I want people to react to my work, to think, to question, to challenge, to cry and laugh and feel.

The battle rages eternal, though the race, religion, gender or sexual orientation of those discriminated against changes regularly. Maybe man’s need for a scapegoat is genetically programmed into him.

I know you've all heard the advice, "Show, don't tell." The best writers don't tell you, and quite frankly they don't just show you -- they make you feel it, live it, taste it, touch it. Storytelling is about being in the moment with the characters.

Then, like a born and bred asshole, he added to the sheriff, "He writes murder mysteries.

How did people get over this? They obviously did. Every day someone fell in love with the wrong person and had to pack up all their fragile, misguided hopes and unwanted affection, and move on to the next picnic table.

I thought of the words of the Renaissance philosopher Michel de Montaigne. "If you press me to say why I loved him, I can say no more than because he was he, and I was I.

He shifted over without comment, lifting the blankets, and I scrambled into the warm sheets beside him. He smelled like soap and sleep and bare skin. He smelled familiar. Not the deja vu familiar of Guy or Mel. Familiar like...the ache in your chest of homesickness, of longing for harbor after weeks of rough seas or craving a fire's warmth after snow--or wanting back something you should never have given away.