3 July 2002

The promotion isn't new - we'd heard about it months ago - but this is the first time we've seen it in our usual grocery store. Heinz is releasing ketchup bottles that don't bother to say "Tomato Ketchup". Everyone knows what ketchup is. You look at the bottle, and even without registering the brand - certainly without reading the label, you know that's ketchup.

So these bottles say something cute instead. "Meatloaf's Only Hope," and "Quiet, Please. Tomatoes Meeting Inside." Matt and I have been looking for them for a while, and last week, we finally found them. "Prefers Your Shelf To This One" was cute in the store, but wouldn't make sense at home. "Good On Taste Buds" was a little boring. So we wound up with two bottles...

I happened to be looking through my Meadehall stories last night, and I came to the sudden and rather startling realization that a story I thought had been posted months ago - Kevil and Darin's first meeting, and the story where Missa was first introduced - was still languishing on my hard drive.

I'd thought for certain it had been posted! It made me wonder what else I had lurking on my hard drive. So I went through the various folders, and I deleted duplicate copies of things, and I wound up posting four stories last night. Hunger Of The Heart, which is the story I just mentioned, is not quite finished, which I suppose is why it wasn't posted before. There's not much more to say, but it cuts off a little abruptly.

Holiday is either an epilogue to Not Alone, or an unfinished story in its own right. I like to think I'll go back and expand it eventually.

The Silver And The Green, which was an experiment in my writing from the first person, from Kevil's point of view, is very unfinished - it cuts off just as things are getting interesting, and I swear I'll get back to it someday soon. Part of the problem is that I keep waffling on exactly how soon after Holiday it takes place.

And much more recently, as Hall events go, Dancing With Memory, which takes place after Kevil and Loria are engaged, but before they've settled on their compromise between their cultures. Should I mention that Kevil has an extremely vivid imagination?

And if that wasn't enough, there are new sample pictures up for Gaena, though I didn't go through and clean these up, adding place-names and such, yet. And the main map is a little on the cluttered side because I forgot to hide the cities and roads before I did the capture.

But there are now color-shadings to indicate jungle (dark green) and temperate forest (bright green, though that part's not done yet) and all the mountains have their foothills. Some of the major roads have been added - mostly in Andahlheim, where KT already told me where she wanted them, and the trade road from Alanis to Zhakistahn. Slowly but surely, it's coming together.

--Liz