Under the wire with Under the Bed:

They roam there, free and unfettered, bounded only by trailing folds of coverlet and bedskirt. For all their bulk and mobility, they are eerily silent, and when they make an escape from the darkness, they move quickly, borne on the merest breath of breeze. They are legion, and for all they share a name, they are not at all kin to that once nearly-extinct breed that roamed North America, nor to their Indo-African namesakes who toil in fields and brave lions. Their kind shall never die, never be vanquished nor exterminated.

They are the dust buffalo, and they are forever.

Oh Beverly, I love you.

Drabble #23 (under the bed) is now closed.

Drabble #24 (which makes 6 MONTHS of drabbles, and how cool is that?) is a theme topic with one restriction.

The topic: First Time(s).

The restriction: it CANNOT be about sex.

Drabblers, start your engines....

Contest results arrived.

I wish they HAD been lost in the mail.

It's not so much that I disagree with the comments I got (with one exception--see below). I'm just feeling utterly crushed by the numeric scores, which had me in the bottom half of entrants for my category. I thought that in this of all contests, I'd score well, because it was the first one I'd entered where it was the first three chapters instead of just Chapter One. I was sure the judges would fall in love with my oh-so-charming hero, the way he and the heroine meet, etc. But no, it's by far the worst I've done so far.

Who the hell am I kidding? Obviously I'm not the writer I think I am if I can't place in the top half of a contest for unpublished writers on sheer writing skills alone!

OK, but the one thing that really pisses me off is one of the judges dinged me for having the heroine start out the book in love with her cousin and wanting to marry him. She thought it icky--fair enough--but she also didn't think it would've been legal. IDIOT. Fucking IDIOT. Dinging me for something where I'm right and she's wrong. Mansfield Park. Eight Cousins/Rose in Bloom. Even The Grand Sophy, for all love!

t sputters in incoherent fury

(Did I kill it with my F-words?)

I don't believe the f-bomb has been invented that can kill a Buffista thread.

Lady, you're granted one free "I suck, I'm worthless, I'm going to dedicate my life to Fritos and burn my notebooks" when receiving responses like that--especially when you *know* they're wrong--but if you keep this up you'll be getting gentle thwaps for being silly. You know better.

Drabble 24 (my first )
100 words

She forces the mask on. I rip it off, again.

You must. I can’t. You must. I won’t.

She shoves the oximeter on.

It hurts. Does not.

I rip it off, too. I throw it.

She replaces it.

That’s better. Did it hurt?

The only doctor I don’t trust, arrives. Doesn’t matter. I’m dying.

Mum. God. Mum. She’s not here, but I am, honey I want Mum, too. God. God.

We have to help her.

I hyperventilate. I’m dying. I see this contraption. I close my eyes. I say my last prayer. I’m sorry.

I look.

What’s…

That’s your son.

Well, in the time it took me to tell DH what happened and feed Annabel, I found some perspective. Maybe tonight or tomorrow I'll look at the comments again and see which I think are helpful for my rewrite. For the rest--it's a matter of luck. This result doesn't invalidate the good feedback I've gotten elsewhere. It just means that no book is for every reader, and I happened to have the bad luck to get only the wrong readers this time around. My estimation based on previous feedback that I've already hooked about a third of the readers who'd be inclined to try my book, that a third would never like it no matter how much I edited it because they look for different things, and another third likes my ideas but still sees flaws in execution, is probably accurate enough.

Sex is out, I've not really solved a crime, so that leaves politics.

My First Ballot

I’m eighteen. I have heard about this my whole life, literally, and I cannot wait. Women went to jail so I could do it, but I still don’t feel like a woman, yet, just like a girl that signs stuff sometimes. I can’t make the machine work, myself, so a woman helps me. I hope I can trust her but she looks like the kind of Grey Panther old broad I wish I was related to. I feel a little bit like those other women were pulling for me. Because I voted, today. My first time was with Bill Clinton.

My first time was with Bill Clinton.