Writing a first draft and reminding myself that I’m simply shoveling sand into a box so that later I can build castles.
She made herself take two deep-rooted yoga breaths, smiled back, and thought of men in breeches.
She read like a woman drinks water after nearly dying of dehydration. The stories pulled out of her sensation after sensation: a fluttering in her belly, a laugh on her lips, a pounding in her heart.
More than a thousand days we’ve been together, more than a thousand songs I’ve sung for her, and only now, I think, do I see Saren truly begin to heal.
Most people are genuinely good, sweetheart, and even the evil ones have some good in them. -Shannon Hale.
No. I’m a wreck,” she said in the squeaky high voice of one who is determined not to cry. “You do not seem like it,” Mrs. Wattlesbrook squeaked back. “Thanks,” Charlotte chirped. “I do yoga. Ninety percent of confidence is posture.
She found half of a sea biscuit and offered it to Sus. The young girl held it between two fingers and licked a corner. “It tastes like dirt.” “And how would you know?” Felissa said, putting her fists on her hips. “You eat dirt often, do you? Snacking on mud pies when our backs are turned?” “It tastes how dirt smells,” Sus said.
How inconvenient clever women must be to men like Mr. Mallery. If only she’d been frivolous, light-minded, vapid even. Generally speaking, when a man is a murderer and a woman uncovers the unmistakable clue pointing to him, it would be so much easier if that woman were dull-witted. A clever woman can get herself killed.
We see the surface, blue or silver or gray, and waves hitting the shore. But we know there’s so much we can’t see, so what we love about it becomes in part what we imagine it is hiding.
Maybe I got a few words wrong, but that’s so near how the conversation went, I’m going to call it truth.
Ingridan was an ancient city. Memory ached in its stone arches, crept down its narrow alleys, sluiced through its seven rivers. And its newest memory still burned, raw and sore – a failed war, a nation shamed, and an army dishonored.
Whenever I get bird meat, I like to eat it in the open, let the falcons and hawks see who the boss is. Me. I’m the boss.
She spoke quickly, her tongue feeling like a hummingbird’s wing; she was so afraid of boring him if she took too long.
Miri laughed in return and felt her face go hot again, and it occurred to her that after so much burning her cheeks should be ashes by now.
Far above the snow clouds, the moon must have been bright and full. Its light bled through the storm, marking each flake with a silvery luster and pouring a pale, peachy glow onto the mountain.
Don’t hesitate if you know it’s right.
Thinking it’s impossible makes it so.
Never fear, protecting my womb from Gothic novels is my first priority.
She shut her curtains, locked the door, and lifted her mattress, pulling out last year’s Sustainable Logging Lumberjack Calendar. She flipped through the pages and sighed. Yes, the lumberjacks had chiseled jaws, warm eyes, and broad shoulders beneath flannel shirts.
My dear subjects, you are simply, unquestionably perfect!” she called out, tossing candy and coins to the crowd. She kept a candy-and-coin basket on the balcony so she would be ready for adoring crowds at a moment’s notice.
Hunter and his father leaped into Huntsman Defense Stance – ax in one hand, the other hand held out, knees slightly bent, hair tossed by the breeze. They stood back-to-back, turning, listening to determine direction.