BookCrossing Readathon - Sadly, if you don't have (or create) an account I don't think you will be able to open the link. So here is the information. I hope they do it again next year. I only read about it today, too late to participate.

Get ready for an epic reading experience! On April 20th, 2025, BookCrossers across the globe will come together for a 24-hour Readathon, and we want YOU to be a part of it!

From 12:00am to 11:59pm Pacific Time (PDT), there will be BookCrossers reading everywhere—whether it’s morning in Tokyo, afternoon in Paris, or evening in New York. Wherever you are, there will always be someone diving into a great book!

My cousin lives in BC, along the coast. She sent photos of a young bear which appeared near her home. I'm glad she had the common sense not to approach and/or feed the bear.

Years ago we had a wild deer at the house, along the street. It tried to jump through the big window at the front of our house. I don't know how it didn't break, I was very glad it did not. At the end of our street, in the suburbs of Barrie, are farms. We get more wild animals coming from that way. Not many get far before turning back. Likely it happens more often now as they get less and less space. But, it is nice to see them, real and alive now and then. To remember they are there.

What was the last wild animal, of a larger size like a deer or bear, which has wandered into your area?

I like stories about about something that is deadly to everyone who handles it. Is there a special genre for this type of fiction? It seems there should be. In horror, in general with the paranormal, macabre, misfortune and tragedy associated with something beautiful, precious, luxurious, expensive and for some reason sinister, ominous, or foreboding (another good word).

Recently I read, The Mystery of the Five Hundred Diamonds, by Robert Barr. Its an old story, written over 100 years ago. In France, a diamond necklace is found forgotten in an attic of an old chalet. The man who finds it was working on repairs to the house. He attempts to sneak out over the roof with the necklace. He falls to his death. In this story there are further deaths in the backstory and the ongoing story after it is found.

It would be fun to write a story like that. Coming up with scenarios for a cursed necklace (or something else).

... created by a jeweller who dies in a fire, inherited by his son who is lost in the Amazon jungle, never found. Given to the sister in the family who is murdered by her fiance a week before their wedding. The caterer takes the necklace from her corpse and is hit by a streetcar dying in the hospital two days later. The family are all deceased so the necklace is sold at an auction. The auctioneer who sells the necklace dies after mistakenly eating a poisonous mushroom. A rich businessman buys it for his mistress. He goes bankrupt and disappears before he gives it to her. His wife, trying to handle all that debt and creditors goes crazy and is locked in an asylum the rest of her life. Then there is a time of rest. The diamonds are forgotten in a secret vault, in the mansion of the businessman. The wife didn't know about them and the mistress wasn't given them. Of course, decades later, the house is being demolished by a builder who hopes to find old blueprints for the house, or something valuable in the vault at the house. He does... unfortunately.

You know that can just go on forever. Diamonds, in particular, are not easily destroyed. Plus, human greed alone will keep them from disappearing for long. Of course, I've read this type of story with assorted items: a doll, a car, but jewellry seems to be the most popular. Its not heavy, or bulky, doesn't really need maintenance, and it only becomes more valuable over time.

The thing is, is it cursed or is all this just happening around it? Does greed cause all this misfortune? The necklace is just blameless while horrible things happen to people around it? That's the mystery.

Write your own story about a cursed(?) item.

Writing prompt site: Six Minute Story

Writing a story in six minutes, with a ticking timer and a surprise prompt, is an adrenaline rush.

It will invigorate your mind for the entire day, helping you create more (and more and more) original art.

Which is, as Kurt Vonnegut said, "a way to make your soul grow."

We use a few kinds of prompts to cure writer's block.

Images, start lines, and something of our own concoction: a Hero, a Villain, and a Goal. Use these to jumpstart your imagination, and feel free to follow the inspiration wherever you want.

To be fair to my Mother, no one in my family reads anything I write. So, this shouldn't just be about her. I've sent stories to family and get no feedback, or no acknowledgement really. I think this must happen to writers a lot. But, it doesn't make it feel any better.

Mom has found the Facebook account of Corey, the man who stole from us, continued to trespass here, being an unwanted person as the police called it, and set fires around our house. Corey who returned to steal even more months later, after he was out of jail for breaking a peace bond with the police. Corey who caused over $600 in damages to the garage he lit on fire next to the home we live in. Corey who I stayed up all night in case he came back to set more fires. What a pillar of the community, that Corey.

Corey is a brilliant writer. Mom is enjoying reading his posts on Facebook. Photos he has had taken lately while he recovers in hospital from being hit by a car or something... I don't care enough to have paid attention. Corey, the man who I have phoned the police to remove from our property at least three times. Etc, etc etc.

Mom has been asking me to read brilliant Corey's posts. Over and over this morning since she found them. She went looking for them, and found them, and read them.

She hasn't read mine. Not here. She says the link doesn't work. Not the newsletter which I emailed to her, the full contents of the newsletter in the email. She said it looked good. She didn't read it. None of the sites I have written for online since about 1998 when I began writing for other networks/ sites online. Not stories, poems, fiction or non-fiction which I wrote any time in my life - none that I can remember. Did she ever read something and just not mention it, or have I forgotten an event when she did read something... possibly. It would be nice to think so.

I got some kind of emotional listening to her go on about how I must read Corey's posts. How much I would like them, how Corey writes about so many interesting things.... On and on and on.... I don't know what the emotions I felt were. The longer she went on the more emotion I felt. But, I kept it to myself. When I didn't want to listen any more I did say something about how she doesn't read anything of mine. I left then. No point in saying more. Not worth it. She went outside to her garden and I'm here.

She made an effort to read Corey's posts. She had to find him on another Facebook account, the young man downstairs had/ has him as a friend. She spent time scrolling through Corey's feed, at least an hour I would guess. It takes time to read.

I think she wanted to know that Corey is ok after being hit by a car, or whatever it was. Corey is after all, quite a guy! Mom still talks about him. Months after he did all he has done, and is likely to continue doing. Why not? Police... oh what's the point of writing about all of that again.

I'm not going to send her any more links to anything I write. Am I bitter? Possibly, maybe disappointed but not surprised. Not really surprised at all. I'm sad, I'm letting myself feel that much. Mostly I'm blocking everything I feel out. What does it matter? What is the point of having emotions or caring? Who cares, not even me in the end.