I want to take a few moments to say thank you to the authors (in no special order) who participated in the production of One Dozen Roses. First and foremost, I’d like to thank Melanie E. (AKA Rasufelle) for recruiting us into this fun and challenging project. One Dozen Roses was her brain child.

I also want to acknowledge Rose Howell. We burned up tons of broadband and storage space here on BCTS in two successive PMs and it soon became apparent that it would be ungainly to try to post our drafts of our stories in the PM. She came forward volunteering her Google Docs page for us to post our stories so that the rest of us could read, comment and help direct the work in progress. Thanks Rose.

Then next on my list is Nuuan. Nuuan, as you know if you read my last blog, wrote “The Yellow Rose of Texas”. I had thought since the work was on a rose theme that each story should have a unique rose associated with it to be displayed with the title. So we were all choosing roses to represent our story and Nuuan made an idle comment; “I can see the title of the story with the yellow rose picture centered on the page and the title in large fancy script, "Of Texas," underneath” and inspired the graphics for each story. Nuuan’s was the first created.

>

And of course I can’t forget Cheryl Bishop. As we discussed the need for a device to transition between stories. She took on the project. I won’t be giving any spoilers here, but suffice to say that after writing two of the stories she took on the project which was probably more time consuming than writing a story. So when you read One Dozen Roses and want to comment, you’ll see a link to send a comment to Cheryl at the end of her two stories. If you like the transition device let her know.

Then there’s Andrea Lena (AKA Drea Dimaggio) who was stalwart from the beginning. She cranked out two stories, which departed from her usual writing style showing the breadth of her talent, all the while maintaining her presence on the BCTS front page and offered many an encouraging word

Last but not least is Ayleasea. She wrote her first story pretty early on but was still in the final stages of editing it when I noted that we were one story short. As I ruminated on it my muse gave me a title and a profile for the character. So I posted it

OK, it looks like we still need the twelfth story. I've got a title that would fit and can provide a bio on the Rose in question, but my muse is not providing a storyline for it. It's just as well, I've already done two stories for this collection and I don't want to dominate the work. So, if anyone wants to pick up on this, feel free to claim it and run with it.

Title: Wild Irish Rose.

This Rose has all the earmarks of a poor little rich girl. She has bright red hair, is dressed in short mini skirt and crop top with a peasant neck line. Her ID claims her 21st birthday was last month, but her attitude and looks makes it seem like she's 19 at most. (Backstory) He grandparents made it big in the dot com world in the early 70s, her parents are corporate upper management with large stock holdings in several high tech companies. Rose has felt she was in the wrong body since she was quite young. Being raised a spoiled rich kid, she threw a hissy-fit at 13 and got put on androgen blockers. At 15 she bribed some one in the county and had her birth certificate altered to say she was 18 began taking estrogen. As a result, she's sporting a C cup bust line on a frame that would make a B cup look large. She's about 5' 5" and weighs about a buck 30 or 40. She'll be going for bottom surgery later this year. She has an attitude. In her mind, anyone who's not on track for surgery is a pretender.

There it is. If it speaks to you, go for it and have fun with it.

Ayleasea responded with “I’m tempted” and she did take up the task of writing the story. She produce a powerful piece that would do anyone proud.
Thanks Ayleasea for stepping up to the plate and filling out One Dozen Roses.

It’s been great getting to know this group of fine authors.