This hits a little too close to home for me. I've been without a  soft drink of any sort for 21 days. Before that, I was drinking well over a 2-liter of Coke Zero or Pepsi Max every day. I was even working on a patent for this little nipple designed to fit over the bottle, so I could just lay on my back, tuck the 2-liter between my drawn knees, and nurse that sweet nectar all day.

I knew that soft-drinks might be hurting my bones, but I thought there were other tradeoffs. After consuming the stuff for so long, I was certain it'd make me immune to most diseases. I imagined an invading team of viruses communicating to each other once inside my body--

"It's no good! There's a layer of plastic encasing his vital organs. We can't penetrate it. We're buggin' out! Game over, man! Game over!"

The best thing about quitting soft drinks is I'm starting to get sensitivity in my tongue again. My taste buds, after years of being mowed down by a scythe of acid, are returning. I can tell the difference between steak and ice cream now. Amazing!

But I'll always want the taste, and I know it owns me. The other day I found myself going to the supermarket check-out line with two 2-liters in hand. I was shocked because I didn't even remember picking them up. I know I can't resist going down the soft drink aisle. All those colors! It's like strolling along a rainbow. I just want to go up and down the aisle striking the 2-liters with a Xylophone mallet and singing a song about life being beautiful.

And life is beautiful. But it's a little more boring when it's not carbonated.

Being a librarian, I pretty much have no choice but to notice the occasional trend in book publishing. Of particular note the last few years is the number of titles with the word "daughter" in them. In fact it seems like the title of every other book on the market uses the same boring construct: The [Insert Job Profession]’s Daughter. I'll review for those following at home:

• The Bonesetter’s Daughter (2001)
• The Abortionist’s Daughter (2006)
• The Apothecary’s Daughter (2008)
• The Memory Keeper’s Daughter (2005)
• The Coven’s Daughter (2011)
• The Headhunter’s Daughter (2011)
• The Heretic’s Daughter (2008)
• The Demon Trapper’s Daughter (2011)
• The Pope’s Daughter (2005)
• The Lightkeeper’s Daughter (2009)
• The Witch’s Daughter (2011)
• The Butterfly’s Daughter (2011)
• The Hangman’s Daughter (2010)
• The Paramour’s Daughter (2010)
• The Gerbil Farmer’s Daughter (seriously?) (2009)
• The Fecund’s Melancholy Daughter (no, I mean it—seriously?) (2011)
• The Tyrant's Daughter (2014)
  
• Worthy Brown's Daughter (2014)
  
• The Farmer's Daughter (2014)
  
• The Bloodletter's Daughter (2012)
  
• The Housemaid's Daughter (2013)
  
• The Kingmaker's Daughter (2013)
  
• Spiderwoman's Daughter (2013)
  
• The Scavenger's Daughter (2013)
  

Trust me, I could list another 800 titles. Daughters, daughters everywhere, all the titles did shriek!

The predominance of XX chromosomal offspring in book titles is really staggering. What about the XYs? Don’t fictional people have sons anymore? (To be fair, The Pope’s Daughter and The Gerbil Farmer’s Daughter are actually about real people, so they’re somewhat off the hook).
 
So what’s going on here? I want to blame Amy Tan for starting the trend, but maybe it was Loretta Lynn, the Coal Miner’s Daughter. I should have changed The Survivors to The Survivor's Daughter. I probably would have won the Lambda Literary Award instead of just being a finalist. But that's me--always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Or the daughter, for that matter.

Welcome to my website and blog. This isn't my first attempt at a blog--if you picked up a copy of my novel The Survivors, you'll note that the About the Author section directs people to a blog that, along with Facebook, constituted the entirety of my online presence. I really hated that blog, and I can't even remember its address now. More than that, I hated blogging itself and found my own posts to be deadly dull. Recently, however, I've had the experience of writing for my library's website, Books and Beyond (I won't provide a link, as I've inadvertently helped kill that blog--a long story), and found the experience much to my liking. So I've decided to give personal blogging another try.

Who am I? Well, I'm a writer and reference librarian living in Denver, CO. I'm originally from Kentucky. I have a Masters degree in literature from the University of Kentucky and a Masters degree in library science from the University of Illinois. I'm most proud of the library degree, because the diploma simply says Master of Science without any further specification. This lets me tell people I'm a chemist.

Overall, though, I'm a storyteller. Writing's been my obsession since I was about 13 years old and I've had a long, long apprenticeship before achieving even the smallest measure of success. Here's to persistence! 

You might be wondering about the illustration at the top of this blog. It's the artwork that was created at Waylines Magazine to accompany my story "The Seer." Darryl Knickrehm, the publisher and illustrator at Waylines did an incredible job with this piece, and since any blog should have a certain soothsaying quality to it, I figured what the hell. Perhaps the picture is a little too dark and twisted to headline a writer's blog, but at the same time I think it captures the spirit of the publishing process: a forlorn writer turning his back while well-armed slushpile readers blasts his manuscript into pieces!