Take this. It's free.

I've always been a fish person. Maybe it's a Pisces thing. There's always been an aquarium in my house somewhere.

Angel fish are my favorite. Finicky and violent, but beautiful with their long, flowing fins. I've also done stints with gouramis, tetras of various sorts, and black moors along, with a lot of little fish to round out the tank. Most recently, before the move a year ago, I'd purchased two dime-sized angel fish, one black and one white, and watched as they grew. Unfortunately, they hated one another and only one survived the move to the new house, being in the middle of an arctic freaking winter. Several other smaller fish were also casualties.  

With only four surviving fish in my twenty gallon tank, I began to contemplate shutting it down. As much as I do enjoy watching the fish, it's work to keep the tank up with scrubbing the outbreaks of hard red algae, medicating sick fish, trimming of plants, keeping the water level up, and the vacuuming of poo. And well, I've been doing it for a very long time. Maybe it was time to put the tank to rest. What would it be like to sit on the couch and not hear the constant drone of the air pump?

As if it was a sign, the eight inch long pleco that I'd had since it was just a little guy, turned belly up. Green algae overtook the red within a week and the tank really started to look nasty. But it sits right by my dining room table, and I don't like looking at nasty when I eat. So I scrubbed it. The algae returned within a week.

The angel fish died, well, no, to be honest, it was stupid. One of the other remaining small fish had also died, and the angel fish thought it looked like a great meal. Except it was a little too big. So here's my beautiful black angel fish swimming around with half of a dead fish stuck hanging out of it's mouth. I gave it a few hours, but it didn't manage to solve the situation on its own. Again, not what I want to see when I'm eating.

So, taking a deep breath, I reached in and removed the dead fish from the other fish's mouth. Mmmm tasty. But it was a wasted effort. I don't know how long the angel fish had been stuck with it's mouth full before I'd spotted the problem, but the angel fish turned up dead the next day.

Yep, that means one lonely tetra in a twenty gallon tank. To shut it down or clean it up and make a run to the pet store? I debated for a few days. The answer came when my daughter announced she had to go to the pet store to get food for her cockatiel. Well crap, now I'm there anyway. And they had fish on sale.

With ten bucks worth of fish in hand, including a new pleco to deal with the algae, I followed the fish retrieving employee to the counter where he bagged our carefully chosen purchases. There, already sitting on the counter, propped up against a container of rubber bands, was a single guppy in bag.

"What's the story with that fish?" I asked.

"Some lady brought it back. Said it kept having babies."

I peered at the slim guppy through the bag. "They do that. I've had several of them over the years. I even have a baby fish box from when I had that same issue. Never had much luck with the babies though. The other fish always managed to eat them."

"Take this." He handed me the bagged guppy along with the other fish. "It's free."

Happy with a free fish, my daughter and I made our way out into the frigid winter air, and introduced our new fish to their home.

I spent the next few days policing the tank, making sure everyone was behaving and, more importantly still alive. They all seemed to be doing fine. The pleco was doing its job. The gourami and the long-surviving tetra weren't picking on anyone, and the guppy and four long fin zebra danios were fun to watch while we ate. Ah, tank life was good.

Then, as is the way of fish, once the seven day replacement guarantee was up, they started dying. I swear they know when the seven days are up.

"No, Phil, you have to wait to die until tomorrow. Then she can't replace you. No one can replace you, Phil! Just hold on one more day. You can do it!"

One by one, they all died. Except for the guppy. And the tetra. With a whole two fish left and certain this was a sign that I should have just closed the stupid tank down and saved the ten bucks, I decided to still feed them, but otherwise let nature take its course.

Green algae ran rampant. Without me trimming them back, the live plants grew long enough to gather on top of the water and block most of the light from above. In that dark and murky tank, the guppy and the tetra made some sort of fish pact to never die.

Bleary eyed and not really caring anymore, I opened the tank one morning to feed them. What the hell was moving around in the plants? I turned on the aquarium light, not that it helped much. They were everywhere. Baby guppies.

Eyeballs and a tail. I counted about twenty of them. They were in the rocks at the bottom, in the plants at the top, and the silver specks of their tiny stomachs glinting in the murk in between.

Contrary to every other time I've had an explosion of guppies in my tank, the tetra and the mother guppy didn't view this development as a glorious feast. They went about their business of not dying and discerning if the thing in their mouth was poo or food as if nothing had changed.

According to my count, two weeks later, not a single baby guppy has perished. They're all thriving in the filthy tank that I can't clean for fear of sucking up half the babies.

This may be the last round of fish, or maybe it won't if the guppy and the tetra continue their pact. I may never know the silence that is the absence of the air pump. But for now, I'll enjoy peering through the overgrown plants and the green haze to watch the tiny guppies grow in the freedom of the whole tank, where as long as they avoid looking like poo, they'll be left alone to live.

Love and Interviews

Happy day of love, or return of The Walking Dead, depending on your outlook. I'm in favor of the zombies, myself. It's also a love thing. Evenings on the couch with one of our favorite shows is couple time.

While I'm busy writing today, because my characters need love too, stop on over to Madeline Dyer's blog where I talk about A Broken Race and other writerly things.  And when you're done there, slid over to Authors Answer were we all talk about writing romance. See, it is all about love today.

I hope you're a showered with roses, chocolates and special meals. Or zombies. Whatever makes you happy.

The Eye Report

It's been another productive couple weeks so time again for anther update on what my eyes have been up to.

I've finally settled on working title for Book 3 of The Narvan: Bound In Blue. That project has been zipping along and is now up to 55K. Only 35K more and then the editing fun begins. Really though, I like the editing stage. I'm looking forward to cleaning this up and making it presentable.

After attending my first meeting with the local writing group, I meet up with Lindsey Winsemius who was just getting ready to release her second novel, Patrician. Which meant I had to catch up on the first novel to appreciate the second one. I made it through Reaper in a day and half, because work. If you're looking for a dystopian fix with some sweet romance, check out her books.

In TV land, we discovered Dark Matter. Okay, so we didn't discover it, that would be bad, but we did find the show and watched the entire season. I love Netflix for enabling my binge tendencies. If you're still mourning the loss of Firefly, this sci-fi show about good bad...maybe bad...trying to be good...violently bad guys (and gals) in a spaceship may just fill the whole in your heart.

Last night we finished the season of Jessica Jones. I did enjoy this show, but there so were so many moments throughout the last few episodes where we both yelled at the television," just kill him already", that it made the end of the season feel more like a relief than resolution.

And now to enjoy some writing time while everyone else is preparing for sportball frenzy.

Insecure Writer's Support Group

So I begin insecurely, by remembering that I'm was supposed to write a post on the first Wednesday of the month...after 11pm when I was all tucked in bed. A day late, and I'm off to a great start, aren't I?

Since the release of A Broken Race, I've been trying to get involved with more writing groups for support. I've been a long time member of one that I'm comfortable with. However, stepping into several new groups at a time has been a little socially overwhelming for this writing cave dweller. I'm used to running a group, not being part of one. This whole being one of the gang thing is new, and I'm not sure how I feel about it yet.

Last night was my second meeting in person with a local group of writers. I've done an in person group for years during NaNoWriMo, but yeah, I've always been in charge. So to go and follow along with someone else's plan for the group, the discussion and all, has been interesting. I can't say that I get a whole lot written during our meetings but the networking part of it has been beneficial.

Part of that networking has been joining various Facebook groups. Again, I've had a writing Facebook group, but now I'm having to explore all the posting rules of all these others ones. It's so much to keep track of. With all this time spent on marketing and networking, how do people find time to write?

Drop by all the other ISWG posts here.

My Eyes Have Been Busy

After diving into making up my missing words and driving full force forward, my creative juices demanded a little recharge. Not to mention I spent most of the week working out of the office. So it's been a busy week for watching and reading.

We finished the Making a Murderer documentary. And let me just sum this up with: wow. If I tried to write a murder mystery this shoddily, I'd be raked over the coals in critiques, but somehow, this utter farce of a trial flies in real life. Whether the man is guilty or not, and I'm leaning toward not, he shouldn't have been convicted in that trial. And yes, I still fell asleep during every episode, yet managed to keep up with what was going on. Maybe the jury should have taken some naps during the trial.

We blew through the first season of Sense 8. I'd heard good things about this series from a couple friends and was not disappointed. A cluster of eight people all born at the same time who are awakened to each other's minds later in their lives. Hunted by paranoid plain humans who are led by don't-look-him-in-the-eyes-Whispers, they must learn to use each others assets to survive. Yes, there are plot holes and the rules of the whole sense sharing thing are quite sketchy, but the character stories are compelling and binge-watch-worthy.

American Horror Story Hotel wrapped up. After a shaky start wherein I almost didn't start at all for the fact that the cast included Lady Gaga, the plot rose above gore and things that go bump in the night to weave together interesting characters and even threw in a couple twists. The end of the season was my favorite as far as AHS endings go. Yes, everyone dies. They always do, no spoilers there. But I enjoyed how they're plotlines were all pulled together and folded up in a neat pile that would have made the laundress proud.

I read The Red Church by Scott Nicholson. It's been a long time since I've indulged my love for a good scary story. Now that life has calmed down to the point where I can concentrate on written words again, I figured it was high time. And this one was on top of one of my many TBR stacks. If you ever watched the Poltergeist movie and were weirded out by that creepy ass preacher? Yeah, that's the same feeling in this book. Not for the devout Christian, because there's a lot of religious stuff thrown about in these pages. While I enjoyed the interplay between the father and cult-stricken mother, the sheriff who finds love too late and a young boy who had the worst Sunday school teacher ever, the ending felt a little off. The big bad didn't follow through quite enough for my taste, but it was still an enjoyable read.

Yesterday, I stopped by my local bookstore while out picking up bagels, and two books called out to me. Yeah, I read one from my stack and add two more. There might be a problem there... But one was Sherrilyn Kenyon's Son of No One, and if you've been hanging out here, you know this is my book crack. So, uhh, I read that today. I may have gotten up early on a Sunday to read and finished the book by lunch. No, I do not have a paranormal romance reading problem.

And to wrap up the week of distractions, I started watching the Shannara Chronicles. I have not read the books, but my son assured me the series was good. Having reached episode three, I will honestly say I'm really only still there to watch Manu Bennet because: Spartacus. The main characters are probably exciting to younger people, but they're young and keep making stupid mistakes like young people do and they're the chosen ones, and well, that's all I have to say about that.

Not to say I've been neglecting my writing, Book 3 of The Narvan currently sits at 43K and I started reworking a short story for an themed anthology submission. Then to be even more productive, I finally made it to a meeting for the local writing group I joined nearly three months ago.  I can't say that the planets will align often as the timing of the meeting doesn't quite jive with my schedule but it was good to finally meet the gang in person.

Onward into another hopefully productive week!