I've never done it before, and I'm excited. True to form, I'm starting late and am therefore already behind. At 1,666 words per day, I should be at 11,662 tonight, and I'm just under 3,000 at the moment. Still, I feel hopeful. I love the idea of getting past the self-editor by appealing to my equally powerful competitive spirit, which insists that I'm going to write 50,000 words by November 30th, even if its pure drivel.

Here's the first little bit, just to whet your appetite. Look for it in your local Borders in about three years. ; )

*****
Prologue

When she closes her eyes, she can feel his lips on hers once again, soft and warm like fruit left too long in the sun, and yet firm beneath, strengthened with the desire to not let her hold anything back from him. It’s as if the ghost of his kiss hovers centimeters from her face at any given moment, just waiting for her to forget the business at hand and come into her awareness. Sometimes this lingering presence is annoying; other times it’s a great comfort, and she can forget that he is gone.

That he has left her.

Then she opens her eyes and she knows it is only the wind on her face. That’s when she packs up and heads out, not admitting to herself that she’s following the dance of air across the sands in search of her hearts desire, as if trying to find the end of a rainbow (he had once told her a story about stepping into the center of a rainbow as a child, and that his father had, as well).

This was their dance, his memory and her wandering, his absence and her desire, his trail and her footsteps. It is the dance of Inanna and Tamuzi, of Adonis and Aphrodite. It is a dance that all people of the desert know well.