while you wait for Jason to post the Clarity of Night "Elemental" contest results.

This is a trace of a photo from October 2003.

By the way, have you visited the CoN site for reading/voting/commenting? You really should. All of the contest entries for "Elemental" are posted and indexed. I narrowed my field to about 20 and am about to start culling for my Reader's Choice nominations.

As previously reported on FB, the three of us made the short trip to my wife's family reunion and Baby saw a real live turtle, a real live egret and real (live?) goose poop.

After losing close to a third of her previous body weight, Em has managed to regain 7 pounds. Everything is not fixed, but this is amazing news.

My seester gifted me a rather large drawing tablet. After tinkering with drivers and programs, I've been very pleased with both how it works and what I've been able to produce. I will post something tomorrow later on that isn't integral to story development aka secret.

I turned in my entry for "Elemental", the newest Clarity of Night contest. I will update this post with a link when the story is live.

UPDATE:
Story is Live.
Flame, At a Distance, Over Water

"[T]he precept, which is tedious in a formal essay, may acquire attractions in a tale, and the sober charms of a truth be divested of their austerity by the graces of innocent fiction."

quotation from Drake's Speculator, 1790, No. 1.
found in Prefatory Observations to The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia
included in 1970 edition of Oxford English Classics, Dr. Johnson's Works: Volume the First - Life, Poems, and Tales.
reprinted from the edition of 1825, Oxford and London