The boys had asked why, if it acted slowly, was it called quicksand. The Mollusks had replied that, as far as they were concerned, most English names for things were silly. The word that they used for quicksand was a deep grunt that translated roughly to "uh-oh.

If you don't believe in yourself, who will?' ~Maybeck

I'm still only half the writer I hope I will be.

Lightning crashed on the horizon. A breeze swirled around the Cast Members. The air tasted dusty, almost bitter, with electrical charge.

So planning something big." "If this is the work of the Overtakers, we've never seen anything like it." "It is," a voice said behind them. Maybeck slipped in alongside of them. "You about scared the pee out of me!" Charlene complained.

Being a fiction writer is really like being an actor, because if you're going to write convincingly it has to sound right and play right. The only way that works is to emotionally and technically act out and see the scene you're in. There's no better job in the world, because when I sit down at that computer I'm the world's best forensics expert, if that's what I'm writing about that day. Or I'm some crazed psycho running down a dark alley. Or I'm a gorgeous woman looking to find a man that night. Whatever! But I'm all of those things, every day. How can you beat that?

I've been running from, and toward, death all my life, more aware of it than a person should be.