Day Three... of the Twelve Days of Hard Wood, Soft Heart

Day Three has arrived on the coattails of a beautiful dawn.

On gorgeous days like this, my muse soars. I spend the hours trying to catch up with her, trying to capture the world she sees into words born on nervous fingers…

In other words, I’m a bit shaky today. It happens… It happens a lot when I have family coming.

One of the weirdest things about my brain and all its crossed wires is that excitement equals panic. The same buttons are pushed in my mind. It’s a lot like if every time on a bitterly cold winter’s day that you turn on the furnace or stoke the fire, all the fire alarms begin to blare and scream at you. All the sprinklers erupt, sending their cold, cold water onto your head, stunning you. No matter how many times it happens, no matter how many times you know it’s going to happen, there is just nothing to shield you from the icy water and the screeches of panic…

Ok, apparently my muse has decided to fly into a hornet’s nest today. Pardon me if I choose not to follow her this time around.

Instead, let me give you the Hard Wood, Soft Heart tease of the day. I hope you enjoy this little morsel and will come back again for another taste….


Chapter Two: Ghost Runners

“Born in St. Louis on a wickedly hot July day, from the very beginning Mercer’s life had been about avoiding the things a man can’t change. Like the blazing hot weather that seemed to follow him around every summer of his childhood, he came to mutely accept the fact that his father only came to visit on the weekends and that his mother rarely smiled at anyone but her little boy…” (page 29)


Today, I offer all my wonderful guests cotton candy and lemonade. Please grab a kite on your way out and soar with your own muse through the endless skies.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe Stowe
Chloe Stowe