Weekly Garden Snapshot: 2026 week 11
See Previous | See Next This week in my garden. (Which is doggedly soldiering on through the whiplash of hot-and-dry and cold-and-frozen.)
SSCS 04: Installment 11 of 34
The Heart of the Gull Queen’s Huntress This is Installment 11 of this year’s SSCS. If you want to start at the beginning of ‘The Heart of the Gull Queen’s Huntress’, go here! If you want to know what the heck an SSCS is, go here! (And the character list is here.) Previously… “Who shall we accost, then?” Lot asked, while appearing to stare musingly across the elaborately built space. “Will pauper or prince give us better answers?” And indeed,…
Getting Good Use out of Bad Writing
I promise this is a post about writing, but first I have to start here: In the martial arts in general, and more particularly in the martial art that I practice, TaeKwonDo (TKD), there are a lot of principles students are required to learn about and encouraged to follow. Some of these are like the student oath (e.g., ‘I shall never misuse TaeKwonDo’) or the tenets (e.g., Integrity). Others are frameworks for learning and conceptualizing the core values and lessons…
Weekly Garden Snapshot: 2026 week 10
See Previous | See Next This week in my garden. (Which is basking in a titch of snow moisture!)
SSCS 04: Installment 10 of 34
The Heart of the Gull Queen’s Huntress This is Installment 10 of this year’s SSCS. If you want to start at the beginning of ‘The Heart of the Gull Queen’s Huntress’, go here! If you want to know what the heck an SSCS is, go here! (And the character list is here.) Previously… Reaching the gate at last, in their turn, the five Lazarine faced now one more obstacle before going through. It was the gate-guard, standing just to one…
Weekly Garden Snapshot: 2026 week 9
See Previous | See Next This week in my garden. (Where the flowers want to bloom but are longing for water.)
SSCS 04: Installment 9 of 34
The Heart of the Gull Queen’s Huntress This is Installment 9 of this year’s SSCS. If you want to start at the beginning of ‘The Heart of the Gull Queen’s Huntress’, go here! If you want to know what the heck an SSCS is, go here! (And the character list is here.) Previously… “Could the silver thread have come from the Heart itself?” San whispered to El, remembering that conversation as the five climbed the rusty stairs back up to…
Weekly Garden Snapshot: 2026 week 8
See Previous | See Next This week in my garden. (Which is debating the hot sun about the soonness of spring.)
SSCS 04: Installment 8 of 34
The Heart of the Gull Queen’s Huntress This is Installment 8 of this year’s SSCS. If you want to start at the beginning of ‘The Heart of the Gull Queen’s Huntress’, go here! If you want to know what the heck an SSCS is, go here! (And the character list is here.) Previously… “Just a heartbeat,” Lot answered. “It sounded like part of the Trawerler song at first, but then the song stopped and the hearbeat was still there, for…
Quirky (True) Stories Volume 3: A backyard wilderness
Hello. Hello. It looks like it is time for another round of Quirky (True) Stories, where I regale you with a small selection of random (but true!) stories, apropos of basically nothing. Like the last round of stories, this round has a theme, which is: Random, wild-animal stuff that has happened in my back yard. That sounds vaguely exciting, but you will have to decide for yourself whether these stories live up to the hype. I will warn you ahead…