Another fine, if less experienced and powerful, female voice is up-and-coming singer Lucy Thomas. Among her current projects is releasing material from the upcoming musical Rosie, in which she will star. Here's the latest.

Depends where I am going. I have done and enjoy both. If it is an English or Chinese speaking country, often on our own. For countries where neither of us speaks the lingo, guided is more common. But we mix that up. In France, we did Paris on our own but took a guided tour of the Loire Valley. Iceland was similar (Reykjavik on our own but a guided tour of the rest of the island). Those aren't hard and fast though. One of our best guided tours was of the UK where we most definitely speak the lingo (sort of, they talk funny over there 😉).

Love having kids around or keep them as far away as possible?

And good morning to y'all. Distinctly chilly here but the rain seems to be over for a couple days.

Coffee is a Costa Rican dark roast. We have English Breakfast and Sunday Tea in the teapots. Cold drink pitchers are refreshed and refilled with some of our fine unsweet iced tea and lemonade.

I have been a busy beaver today doing work on how I store and manage my stories. Probably doing it to avoid actually writing anything, but it was kind of needed. Separated my "Completed" folder by site, converted stories that were in Google Docs, text, and PDF format to Open Document (the preferred format for LibreOffice), moved my stories off of Google Drive to my local and set up a backup process. Oh, and created a LibreOffice template for poetry since my story template has issues with formatting poems.

That should be it for now, though I am trying out a couple different backup processes so might eventually zero in on one.

Quote by JustAnotherSapphic

Anyone know whether we're allowed to post nonsexual age regression stories here?

Everything is totally nonsexual and all parties are of adult age biologically.

I don't know why not. So you're thinking of something like Freaky Friday where an adult returns to being a child (so fantasy)? Or just adults behaving like children (so more humour or drama depending on the approach)? I think you would need to keep things age-appropriate but it sounds like you have thought of that. Maybe drop Molly a note or post about it in Forum/Site Guidelines?

Window. Like to look out and try to guess where I am.

Arena/festival concert or a smaller, more intimate event?

Moat - Goat

Oo, monster cookies. Mwahahahha.

takes a Dracula and a Frankenstein and starts pretending they are fighting until a much bigger monster, perhaps a giant gorilla, bites both their heads off😎

Well, we're still in the runup to Halloween, so how about some Deathwish Dark Roast as today's coffee? Teapots have Assam and Russian Caravan. Cold drinks are looking good.

Now between stories so looking at some of the drafts that I have lingering and figuring out whether to continue with one of them or get something new going.

And from about a year ago with Nightwish, her current band, and her friend Henk Poort.

Floor Jansen has announced officially that she is a mommy for the second time. In celebration, here she is in her younger days with After Forever, the band that launched her 25+ year music career.

An ape walks into a cafe. Looks around, sighs, and grabs the vacuum, mop, and cleaning cloths. After half an hour or so, the place is all spiffy.

Coffee is PC Gourmet Medium. Teas are Yorkshire Gold and Earl Grey. Pitchers of iced tea and lemonade are washed and refilled.

Yorkshire Gold is new to me, but seems to be a fairly popular blend. I swear that I read somewhere that the late Queen Elizabeth II drank it and I know that Canadian folk-pop-rock singer songwriter Rufus Wainwright had his dressing room stocked with it during recent gigs at Royal Albert Hall.

Cool. Sounds like a fun day.

There's PC West Coast Dark brewing for the coffee crowd. Teas are Canadian Breakfast and Russian Caravan. Cold beverages are refreshed.

Kicking around a couple ideas for my next story here. Not quite sure where either goes yet. Just weird ideas at this point.

Economy. Maybe if I drove highways more I would lean more to performance but I rack up mostly city km.

Gas or Electric (or split the difference and get a Hybrid)?

Quote by verbal
The Great Googley Eye of God

I am so using this as a title someday (if you don't beat me to it). Though "Great Googley Eye" would be a terrific band name, too.

Quote by Molly

I've actually written a story for it. I haven't posted a story since 2021! I should change that.

Oh yes, more Molly, please. You really had me going with that one. See my comment.

Quote by Molly
While you wait for the comp and considering it's Spooky Season, my favorite time of year(I need to read Mendalla's story), I wanted to remind everyone about one of the writing prompts.

I was interested in that prompt at the time it went up, but then got off on to other writing projects and it kind of slipped out of my head. I already have a new project in mind (we'll see if it goes anywhere) but I will start looking back at the old prompts and challenges again if it falls through.

And will put in the time to read yours. I've been very concerned about the degree to which stuff like micro, flash, and poetry has been dominating since the last comp so glad I am not the only one still posting longer works on here.

And since we have spooky cookies, I've made some of the suitably named Death Wish Coffee. There's two pots, one of their regular dark roast and one of their pumpkin spice. Teas are Canadian Breakfast and Pumpkin Spice Chai. And there's the usual cold beverages if you want/need one of those.

Later, alligators.

One of my goals with this story was to create something vaguely in the vein of a Cthulhu Mythos story but without some of the more annoying tropes. So you've got the dark multi-generational family secrets, a terrible something lurking at the edge of reality, and even a creepy book in a forgotten language. However, you don't have letter salad names, reams of adjectives, or an italicised over-dramatic closing line. All in all, I think I managed to get some of the atmosphere of a Lovecraftian tale without the bits that don't stand up well today.

Quote by Mendalla

New story is queued. It's my (sort of) annual shot at a horror piece for Halloween. I think I nailed it. Kind of a creepy family secret in a Lovecraftian way kind of thing.

And poof, just like that, it is up! Thanks to Gil!!

Down In the Well

A spooky tale with some Lovecraftian elements is my contribution for Halloween this year. It all begins with a return to a decaying family home.

Down In The Well

Curious to hear reactions to both story and to the cover image. It's one of the better ones I have generated using AI (I use a site called Nightcafe that offers access to multiple image generation algorithms).

Hose - Nose

Quote by verbal

I'm reading Larry McMurtry:A Life. Just got to the part where he is writing Terms of Endearment. Then I am going reread Lonesome Dove for the third time.

Funny, but I always forget Terms of Endearment was his. I always associate him with Westerns because of Lonesome Dove. Never read either, just know the media adaptations.

New story is queued. It's my (sort of) annual shot at a horror piece for Halloween. I think I nailed it. Kind of a creepy family secret in a Lovecraftian way kind of thing.

Good morning! Condolences to ball fans whose teams did not make it and cheers to those who did. I barely notice the sport anymore.

Coffee is a Costa Rican medium from Fire-Roasted. Teas are English Breakfast and Lemon. Pitchers are washed and fresh iced tea and lemonade mixed up. Soda inventoried and stocked, as are the various add-ins and condiments.

Even gave the place a nice cleaning.

That's my Halloween horror story swooping into the queue (soon, doing one more read through).

Uh oh. Braves eliminated? Or just lost a crucial game?

Putting on some PC Gourmet Medium in the coffee pot. Teas are Scottish Breakfast and Black Currant. Cold bevvies are refreshed.

Later, alligators.

Unsweet. Better to be able to add sweetner to taste. The iced teas up here all tend to be sweetened to the point of being tea-flavoured pop so one of my favourite things about travelling in the US, esp. the South, is getting unsweet iced tea.

Podcasts or music in the car?

Quote by gillianleeza
curried butternut squash soup

Excuse the puddle of drool on the floor. Butternut squash soup is stunningly yummy to start with, but add curry? Never had it, but I anticipate a good time if I ever do. Our favourite local buffet had butternut squash soup on their soup table for their combined Moon Festival/Thanksgiving menu.

Yawn. Sorry I'm late but it seems quiet here anyhow. PC West Coast Dark is in the coffee pot. Teas are Assam and Irish Breakfast. Pitchers are washed and refilled.

Later, alligators.

Going back a bit further in Post's long career (he won his first Grammy at the age of 23 for doing the instrumental arrangements for Mason Williams' famed "Classical Gas").

Apparently he was so busy scoring TV shows during the peak of his career, Post actually employed a staff of other composers who did a lot of the actual writing for specific scenes and episodes.