More Heretic's Daughter

I was organizing some book stacks this afternoon and ran across "The Heretic's Daughter". There are two pink "sticky notes" in the book. I had forgotten about them. Here is what they say:

#1 - "Uncle is redeemed in Sarah's eyes by his suicide by poison. Alexander's death was by poison. Alexander's horse was Bucephalus. Good writing here."

This is the passage from the book: "I thought more of the stories he had told us by the light of the hearth. Tales of rampant Indians and wandering spirits and the deaths of pagan kings. I thought of him proudly astride Bucephalus, named after the war steed belonging to Alexander. The ancient king so beloved by his men until he led them off the face of their circumscribed maps into the lands of specters and strange men. The king who was given the cup of poison so that his men could return to the known world. But Uncle had taken up the cup of poison with his own hand in the hopes of returning those he loved safely back from the land of monsters, and for that I wept long and hard for him."

#2 - "I held my breath to slow my heart..." and "My head throbbed and my eyes danced in their sockets..."

The sticky notes are destined for my writing notebook. One of the secrets of good writing is to "put it on the body" when describing emotions. This allows the reader to identify with the character's feelings in a personal way. The bit about Uncle and Alexander was just very well done, I thought.