Lazette Gifford's Website

On the day Lazette was born The Muses wept, mostly because they knew that one of them would have no rest for a long time. The Graces, always anxious to be certain their poor cousins had enough to do, dropped off the notice themselves. When The Muses saw the snippets of the future, they quailed at the work ahead. The Graces smirked, and quickly left before they were coerced into a new little project like that one that had somehow mutated into the Renaissance.

The most difficult decision remaining to The Muses turned out to be which of them would take up the challenge of the little insomniac with far too much imagination.

When they turned to Aoede, she pointed out that a new age of music had barely begun, and she already had her hands full preparing Elvis and Ringo. Erato, Euterpe, and Terpsichore -- who had all been rather disdainful of Rock and Roll until now -- suddenly found a true and abiding interest in it, and threw themselves into the work with Aoede before someone suggested that one of them take the problem child.

They thought Calliope, being the oldest might stand a chance, but she (rather too quickly, the others thought) pointed out that the age of Epic Poetry was in abeyance, and it would hardly be fair to start a baby along that path. They almost argued... but Calliope always had the last word. Epic poets were like that.

Clio waved them away and went back to the proliferation of post-war historians, and the others decided maybe she had more than enough already. Melete and Mneme took their cues from Earato, Euepre and Terpischore and decided that history needed all the help it could get.

And that left Melpomene, who began to wail as soon as they turned to her -- but then she, being the muse of Tragedy, tended to do that quite often anyway. When the others pressed her anyway, she began to panic until she spotted her sister, Polymnia, busy with quill and paper, and so immersed in her work that she never even noticed the ruckus around her. Melphomene rushed to her side and put a hand on Polymnia's shoulder.

"What now?" Polymnia demanded, looking at Mel with utter exasperation. "I'm in the middle of a scene! Why is it I can't get two pages written without some interruption? For the love of the Gods, don't you eight have anything better to do than bother me?"

"We have a problem," Calliope said, barely able to hide a malicious grin. She'd been waiting for the moment to get even ever since prose replaced poetry as the favored form, and now she knew she had her chance. "We've been handed a child who needs a muse. We're all so busy, Poly. Maybe you...?"

"Yes, yes, fine. Just put the name in with the others."

And she went back to writing, and sealed the baby's fate, as well as those of several poor, unsuspecting keyboards...

***

Okay, a little more seriously (but not much!) --

I am an obsessive writer who usually can't think of anything she'd rather do than spend time creating stories. My work has appeared in a number of ezines, and I've sold several novels to ebook publishers as well. I was once mentioned in Writer's Digest Magazine as an advocate for electronic publishing, and I've done my best to live up to that title.

Links to my latest publications can always be found at http://lazette.net along with a sampler of my work and links to my other obsession, photography.

Among my other on-line projects is the Estand website (http://www.sff.net/estand) where Ebook and Ezine publishers can list their works according to type and genre. I am also assistant site host for Holly Lisle's Forward Motion, a web site for writers at all levels of their careers. (http://hollylisle.com).

I am also the managing editor for the site's ezine, Holly Lisle's Vision: A Resource for Writers (http://lazette.net/vision). This publication offers advice and insight from writers in a number of different genres, and on numerous writing-related subjects.

If you have any questions or comments, you can reach me at zette@sff.net