NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)
Once upon a time there was a girl who loved to tell stories. She liked to lie in bed at night and imagine worlds full of space heroes and other fools...planets full of interesting flowers...and ordinary people who did extraordinary things.
She wrote her first novel in 1980 while a sophomore at Wheaton College. But after that, she was distracted by marriage and other things. She didn't write another novel until...
...she found a copy of Chris Baty's book in a Denver bookstore. Desperate to write fiction, she began her first 30-day quest, even though everyone else was out enjoying the summer, and even though it was three months until National Novel Writing Month.
She has never looked back.
Outling
Seventeen-year-old Jesse is an accomplished student and martial artist about to test for her black belt in Aikido. But as her test approaches, Jesse finds herself hiding a terrible secret–she is slowly losing her eyesight. And although the doctors don't know the cause of her vision loss, Jesse is convinced that it has something to do with her aunt's mysterious harp and the awful dreams that always accompany her playing of that instrument.
Only one person, Todd Nulenberg, guesses Jesse's secret. And Todd himself finds that he's haunted by a fiddle and dreams of a strange world haunted by mysterious Gates. On the day that Jesse finally loses the last scrap of her vision, Todd comes to be with her. As they examine the harp and the strange clothes Jesse's aunt have brought her, they are pulled abruptly out of the living room into a strange new world...
Author Anne Prather envisions a world in which blindness is so essential that everybody takes it into account, much as the people of Martha's Vineyard all spoke sign language when 1/3 of the residents were deaf.
Variety Is The Spice Of Death
Synopsis: Fifteen years' work as a professor of genetics at the University of Washington have earned recently widowed AceLynn O'Donnell a much-anticipated sabbatical. Defying the usual occupation of academic research, AceLynn manages to find a dream job as an entertainer on a luxury cruise ship. As the ship prepares to move from Seattle to Florida, AceLynn is joined by her good friend (and almost lover) Kelli Brooks. As the cruise progresses, AceLynn and Kelli find themselves the brunt of cruise director Luscious Linda's crass joke. But soon the two women have much more on their mind than the whims of an insane boss. People are dying of mysterious causes. A mysterious strain of Norovirus is stalking the halls of the ship. And through their network of ham operator friends, AceLynn and Kelli learn that a mysterious serial murderer is following their ship–and may even be on board.
As the body count mounts, AceLynn and Kelli make a discovery that ramps their investigation up a notch; someone is gathering DNA samples from soiled dining room napkins. Soon AceLynn and Kelli find themselves being stalked by a mysterious terrorist organization whose goal is nothing short of world destruction...
