Assorted filksongs. From there, I got the song that's been in my head: "Glass Half Full (of the Sea)" -- a nicely subtle mermaid song.

I know there's something that's supposed to come bursting out of my forehead soon, something about duality, about spanning incompatible worlds. Mermaid is nicely symbolic of this, the old story of the mermaid who walks knives, unable to make the choice between equal loves.

I have about five books' worth of material in my first novel (unfinished), the novel that turns out to be a re-telling of the Little Mermaid story. It's not ready to be talked about quite yet. It's a little too raw to even think about, whatever it is. I can talk about the novel all day long, but I can't really talk about why I need to write it.