Today's Friday creature is the Huma (or Homa) bird. And this is another of those times I'm just going to give you the Wikipedia article, because I'm not going to put either of us through full detail. 

If you just want the fly over (haha, see what I did there?) the Huma bird is a Sufi or Persian legend/tale/mythological bird that contains both male and female bits (apparently one leg and one wing of each gender, which is confusing because in some legends it has no legs) and even it's shadow is considered lucky. It flies high above the earth and occasionally swoops down to pick a king or two (again, depending on who you ask) and then goes back up to the clouds. 

Well, at least it's considerate enough to have lucky feathers, instead of the traditional way I was taught birds give us luck...

I was way over-thinking today's post, because that's a thing I do (you're all shocked, right?) when it occurred to me the entire point of this thing was for me to not have to devote so much of the time I don't have (at this precise moment I'm behind deadline on two completely separate projects and that's not even counting the responsibilities I've got for the publishing house.)

So. We're going to aim for simple, and this one's going to hang for two weeks because the prompt is simple but I have an eerie feeling filling it won't be, and I'd like to give you all time to come up with something. 

Write me a story inspired by your favorite song.

Wait, before you run off, there are rules this time. 
1) It has to be between 1000 and 5000 words.
2) Please make sure you give us the title of the song and who your favorite version is sung by.
3) There are no other rules, I just felt like writing a three.

I'll answer this one too, but probably not 'til next week. 

Are we ready for another creepy critter? Today's is a doozie. 

Before we get there, I'd just like to remind you all I'll be at DC Big Flea this weekend, hawking my wares. And then we've still got Book Lover's Bazaar coming in the early part of October. If you'd like to sign up to hawk your wares, or you'd just like to come, you can find all the information for that here.

In its most prevalent incarnation, a Cambion is the offspring of a human and an incubus or a succubus. 

There are mechanics to that, but I'll leave those to the Wikipedia page.

If you didn't click on the Wikipedia link you missed some fun. Like, you know, when an incubus and a succubus get it on, or either of them and an unsuspecting human (or either of them and one wearing an unsuspecting human) create these "children" they lack a pulse until they're seven. And they cry when you touch them. 

They cry when you touch them.


Yeppers. Fun.

I thought about looking for a picture, but that seemed like more nightmares than I needed. Or you needed. 

New Topic Time! 

So, for a while anyway, on Wednesdays I'm going to post a short prompt, something zany and somewhat ridiculous because there needs to be more laughter in the world. 

For today's prompt I'm going to tell you a little story first (if you see me irl a lot you've probably heard this one already). My parents love to watch British mysteries, and we do a lot of that when I visit them because the weather in Kansas is pretty rarely "porch weather" and it's something I enjoy too. Anyway, on my last trip we watched this show Vera that really really needs to get on Netflix because I need my fix. And in one of the episodes we watched had a suspect who was super jumpy and uncomfortable and the detectives got all excited that they were going to have an early suspect, and then he cracked.

"The planning council said he couldn't build his yurt, but I couldn't tell him."
"I'm sorry, what?"
"His yurt. It was illegal. I couldn't tell him though, so I let him put it up anyway."

And then I looked at my father, and I said "Please. Please, let this be the show that has the balls to kill someone over an illegal yurt."

It wasn't, but that's your prompt for today. Write me the most ridiculous murder confession you can manage.

Example:
"I did it. I confess. I'm sorry officer, but he stepped in my begonias again today. Last week it was the roses! How am I ever supposed to win the village garden competition if that man keeps killing my plants!"
"Ma'am, we don't have a village garden competition."
"But we might, someday."

First post on a new topic, are you excited? 

Cool. I'll get to the crazy archaic thing here in a minute, first we have to talk a little about fact. Or the lack of it. 

Or more appropriately why it doesn't matter?

In the course of this series of posts we're going to hit topics once in a while that'll seem familiar if you read my Guardian's Circle books. But there'll be key differences. Probably some pretty glaring ones. Because there should be. The mystical, mythical creatures they deal with in Lost and Found (and later in the series) are real things for their universe, and I promise you if we found out vampires or whatever actually existed we'd be more than a little wrong about them. 

So in a fictional universe I've looked at these creatures or stories and I've...twisted them. Just slightly. I've imagined them as real beings with a real motivation for making sure the cattle didn't realize certain things. 

But these posts aren't happening in a fictional universe. You get just the dry facts. Or as dry as I can be about grass that kills you.

Because a dark, unkempt Irish forest needed more things to make it scary, right?

féar gortach is basically a patch of grass that causes one to develop insatiable hunger. In some accounts it grows near an improperly buried corpse, in others it's much like a hungry ghost, that comes from a person who dies of extreme famine. 


Yeah, a strangely popular concept in Ireland in the 1840's. 

In the nicer stories it just makes you really hungry and if you carry some beer and some bread or crackers to nibble along the way you'll be fine. 

It can also be called fairy grass, because it's Irish and I challenge you to find more or less anything in their mythos that doesn't involve the fae somehow. Or doesn't involve the fae now, in any case. It's a little difficult to tell if those things might have had different stories attached to them before the whole Golden Ages of Spiritualism stuff. 

In any case, next time you're out in the woods and you see an odd patch of grass you can remember me fondly. You're welcome. 

Side Note: I didn't realize until I went to press the schedule button that this post will go live on September 11th. That fact wouldn't have made any difference in what I'm posting because I have opinions I keep to myself about the way we remember dates for more than a decade after they've happened. But that's me, and not you, and if this is a day where you're a little softer than normal... Well, just know I wish you all the peace and kindness you need. 

I'm supposed to be writing right now, but my wrist has officially decided it's break time. Yippie.

So, since I'm taking a break from long-form, full-fledged writing, I might as well hack out a couple of blog posts, right?

I've been thinking a lot about what to do with this space in the last couple of weeks. The fact is, much as I enjoy doing Well-Written Wednesday and Sci-Fi Friday, I'm officially out of posts. Well, I'm out of posts for now anyway. I mean I could do a few dozen more posts about dinosaurs and JK Rowling, but I'm not sure anyone wants to read them. 

So what do I do here instead? I was going to take an audience poll, but I've had mixed luck with those in the past. I figure it probably works better if I just come up with something. I'm a creative person, it'll be fine. 

Famous last words, right?

ANYWAY, all of that was so I could tell you this: Tune in on Friday for the first post in a new series, Fantastic Friday where I will extol you with my knowledge on some random fantasy or mythical creature that may or may not show up in the Guardian Circle series.  Then come back on Monday for miscellaneous current events (I promise they won't all be politics) and on Wednesday for Wacky Wednesday Writing Prompts! Because you all want to do something interactive right? There's not enough ridiculousness in the world, and I aim to fix that.

Anyway, that's the plan. We're all ready to start something new, right?

See you Friday!