Heads up, buttercups! Camp NaNoWriMo is off and running. You can keep up with my progress by stalking me at the camp site or through my social media profiles (mostly twitter, though, 'cause Mollie be selectively lazy lately).

I decided to take the next 30 days to revamp, tweak and fine tune Crossing the Veil before releasing it upon my innocent, fluffy bunny email subscribers. You're welcome.

{Shout out to my husband for slapping together a nifty cover mock up! Check it out on my camper profile page!}

If you're participating in Camp NaNoWriMo, give me a shout out on twitter or my facebook page. Let's be cabin buddies or roast some virtual marshmallows together.

I believe the children are our future ...
Sorry, couldn't help myself.

For today’s prompt, tell us three things that you believe in your heart to be true. Tell us three things you believe in your heart to be false.



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I believe in soulmates, and the might of trusting intuition when you just know.

I believe in speaking for those who have lost their right to speak. Sharing our stories has an inherent boldness to it which ignites change, empathy and action.

I believe anyone can turn their life around in the span of two years with a good education.

I don't believe that people change. Who you are at your core is who you are. No amount of education, travel or life experience will fix it, though it will give the worst of us better window dressing.

I don't believe in the innate goodness of every human being. People are awful - some of them actually pride themselves on it! - that's just a fact of life. Work around it.

I don't believe that fear, shame, ridicule or lies are something that should be carried forward in life. They don't deserve the authority and power people give them.

When I was very small, I was obsessed with the library at a local community college. The librarians kindly turned a blind eye to this awkward, bespectacled kid holing up in the children's corner. Before the first semester was over, I had read every single children's title those shelves held.  What to do next? No one expressly prohibited me from venturing further, so I shook off my fears of basements and microfiche storage rooms ... and began exploring.

The first week, I spent reading every title from the aisle labeled 800's: Literature & Rhetoric. When my parents came to collect me, I would produce an armful of plastic covered treasures to borrow until the following week. The head librarian would chuckle at my choices until she figured out my system. Up the left side of the aisle, down the right, memorizing my spot by the Dewey decimal system.

I became so skilled at remembering where things should be based on numbers and letters that I began volunteering to return carts of books around the first floor. Working up a sweat just to push that heavy laden cart was a perverse thrill to me. I would imagine the authors chatting amongst themselves about the scrawny child with too-big glasses and a Joan Jett haircut, determined to soak in every word - especially the ones she didn't quite comprehend.

The world outside the library was distorted. Growing up in the ghetto, you're not encouraged to dream big or make lofty goals. When you do, adults were at the ready to smack you back down to your proper place: reality. Little girls who like books more than people, and knowledge more than the acquisition of things are not well-liked in the ghetto. My father was too busy working to help me. My sister was too young to fight alongside me. My mother simply did not understand me (as was the case with most adults I interacted with).

The library was my sacred place, my sanctuary.  Nothing could hurt me in my sacred place. Nothing bad or uncomfortable could ever happen within the walls of my sanctuary. I was the closest thing to me in that space. I was the closest thing to free.

When I was little, probably around 5 or so, my grandparents would drive down from the High Desert to visit their kin in San Bernardino County. If I was good, and very lucky, my parents would let me go back up to the desert with them. Our travel routine didn't change my entire childhood: Grandpa would sit in the front, acting our chauffeur, while Mimi and I would snuggle in the backseat amongst pillows and handmade crochet throws. Our hands would be sandwiched together; one old, soft hand on top of a much younger one.

It was a magical time, as most pleasant childhood memories tend to be. Grandpa's Cadillac was bright turquoise, shiny and wide like a small marine craft. His hardworking man hands would coil around the steering wheel, then loosen up after a few dozen miles had passed. That was when he'd start tapping and drumming along to our singing.

We'd pass by the Morongo reservation and the dinosaur park that was home to a T-Rex with a greasy spoon inside. The old Caddy would ease past the Almond Roca store - all pink and brown and full of deliciousness - before following the curve in the highway away from Palm Springs and towards Yucca Valley. I knew we were close when we zig zagged through the dark brown hills, just before the roadside fruit stand. Mimi would holler, "Oh Papaw, don't forget the scrawberries!", because intentionally mispronouncing things was fun. And Grandpa would pull right up to the entrance of that old fruit stand, so close I could smell the dirt and melon rind.

I'd look up at Mimi, so impossibly tall and glamorous in her maxi skirts and wide brim hats. She'd wink and speak in a sing-song voice to me about the scrawberries. And the wad-er-melons. With each fruit came a different name that made me light up with giggles, and I'd watch her old hands load the fruits into my basket. If we took too long, Grandpa would duck in to scratch his head and say something like, "Man alive!" or "Woman!". It never made any sense to me, but it would sure speed up the process.