I've had a real burst of creativity this year, which has been a great feeling. I just hope it continues! I wanted to share two current works. Both are middle grade, one a bit more tween bordering on YA than the other. One work is set in the future and one is in the past. The story set in the past has a working title of THE FAR SIDE OF ALBA and is something that is totally different from my usual style of writing. I'm having terrific fun with it. My adventure books are from a boy's point of view, but in this one I've switched to a girl. It's about half done. The other story, THE MASK OF FOSAAN is set in the future, and as I have loved science fiction since I was a child, something I have been waiting to write for a long time. It is complete and my agent and I are working on a plan for it.
	THE FAR SIDE OF ALBA
	Rosabelle Anabelle, my little sister, screamed to wake the dead every time she found one of her Barbies with the feet chewed off. She should have been used to it. Our dog Scratch hunted Barbies with the fervor of one of those truffle-hunting pigs I'd read about who scoured the forests of France for the so-called delicacies. No matter where Rosabelle Annabelle put the Barbies, the dog always managed to sniff them out eventually. We'd find a poor doll sprawled on the floor in a crumpled ball gown, looking like a monster had attacked and maimed her at a fancy party turned horror movie. After the latest disfigurement, I told Harriet (Rosabelle Annabelle's real name and one she dearly hated) that it didn't matter if the dolls had feet. Scratch had long ago eaten up all their tiny shoes, so feet were just unnecessary appendages. We bandaged the Barbie up as well as we could, and I tried to make Harriet feel better by telling her a story about how the Barbies were brave military nurses who had rescued some of our poor downed pilots from the swamps of Vietnam. In the rescue effort, crocodiles had attacked and chewed their feet off, but it didn't stop those girls because heroine nurses carry on even without feet. Harriet sniffled and wiped her nose on her sleeve and played along for a while. I knew it wouldn't last long. My sister wasn't much for heroine games. I liked to think when I grew up, since I couldn't be an astronaut, I'd join the war effort as a nurse and be the one to rescue our father. I didn't know if Vietnam had swamps and crocodiles, though I was willing to brave them if it did. Swamps and crocodiles seemed likely for a place so far away from the flat fields that surrounded our home in Alba, Indiana. I'd rescue him and bring him home and we'd ride around at the head of a parade through uptown after which the major would give a speech and then present us both with medals. He'd say, "It is my great honor to present Miss Josephine Cooper this medal for her extreme bravery in the face of terrible danger." "Can we play dress up instead?" Harriet asked, disturbing my vision of the shiny medal in my hand. I had to think fast. Dress-up was not my favorite game, at least not the way Harriet liked to play. In her version, we had to wear long trailing dresses that belonged to Great-Great Aunt Ethel, who having been a big-boned woman, meant the dresses had to be tied around our waists with assorted boas, belts and scarves. Then we had to waltz around the attic pretending we were on the Titanic at the moment the ship hit the fatal iceberg. Harriet's favorite part was climbing in the lifeboat (an old sofa) and bidding a tragic and very protracted farewell to her handsome fiancé, blowing kisses to him as he stoically went down with the ship. "Why don't we go see what Kathy is doing?" I suggested. "Maybe she'll come back and play dressup with us." If Kathy and I teamed up, we'd be able to steer the game our way into astronauts or treasure hunters or spies. I'd learned best friends together were a powerful force.
	THE MASK OF FOSAAN
		When a civilization nearly disappears, what emerges out of the ashes? Alas, on Fosaan, music did not, and art has turned to survival craft.  Perhaps if I record what I know, some in the future will understand us better.  The coming of the Earthers may be the end of us, and I don’t want the memories to fade into dust. Perhaps I am giving myself too lofty a title, but for now I shall sign my musing - Erimik, historian of the Family
	The flex wall rustled behind Quinn. "Mom?" he said, not looking up from the view screen. One more minute and he would have the drawing of the snake-like creature completed, right down to the exact interlocking star pattern on the skin and the red speckling on the forelegs. Duplicating the vivid greenish yellow color would be trickier, but he had imaged it so there'd be  a reference when he got down to mixing colors. It was pure luck he had found a dead one on the walkway to study.  Quinn didn't know what happened to the other deceased animals on Fosaan, but if the shrieks and howls that came from shore were any hint, he could guess. He'd just have to make sure he got rid of the thing before Piper got home. His little sister hated seeing anything dead. "Mom, you have to look at this," Quinn turned around, but no one was in the unit. The rustling sound had moved into the kitchen. Magellan squawked and flapped her wings from the window ledge, "Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert!" Since the parrot said the same thing at every sound she didn't recognize, Quinn wasn't too worried.  "Mags, relax. It's probably just an olon," he said, getting up and grabbing the stick he always used to shoo away the tiny nuisances.  If he let one in, a whole flock of them would follow, perching on every available surface, chittering and staring as if expecting him to put on a show for them.  It was even worse when they brought in their latest catches from the sea, treating the floating living units like their own picnic area, dropping bones all over the floor. Now that Mags felt like she had done her job, she lost interest. Balancing on one leg, she examined a talon on the other. "Beautiful toe," she declared. "Yes, you've told me before," Quinn said, knowing he'd never be able to convince the parrot a talon was not the same thing as a toe. He wasn't sure she grasped the concept of ‘beautiful', but she applied it more frequently to herself than anyone else. Leaving the bird to her talon inspection, he pushed aside the divider to get into the kitchen. No olons. No more rustling noise either, just the faint splash of the waves rocking the walkways that connected the individual living quarters. A gust of wind brought in the briny scent of the water, sharper smelling than the oceans of Earth. It overpowered the pine scent he had set on the room control, which he liked to use as a reminder of the pine forest reserve his Grandfather managed on Earth. Another gust rattled the beads Piper had attached to her favorite house bot, but there were no other sounds. Maybe an olon had come and gone. He turned to go back when a flash of white caught his eye. Startled, he dropped the stick and then tripped over it as he tried to back out of the room.  A girl, a Fosaanian girl, stood clutching a wafer loaf to her chest, her cloud of curly white hair quivering. In fact, all of her was shivering. She was soaked, water dripping off her, leaving splotches on the floor.  He could see her wet footprints all over the kitchen.