Ahoy, Sea Serpent

Choose Your Own Adventure Blog Hop. Ahoy! Sea Serpent?!

To begin, you can start here.
Or do you stay behind?

Overbalanced by the tanks, you fall to the deck. The ship lurches and you slide aft, crash into the cabin's wall. You're stunned by the impact. The seconds needed to regain your breath changes your terror to anger.

Footsteps pound on the deck as the crew rushes about checking the ship for damage. The First Mate spies you lying alongside the cabin's wall and orders you to your cabin. You struggle to your feet, then giggle as you realize that your fins have glued themselves on. The tanks are nearly weightless. Oh no! Dismay chases the giggles away. You manage to get the tanks off to examine them. The tanks are damaged. You head to the storage lockers to get another set. You struggle to walk with the fins while carrying the tanks. Duh. You drop them and free your hands for the trip below deck.

How in the world can you find out what happened to the love of your life? You pass the galley on your way to the storage lockers. Another rumble. This time you're prepared for the lurching and you grab the galley door. It swings inward unexpectedly, flinging you inside where you crash into the freezer doors. You reach for something to grab when the ship tilts once again.

Your hand catches the edge of the storage unit bringing you to an abrupt halt. Time slows, compressed to microseconds verging on eternity. The galley door opens, and a slim figure reaches for your fins. You kick out and then scramble to your feet. The figure slides toward you as the ship lurches again. When the ship evens out, you are entangled with the figure which turns out to be the galley assistant. He signals you to keep quiet.

He untangles himself, reaches for the sliding door and hands you a tiny box. You recognize it. Your eyes flit to the man's eyes. He then reaches for the galley door and shoves you outside. You stand there trying to decide what to think. He points to your cabin. Taking a deep breath, you nod and quickly make your way there. Once inside, you open the box to find the other half of the ring you exchanged with your beloved. Tears gather as you feel relief at this tangible sign that your love had been on this ship.

The galley assistant opens your door and quickly tosses a piece of paper at you. He crosses himself and shuts the door. The note is from your beloved. The ship you are on is a pirate's ship which captured your beloved's ship, and forced crew members and voyagers on board. But the ransom they asked for never came. The assistant promised to help with an escape plan. You quickly hide the ring and the note. Just in time.

The mate opens the cabin door and motions you topside. The galley assistant quickly gets behind you as you flipper your way after the mate. Now what? Your heart is beating so loud you think everyone can hear it. No, it's not your heartbeat drumming against your ears. There's a strange man sitting on the afterdeck beating a steady rhythm on a set of drums.

Captain Contemptuous is standing by him watching the ocean. The crew are hurriedly repairing damage sustained. You are led to one of the lifeboats which doesn't seem to be seaworthy. The man manages to sit beside you as the other passengers on board slowly fill the life boat. There are only 5 of you on board when the Captain gives the order to abandon ship. You freeze as you recognize the creature rapidly making it's way back to the ship. The mate quickly releases the boat.

Wait! You shriek as you realize you've left the ring behind. The lifeboat hits the water, bouncing all of you around. It is only the quick reflexes of the assistant who keeps you on board. Two of the other passengers have fallen overboard. Numb, you watch the ship slowly being destroyed.

The drumming stops. The strange man slides down the ladder and rushes to the side where he jumps overboard. He swims to the boat you are on and gets aboard. He shoves off and instructs everyone to grab an oar and row. The creature's head surfaces near the ship's afterdeck.

The assistant tells you your beloved escaped from the ship only to be caught by the tail of the creature. Legend says whoever goes with the creature is never seen again. He and his brother are taking the lifeboat to their island.

Do you stay with the boat?

Do you try to follow the creature?

Fantasy, fiction, gremlins and brownies

Discovery of the great good news yesterday has freed me from worries regarding my Publishing goals. I have commenced writing in earnest now, at least 6 hours a day. What a great feeling. Regarding the theme of fiction, I suppose I can count the posts because my novels are fiction-fantasy to be exact. Speaking of: I just found out there is high fantasy and low fantasy with many subgenres. I should say-just exactly what is meant by each. Ahhh. I should just leave searching for other things to read alone for awhile. It's all just making my head hurt. I really don't want to get involved in that sort of discussion. Enough that I am back to writing great stretches of novels at one sitting. {Methinks I'd better clip my nails. Going back to delete the extra letters or add a space between words is getting too tiresome and will distract me when I start revising those novels.}

I've recently reorganized the black hole area and things are still getting sucked into it. I wonder if the recent heatwave has anything to do with the strength of the thing's reach. Or maybe I've made it easier for the gremlins to conduct their experiments. I can see them now. Snickering and having a grand old time with the placement of objects. Maybe, they've invented a new game to amuse themselves. And the last few months were the beta phase. Now, that they've worked out the bugs, they are practicing in earnest for the Grand Tournament to be held sometime in the next few months. Could be they're deciding to have mini-tournaments to decide where to have the Grand Tournament. I so hope they decide to hold it elsewhere.

I hope that the gremlins latest activity is what is keeping the brownies from helping me find some of the currently lost items. In which case, I can't wait for the gremlins to move on to the next testing place. Maybe I can get some of the items that have been left here...ahh.could it be? The brownies are delivering the items back to their originals owners and that is why I haven't seen any evidence of their presence. {Maybe they are getting tired of smucking me upside the head to get my attention. Maybe they have located the USB cord and I'm just not listening?} Will ponder on this as I continue on my goal of 50,000 words by August 31.

Surfing and madmares

Aaniin. Greetings. I've been surfing the net once again. Most interesting. I read a few blogs about writing. Most are about technique, making time etc. Haven't read all of them. Looking for some who are more inspirational for me. I don't want to get too bogged down with craft type blogs. I'm the type who will inevitably start to worry about what people think of my writing, is it good enough, that sort of thing. I write because I want to. It is good to know that I am tightening up my sentences. It's good to know my grammar is readable. {I say that because some of my writing is based on dialogue-not always spoken with perfect grammar.}

I am looking for a few blogs written by crafts people. I enjoy crafts such as beading, quilting, working with colors mostly. Some crafts, I mostly admire. I don't have the inclination to actually do these things myself. After all, I only have 24 hours, six of which I spend in refreshing sleep. {Okay, last night I had a madmare. Not to be confused with nightmare. This is one of those dreams that I get angry with someone and try to give them a piece of my mind. Then someone in the real world wakes me up. "Are you having a nightmare?' "No, I'm mad." Stayed mad for a full 45 minutes after waking. Mostly, cause I couldn't get my words said. My family weren't the ones I was mad at. And staying mad about it is not good. It is something over which I have no control, thus a waste of time and energy.}

I'm also trying to find a blogger with my sense of humor. Not very many of those. In fact, there are only about 10 that I've come across. And are there any Shinab bloggers besides me? And are there any who listen to the type of music I do. Not many. I found one who had an excellent playlist on her blog. {I'm still figuring that out. Playlists are my next objective. So far, I listen to my son's list. Not always what I want to hear at the moment.}

I found some websites containing info I need to strengthen my understanding of the sciences, math and magic. I may post these at some point. I am looking for the sites I used to use before the motherboard gave up the last bit of electronic data I had stored and went out in a star shaped burst of blue-white glory. The geeks here have the hard drive but I haven't taken the time to try to pull those. I think he said some of the files were fried. I did get the ones most important-my writing. Then I also found a tool to restore the backup from my x drive. Yay. My family history files.

Oh, I changed the desktop background. It's got more colors to frame windows I have open. Looks nice. Has a few of my favorite colors. Yippee. And floral too. Yes. Makes a difference in my attitude. {I'd have to say I'm fully over my madmare.} Guess I will continue to surf and see if I can find a few of those blogs or sites. Somewhere there has to be more of what I'm looking for. Could get lost for days in this library.

Welsh Rarebit anyone?

In the reading/research category, I have come across a couple sources for free online novels. I checked some of the books and these will go into the "when I have time" category.  I thought some of you might like to check these out.


Free online novels. Jennifer L Armstong Does not link to pornographic material. - submissions page notice.  If you come across any, let her know, she will remove it.   This is the only link I can provide for this.  You will have to bookmark the page.  


The other one I added to Blogs I follow - Free Online Novels link.  Some of those are in PDF format.  Not sure who the owner is as there is no about page.  There are a couple email links for submissions or broken links.  The rest are novels.  


Both of these were mentioned in the "Smashwords Book Marketing Guide." by Mark Coker.  I checked out a couple more links listed on the Blogs link Introduction page.  No time to do more than a cursory glance.  


I have added a couple books to my library.  Mind, most of any links I provide will be fantasy books that I know not all are enamored of.  I have been fascinated by magic since I was a small child.  I had dreams involving magic, or the use of magic, inspired by television shows that were "popular in my day" that greatly disappointed me upon waking.  Teehee.  Another fascination is dragons.  Well, anything mythological really.   


Magic and history do not go together in many people's thinking.  Some of the books I may link to will be history books.  Yes, those dry, fact filled tomes we read from grade 1 to graduation.  10th grade if one was lucky enough to get the classes one wanted.  And cookbooks.  I may or may not post about trying the recipes, I like to collect recipes "in case" and now will have room for them.  I may even try some of those recipes. 


Years back, in one of my recipe trying days, I made one called "Mock Crown Roast" with a Welsh Rarebit sauce.  It turned out very delicious.  I set it out on the table and everything. I've tried to find it again.  It was in one of the books my mother has.  I've looked and looked, even searching on the 'net.  My sis asks me to make it every now and then.  That is the only time we've ever had it.  I could probably make the crown roast part as it was only mashed potatoes surrounded by hot dogs.  The sauce is what made the dish.  


I remember most of the sauce ingredients.  Enough to know that most of the recipes I saw weren't the right one.  Maybe one day I can find it once more.  Does anyone know of a delicious Welsh Rarebit recipe?