I’ve given up on hit stats, and gauge my blog posts in how they connect with readers in three ways, in order of increasing popularity:

• Did anyone comment?
• Did anyone send me mail?
• Did anyone link my post on their blog and comment?

The link is the Holy Grail of popularity indicators. While my post yesterday did not generate any links, it sure hit a nerve. It took one reader by surprise, and even the Wife Unit told me I needed to put warning labels on things like that.

Heh. Insert sheepish grin here. Whoops. Someone emailed me and asked why I wrote that. Why indeed.

Quite simply, my work-in-progress is kicking my ass. This novel is, unfortunately, a creative and emotional vampire.

Contemporary Young Adult was never on my horizon. I love reading it, I just never saw myself writing it. My love for genre fiction is deep, and more than that, I have such fun writing science fiction and fantasy. But when the plot for this novel hit me along-side the head, I knew I had to drop everything and write it.

The emotional intensity of my work-in-progress is high. The situation my main characters find themselves in is as absurd as it is heartbreaking, and as I approach the ending the intensity and emotional impact increases dramatically. I find myself in need of a creative outlet in order to not, um, explode or something. Because that would be messy.

I wrote The Pilot simply as a need to express the emotions bleeding from my work-in-progress. It was write it or fall to pieces.

Yes, that post was merely spill-over.

Her lover liked to hold her hand and she found it cute.

She liked cute. When she traded the perpetual frown for the goofy grin, really, she felt like she had boys all figured out:

Young men that frowned all the time, sucked. Those that smiled, not just at her, but, for example, at their moms, ruled.

This was a good rule. A girl could live with that rule. The rule went with cuteness like chocolate syrup went with ice cream.

***

She had no idea what the minister was saying. She vaguely remembered the words from the rehearsal.

Suddenly her hand was in his.

He turned to her and smiled.

You take my breath away, his eyes said.

***

“Push, Darling.”

“I am pushing!”

A tired smile.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Okay, new plan. You push!”

He grabbed her sweaty hand.

“I’ve got you covered, Babe.”

***

Her daughter’s baton went up, up, and up, so high she was sure it was going to hit the gym ceiling.

It came crashing down, impossibly fast. She caught it, spun around, and did a split, just like that.

He turned to her, put his hand in hers, and gave her a little squeeze.

“That’s our girl,” he said through misty eyes.

***

“I don’t understand,” he said through labored breath, a breath as old as the world. “Why can’t I see?”

She touched his face tenderly. “It’s just time to rest,” she said.

“I am tired,” he admitted.

“You’ve been awake, a long, long time.”

“Thank you. For everything,” he whispered.

“I love you,” she said. She had to say it. She so wanted him to hold on to those three words. Just three words. Surely he could take those with him.

“I’m scared,” he said.

She grabbed his hand and held it in hers. Fingers weak but intertwined.

“My turn, now. I got you covered, Babe.”

He smiled.

Dignity is not about self-confidence, nor is it composure and certainly not how one behaves in public.

Dignity is choice, and not the choices we make, but simply our ability to do so.

To remove choice from an individual is to belittle them and demean them. This is immoral. It strips them of their dignity. An undignified act is an act born in the lost of freedom.

When one carries themselves with dignity, one is holding true that the answer to the choice presented may have been right or it may have been wrong, but it was, at the core, made without direct or subversive force.

To strip a person of their dignity is an act of force. To strip it from a group of people is tyranny. Both are dishonorable, and the righteous oppose both with equal measure.

Sorry for going dark, my 9.3 readers. My laptop died. It’s not just a simple laptop, either–it’s specifically configured for security access to various places.

So when I got a new laptop, I had to install all the work applications back on it.

Then restore my backup files.

Then I had to encrypt the hard drive.

Then I had to install all the certificates.

Then I had to have helpdesk install the rest of the certificates because I am a dork and couldn’t figure it out.

Then I had to like, yanno, WORK. Because my client gives me money and then expects me to, like, produce results. SHEESH.

It’s a great new laptop, though. Very fast. Screen bright. And, it kinda looks sexy.

I’ve gotten everything under control now. I think it’s time for a book review of a smoking hot sci-fi book, no?

Love ya. Mean it.