What would you think about starting again with "The Archive should have been wet" and moving theverything preceding that to right before the paragraph starting with "The Archive felt like a beast to her after all these years"?

What P-C said, for the most part. It shouldn't be too hard to tweak "The Archive should hav been wet" to make it clear that we're seeing this through a specific person's POV. It would also make it clear that this new thing is one more in a series of mysteries that she has yet to figure out.

The new location for the opening paragraph seems like it would work. You might have to reword things a little, but that shouldn't be too tricky.

I just realized--I've been using names from Tolkien for my villain and his minions, due to the villain's obsession with LoTR. The Tolkien estate would never approve that, right? When I started this, I had no idea there was a movie in the offing and all, I thought it would just be an interesting intellectual twist, because how many folks in the fiction mainstream have read LoTR? Crap. The villain goes by the name Angmar, after the Witch King of Angmar. It's a good ominous name. Would using those names, after the movie, seem too fangirlish? None of the heroes' names are used, but one particularly weasly bad guy goes by Gollum. Should I just find new names for these folks or actually send a letter to the Tolkien estate and see what they say?

I can't believe it's taken me this long to think of this problem.

deb, insent.

Kristin, sorry I missed this round. Maybe I could try and help you out next time?

connie, I have no idea about the legal stuff, but I think that Gollum is now too famous a name from LotR to not be recognised, unlike, say, Angmar.

Monday morning means new drabble topic! (At least, when I'm on the ball, it does.)

Challenge #31 (the quote about being an adult "in disguise") is now closed. I promise to not use quotes in the future, as this one didn't generate a lot of interest.

Challenge #32 is breath. Deep breaths, catching your breath, out of breath -- whatever sparks the writing lobe of your brain. Go to it!

I was mulling the name thing over my morning popcorn and figure I'll go mining the Norse and Germanic legends for good villain names. It's where Papa Tolkien got his.

Nilly, never too late. Insent.

Tep, FWIW, I loved that drabble topic and just ran out of time this past week. It was a crazy hectic week. I think I'll be writing one or two more regardless.

Kristin, both attachment don't open, silly technology. Could you please re-send?

See, I would never have recognised most of the LotR names, so I would suck as a beta reader for that.

Kristin, insent.

Earth Alive

It's quiet here. The air is full of birdsong, strange tropical birds with names I don't recognise.

We came to work, at least you did, but the work's done, and here we are, staring at volcanoes and a black sand beach and blue water that pushes into the horizon. You don't like heat much - thin Anglo blood - but on the third day, you find a thin shirt and stand beside me, looking across at Kilauea, at lava streams running down to the sea.

"How odd," you say, with surprise in your voice. "The earth here - it's breathing."

It wasn't the topic, Tep. This week has been too hard. I wrote one but I'm not sure I like it. It is probably a downer.