Monday Update 1-29-18

These are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:
Weekend Highlights
Review: Trader Joe's Mini Milk Chocolate Bars
Budgeting for Health
Total Lunar Eclipse
Hard Things
Demifiction: "BiblioThecla: Romance for Worldly Women"


The Rose & Bay Awards celebrate excellence in cyberfunded creativity.  Nominations will close at the end of the month, so please make yours as soon as possible.  We only have one person nominating in Art, Fiction, Webcomic, and Patron so more in those would be the most helpful.  These are the categories:

Art (3 nominations)
Fiction (3 nominations)
Poetry (4 nominations)
Webcomic (3 nominations)
Other Project (4 nominations)
Patron (3 nominations)

You can help by nominating your favorite crowdfunded works and supporters from 2017.


Poetry in Microfunding:
"Strength and Power" belongs to Acrostic Magery.  Rowan and Hulda form a folk band.


The weather has been warmer here, with rain and fog.  Mud everywhere.  :/  Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a large flock of sparrows, a large flock of mourning doves, a pair of cardinals, several dark-eyed juncoes, several starlings, and a hawk.

Unsold Poems for the January 2, 2018 Poetry Fishbowl

The following poems from the January 2, 2018 Poetry Fishbowl are currently available. Poems may be sponsored via PayPal -- there's a permanent donation button on my Dreamwidth profile page -- or you can write to me and discuss other methods.
There are still verses left in the linkback poems "Lead Us in Peace," "We Will Fade into You," "The Open Gyre," "Growing Green, Growing Gold," and "Mysterious and Impermanent." Linking to this page will reveal new verses in whichever linkback poem you request.


"Before They Are Easy"
A LiveJournal prompt inspired the free-verse poem "Before They Are Easy." In a nation that hates superpowers, sometimes magic slips by unnoticed.
88 lines, Buy It Now = $44

In Quanzhou there lives
a man who makes marionettes.

Yang Chonglin carves camphor and willow
into expressive faces and lithe bodies,
strings thread to make them move.

"A Curve That Sets Everything Straight"
Your street magician prompt inspired the free-verse poem "A Curve That Sets Everything Straight." Elonso has a miserable time in Italy, until he doesn't anymore.
190 lines, Buy It Now = $95

Elonso hated Italy.

He wanted to love it,
because it was beautiful,
but he hated it anyhow.

"The Dragon and the Manticore"
Your Monster House prompt inspired the free-verse poem "The Dragon and the Manticore." It's about the hidden beasts in town.
25 lines, Buy It Now = $10  SOLD

"That Iron String"
This inspired the free-verse poem "That Iron String." It talks about how to escape gaslighting.
65 lines, Buy It Now = $33

Gaslighting is a form of
abuse as subtle as the gas
for which it has been named --
colorless, tasteless, and
volatile when ignited.

"Words of the Elders"
Your Kande prompt inspired the free-verse poem "The Words of the Elders." Kande searches for the door to the underworld, but she's going to need some help.
90 lines, Buy It Now = $45

Kande's little sister Panyin
tried to show her the place
where the white demons
had stolen their brother Atsú,
but the demons were clever
and had concealed the entrance.

These two poems go together in sequence:

"Bitter Ice"
This inspired the free-verse poem "Bitter Ice." Some Kraken personnel make an amazing discovery in the Antarctic ice.
446 lines, Buy It Now = $223

Isolde O'Breen pushed her hood back and
let the Antarctic breeze ruffle her short red hair.

It was coming on toward summer, warming
as much as it ever did down here, and
the breakup of the Larsen B ice shelf
had left scattered pockets of ice from
different times all along the fringes.

"Desperate Measures"
I finally managed to finish "Desperate Measures," the sequel to "Bitter Ice." This poem is written in free verse and features the crew waking up from suspended animation.
664 lines, Buy It Now = $332

Dr. Eabha Doran looked around the ward room,
where her team of nurses had diligently removed
as much of the equipment as possible to limit
the chance of overwhelming her patients.

Isolde O'Breen had pulled a total of
twenty-two sailors out of the ice.

Poem: "The Dragon and the Manticore"

This poem is spillover from the January 2, 2018 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from chanter_greenie. It also fills the "water" square in my 1-1-18 card for the Apocalypse Bingo fest, and the "dragons" square in my 10-1-17 card for the Fall Festival Bingo. This poem has been sponsored by zianuray. It belongs to the series Monster House.


"The Dragon and the Manticore"


I like to walk down to
the park on weekends.

There's a portal in
the shallows of the lake,
and another in the alleyway.

The water dragon who
hangs around the dock
is friendly, and gives
good advice on fishing,
so long as you do not
cast a line in her direction.

The alleycat who likes
the dumpster between
Pearl's Pizza and Big Al's
is actually an alley manticore,
and he's a little temperamental.

They're hidden from ordinary eyes,
at least for the most part, but they don't
mind a visit from those in the know.

They don't like each other much,
and sometimes they get into
long hissing arguments.

I bring them both tuna,
though, and that is something
that they can both agree on.