I could, defintely...there are still many ways to take a person out in this century.

Yep. The beauty of the past for a death-minded writer is it's just so easy to kill people young without necessarily resorting to violence.

No shit. If I ended up choosing death for the sister, it'd be a blunt-force trauma, as she's survived a difficult birth and a car accident that killed her husband already, and, to quote a perp on Homicide who tried to hit the same woman twice "the bitch just won't die."

How do you decide who to kill?

Basically, what Susan said. Whose death will hurt the most (the characters and the reader) without deep-sixing the plot?

Or you know, the Minears and Lehanes of the world that cap everyone.. (lightbulb) Oh, like Big Pussy on the Sopranos...he died and we're all still sad about it. Even Tony is, and he handled that bit of business personally. And we knew and liked him for the most part so that's why he's a good rat and a good corpse.

Drums drabble:

Left…Left…Left-Right-Left

The annual 4th of July parade, and I’m marching right behind the drummers. When we get to Main Street we’ll play, but for now we’re silent but for the “boom, boom, boom” of the bass drum marking time. My left foot hits the ground exactly timed with each beat. Five years in band and I can’t NOT fall into step with a drumline.

The eighth grader playing bass drum isn’t marching. He’s just walking. His feet are completely divorced from the metronome beat his arm plays. I don’t know whether I’m more impressed or appalled. How can you hear a drumbeat, much less MAKE one, and not have it take over?

Soundcheck (Skull and Roses)

It's pouring, pissing down all over New York with a miserable winter rain. Not quite three in the afternoon, and it's already dark, neon and taxi headlights streaking across oil-splashed streets outside the Manhattan Centre.

I flap my backstage pass at the guard and run for the warmth and dryness of the lobby. A roadie nods, busy; onstage, guitars and bass sit cradled in their stands.

Behind the two sets of drums, Bill and Mickey are taking a break. I slide off my sodden coat.

And the perfectly meshed downbeats of one solid drummer and one worldclass percussionist light up the empty hall.

As we pull into the lot the sound insinuates into the car. We get out and it surrounds us, pulls us in. We walk for long minutes, passing rows of cars. There are dozens of people walking, in straggling groups, in clumps, singly, all moving toward where the sound is coming from. We reach the end of the grass, the edge of a sharp drop and look down on the dancing ground. At one end sits the circle, a stick in every other hand, and one tenor voice rising in insistent plaint to the relentless beat of the drum.

Drums drabble: 100 words exactly

His fingers are drumming on the desk, a restless tattoo breaking the quiet. His foot is tapping counterpoint. The book is open, but his eyes are roaming the room. He is looking anywhere but down; he is anywhere but here. His hands and feet are pulling him into some wild elsewhere.

My voice is mild, a gentle correction. "Mike. Hon, would you mind? It's hard to concentrate."

The drumming abruptly ceases, and his eyes snap back to me, sheepish smile on his lips. "Sorry, Ms. T.--it's just the beat. Can’t stop hearing it."

I know. I hear it too.

Pow-Wow

There’s part of me that always responds to the native beat of the drums at a pow-wow, as if it didn’t get the memo on my being the palest of pale white chicks. Mostly. Because there’s always a little pause, like when I check The Box. Checking just Caucasian feels like another lie, and my God, haven’t there been enough? But if I don’t have the pain, I shouldn’t take the name.(And our brothers at the tribe wanted seven hundred dollars to list us. Thanks, brothers, although it really does make me feel related to you.)

The women next to us seem nice, until one of them mentions that she’d like...private instruction from one of the hoop dancers, who, admittedly is a warrior fantasy come to life. But they’re groupies, shagging their way through the Western states in a very dick-grabbing fashion that makes me hope nobody thinks we’re like...with them or anything. My pale skin blushes, and I concentrate on the drums.