As you may have read in my “Coffee With David” blog “O’Toole’s Law Strikes,” I have a bit of computer problems that has delayed my work on a number of projects, including Dark Medicine. I know that the number of weeks I had planned for my deadline is no longer feasible. However, I am not moving my deadline yet. I may have too, but let me see how I do under the pressure.

As I sit here and think about fate, I find it ironic that people generally think of fate in a negative way. We think of curses or things that hinder or prevent us from achieving a goal or a living the way we dreamed we might. Yet is it fate or the summation of our choices and decisions in life?

This question, as I have worked on several characters and their roles in the main and subplots will reoccur in Dark Medicine. Its not a main theme of the story—that is something else—but it is an underlying theme that each character must face.

What are your personal thoughts on fate? Did you become who you are through predestined plans or was it through a path of decisions you made in the journey of life, or is it some odd combination of both?

Thank you for reading and please visit www.davidalanlucas.com for updates on the blogs, short stories, novellas, novels, and poems that I write.