Hi, all. I didn’t imagine that 14 months would pass before I posted another chapter of my book-length story, Balthasar’s Extract. Blame it on a serious case of writer’s block aggravated by real life — the usual excuse. It seemed to me important that the story come to a full, complete and convincing close.

I leave it to you, dear readers, to decide whether I’ve succeeded or not. Jan S, my muse and most faithful proofreader, has already chastised me for not carrying Evi Westcott’s story onward to about 1940, but that’s just her opinion.

I figure that an important point of writing is to keep exploring new terrain. That’s a particular challenge in our genre, where all the obvious themes have been hackneyed to death, sometimes brilliantly, even science fiction and fantasy.

A couple of years ago, I began to imagine an alternative and very possible pre-history for TG/TS. Balthasar’s Extract is the result.

It’s a story about transgendered people in the first years of the 20th century, a mere 100 years ago, the period when Science was just beginning to sort out the mysteries of the endocrine system. It’s organized around the life journey of Evi Westcott, born Edward Tucker, an admirable figment of my own imagination, who one way or another seems to bump up against many of the most important people in our early TG/TS history.

Part VII is the penultimate chapter, and it has a happy, hopeful ending. I’ve just posted it. I’ll also post a handy reference to the several hundred people, real and fictitious, both ordinary-gendered and more complex, that people Evi Westcott’s diary, sort of like War and Peace.

Part VIII is also finished. I’ll post it before the week is out, and that will be the end of Evi’s story. So, if you are, like me, a girl who refuses to start a BCTS story until she knows it will indeed end, you can start reading now beginning at Part I. (That includes you, Angela!)

Each part is about 20,000 words. You’ll probably want to download them rather than slog through the story on-line. With Part VIII, Balthasar’s Extract is complete.

Seriously folks — I wrote Evi’s story first of all for my own amusement, but I hope you like it too. In fact, like any author, I hope very much that you'll like it! I adore praise. If you do find the story worth a comment, by all means do so, or send me a PM, or drop me a note at [email protected]. Hugs, Daphne