Today is Ash Wednesday – which is the start of Lent and 46 days of fasting. While my husband and I are not Catholic (He’s a member of the Four Square denomination of Christianity, while I come from a Southern Baptist background… a very reserved Southern Baptist background) but we decided to use March 1st as the kick off to a healthier life. We’re giving up fast food for Lent, and trying to eat better in general. I’m also trying to cut back on soda, and Husband will be trying to stop smoking soon.

I’ve also decided to make this a new beginning for the blog too. I’ve tweaked some of the graphics and colors, and I made new graphics for my WIPpet Wednesday posts on Canva. I’m also going to try to be posting more regularly: Mondays will still be devoted to Music, and Wednesdays will be about writing – as per usual, but I’ll be doing posts on Fridays that focus on our little family and some of our DIY stuff around the home.

I confess that I got so wrapped up in creating new graphics on Canva, and scheduling posts for the rest of the week that I did not do much writing on my stories the past couple of days. I also haven’t read any new books – even though there’s quite a to be read list on my kindle app. Instead I got sucked into reading about some old fandom drama that happened back during the livejournal years around the time that Lord of the Rings came out in theaters. I loved Lord of the Rings, but I wasn’t online much back then (when I was, I was more involved in the short lived Miracles Fandom) so I missed a lot of this drama, and it’s absolutely fascinating and terrifying to read about now.

WIPpet Wednesday is a weekly blog hop where writers share snippets of whatever project they might be working on. Usually the post has to do something with the date – since today is March First, you could share three lines from chapter one, or one paragraph from page three, etc – but sometimes the math can get pretty convoluted, and sometimes we just throw reason to the wind.

Since I haven’t done any writing this week, I can’t share anything from the Undying Ones like I had planned to. Instead I’ll be sharing more from The Descendants instead. Here are 15 paragraphs (17-3=14+1=15) – which seems like a LOT but it’s mostly dialogue, so it’s not that bad. Again, these scenes take place in book three, so they’re a bit spoilerish and a bit rough, and they may change in the future. Also, the gentleman that Maya is speaking to doesn’t have a name at the moment, so hopefully that isn’t too distracting.

Even though they had been on the ship for what felt like years now, Maya still found herself stumbling from time to time even if the seas were perfectly peaceful. It was a bit mortifying, especially considering that she was supposed to be the avatar of all things water related, and she couldn’t help but wonder if her seaworthiness – or lack thereof – was due to her not being a full blooded Descendant like the others. But then, she had been able to call a rogue wave and a hurricane out of nothing, so she wasn’t entirely useless, even if she had to run a hand along the inner walls of the ship to keep herself upright.

She found the ship surgeon ensconced in his chamber – that was barely more than a closet, really – right off the sick bay. He was bent over a book that had clearly seen better days. Its pages were yellowed to the point that they were nearly brown, and the ink was faded so much that it was barely legible in some areas. He had broken out his spectacles with their thick lenses in a last ditch effort to read the tiny writing, but judging from the way he squinted and the frown marring his thin lips, they weren’t much help.

“How is she?” He asked, finally glancing up from his studies.

Maya leaned against the doorway, her feet spread wide to steady herself against the roll of the ship. “Not good.”

“That’s to be expected, considering what she’s been through.”

“I know.But…” She sighed. “Normally Vivian heals very quickly from physical injuries, but this time she isn’t. You’re a very good doctor, and I’m sure you’ve done everything you can, and I know that medical knowledge during this time period is limited…”

“Yes?”

“Is it possible that maybe something got left behind? That it might be causing an infection or something?”

He nodded, thankfully understanding what she meant despite her excessive use of ‘something’. “It’s entirely possible, but if she has advanced healing abilities like you say, then why isn’t her body fighting off that infection in addition to the trauma from the miscarriage?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because her body is too busy trying to fight off the infection, it can’t heal her other… issues. Maybe the infection is too strong, or too rapid. I don’t know.”

“I’m little more than a sawbones, my dear. I have no experience in midwifery. If there is something that has been left behind that is causing so much harm, I am unsure about how to remove it. I suppose I could cut her open, but I have no desire to do that to a woman, and if her physical abilities are failing her, I would be afraid that it might make things worse.”

She blinked back tears. “We can’t loose her, NAME. We can’t loose another one of us.”

He reached out and took her hand, his strong fingers intertwining with hers and giving them a gentle squeeze. “I know. You need to go back to your own time.”

“Which we can’t do without Audra.”

“Actually, there might be a way.”

To read more WIPpet Snippets, go here.