Cease to be amazed by the tenacity of life.

I’ve just come in from the first run-through of the pond/garden…pulling the weeds the mild winter failed to zap, raking away the mulch from the base of plants, checking out the new buds…and a good half dozen…maybe twice that…plants that I wouldn’t have given you the proverbial plug nickle for last fall are showing, not just life, but some pretty lively life.

I ordered some end of season cheapies from Wayside gardens and, frankly, when they came, I pretty much decided never to order from them again. Most of the “plants” were, like, three microscopic roots peaking out from the dried-grass packing material. Well, I figured better in than out, so I planted them, leaving the packing material around them to mark their graves, and low and behold, I think most of them are going to at least make a stab at growing! They’re still woefully puny…but they deserve all the help I can give them!

I got some other “end of season deals” that required serious root detangling that I figured would do them in…a couple of really sad Clematises, and by golly, they’ve got sprouts coming up as well!

GO WORLD!

Do all authors have these problems with their characters? I mean, Carolyn really doesn’t seem to, but then, hers are overall a pretty well-behaved lot…

Ever since I began writing, my characters have had this insidious way of infiltrating our lives…not in a good way. First, it was Wesley and the computers. We have the weirdest things go wrong with computers every time I’m working on that series. Then, there was the time the house was hit by lightning…when I was working on Ring of Lightning. Mother at her finest. Zapped … what was it, Carolyn, Fortress in the Eye of Time? Or Dragons? Anyway, it zapped Carolyn’s HDD and Lynn and I were kept out of trouble for days OCR-ing the printout while Carolyn tried to continue on from memory. I’d just zapped Mother’s node in RoL and she was seriously PO’d…so she zapped the house.

This week, it’s been Khyel’s turn. Those of you who’ve read RoL know he’s got this problem…he’s a sort of empath, but only where it concerns his bros. When they hurt, so does he. He doesn’t manifest the wounds, but he sure absorbs the ouchies. Well…I can’t say I’ve been sick. My nose has never been stuffy. I’ve never suffered the nausea…but I’ve sure had every other ache, pain, and lethargy of Carolyn’s Crud. This morning, suddenly, Carolyn’s feeling better, and MAGIC: so am I!

DARN YOU, KHYEL! I’M WORKING AS FAST AS I CAN TO GET TO RING OF CHANGE AND YOUR HAPPY DAZE!!!!! Quit making my life more difficult!

Ahem…back to work…

Characters. Can’t live with ‘em, sure can’t live without ‘em.