Summary: When I am writing one story and another story idea starts bubbling up in my head, it is not always a peaceful co-existence or handoff. Sometimes, the characters from the two different stories try to dominate my thoughts. The winner gets me to finish their story first. This is the tale of when Amanda, from my story, True Self Syndrome, started to fight for my attention, while I was still working on a story called, Teacher's Recommendation (note that story is still unfinished and unposted). Marla and Elizabeth from that story confront Amanda.

Chapter 1

I’ve heard it said that Bob Dylan intended his ‘The Times, They Are A’ Changing’ to be a protest song. The first version I remember hearing was sung by Simon and Garfunkel, and it sounded more like a ‘progress’ song, when sung without the nasal whine. The first verse that relates to the water rising until you have to swim to survive must be a metaphor for the reality of growing up and making your own way in life.

Prince Taylor is now getting used to the new school and all its strange ways. He is worried that the school is changing him, and he is becoming something he would have hated a few months ago

What Would You Do?
Part Two
A Cerridwen Solo Special

A few seconds later another stagehand a brunette woman with longish hair came beside me and ushered me from the front stage to the back area. She guided me down a long, dark hallway that was lined with doors. I could not tell the doors apart, one looked very much like the other. Finally we reached a room, she pushed the iron gray door handle down and the door flew open. She then reached one arm inside and flipped a light switch.

What do you do when you look 7 years old, but you're actually a college student in your late teens? For Kathleen's entire life, she had fought against people treating her much younger than her actual age. Feeling obligated to grow up fast to show people she wasn't the age of her size, Kathleen never let her inner child out. Tired of fighting against the world, she explores the adult submissive world. What she finds, however, is an enjoyment of regression. Had she made a mistake? Would life be better if she just let people treat her how she looks, 7 years old?

Fate brings Christopher back to Lady Mariam whom he has long admired...
Reality means to live a fantasy...

Mars station was an orbital facility that served numerous functions for both planets.

While it acted like a space port, it's main purpose was scientific research. Mars station was tasked with studying the planet's atmosphere and surface to aid in our terraformation pursuits.

Also, like so many other missions before us, we were using it as a launch pad to the farther reaches of the solar system.

Sara and Margret

Margret was standing next to the window with Sara when they felt the explosion. Sara tackled Margret to the floor away from the windows. The shock wave broke the windows. Shattering all the glass into the apartment. Sara screamed as she collapsed onto the ground. They both fell silent as they hit the floor. Luckily, the shield blocked the radiation, but it could not block the pressure waves that followed the explosion.

Prince Taylor has started at the Victorian Virtue Institute.
This school specializes in an old method of raising boys called petticoat discipline. They help improve a boy's behaviour by expressing their feminine side. In other words, they treat boys like sissies.
How will Prince Taylor deal with this, and since as a royal member he is in the public eye, how will the public react?

Super Speedway Gas Station, Yorktown, Va.

Jada couldn’t believe she had to come in and work on Thanksgiving. She turned and returned to the manager's office to find out why she had to work.

“Bruce, why am I working on Thanksgiving Day from two until closed? I thought I was going to have it off?” Jada stands in the doorway of Bruce’s office.

Sergei spent most of the rest of the day in his hotel room working on a variety of plans for resolving the problem he faced in that there was no way in hell, was he going to kill a young woman.

Toni met Steve during the week, even mothered him in his worry over her, but now it’s time for her and Steve to get back to the routine of being friends. Except with Toni as a woman.

They’re meeting early in the morning to watch a football match in the same bar they always watch football matches in. Whether it’s weird for her, or Steve, or the same it as it always was is a different matter. Toni certainly isn't making predictions of what might happen.

As I said at the beginning of Chapter One, I have to thank Jill and Eric for their input into this story. I hope that I achieved something we can all be proud of.
Marianne

Chapter 39

The upshot of the whole thing was, as usual, a lift in sales of all the albums that Josie had been on, even the forgotten one she did with the girl group in L.A. I got Allan to put all my part of those sales into a trust fund for the twins, which also took the proceeds of the sale of their family home, as well as their shares of the estate.

Practical Joke
A Vignette
By Maryanne Peters

I had to make up my mind about how to cope when I woke up looking like this. It was supposed to be the ultimate cruel practical joke, and at the time I had to admit a sneaking admiration for just how cruel it was.