This started as a memory of a night of stargazing in Colorado many years ago.

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As I switched off the ignition the sudden silence made me realize how loud the road noise had been -- the rumble of the engine, the whistle of the airflow, and the hissing of the tires.

Now I could hear the small sounds -- the pings from the cooling engine, the crunch of my shoes on the ground, the whisper of wind in the prairie grass.

As I sat and waited for nightfall, the small sounds gradually went away, leaving the personal sounds -- the creak of a knee, a shallow breath, a resting pulse.

Silence is not as quiet as you think.

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In the space between each breath lie eternities. Each covers vast reaches, into which she places her emotion - love, memories that she needs to keep strong, laughter and sharing and tenderness. She pours hatred at his unwilling betrayal, tears of loss, denial of the possibility of no future, and laces it all with panic.

Her lips are desperate against his, her fingers strong against his chest.

Another forever, filled with yesterday and shadows of tomorrow, makes her force back tears and inhale again.

She lowers her ear over his mouth.

More emptiness.

"Resuming compressions," she announces to an empty beach.

Staggering in from the panic and chaos of an unexpected move to offer this. I had four I was fiddling with last week and never finished any of them, damn it.

Challenge #11 [silence]

We expected things to be different when we moved to Wyoming. For two kids from the elbow by elbow crush of New Jersey, the Cowboy State was a separate country. Here was a blue dome of sky, acres of wind-sharpened grass, the pungency of sugar beets at harvest. The tangle of exhaust-choked highways was gone, as were the malls and the warrens of neighborhoods, the constant, frantic buzz of activity.

Here was silence, heavy and thick as a sound wall. That first night, we held hands beneath the sheet, stunned by the dark and listening to the void, alone together.

This challenge topic is already crystallising into something really interesting to me: a study in comparative sizing. Silence is either huge, an enormous empty devouring thing, or else its deeply small and personalised.

I wonder if a challenge on noise would break down the same way?

La Tep,c'est moi. I think partially it's cause my dad can click out and still be in the room with you...and even as I post it, I feel y'all going "Again with her Dad Issues...son of a...spank your inner moppet and get on with it."

In other news?

I finished "Matty Groves."

Done. Finis. My house is untenanted for a few hours.

83,000 words or so. 350-plus manuscript pages.

Done.

Betas? Anyone want to read a novel from top to bottom and tell me what you think?

I'd be happy to look at it... I have a question for people here. Every time I write something, unless it's really short, I have trouble deciding what verb tenses to use and change my mind several times. How do you decide? Why?

I don't know, erika - tense is one of those things that come automatically to me. I go by feel, the feel of the piece.

But I'm good at tense correcting (grinning).

I'll e you the manuscript. I need to know if it hangs together, how the pacing works, anything that glaringly contradicts anything else, whether the bits are sufficiently tied together at the book's end, etc.

I'm too close to it, and will be for about ten days to two weeks.

So I loves me my beta readers.

Every time I write something, unless it's really short, I have trouble deciding what verb tenses to use and change my mind several times. How do you decide? Why?

My answer to everything is, "That's how it comes to me." If I feel like when I'm writing, I'm there, I use present tense, but if I feel like I'm more telling a story that's already happened, I go past. This isn't helpful at all.