[image error] It's that time of year again: the publication of the annual Valdemar anthology, and my annual animal story. This year it's called "A Siege of Cranes." Lena, my protagonist with Animal MindSpeech, prefers animals to most people, probably because she finds animals easier to talk to. She is stuck at Court, however, because she is no longer able to persuade her guardian, who also happens to be the King of Valdemar, that she's too young to participate in the social season. She is surrounded by men who want her -- either for themselves or for their sons. She's quite a prize; as the last surviving member of a noble family, she's rich; and, if that wasn't enough, she's also beautiful and young enough to produce children.

Recently I've been remembering my high school and college years, which prior to this fall had mercifully receded from my memories. I called it "the predator/prey school of dating" and wore a leotard and tights under my clothes when I went on a date. The guys called it "scoring." It didn't help that the sexual revolution occurred while I was in high school, and life abruptly went from "don't sleep with a guy before you're married" to a chaplain at my college saying that girls should have pre-marital sex to make sure a couple was "sexually compatible" (a view not shared by the pastor of the church I attend now, thank God). It certainly made writing about a seventeen-year-old girl feeling overwhelmed by her suitors easy.

My tentative title for next year is "An Omniscience of Godwits." The first step, of course, is to find out exactly what a godwit is and what it does.