometimes until dawn and then snuck back into our beds before our mothers woke up.

Dad moved to Florida where I spent the summer before high school. He was coaching for high school again. On my first visit Dad was staying in a friend's winter condo. It was slick with glass and mirrors, gray carpet and white tile. A balcony that stretched across the living room and bedroom opened out onto the ocean. Dad let me sleep in the bedroom while he slept in the tiny guest room near the front door. I wanted to hear the waves crash while I lay in bed, and Dad said he was already tired of the constant sound.

I had grown up since the last time I had seen him, and he wouldn't allow me to come to the high school and visit. I was allowed to go to the private beach and out with him when he came home from school. I couldn't meet any of his students or the football players because they were all "punks" or "wild girls."

The next time I came to visit, Dad was staying in a hotel before he moved into his own apartment. He gave up most of the room to me and kept his stuff in the coaches' office at the school. I felt a little glamorous having the room cleaned every day, lounging at the pool, eating alone at the restaurant. There was a mint and a rose every night left on the pillow.

It was spring break for me, but Dad was still in school. He was overseeing a fashion show for the senior class as their sponsor. I couldn't come to rehearsals, but the night of the production Dad took me to watch. I went to the spa in the hotel and got a makeover and bought a dress in one of the shops. When Dad came home to get me, he asked if I couldn't wear something else and could I wash my face. I told him all I brought were shorts and t-shirts, but I washed my face to make him happy.

When I got back home, Mom informed me almost giddily that my friend at the end of the street was moving and that we were too. He was moving a bit farther, to New Jersey, than we were, two streets over.

We snuck out and walked silently up and down the streets. We snuck into the house next door and hugged and made promises to call and write. He gave me my first kiss, and we snuck back to our beds before our mothers got up.

It was odd, shifting all of our belongings from one place in one house, into the exact same place in the exact same house two streets over. We were buying this house, the other was rented, and Mom started to change things bit by bit. One day a lamp was replaced. Another day the walls were a different color; wall units replaced the hall tree. The new things could not be lounged on or scratched. The soaps and towels were not to be used.

Mom went back to school to get her Masters and joined clubs. I stayed away from the house as much as I could. I hated the loneliness and the sterility. I went to visit friends or boyfriends. Sometimes I stayed the night. Sometimes I called. Sometimes I didn't. Mom threatened sometimes to send me to live with Dad. But, he had roommates now. I hadn't been to visit since my freshman year of high school. I had summer jobs to fill the time and to make money to pay for gas to get away.

After graduation, there was no reason to stay. My room would become Mom's office, which was currently located in the tiny front entryway we seldom used. I didn't have an idea of where I would go. I slept on friends' couches or at boyfriends' houses. I got a job earning enough to live on and to save.

I found a place in the middle of town for $250. It was a small garage apartment behind a duplex. A narrow enclosed staircase led to my front door. One whole side of the apartment was all windows, thick glass with pulleys. I had a mantle over a gas heater, a small bedroom with a futon and a dresser. My tiny bathroom had a claw foot tub and a pedestal sink. There was a small alcove with a table and two folding chairs. My kitchen opened out to a porch surrounded by trees. I built bookshelves for every available wall space and strung Christmas lights around the living room.

I woke up one night from a dream, and got up to fix myself a drink.

I stood on my porch and listened to the wind in the trees.

I had been in a game show where the object was to fit a piece into a hole that kept getting smaller and smaller with every try. The clock was ticking down and the buzzer was about to go off. The penalty for losing the game seemed severe. Just before time was up, I relaxed and my head cleared. I put down the piece and walked away.

Heather, it's beautifully described, but, well, I'm not sure I understand what's supposed to be happening. I'm assuming it's a work in process, and I am wondering about hte recurring dreams, but I'm not seeing more than really evocative descriptions of places and people and their feelings for those places--which is very cool, by the way.

I really like it Heather, wonderfully written.

Thank you Connie, A.S. It's been a couple of days now, so I'm going to go back and work on it. I'll keep what you said in mind Connie.

If I ever get this desperate, shoot me.

>[link]

Do you realize that the time it takes for an author to make a book sale, to sign a contract, and to finally get the first portion of the advance check, may be anywhere from 6 months to a year or two? And in the meantime, the bills pile up and the taxman does not wait? Would you tolerate working for someone for promised money without getting paid for weeks and months?

Do you realize that for every book sale, we collect hundreds (yes!) of rejections from publishers, and that no single sale guarantees the next sale, or the next?

Do you realize that the real reason why you frequently do not see the sequel to your favorite book series is not because the author is lazy or has stopped writing, but because the publisher is unable to buy and publish that sequel, often due to "poor" sales figures on the previous book -- sales figures that may not be bad in themselves, but are not enough to justify the publisher's budget allocation?

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My book is a mythic philosophical fantasy novel, a quaint old-fashioned book written in a style reminiscent of the 19th century, a book for dreamers and lovers of fiction of the imagination.

This sounds awful. Really, really awful. Ten bucks says that Mary Sues lurk within.

If she took herself less seriously, I think I'd be more inclined to think kindly of her.