Dandelyon's Worlds

Mi Amiga,

The old fiddler has a gig in Chicago, and promised to mail this for me. I'd come myself, but I was lucky to get here in the first place.  I'm told my roots here aren't deep enough, yet, to come and go safely.

I've found a band, finally, and it's like the t-shirt--the music and the magic are all twined like Celtic knotwork.  I'm free to be who I want to be here; I don't have to hide.  Nobody stares at my extra finger.

I know you laugh at the tarot readings we used to do--but this purple-haired girl did me a reading, and she said it was for you. Amiga, she knew your name. Remember the dark-haired man who kept showing up in your distant future? Well, it's not so distant now, and it's time for you to get out of there.

I've got a flat, it's not much, but it came furnished with a spare bed and I've got a set of penny whistles, so you'll have a job and a place to live. I know we haven't played together in years--since before both of our divorces, almost since our marriages, but--I'm doing a terrible job of this. You have to come. The dark man can't follow you here, or if he does, we can turn the tables on him--I wasn't kidding about the magic.

But mostly you have to come because I miss you. We took a wrong turn--or a pair of wrong turns--along the way, and look where it got us?

But now we can have a new start, a new life. We can make--no, I can't write that, not even to you, or especially not to you. Look, here's a ticket to our next gig; just follow the directions and you'll be here for a visit--or to stay. Your choice,  The penny whistles are yours to keep either way.

Love,

Me
___________________________________________________



You, too, can invite a friend to Bordertown: http://bordertownseries.com/contest.php?news=bring-a-friend-to-bordertown  But hurry--the contest ends soon!

P.S.  If you're keeping track of the #atozchallenge, L is for I Loved the first book!

More free story-bits for the prompting are being written by rix_scaedu at http://rix-scaedu.livejournal.com/66191.html

Also, you can check out addergoole for prompted and unprompted ficlets nearly any time!

I want to share the bounty before I return to the Torn World Muse Fusion, where there are some new prompts.  We'll see how many more words I can come up with before sleep overtakes me.

By the way, if you're enjoying my Torn World stories, please vote for us at Top Web Fiction, since that helps new readers find us.

I took a break from indoor chores and writing to pick up the trash that blew in and snagged in and under the rose bushes.  It's March, and the roses are all leafing out nicely! Our first big bloom of the roses will be at least a month early, if we don't have a frost killing all that new growth.  But here are some of the daffodils, before they're gone for the year, and some of those leaf buds too:

I heard from two writers I trust that Fantasy writer Diane Duane got a big surprise today--she looked at her bank account balance online and found it was $0.00. Apparently someone got into her bank account and removed all the money. The bank will ... eventually, supposedly ... restore funds lost due to fraud. But right now the household is without funds to pay bills or buy necessities. She is the author of the Young Wizards series and other wonderful books.

You can help by:

1) going over to her Ebooks Direct store ( http://ebooksdirect.dianeduane.com/ ) and buying something. If you use the discount code DDGOTSKIMMED, that will give you 20% off whatever you buy.

2) boosting the signal.

Thank you.

Including a bunch of speculative fiction writers!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/UneekDollDesigns?section_id=5517162&page=1

How cool is that?

So....what's your favorite?

Over on Dreamwidth, Skjam is doing a fiction fishbowl, and wrote a story to one of my prompts:

Imnana Returns

There's other cool fiction there too, so the link is to the whole post, not just my story.

Ysabet is taking prompts again, and writing poetry all day: http://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/2034492.html

If you like food or poetry, you should stop by and leave a prompt, or at least check out her journal as the day progresses and read the free poem (which is about chocolate) and any other poems that are sponsored. Please note--if she gets at least one new prompter, there will be a second free poem, in addition to the ones that are sponsored.

Actually, less than two days, now, and my latest-published story will be on sale with the rest of the stories in the anthology.

To celebrate, the editors are doing a Goodreads giveaway: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12685623-subversion

siege has a cool poem here: http://siege.livejournal.com/720234.html  I've had it open in my browser because it's just so cool, but really, browser windows aren't meant to be open forever.  

And, of course, ysabetwordsmith has new poetry from this month's fishbowl:  http://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/1942220.html  She wrote 23 poems during the fishbowl this month, and many have been published by her fans in her journal.  Go check out a few.  She also has a poll you can vote in, if you're so inclined, though that's a separate post.

And finally, haikujaguar has invited artists willing to do work for hire for writers and publishers to post links:  http://haikujaguar.livejournal.com/999976.html  I spent way too much of my writing time checking out artists last night.  Most of these artists also offered to do commissions for people who aren't looking for cover or interior art for their books. 

(The conspiracy to promote multiple open browser windows continues...)

Ellen's got two sketches currently in crowdfunding, one with $5 increments and one with $2 increments.

She says, "How does crowdfunding these sketches work? Each donation sponsors additional work on the piece, and the patron who donates the most will receive the original (by random draw, if there is a tie!). Those sponsors who don't win the original will receive an ACEO print of the finished piece. I will also pick randomly among people who link to the post to receive a free ACEO print of their choice of the two pieces. (Let me know that you've linked!)

You can see the current progress (and old versions!) of these two sketches, and a recently finished piece, in my journal, here: http://ellenmillion.livejournal.com/1232763.html"

The two pieces in question are a cute girl playing with skykittens and a scene showing working unicorns. You should at least go peek!