When you've been around a snake long enough, you learn how to crawl in the dirt.

His pacing stopped. The mattress sighed as he sat on the edge. seconds ticked by before he spoke so softly she could barely hear. "Sometimes I want to leave this town so bad I can taste it.

Kevin stopped where he was and stood there simply gazing at her. Molly sat cross-legged in the meadow with the sun shining on her bare shoulders and a pair of yellow butterflies fluttering like hair bows around her head. She was all the dreams he'd lost at dawn-dreams of everything he hadn't understood he needed until now. She was his playmate, his confidante, the lover who made his blood rush. She was the mother of his children and the companion of his old age. She was the joy of his heart.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't rightly see how somebody who claims to have had -What'd you say? One partner?-can be welled trained." He had a point. Her brain clicked away. "I was referring to the instructional videotapes my agency has all its new employees watch." "They train you by watching videos?" His eyes narrowed reminding her of a hunter looking down a gun sight,"Now, ain't that interesting." She felt a little surge of pleasure as her child lost another few points on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. Even a computer couldn't have picked a more perfect match.

The final cover for Heroes Are My Weakness feels exactly right. It reflects the cold, wintry setting of an isolated island off the coast of Maine and the feisty spirit of a heroine who refuses to give up, even when the odds are stacked against her.

Figure out what depletes you creatively and get it out out of your life. (This doesn't apply to spouse and kids.) Give yourself permission to put garbage on the screen. A lot of days it's the only way you'll be able to keep going. You can clean it up later.

There's nothing sexier in a man than intelligence.