snippet for poetry monday

Snippet from Animal Attraction, St. Martin’s 2008, unedited, subject to revision:

My life as I’d known it was well and truly over. My plans for the future, well, at least I’d achieved one goal. I knew who my real parents were.

I absorbed that while my stomach sank and my head went light. “You know, I had that whole secret princess fantasy as a kid,” I told David. “That someday my real family would show up and I’d be some sort of princess. My fantasy did not include growing fangs and fur under the full moon.”

I hadn’t dreamed of a prince who howled, either. Orgies had also not made the list. My imagination seemed woefully inadequate.

He didn’t answer. Probably he guessed, correctly, that there was no good response. After a while, my butt started to notice how cold and hard stone could feel. I got stiffly to my feet. I waited for my babysitter to take the lead, and I followed him out of the hedge maze in silence.

When we returned to open ground, I took a good look at the house. It was a sprawling brick structure, more than adequate housing for thirteen. It could probably hold twice that number without anybody feeling crowded. I made a silent bet with myself that whatever bedroom I was assigned to could hold my apartment two times over.

The lines of the building were graceful, classic. Whoever had designed the place had an eye for beauty and the skill to execute his or her vision. It had a sense of stability, and I guessed it was over a hundred years old.

This house had stood the test of time. The pack had endured since very early history, if my internet search results could be believed. Slavic mythology went back to Neolithic times, possibly earlier. Which made sense, if humans and shapeshifters had evolved together.

I’d wanted to discover my roots, I reminded myself. Too late now to whine that ignorance was bliss. Besides, in my case ignorance was dangerous.

“David.” He stopped when I spoke and turned back towards me. “Do you want to be the leader of the pack?”

“Not particularly.” His voice and face were neutral, giving nothing away, but I thought I detected tension in his body.

“Then why did you kiss me?”

His grey eyes took on heat. “I didn’t say I don’t want you.”

Follow the link for more Monday Poetry.

FAR gives Night Rhythm 5 Angels

From Fallen Angel Reviews’ Bella:
“Charlene Teglia’s story takes the reader on a dark, sensual trip through time as we learn about strong, Alpha male Valentine’s wife, Lisette, the choices he made when he lost her, and his certainty that he’s found her again in Lisa. No wallflower herself, Lisa pulls the reader in with her will and her intelligence as she learns of things she formerly considered impossible. The intimacy between these two will have you torn between grabbing a tissue and grabbing an ice-cold glass of your favorite drink to cool you down. A fabulously mesmerizing tale of love lost and found.”

Full review here
!

Yes, I’ve been quiet lately. A bug hit and sent me into an asthma episode. Plus those wolves, they are demanding. David is such a great angsty character. Zach is cooler headed, but under the cool…and then there’s Chandra, who had other plans and doesn’t like finding out her whole life was a lie. I found this song that seems to fit the dynamics so well. (Plus it’s Elvis Costello so it must be awesome.)

Saturday quotes

“The fear of being wrong is the prime inhibitor of the creative process.” Roberta Jean Bryant

Sandra Magsamen: “The best way to predict your future is to create it.”

“Keep the drama on the page.” Julia Cameron

“One of the quickest ways to become exhausted is by supressing your feelings.” Sue Patton Thoele

Long time GE CEO Jack Welch’s rules for success:
1. Control your destiny or someone else will. 2. Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it would be. 3. Be candid with everyone. 4. Change before you have to.

Buzzworthy

A possible contender for Word’s crown is on the web! Buzzword can be tried out here, and you can read more about it from Wired. It’s very cool, does all your basic word processing functions, and comments, too. As Word has become increasingly memory-intensive to run, I’ve been looking for good alternatives, just hadn’t spotted anything else that truly replaced it. (Although Open Office comes close.) Buzzword may turn out to be that solution.

Sad

Recent comments, from letters in the RWR to a respected agent’s description of erotica as porn, have me feeling sad. Sad that it’s so easy to dismiss sex as something shameful instead of something beautiful and worthy of celebration, not to mention something intrinsic to life. An author reported that a merchandiser for a well-known chain of stores didn’t think sexy romances belonged on the shelves of a family-oriented store. I hate to tell this man his business, but I have two beautiful children and the stork did not deliver them. Where does he think families come from? Without families, who does he think will buy the family-oriented goods this store provides?

It makes me sad that this attitude seems so prevalent, as if we should be ashamed of our humanity and the rich experience that entails. Calling anything sexual “pornography” is so belittling and dismissive. Pornography does not celebrate the human spirit. Pornography does not celebrate love or relationships or personal growth. Pornography has no room for the complex realm of human need and emotion, focusing only on the act and not the meaning or the value. In pornography, do you see the lovers holding hands, or caring for each other in non-sexual ways? To say that anything involving sex excludes anything but a sexual act makes it so small, so diminished.