[link] From Kate Elliott: A Valentine For My Readers (A Spiritwalker Story)

I join kateelliott in wishing all my wonderful readers a day of all good things of the heart.

Originally posted by kateelliott at A Valentine For My Readers (A Spiritwalker Story)

Dear Readers,

There are days when the work flies through me and I am mighty. There are days when the work is one long slog of dragging weights behind me in the form of recalcitrant, uncooperative words. There are days I sit in despair staring at a wall mottled with self doubt. There are days I write like it is my job, which is not a bad thing when one has (presumably) skill and competence and a love for one’s work.

But every day I appreciate YOU, the ones reading my books.

I am grateful that you read them AT ALL. (I’m still kind of amazed by that.) I can work as a writer because you buy my work. I THRILL to the remarkably astute and brilliant analyses you write (& now and then mope sadly to a negative review, although negative reviews can also be useful as a perspective on the work and — as always — any review helps a writer be more visible in a crowded literary world). I adore the fan-art, and while I have to avoid reading fan-fic for legal reasons, I think it’s pretty cool that people write it. Did I mention I adore fan-art? And strange as it may seem, I really enjoy “meeting” (so to speak) and interacting with readers on social media. My books aside, I’m a reader too with the same love for reading and I never get tired of talking about books I love.

So: THANK YOU.

In honor of Valentine’s Day, a story for you, set in the Spiritwalker Universe. Yes, there might even be some sexual situations (fair warning).

Mirrored from I Make Up Worlds.

Springtime Mystery Critter

We live in a rural area. Or maybe semi-rural, as we can see our neighbors but we're close enough to forest to enjoy regular appearances by wildlife. Deer, of course (AKA rats on stilts -- yes, I know they're cute but they can devastate a garden in no time flat), raccoons, oppossums, skunks, bobcats, coyotes, various rodents that live in the ground, various non-rodents that live in the ground, various reptiles usually benign but occasionally of the rattle and poison persuasion. A few mountain lions live in the vicinity. They're solitary creatures requiring a large territory, and they generally prefer to leave humans alone, so we don't see them this far "down from the mountain" too often. (There was a recent sighting, so be sure to lock up your cats and dogs at night if you don't want them to become tasty snacks.)

Something has apparently worked its way under our roof, most likely through the heating ducts, and makes loud scrabbling noises. Our house is pretty well critter-proofed after the Great Skunk Mating Stinks (see below as to why I think our new visitor is not a skunk, besides that skunks aren't awfully good climbers). So it's unlikely that anything larger than a mosquito got past our barricades. We have an appointment with a pest control person on Monday. Meanwhile, the cats have become Very Interested in those noises. And we are concerned that the poor thing might perish of thirst. And die. And putrefy. And stink.

Okay, the stinks.

Some years back, the local skunks decided that the crawl space under our house -- under our bedroom, to be specific -- was a dandy place to meet and tussle over who got to mate with whom. The routine goes like this:

scratchscratchscratch

squeak! squeak! squeak!

STINK!! STINK!! STINK!!

This got old fast. Really fast. Hence, barricading any and all Ways Under The House. Since there have been no repeat performances, but plenty of skunks in our garden and neighborhood, I conclude we were successful.

To be fair, skunks are nice neighbors when they aren't stinking up your bedroom. They aren't destructive and they tend to discourage things that are. One hypothesis for the absence of gophers in our garden is the presence of skunks. They dig nice holes that aerate the soil. They munch on pests. You just have to be vigilant about letting the dog out at dawn and twilight as skunks tend to be most active then. For some reason, getting squirted doesn't deter dogs from going after skunks again. 

Banana slugs are another matter entirely. We have tons of those, too. Apparently, a single encounter will put a dog off the notion of chomping on banana slugs for life. It's the gooey gluey mucus, I suppose...