But perhaps most momentous in the whole timeline... this was the first piece I used stippling on. It didn't stick right away, but this was the start of perhaps a billion dots by now. It's also the illustration for a not-awful (but really not great) short story that I sent off to Marian Zimmer Bradley for Sword and Sorceress. It was very sweetly rejected as being good, but just not good enough to make the cut, she was sorry she couldn't include it. Handwritten, no less! In some ways, MZB is my hero. I hope to set myself up in the art world according to her example in the writing world - classy, kind, and there to give a leg up to new talents in the field.