#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.

Sunday morning. Coffee and the chupacabra. As you do.

I won an auction for the cutest plushy, made by the horror author, Jeremy C. Shipp. Not only is she the most adorable monster ever, but she arrived yesterday, on Jeremy's birthday.