#amwriting 13K+words on Dark Victorian: MEDUSA 'n I'll be wrassling with the theme of female monster as romantic(???) interest for a bit longer than my 3 week deadline. cha! Heh heh! Not at all shades of Le Fanu's Carmilla ( or the movie, "Dracula's Daughter" 1936. Woo woo! Though I'd like to try that sort of approach, another time). Watch my beta reader point and go: you're doing Belle et Bete! I am not. :-p I'm really trying to stick with scary, goddess'y creature, here.

Progress: I think MEDUSA may end up in the 36K+words range, which is . . . very roughly, 160+pp as a book. I've barely half down of all plot placeholders. It's a matter of getting all pertinent bits writ, then I flesh it all out. Even the end scene may get a truer ending after the 'ending', like with ICE DEMON. We'll see. Medusa herself is fascinating as a psychological and cultural study, which is not quite the same exploration I did with Hecate in SUNDARK, that being more a mythical/religious portrayal. Besides the fact that as a chthonic goddess, she's plain frightening.

THIS PAINTING: is The Lamia, by Herbert James Draper, 1909. And what a mythic tale is she. IF I can ever view it up close, I could confirm that her eyes have pupils like a reptile. A snakeskin is draped around her waist. I'm tempted to try her on in a penny dread. But not as a romantic interest.