So, life has been crazy as of late. Between PTSD diagnosis and treatment, kidney stones and other medical misadventures I have barely been able to focus on writing. I have gotten a bit better. I finished the first draft of the last chapter of Written In The Body so I do have hopes of getting to the last several chapters of 300 Rains. That is my plan at any rate.

I know a lot of readers here eschew the output on FM but I'd like to recommend 'Ms Yates' by Dreamweaver. It's just finished and I think most people here would appreciate it. So override your prejudices and have a read :). It's garnered very few comments and it deserves more.

I'm in a pretty bad place myself right now (nothing to do with sexual identity as much as general depression brought on by partly by short, miserable days and long dark evenings) but this has gone a small way to cheer me up.

Robi

Remember,

The pen is mightier than the sword.

It is also considerably easier to write with and put in you purse.

Trust me on this one.

Nancy Cole
a.k.a. HW Coyle

Contributions to the Hatbox continue to be what keeps Piper and I able to keep this website and a dozen others used by the TG community active and running.

Angela Rasch's "Voices Carry Over Water" is now available to contributors to the Hatbox and we will soon have the revised version of "To Alleviate Suffering" there, too. Thanks very much, Angela. :)

Well, I had my daughter last night, and it got me thinking about being a parent.

Just to let you all know, I am making my way through all of the RetCon stories. It's been a good long while since I read them all and I've been looking for something to occupy my spare time.

You ever notice it sometimes feels like once one thing goes great, a bunch of other things start going great as well, and when one bad thing happens, it opens the door to a bunch of badness?

Thanksgiving's coming up, so time to start sharing recipes. This is one of the recipes I make every year - family tradition and probably the best cranberry sauce I've had. I'll give amounts, but really do all ingredients to taste, vary them up based on whim, whatever...

2 cups cranberries
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup orange marmalade
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 cup brandy

I'm taking a straw poll. Would anyone be interested in an audio version of my books. The ones I'm thinking of are God Bless the Child (the whole trilogy), Wrestling Against Myself, and Unreachable. I don't want to start the process if there isn't interest.

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Well, last night I had one of those occurrences that make me wish I understood how people interact with each other, and I'm hoping you guys will help me.

To make this fun, lets make it a quiz:

I was wondering if anyone has seen Barbara Allan since Halloween or Torey,Beyogi,darkkitten,Elsbeth,Saless,Zoe Taylor,cain129,kayla don,Amethyst,Merlin Silverwind,pamelapamela,twilighte_gal,& TiffanyShar.

Been so busy, hard to remember when I last sat and read stuff as I wanted to. Had some time out of the country helping start a school in Africa. That was fun, but fraught. Now I'm already up to 44,000 words for the national novel Writing Contest... write 50,000 words in 30 days (November)... my aim is 100,000 words. It's called IN THE SHADOWS and is a thriller based on a real event that took place NEW YORK in 1933.

It's an on-going struggle to re-build my life after transition (and divorce). Each time an important person from my past - whether it be a sports coach or classmates or co-workers/bosses that I can no longer consider references or refuse to acknowledge me, it hurts.

In the past two days I have had two quite different TG-related experiences.