Musings of a Messenger

It's pretty obvious that I love cats, huh? I finished another page in my writing log, so that means it’s on to a new one! (I did write in November, it’s just on a different log sheet because of NaNo. I blogged about my NaNo progress here.) I’m really proud of how regularly I’m working on writing related stuff! I think I missed about seven days total in all of October and September/December, at least for the dates that fit on that sheet since the rest of September was on another sheet and December is only half over.

The log came from treepunchdesigns on Etsy. I don’t use it quite the way it’s labeled since I don’t generally worry about word count, so I summarize what I worked on that day under "goals" and use the “actual” column for my total time each day. Part of what I love about writing is working out a system that works best for me personally. It makes things a lot more streamlined down the road, like for this I can look back and see what I was working on at any given time and that helps me feel productive and inspired. And cats. I mean, cats are motivational too, right? I absolutely recommend keeping track of what exactly you're working on although cats are probably not mandatory. (My cat would claim otherwise if he wasn't snoozing in the other room.)

I'm hoping to continue this trend of writing regularly into the new year, so fingers crossed! I'm in the middle of so many projects and I'd like to finish at least some of them.

~Meri

On her shoulder rested a small shadow, a wisp of almost-smoke...

(For this very short story I was given the prompt "a young girl discovers that she isn't alone" and decided to write something about one of my antagonists' pasts.)

Unexpected Inspiration Short Story - "Secret Shadow"

Rosalie closed the heavy door of her alcove as softly as she could and leaned her back against the cold stone. Now that she was in the safety of her room where no one could see, she pushed back her hood and wiped the tears from her cheeks with her rough sleeves. This wasn’t fair. It was bad enough that she’d been branded with the sliver of a waning crescent moon- the marking on her forearm still hurt!- but she couldn’t manage to call so much as a single shadow. All the other students had at least three. Some had so many that Rosalie had stopped trying to count them. The tiny stupid moon had taunted her every time she dressed over the last month, but now she knew why she hadn’t been granted a full moon or even a half moon. Her magic was so weak that she couldn’t even summon one lousy shadow.

She shuffled across the alcove room that was hardly longer than she was tall and over to the hard bed that she always suspected it was made from the same stone as the rest of the room. It certainly offered as much warmth. Wrapped in her blanket and curled in a ball, she let the sobs shake her body until she felt cold and weak- just as weak and useless as she truly was. In this room no one could see that she showed emotion. No one would know that she felt such jealousy and hatred for the others. It wasn’t fair at all! What had she done so wrong that she’d angered the gods into giving her so little of what was the most important thing?

It took a while for her to notice that the chill on her upper back wasn’t just the dank draft blowing in through the open window. She sat straight up and pulled her blanket over her face. A shadow here in her room meant one of the higher priests or priestesses was spying on her. She couldn’t let them know that she’d been crying. She would be disciplined if she allowed her emotions to show, so she took a few deep breaths to steady her breathing. Stone. She had to be like stone. Just like the walls and the floor and the bed on which she sat.

Again she felt the coolness brush against her shoulder, much like the stray cat she’d once kept until the ever-watching shadows had discovered it. That cat had been her only company and they’d taken it away as though it was nothing but a rat in the kitchens. Gods, she would have been happy even with a rat. She found herself sniffling again. Instead of vanishing to report her failings as would-be priestess, the shadow wove around her shoulders and back in a pattern that seemed almost... soothing?

Rosalie turned her head and lowered the blanket enough to see. On her shoulder rested a small shadow, a wisp of almost-smoke, no larger than her cat. Young. Hard to see, which meant it was likely no more powerful than she was. Not a spy for her betters because none of them would so much as glance at a shadow as worthless as this one. She hesitantly reached out her gloved hand towards it. A faint smile crossed her lips when it curled around and around her wrist, chasing itself in an endless smokey spiral.

"I’m Rosalie. Are you my shadow?"

It didn’t answer with words. It was possible it couldn’t yet talk or maybe she just wasn’t strong enough to hear its voice, but its spiral contracted around her arm until it blended into her loose sleeve. For the first time in years Rosalie let out a giggle. It didn’t matter that she had only one shadow. This one was hers and she was going to protect it until it was big enough to protect her.

Well, it wasn’t my best NaNo year, but it certainly wasn’t the worst! I got 38,749 as my total, but towards the end of the month I was brainstorming and outlining. I was counting these brainstorming hours at 1k each because I didn’t really have specific words to count, so the word count got a little screwy at that point.

All in all I’m pretty happy with this. Surgery and recovering from it has been a challenge, but I stuck with writing pretty well. My graph didn’t flatline as bad as I thought it would. (My husband just walked behind me and noticing it said “Did you really hit almost 40k words? I’m proud of you especially with everything going on” which totally made me feel good!) I haven’t done any real story writing in over a week, but that’s okay. My current focus is on the chapter-by-chapter outline for this book. I was getting stuck and struggling because I ended up not having it nearly as filled in as I thought I did, so once I was up to using my brain, this is where I’ve focused. I’m definitely a planner and if I don’t know where the story’s going, I start to panic.

So my goal for this week is to finish the outline. I have most of the story sorted out, I’m just a little iffy on the antagonists because they’re not as directly influencing the plot as they were in the previous book and will be in the third book. (There’s other antagonism at play in the story.) But I worked out better arcs for my MCs than I had before, so I’m happy about that!

My goal for the month is to get back into writing the book itself and also get back into Tumblr. I was already like two months behind with tag games, so I don’t even want to know how many I have to catch up on lol. I’ve been so sore that it’s been hard to sit at the computer and Tumblr mobile is terrible. I miss rambling about my writing and my dorks, so at some point soon I’ll get back into that, too.

Overall I’m happy with how NaNo went, considering, and I’m optimistic about how this draft of book 2 will turn out. :)

~Meri

Here are the secondary/minor characters of the Unexpected Inspiration series. The main characters can be found here.

Nina: a novice chef with culinary magic. (“Novice” means she doesn’t yet have the status of a master Artisan.) She owns her own restaurant, but as much of an honor as it was, she was really given this opportunity too early. Between dealing with Feren’s drama, still being in the “experimenting with magic/art” stage of her career, and trying to run a business while she’s still a teenager, her life is in perpetual chaos.

I probably should have shared this on, you know, Halloween, but a week late is my version of being on time. I was doing a challenge over on Instagram last month and one of the days asked "Do your characters celebrate Halloween?" Their world doesn't have Halloween, but their culture is a big fan of costume parties!

Last fall I wrote a short story called “Of Parties and Potions” (you can find it here on my blog or here on Wattpad) with lots silliness and shapeshifting magic at a costume party. Adair dressed as a cat and made Etri and Blythe match as a mouse and dog. (He picked mouse for Etri because Etri's rather shy and he picked a dog as in guard dog for Blythe because he thinks she's brave and strong.) Firedrake dressed in their usual dragon-inspired outfit and Sol went as Dray’s knight. Well, he tried- he just looked like a stove. The story is funny and the characters picking these costumes becomes a plot thing, so check it out if you're interested.

This was a lot of fun to draw, especially Sol! Adair’s not wearing quite the right thing because Artisan robes are way more complicated than my limited drawing skill allows, but Blythe and Etri’s sentinel uniforms are pretty close to how I picture those. (Sentinels all wear black and grey, accented in their artist’s magic color. Adair’s magic is purple.) Dray looks so tiny, but that’s probably accurate since Dray’s 5'2" and Sol and Etri are 6'6". I don't draw very often, but this is making me want to do it more so that I can improve. :)

~Meri

I’m ready for NaNo! Perfect timing to start a new page in my weekly writing log- I gave it a header to show that this month I’ll be switching from book 1 (Colorweaver) to book 2 (Sentinel) as soon as I wrap up the last few chapters of 1. My daily NaNo log is all pretty and ready to go, too!

I’m excited about NaNo because I should hopefully have more time this year and might even win. It’s been years since I won! But I’ll tell you a secret: even when I win, I’m a rebel. I never aim to write a new book in a month. I do try to hit 50k (and consider that a win) but word count is the only traditional thing I do. Most years are rewrites, or I’m doing multiple projects within the series in the month, or I’m world building alongside writing the book. And I consider that absolutely a valid way to do NaNo. It takes me the better part of a year to finish a novel draft, so it’s certainly not going to happen in a month; I’d rather have a coherent draft than a mess I churned out just for word count and a “the end.” I use NaNo for the community and motivation and to get a huge chunk of a project done. For me, that’s the point of NaNo.

This year I’m going to be finishing the tail end of the 2nd draft of the first book alongside writing the 3rd draft/rewrite of book 2. I’ll likely throw some world building time in there, too, because I usually do. And I’ll be writing a bunch- if not all- of this by hand, so word count is going to be an iffy thing that’s likely going to be lower than if I tried on the laptop like previous years. It’s not traditional NaNo, but this is the way I write best and the way I love to write. 50k will be my “win,” but no matter what I get, I’ll consider it a success because I wrote words. Words, no matter the amount, are always a win!

~Meri

I think I’m ready for NaNoWriMo and book 2! I took a short break from my book 1 rewrite to work on my outline this week. The colorful stickies are my chapter by chapter outline, I have a bunch of handwritten pages of each MC’s story arc (middle left), and I have a timeline (bottom left). My outline is still a little sparse; it’s only 30 chapters verses the 50+ of book 1 and those 30 are pretty vague, but this is really a first draft (third rewrite, but still a first draft since the story kept changing). Book 1 was a second draft, so of course I know more about what goes into book 1. Basically I'm trying to not feel like I'm unprepared just because the entire story isn't fleshed out yet. It has a beginning, middle, and end. It's got character arcs and subplots. It has a main plot which was something I realized too late that the previous two versions of book 2 didn't have. With just that I should have a functional story this time. ;)

I have a week and a half until NaNo and I’m going to put this aside until then and go back to finishing book 1. I have about 6 chapters left to write in that and I’m hoping that finishing the tail end of that and taking time away from this outline will leave me inspired yet also prepared once I move onto the second book. Fingers crossed!

~Meri

Here’s the info: First put down what Hogwarts house you’re in, and then sort each of your MCs into a house and explain why you think they belong in that house. It’ll be interesting to see how many of your MCs are in the same house as you.

I was tagged over on Tumblr to do this game and I think this is the coolest writing tag game that I've ever done! I’ve actually been thinking about this for a bit, trying to figure out where my characters would go. It wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be!

Me: Hufflepuff

Adair: Hufflepuff. This was the character I had absolutely no trouble sorting. He’s so incredibly loyal to his friends- his friends quickly become his family and there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for them. He’s nurturing and loves taking care of them (especially if it involves cooking for them!) and he has a bad habit of adopting any stray animal that he sees. He’s the character who most “plays fair” I guess you’d call it- the one least inclined to break rules or cause trouble, but also the one most likely to go along with what the others want. He hates having to make decisions and tends to be more than a little wishy-washy. He hates rocking the boat and is the perpetual peace-keeper. He doesn’t care if someone insults him or does something to hurt him, but his claws come out if someone dares do this to someone he loves. And he’s just so practical which is a weird, weird thing considering that he’s an Artisan and artists in his culture are prone to being melodramatic and eccentric.

Etri: Ravenclaw. He’s the character I waffled over second least. I thought briefly of putting him into Gryffindor because he has something of a habit of self-sacrifice, but he’s just too Ravenclaw. He’s all about knowledge and learning and books and history. He’s the logical one who comes up with the best plans because he’s the one who puts the most thought into what the group should be doing. He’s incredibly open-minded and this takes Adair by surprise more than once because it’s not something you’d expect from someone with Etri’s stoic personality and indoctrinated childhood. He loves learning anything about pretty much everything, but it’s weird subjects that he reads most. His favorites are astronomy and mythology, which also takes everyone by surprise because he’s so grounded and logical.

Sol: Ravenclaw. I waffled for a little longer here because he’s pretty dang Hufflepuff with his constant cheer and a desire to see everyone around him as happy as he is. If anything he’s even more family-centric than Adair. But he’s just so… well, I call him my eccentric inventor and that’s why he’s better in Ravenclaw. He’s not books smart like his brother- I think Sol has dyslexia so bad that he can’t read- but he’s come up with an entire writing system for himself involving pictures and dots to use in his notes that he uses for his inventions. And he’s always creating things. Sometimes practical, sometimes bizarre. His mind is always going a mile a minute and it’s difficult for the other characters to keep up, so it ends up sounding like Sol’s talking nonsense. On the surface he looks silly and dumb, without a thought in his head, but he’s always thinking at a speed that rivals even Etri.


And here’s where things start to get weird and not what you’d expect. Blythe and Firedrake are the two that I spent forever thinking about because my first instinct was absolutely wrong for both of them.

Blythe: she’s the team mom, the one with her own head on her shoulders who makes sure that the others don’t end up neck-deep in trouble. She’s the one who runs into danger to rescue those who needs it- anyone who needs it, regardless of if she knows them or not. While Adair tends to adopt animals, she tends to adopt people and kind of assigns herself the role of their protector even if they don’t need it. She’s a healer, for pete’s sake. My gut instinct was Gryffindor. Nope. Slytherin.

While she’s willing to help out anyone who needs it, her default state of being is her own goals and career and she’ll sacrifice and work her butt off to reach those goals. She has a tendency to be judgmental with a better-than-you attitude (or more like a “you’re about to do something incredibly stupid and I’m smarter than that” attitude). She doesn’t think things through, she just goes with her gut even if it ends up being absolutely the wrong course of action. Gods does she need Adair’s heart and Etri’s brains to balance out her need to be right in the middle of the action- or to just plain balance out her need to be right. She’s constantly taking risks even when she’d simultaneously be complaining about someone else taking the same risks. I’d say she’s a leader, but I don’t think she’s actually any good at leading. What she tends to do is decide her own course and assume the others will follow her. These things make her sound like a horrible person and I guess that’s inevitable for someone in Slytherin. :-/

Firedrake: I think I may have spent even longer trying to sort Dray! I mean, they’re egotistical and cynical and tends to think of themself first (or at least second). They love being the center of attention- infamy is fine because it means at least people see them. Dray’s a prankster with mind-control magic who sees nothing wrong with inconveniencing or embarrassing someone they feel deserves it. Dray’s had the hardest life of the five and this definitely shows. My gut said Slytherin. Nope. Gryffindor.

Almost all of Dray’s showboating, their ego, their sarcasm, their “me first” attitude… it’s all an act. A lie they tell themself so they don’t get hurt, to keep people away. But it doesn’t work. People get into Dray’s heart and these people absolutely become the center of Dray’s world. Most of the bad things Dray does are a misguided attempt to protect the ones they love. They try to do what they think is right and it just ends up backfiring because Dray tends to not think things through past the first fiery burst of inspiration of an idea. Dray will absolutely do something reckless and dangerous to protect someone they care about. They’ll even do this for someone they don’t know well- they’ll question this decision later and maybe even while they’re helping, but they’ll help anyway. Dray will always fight back against things that are wrong or people who are cruel, even if this isn’t currently being directed at them. Dray’s been on the receiving end of this too often to be willing to let others experience it, too. Despite the pranks and the mind-control magic, Dray will never voluntarily hurt anyone. I can’t say the same for Blythe even with her whole “do no harm but take no shit” mindset.


This is long and super rambly, but such a fun thing to do! It really did give me new insight about characters I know incredibly well. I don’t think Blythe or Firedrake are happy where they ended up and both assumed they’d be reversed lol. I’m absolutely not surprised that Adair’s in the same house as me, though. I mean, we’re both pretty much the epitome of Hufflepuff.


~Meri

If you ever wanted to know what goes through a writer's head when a story idea comes together, it's this mess. This collage is a combination of world building blog post (top left), a short story I started last year but dropped because I didn't know what to do with it (same picture), the constellations in my world's sky, a random plot bunny in my note app that had no story attached to it (bottom left), and a writing game question by my writing-partner-in-crime (top right) that gave me the "ah ha!" moment of realization this morning. I grabbed my notebook and jotted down plot points for that realization-turned-story (bottom right), combining all these ideas together.

This is how my brain tends to work. I'll put a story aside for a bit, then whatever had me stuck becomes clear later because I was working on world building or random ideas in the meantime.

In this case the ideas combined as:
-A holiday in the culture that's based around visiting family
-The first page and a half of a story where my characters hate said holiday because they don't have family, so they decide that they want to have a vacation instead
-The constellations in my fantasy world, a character obsessed with astronomy, and another character who's a cartographer
-A plot bunny involving a happy Firedrake and silliness
-A question game about what my characters would do if they were trapped on a deserted island

After almost a year, I just might be able to finish that partially-written short story! Now if only I could figure out the solution to the other four or five short stories I have started/planned...

~Meri

Well, I’m not entirely sure about this cover. How DO you get the point across about lighthearted fantasy using stock images? It definitely has the feel of the main character in this story, though, so I’ll stick with it. All this rambling means that I’m sharing one of my older stories over on Wattpad! You can find my Wattpad here and this particular story here.

Here’s the summary of Hidden Magic:

A young elf takes up the task of hunting down a band of orc trespassers with the help of her centaur brother. When she stumbles into a pitfall, Meren finds an object: an amulet that gives strange new powers. Little does she know that an increasingly desperate young wizard is looking for the very same amulet and that their paths are destined to crisscross in a weave of chaotic magic… 

This takes place in a different world than my usual writing because I wrote this long before those characters/world existed (this is from ‘11) and it’s more traditional fantasy than the style I write now. It’s still got comedy and cute romantic stuff, though! This is a longer story, a novella probably since it’s about 22k words. I’ll be sharing each chapter as I do some editing to it. I'm planning to share those on Wattpad (and update those chapters on this blog, as well) on Wednesdays.

~Meri

Exciting news! I'm going to be sharing my short stories over on Wattpad! I'll still post them here as I write them, but this gives another medium for reading them. If you're on Wattpad, feel free to add me so I can follow you back. I'm MeriGreenleaf there, just as I am everywhere else.

To celebrate, I made a shiny new cover for my short stories. I'm going to be gradually putting most of my previously written ones in the Unexpected Inspiration series into one anthology "book" on Wattpad. My longer short stories will get their own book. As I write new ones, this is how I'll be adding those, too: short into the anthology, long into a stand-alone book.

So if you're interested in lgbt+ comedic/lighthearted fantasy short stories about artists and carnival performers, I've got you covered!

~Meri

I was tagged over on my Tumblr blog for a music-themed writing game. The rules are: Now, not all of us listen to music while writing, but sometimes there’s just this tune that matches something in our story—whether that’s a character, a chapter, or the whole WIP (a theme song, even). Maybe it’s multiple songs! Share one or more songs that “go” with your story. It just has to be cool.

I love sharing songs! I have a playlist going on Spotify where I put the songs that inspire me to write. I can't listen to music while actively writing because I need total silence to be able to concentrate, but listening to a playlist puts me in the mood to write. Since I’ve been working on just book 1 (Colorweaver) lately, I’ll share a few songs that make me think about the main characters and their relationships, both platonic and romantic, as of that book.

“One of Us” - New Politics 

Everybody needs a place to call their home
Everybody’s skin is different, not their bones
Even when you’re lonely, know you’re not alone
You’re one of us, one of us, one of us
One of us 

“The Lucky Ones” - Brendan James 

On the edge of a moment,
 In the land that we love,
 In the time that our best has to be good enough,
 Like all those before us, we start out alone,
 We race from our schoolyards, into the unknown
 City lights, as far as the eye can see,
 You and I, we will live differently 

These two songs really put me in the mood for writing about my characters in general. One of the themes of this trilogy is found family and learning that home is the people you’re with, not a physical place. Another theme is growing up: the characters are all adults, but they’re still young and they’re finding their place in the world. These two songs hit both of those themes really well and both are so optimistic/positive! (And as a bonus, the singer in the second song is how I picture my main character Adair’s voice.)



“Never Been in Love” - Cobra Starship 

That stupid party talked outside
Walked to your place stayed up ‘til 5
You’d never think a random night could change your life
I know now I’ve never been in love before
I know now I’ve never been in love before you
We all need a light in the dark
Come and spend the night in my heart

Now the romantic songs. This song makes me laugh because it’s so perfect if you look at it from a non-sexual perspective. (I'm an asexual writer writing a triad where one of them is asexual. Yeah, not in the slightest bit my thing to write suggestive stuff.) The trio meeting was entirely an accident. Adair ended up at their carnival then he, Etri, and Blythe spent the night talking. After that they’re pretty much attached to each other and it’s a disaster when they have to be apart- all because of a random meeting.


 “Don’t Let Go” - Swiss American Federation feat. Jimmy Wong 

Catch our breath, slow it down and look within
As darkness falls away from us to block the sun from edging in
Spill our secrets from within
Is now the time, will you be mine
Don’t let go, this is for the rest of my life
So believe we don’t need to rush
We’ll be free

This song is just so pretty! I feel like it just resonates so well with the trio’s relationship at the end of book 1, moving into book 2. And yeah, most of the trio songs on my playlist have a dark/night/star theme because of Etri, the goth with shadow magic.


“Unsteady” - Enter the Haggis (Jubilee Riots) 

The first time I saw you I was broken and bruised
You were holding up the bar and I had nothing to lose
It’s all a little hazy now, tell me
When did we get so damn proud?
Made a few mistakes, but I made them with you
And every time we said that we were gonna pull through
Something feels different now and it’s not me 

Not a trio song, I swear! This is my Firedrake/Talan song. Talan’s the “antagonist” in book 1 and this song is just so very much this pair’s relationship, from how they met to where they are now. This relationship starts to fall apart throughout book 1 and boy have there been mistakes lol.


I'm going to pass this on to anyone who sees this and wants to come up with a short playlist for whatever they're working on right now. This is a lot of fun! Do you writers pick songs that remind you of your characters or stories?

~Meri

This was a tag game going around on Tumblr with the instruction "list all the things you’re currently working on in as much or little detail as you’d like."

Warning: dorks ahead. Most of what I’ve been working on are books (and ideas for books) in my lgbt+ comedic fantasy series Unexpected Inspiration, so this is going to get a bit long. I didn't include the possible-future books that are even more vague ideas, so that's a help, right? (Why do I have so many dorks, I'm overrun with them, why do they all want stories??)

Colorweaver (Book 1, current trilogy)
Status: rewriting 2nd draft
Blurb: Adair Cerulean is an amateur cartographer with the ability to make his drawings have the semblance of life. Like the other creators who possess magic and channel this through art, Adair is a Weaver. Adair is in the process of working on the project that, once complete, would advance him in rank when disaster strikes! The map is stolen and’ as its new owner seeks out more Weavers, Adair feels a tug from his creation to follow. This pull leads him to a carnival where he meets a healer standing guard over a stricken performer. It turns out that his thief is more than a mere robber and there’s more at stake then just a stolen map. Wacky antics ensue as Adair attempts to get his art back and stop the thief before he hurts anyone else.

(OneTwo sentence summary: A young artist with magic bumbles his way into a carnival, befriends a few carnies who are as dorky as he is, and the group bumbles their way to a sort-of-victory while wondering where all these antagonists came from. Lots of dorks, lots of bumbling, not nearly enough pies.)

Sentinel (Book 2) 
Status: brainstorming 3rd draft (aka why won’t this story find the right plot??)
Blurb: Adair has recovered his stolen map and acquired a loyal bodyguard who will - with luck and a lack of imps - protect him in the future. Adair’s elation is short-lived when the other artists refuse to accept his choice of sentinel. Conflict with his peers and a realization of magic gone awry lead Adair to restore a fractured friendship. Caught between past and present, Adair must decide how far he’s willing to bend the rules of his class. No one ever actually decreed that carnival performers couldn’t be sentinels, did they?

(One sentence summary: “One True Threesome” trope crosses “Mindlink Mates” trope, partially distracting the dorks who are trying to investigate why magic is glitching across the city and why one of their friends suddenly grew a tail.)

Iconoclasm (Book 3)
Status: brainstorming 1st draft
Blurb: When Adair and his companions find themselves summoned by the Artisans’ guild, they are given a specific assignment. They are to travel north to Montglace, the former home of the twins, under cover of their fledgling carnival troupe. Their true task is to investigate the source of the frequent earthquakes and a possible corruption of magic. There’s only one problem: Etri and Sol are fugitives. Can this group of inexperienced carnies-turned-envoys find the source of the elemental corruption before their presence is detected?

(OneTwo sentence summary: The dorks, who have no idea what they’re going to face, are sent by people who have even less idea to spy on a situation that really should be Someone Else’s Problem. Unsurprisingly, “spying” becomes “neck deep in trouble and also elementals help where did all these come from and how do we make them go away???”)

Then I have two more books that are even less planned out that take place later in the series and are about different characters.

Shadowweaver (tentative title - book 1 in this duology? Trilogy?)
Status: brainstorming ideas
Blurb: Gilly is a girl who cannot speak except to ghosts. She has the ability to make things vanish- or appear out of thin air- and works as a carnival performer and thief. While she’s hunting down art that was illegally gained by a dishonest art dealer, the dealer’s teenage sister catches her in the act. Gilly gets away, but is intrigued by this girl whose weak voice is oddly captivating. She soon learns that while Chantrell is confined in her own home, she isn’t as sick as she appears. Gilly is determined to find out the truth and set her new friend free.

(One sentence summary: Teenage girl falls madly in love and decides that she needs to create an heroic rescue with the help of her long-suffering roommate.)

Sciamachy (book 2 in this trilogy or whatever it is)
Status: brainstorming ideas
Blurb: Chantrell has become Gilly’s thieving partner; with her magical ability to produce any sound, Chell is the perfect distraction for Gilly’s silent heists. It’s during one of these encounters that Gilly notices a shadow that shouldn’t be there. Meanwhile Astra, a few miles away and sixteen years in the future, notices the same thing. Someone or something is trying to reach out to both her and Gilly using the shadow magic that the two young women share. Astra, however, has been secretly using light magic without the knowledge of her father/teacher- could this be what the mystery shadow senses?

(One sentence summary: Somehow the author figures out how to make 3 POV characters work when one lives in the present, one in the future, and one in another world that connects to both timelines.)


This was fun to do, so if you catch this post and have a writing blog of your own, I encourage you to do this for your own writing. :)

~Meri

Not just any writing, but finished writing that I really love! (And trust me, "love" can be a complicated thing as a writer. There's a lot of stuff I've written that I don't love, to put it mildly.) These are all my short stories about the world of my books, most of which I've shared to this blog. But having it there in my hands where I can flip through the pages and see the words in print is such a wonderful feeling! This reassures me that I’ve done a ton of writing- and that's not including my world building (that’s in another binder), my novel drafts themselves (those are on the computer), or the stories that are only partly written. I have the sections divided by the year I wrote the stories (2015-17 so far) with one for the longer novella I wrote two years ago.


In the folder are drawings of my characters that my husband did, layouts and maps of my locations, and drawings of my characters’ home. And as a bonus happiness, I have a section in here for fanfic that my writing partner-in-crime and my husband wrote for me. (That's here on my blog, too, if you want to read it.)




So if I get bummed out and feeling like I haven’t made much progress as an author because my books aren’t done, I need to look at this and see just how many finished, polished words I’ve written in the past few years. My book drafts are super rough and that bums me out sometimes because they don’t feel right, like they’re not the style I want them to be, but eventually they’ll be edited and make me as happy as looking at these stories does.

I absolutely recommend this to other writers. Even if you've only written one story, print that baby out and put it where you can see it. You did something amazing that's entirely you own and you deserve to preen about it! Be your own biggest fan! (You know, to counteract all the times when you feel like your writing is terrible and you're a hack. Take advantage of the prideful moments, okay?)

~Meri

I'm going to call July's Camp NaNo a success! My goal was 35 hours and I hit a staggering 50! I think this is the most writing I've done for any camp and possibly for any NaNo. I made some great progress with my book 1 (Colorweaver) rewrite, plus I finished a short story I started in June and wrote another short story towards the end of the month, plus I did some world building/character development stuff, and completely redid my outline. Super productive month! Now I've got a coherent story for book 1 written up to about the 2/3 point and I have the rest of the plot outlined. I should be able to finish in the near future, which takes me to...



My goals for August! I'm determined to not lose momentum, so I was excited when I remembered that the NaNo site has this goal tracking thingy! I track my writing in my planner (you can find my post about how my planner keeps me organized here), but I liked being able to do this last month and see the graph, so I'm going to do it this way, too. I set the goal at the same as last month because I don't want to fall short, but I should hopefully be able to do an hour and a bit of change each day. I'm not sure if I'll be able to finish this draft by the end of the month, but I'm hesitantly hoping to have it done by mid-September. (Partly because fingers crossed I'll be going on vacation for a week then.)

So I'm optimistic! I'd love to at least have this draft finished in time to outline the next draft of book 2 (Sentinel) before November. I'd love to work on that for NaNo this year. Unless I completely change my mind a week before NaNo because that's definitely happened before lol.

~Meri

I was asked by one of my writing friends which of my characters was my favorite. Oh gosh, this is never an easy question. Just out of the current main characters, not counting the characters I wrote before them, all five have qualities that would make them my favorite.


I love Adair for his courage even though he’s probably the least brave and heroic protagonist ever. His courage doesn’t come from being fearless, but from following his heart and doing what’s right even when it terrifies him. And a lot of things terrify him.

“Ha! I bet you thought I forgot. I mean, you thought I actually loved you and all was forgiv-…”

(I was tagged in a writing game over on Tumblr where I was asked to write a scene or short story based on the dialogue prompt “I’ll shoot. I mean, you thought I actually loved you?” I fudged the prompt slightly, but those words are in here, I promise! This is basically canon because I can see this happening to these dorks.)

Unexpected Inspiration Short Story - "All Washed Up"

“Maybe this isn’t a good idea,” Sol said as the pair eyed their target.

Firedrake yanked him back behind the wagon and glared up at him. “Are you kidding? Firing this thing was your idea in the first place! Besides, it’s your brother. If we’re hitting anyone, it has to be him.”

Sol looked down at the hollow- but definitely not empty- tube he held in his hands. “But he’ll get mad.”

“That’s precisely what I hope for.”

Firedrake inched along the wall of their wagon-home and peeked around the side. Oh good, Etri hadn’t heard Sol’s complaints. His nose was still buried in a book. Judging by the cover, it was the one Firedrake had “borrowed” from him last week.

Sol moved over to where Firedrake stood and raised his arm. Then lowered it again. “I can’t do it. It’s too mean.”

“Fine. I’ll shoot. Call him over.”

Sol looked as though he was going to protest against this, too, but finally his shoulders dropped and he called out, “Hey, Etch! Can you come here for a sec?”

Firedrake grinned as Etri placed the book on the stairs of the wagon and stood up. Not wanting to be seen until the last moment, Firedrake took a few steps back. This was going to be great. Ever since Etri had caught on about Firedrake “accidentally” misplacing everyone’s belongings and, in retaliation, stuck Firedrake’s costumes up high where Firedrake couldn’t reach, Firedrake had wanted to get back at him. What better way than to humiliate someone so stoic and boring? Firedrake forced down a cackle of glee.

…This was taking longer than Firedrake expected. Had Etri decided to return to his book? When Firedrake heard the crunch of the dead summer grass, they raised their makeshift weapon up to the level they knew Etri’s chest would be. That was the upside to Sol and Etri being identical twins; Firedrake had already tested this out on Sol as soon as he’d invented this weird plunger-inside-tube contraption.

As soon as Firedrake saw movement, they fired. When the ammunition splashed back into their face, Firedrake shut their eyes. They’d forgotten that Sol hadn’t fixed that malfunction. “Ha! I bet you thought I forgot. I mean, you thought I actually loved you and all was forgiv-…”

This wasn’t right. The response should have been Etri skulking away in a humiliated yet silent funk. Not a … growl? Fearing that they may have just made a horrible mistake, Firedrake cracked their eyes open.

A spluttering and furious Blythe stood where Etri should have been. Firedrake was surprised that the water dripping from her face and hair wasn’t steaming judging from her red-hot anger and clenched fists. “I. Am. Wet. I hate being wet.”

Firedrake took a step back. Why’d it have to be Blythe? Etri’s chest height meant Firedrake had fired right at her face. As Firedrake gaped and tried to come up with an explanation better than “Sol made me do it,” she snatched the water-tube out of Firedrake’s hand. In one smooth, quick motion it was pointed at Firedrake.

“And I know you hate being wet as much as I do. Hmm, I wonder how this is going to play out?” Blythe lowered it and twirled it around in her hand, then nodded. “Just like I thought. This seems to have started out life as a cheap blow dart gun. Where did he even find… But whatever. I could just hand this thing back to Sol where I know it must have came from.”

Firedrake could hear the “but” at the end of that sentence even though it wasn’t said. They didn’t like the idea of any “buts” when Blythe was holding Firedrake’s only weapon. Firedrake glanced behind them for backup and found that Sol had wisely fled.

Here came the word Firedrake expected. “But you and I both know that I’m not particularly forgiving.”

She was right. Firedrake knew she wasn’t forgiving. They also knew that gleam in her eyes. Before Blythe could push the plunger back in, Firedrake was flat on the ground. When Firedrake risked a look upwards, Blythe’s mouth hung open and the water-tube hung loosely from her hand.

Firedrake turned their head. Adair stood in the now-open doorway of the wagon, staring down at his dripping pajamas and the puddle under his bare feet.

“Oh. I guess Sol came up with a new way to take a bath.”

Blythe nudged Firedrake with her foot. “Yeah. You could say that.”

“This will be an interesting tour if neither of us know where we’re going.”
“Interesting is what I strive for,” she replied with a wink. “Now let’s see what’s that direction. I predict a bathroom, another art studio, and a room with nothing but a collection of decorative wooden spoons.”

(When I saw the prompts "4 people are shown where the made the biggest decision of their lives and what would happen if they had chosen differently" and "Your OC has the chance to go back in time and change something in their past. Do they take it?" a story immediately started brewing in the back of my head. This short story would take place somewhere between book 2 (Sentinel) and book 3 (Iconoclasm). It's basically true to the books, so I consider this canon.)

Unexpected Inspiration Short Story - "Change of Choice"

“What exactly do you mean by ‘can you see a different me?’ Did you do some of your weird illusion weaving again?” Blythe squinted as she looked Adair over. “You don’t look any different. Maybe a few extra paint stains since this morning. Or is that pie filling?”

Adair scooped up some of the questionable splotch with his finger and put it in his mouth. Belatedly he realized this could be a bad move, but to his relief it wasn’t paint. “Jelly.”

Blythe covered her face with her hand. “Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer. So what was your question about?”

Adair wiped his hand on his shirt, adding more stain to a piece of clothing already overdue for the trash bin, and found he couldn’t meet her gaze. He knew his request was going to sound foolish because Blythe rarely cared what other people thought. He usually didn’t either. Just about this and only because… he looked over at Etri who was too engrossed by the book in his hands to pay any attention to the conversation going on not five feet away. Etri was the one the horrible words were usually directed towards. Adair didn’t really care when someone said he was a failure as an Artisan; he’d heard it for most of his life. He was nontraditional and he’d ended up with nontraditional muses. The other Artisans didn’t approve of this. Blythe and Etri were carnival performers and to top it off, both were Adair’s sentinel. There was no rule saying an artist couldn’t have two bodyguards as their spouses, but it was all about tradition. Two artists were bound to one bodyguard. That was how it was done. That was how it had always been done.

So the other Artisans- and more than a few sentinels who were insulted by carnies having the same status they did- didn’t hide their disapproval. Etri, who was unusually tall, pale, and foreign, got the brunt of this. Blythe, as a local who trained as an ordinary guard before becoming a performer and healer, at least looked the part. She was also likely to out-snide anyone who tried to sass her. Etri, on the other hand, never said much. He didn’t have to. Adair could sense Etri’s anger and frustration through their link. So could Blythe, which is likely why she had so little patience for rude comments. Now that Adair thought about it, her knee-jerk response to Etri feeling hurt probably didn’t help matters.

All this was the reason for the request Adair wanted to make of Blythe. He was pretty sure he’d made the right choice. His pair of sentinels felt right, inside his head or his heart or wherever it was his weaving linked to them. Still, a part of him couldn’t help fearing that maybe the naysayers were right. If he’d chosen tradition instead of his own path, would he have ended up with “normal” muses? If his choice had been different, would the chosen be changed?

Adair’s mind made up, he looked into Blythe’s dark, worried eyes. “You learned how to read memories and predict actions, right? Can you tell me what would have happened if I did something different? If I was something different?”

Blythe held out her hand and brushed Adair’s forehead with her thumb.“I can try. If I do this, will you promise to not taste-test paint in the future?”

Adair fully trusted Blythe inside his head and so let his eyes close. “I only did that because I thought it was-”

------------------------------

Adair’s ears picked up the grating sound of Feren’s voice. Even the overpowering music and laughter of yet another party couldn’t mask a sound he had heard almost every day for the past ten years. Feren reached him before Adair could decide between ducking under the nearest table or making a beeline for the kitchen. He did inch closer to the table just in case.

“There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

Adair didn’t budge when Feren held out his hand. “It’s another of your Protectorate friends, right? Can’t we do this later? I’m really not feeling up to it.”

Adair coughed to try to make this sound truthful, but knew before Feren let out a too-dramatic sigh that it wasn’t going to work. He found ways to avoid this often enough that now Feren didn’t believe any of his excuses. Ever since Feren gave up his original role as Adair’s sentinel-intended from fear of being inadequate as a bodyguard, it had become a nearly daily goal to set Adair up with another one. While Adair appreciated his concern because an artist did need a sentinel, Feren had far different taste than Adair. Every single one was bossy or crude or lacking in the brains department. Sometimes all three at once. Usually all three. Could Adair help it if he wanted a sentinel who could hold an actual conversation?

Feren was not to be deterred. He tucked a loose strand of Adair’s hair back into the hated style- Adair pondered briefly what Feren would do if he hacked it all off like he wanted to- and brushed a few crumbs off the front of Adair’s silken dress robe. He made a disapproving clicking sound with his tongue. “You’re never going to make a good first impression. I swear you do this on purpose.”

Adair bit back a retort about not wanting to impress anyone Feren introduced to him. If he argued, Feren would make a scene about how he should act like a proper Artisan. The last thing Adair wanted was all those disproving stares directed his way again. Directed at Feren’s outburst would have made sense. Instead it was at the fact that Adair was so flawed he needed a scolding in the middle of a crowded room.

With his reluctance remaining unvoiced this time, he allowed Feren to take his hand.

His silent prayers of escape were answered when an artist he didn’t know stopped Feren to ask him a question Adair didn’t bother to hear. He took this distraction as the lucky break it was and headed for the staircase at the back of the house. Adair plopped down at the top of the stairs- not caring about the wrinkles it would make in the draping fabric he wore or the anxiety caused by being up high- and propped his head on his knees. Hidden behind the railing he would be able to see if Feren approached again while hopefully remaining unseen, which made this the best location even if it did make Adair’s insides twist from the elevation. He wished he had brought his sketchbook despite Feren’s assumption that it would be rude to be so distracted. Adair’s protest that this was an Artisan party and others likely had brought their tools with them had been disregarded. Adair’s protests were usually disregarded.

As he traced his fingertip over the intricate floral pattern carved into the banister, he could feel the sour taste of regret begin to ferment into resentment. He never should have chosen to stay with Feren. He could have been somewhere, anywhere else right now.

------------------------------

Blythe leaned against the wall and crossed her arms over her chest. Unaware of her boredom, her roommate talked on and on with a cluster of other Protectorates. Occasionally her friend tried to draw Blythe into the conversation, but Blythe had nothing to add. She had been away from soldier gossip for too long. She had no idea who they were talking about or what “whip-flopping” even meant. Blythe got the feeling she’d only been invited along because her roommate felt sorry for her.

When Blythe overheard the word “carny” and saw a few heads turn to look curiously in her direction, she pushed herself away from the wall. She didn’t want to talk about this. There were always two reactions when people learned she had worked as a carnival performer for two years: curiosity and disdain. Curiosity led to far too many questions about her past that she didn’t want to answer and disdain meant she wasn’t seen as a “real” Protectorate because she’d been forced away for a few years. Sometimes she wondered if it would have been better if she’d stayed with the carnival troupe instead of returning to her original career path.

Deep in these thoughts, she headed in the direction she hoped the nearest set of stairs were located. Artisan houses were built with plenty of floors, display cabinets, and windows. What they weren’t built with was any common sense. A staircase in a house like this couldn’t be directly next to the one leading to the next floor down. No, that would be too logical, too mundane. Instead the one down to the next floor would be across the house in the library or the back of the kitchen. It would probably be simpler to knot together a couple of tablecloths and use the makeshift ladder to climb out a window.

She smiled for the first time this evening when she spotted a staircase that did in fact go down. Another few of these and she could be out of here- assuming she hadn’t entered one of the artists’ paintings and was heading sideways. She stepped around the person sitting hunched over on the top stair, then stopped when she noticed the glare he aimed at nothing in particular. He was the first person besides herself who looked like he didn’t want to be here. “Hey, you okay?”

It took a moment for the boy to realize she was talking to him. When he saw her he shrugged. This made his collar start to slide down his shoulder and he yanked at his sleeve to put the fabric back in place. Artisans dressed the way they built their homes: too many layers, too many colors, and a style that made you wonder how the whole thing didn’t come apart. As it was, a section of his hair had fallen out of its twist and hung down to the floor. She avoided this as she sat down.

He didn’t seem to mind and leaned his back against a baluster to give her more room so she didn’t have to sit in the way of staircase-traffic. “Yeah. Let’s just say this is the last place I want to be right now.”

Blythe chuckled. “Tell me about it. You got dragged here, too?”

He wrinkled his nose. “Yeah. Third party this week. I’m so sick of parties.”

“I was looking for the exit a second ago. Why don’t you come with me and we can both leave, assuming we can find the dang thing.”

Blythe meant this as a joke, but he frowned and gestured in a downward direction. “My muse-intended would never let me hear the end of it if I left. Creators forbid there’s something I want to do...”

It sounded as though he wanted to say more. Instead he trailed off and lowered his chin down on his knees.

“Then how about we poke around the place instead? It has to be better than sitting here all night and your intended can’t complain if you’re still in the house, right?”

“I guess not...”

“Good. Then it’s settled.” Blythe climbed to her feet and held out her hand. “I’m Blythe and I’ll be your tour guide tonight.”

He let her pull him upright then released her hand when his outer coat began to slide off his shoulder. After a mumbled curse and some adjusting, he said, “I’m Adair. So wait, you’ve been here before?”

Blythe grinned at him. “Nope. Have you?”

For the first time Adair smiled. She thought he had a nice smile and had a feeling he didn’t make that expression often. She decided that she’d make it her goal tonight to make him smile as often as possible.

“Nope,” he replied. “This will be an interesting tour if neither of us know where we’re going.”

“Interesting is what I strive for,” she replied with a wink. “Now let’s see what’s that direction. I predict a bathroom, another art studio, and a room with nothing but a collection of decorative wooden spoons.”

------------------------------

Spoons. Etri had broken into more than a few homes and this was the first time seeing a room full of eating utensils. His employer had specified a spoon from a particular set and while that instruction sounded easy enough when assuming no sane individual owned more than maybe a dozen spoons, Etri was now at a loss as to which spoon. The one he was tasked to steal was imbued with weaving which would have been helpful if he had been given any way to test this.

He reached out to take the nearest one from the where it hung on a rack with eight other nearly identical ones. It felt like a wooden spoon. In the hope it would play a song or light up, he turned it around in his hand. It remained spoon-like. Perfect for eating soup, not so perfect for determining its status as mundane or magic. Finding a needle in a haystack would be easier than this; at least he would have known the needle when he found it.

He stared around the room in growing trepidation. He had but one more hour before he needed to report back to his employer with her requested theft. If he failed...

Etri heard laughter from the hallway and hastily replaced the spoon with its siblings. It slipped off the hook and fell silently onto the carpet. He had just enough time to blend himself into the shadow of a curio cabinet- filled with forks as a nice change of pace- when the door opened.

“It is a room of spoons! How in Petra’s name did you know that?”

“Would you believe me if I told you I was psychic?”

The first speaker broke into a chortle. His laughter was the contagious kind and it made Etri want to smile- if Etri was currently in possession of a mouth. “Nope! How’d you really know?”

It was never easy for Etri to see when he took this form. The world became fogged and grey, as though he looked through a piece of fine gauze. The one was certainly an Artisan and the other, judging from her height and build, was likely his sentinel.

The sentinel’s footsteps took her closer to Etri who tried to meld further against the wall. If only his shadow-weaving allowed him pass through it! She stopped a few feet away and picked up the spoon he so recently dropped. “Earlier tonight I poked my head into a studio and saw a bunch of spoons spread out on the work table. I figured whoever lives here made them and would probably be vain enough to display them. I was right, although I have to say I didn’t expect an actual room.”

“Then you don’t know how vain most artists can be.” The artist came up next to her and took the spoon from her hand. “I see where this one’s supposed to go. I wonder how it fell?”

This was all the warning Etri was given before his hand reached for the hook- and passed through Etri. It was the most uncomfortable and intrusive thing Etri had ever experienced. After the artist stared at his hand and the spoon in confusion, he turned his attention towards the narrow space between cabinet and wall.

He hooked the spoon onto the rack and took a step back, never once taking his gaze away from where Etri hovered in the shadow of the cabinet. He couldn’t have seen him. Etri was all but invisible when he blended into shadow. Yet the artist didn’t look away until the woman asked, “What are you staring at the wall for?”

Etri’s hope that he’d been wrong, that the artist couldn’t see him, was dashed when he reached back into the shadow. “There’s weaving here. Not the spoon weaving. That’s deep olive green. This one’s a sparkly pewter. And it’s cold. Feel it.”

Now the sentinel held out her hand. This was disturbing and Etri really wished they’d stop prodding him. “I can’t see your weird artist colors, but you’re right about the cold. Are we near a window?”

When they both looked around to see if this was the cause, Etri slid away and over to the far wall.

“Now it’s warm again,” she said.

The artist turned around to look at the room and his eyes fell on Etri almost immediately. “Because it’s over there now.”

Etri didn’t have time for a hide and seek game. Whatever they could do to him wouldn’t be any worse than what would happen if he didn’t return back with the spoon in hand. He supposed the sentinel could try to arrest him for art theft, but it wouldn’t be successful when he could simply go intangible again. His only option was to take human form again and try to get out of here with the correct spoon. Whichever one was the correct spoon.

He visualized his human self and when his vision returned to normal he found to no surprise that the pair had noticed. There was no way they could have failed to notice a person appearing out of thin air directly in front of them.

The woman took a step forward and pulled the artist behind her, placing her body between him and possible danger. This solidified Etri’s theory that she was the sentinel. “What are you doing here? What are you?”

“Why do you have weaving?” the artist piped up as he stood on tiptoe to see over her shoulder.

Would truth or a lie be better? Etri decided on truth without all the details. “I am seeking a spoon.”

The sentinel snorted a laugh. It was strangely endearing even if it wasn’t as infectious as the artist’s. “You do know you could buy a spoon anywhere, right? Not that the artist would notice one missing out of four billion.”

“He is not the artist?” Etri nodded his head towards the boy who grinned at him.

“Cartographer and part time painter. The only thing I use spoons for is eating.”

The sentinel nudged him in the ribs. “Hush for a minute.”

Then to Etri she asked, “What kind of thief steals a single spoon?”

Etri couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice. “One who has been ordered to steal a particular spoon. One who would much rather be anywhere else right now. One who would prefer any other career.”

The artist's voice was soft when he asked, “Then why do you do it?”

Etri looked over at him in surprise. He expected anger from an artist after catching a thief, not… sympathy? While the sentinel didn’t seem quite as calm about this, she also hadn’t made any move to stop him. This was not his previous experience with sentinels. Perhaps his assumption about her status was incorrect.

“If I do not return with this spoon, my employer will turn me over to the guards and claim she caught me stealing from her. If I could escape the guards, she would find me. Find us. I could not leave my brother behind. We are too foreign to remain hidden for long.” His mouth twitched into a wry smile. “There is not a day where I do not regret a decision I made.”

The artist’s breath caught sharply and he turned to the woman. “We have to help him. I know what it’s like to have a choice like that.”

She frowned, then looked from one to the other. Slowly she spoke, “I could change the choice I made. If I did, if I went back to the people I left, I could protect you. You would be out of the city where anyone would be hard pressed to find you.”

“Why would you help me?” Etri’s voice was barely audible, but she heard him.

“Because my heart tells me that walking away and leaving either of you where I found you tonight would be disastrous for you both.”

The artist looked towards the door, then stood tall. “I don’t care where this place is, it’s gotta be better than what I have now. I’m in.”

“I will only agree to anything if I can bring my brother.” At the probably-not-sentinel's nod, Etri added, “I would like to know where you plan to take us.”

“My former carnival troupe. I was told if being a Protectorate didn’t work out, I could always come back. Frankly it’s a choice I don’t think worked out, so I’m willing to use my mistake to fix both of yours.”

Troupes constantly traveled and in costume Etri and his brother would be hidden in plain sight. For the first time in years, he had hope. “I also accept.”

------------------------------

"-pie.”

Adair opened his eyes and found that he was back in the room the three of them shared at the Artisans’ guildhall. He pulled Blythe into a tight hug with a squeal of joy. Then he threw himself at Etri, causing the book to go sailing through the air as Etri fumbled it and scrambled to catch him.

“What is the cause for such excitement?” Etri asked.

Adair grinned up at him, too elated to make words work. He had his answer: any change in choice would have brought them together. Even if he had suffered through tradition, he still would have met his beloved carnies.

It was a long time before he stopped smiling any time he saw a spoon. Although as Blythe could attest, Adair usually smiled whenever he saw a spoon because it might mean dessert.