“If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances. I would ride more merry-go-rounds. I would pick more daisies.” (Nadine Stair) Have you ever thought about what you might do differently if you had your life to live over? Or …
Procrastination – The Thief of Time
I knew I should have done it yesterday!! Procrastination is the thief of time. ~Edward Young Do you put things off? Even things you really want to do? I’ve been struggling with that while trying to finish the first draft of my work in progress. I want to write it. I really do. And I am writing it, but what …
Some things I’ve Learned as a Writer
I started writing when I was around ten years old. That means I’ve been writing a very long time. Sometimes with success. Sometimes without success – at least in publishing that writing. But the actual writing was always successful because words spilled out on paper. Perhaps not the best words. But words were written. In those childhood days, writing was …
Words – A Reason for Thanksgiving
Words “Words are only postage stamps delivering the object for you to unwrap.” ~George Bernard Shaw Since I let Wednesday slip away without posting last night, I’m writing this early on Thanksgiving morning. So of course, it is about being thankful. I have so many blessings to count, that I could write them down all day and then nobody would …
Story Webs
A Story Web Four years ago I wrote a piece for my on-line journal here about how a story can be an intricate web like a spider web. I wanted a picture of a spider web to go with it, but it was late October and the spiders were battening down their hatches for winter, I suppose. I looked all …
Spotted on My Walks
“Happiness is a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.” ~Nathaniel Hawthorne I love spotting things on my walks like this butterfly. I’ve been pursuing him or his brothers and sisters for the last couple of months in order to take his photo. They were all …
Jocie in Trouble at School
September 9, 1964 David Brooke here filling in for Jocie who got in trouble at school for eating a Tootsie Roll in class. She claims she just took a little bite in the hallway between classes. It wasn’t her fault that Mrs. Jackson picked on her to answer the very first question in English class and that chocolate sort of …
And So We Look for the End
I’m still searching for those elusive words “the end” with my deadline zooming toward me. Well, actually my original deadline is seven days gone, but where one deadline is missed, another takes its place soon after. So since most of my words need to be on the trail of those two sneaky little words that keep hiding from me, I …
Mystery Pictures and Writing Puzzles
Have you ever seen those close up, really close up, pictures of familiar objects and had no idea what you were looking at? I’m giving you a less challenging mystery picture tonight. Do you know what it is? Let me know what you guess. Or it could be you know what it is at first sight. Sometimes writing is like that. …
Winners, Deadlines and Notebooks
A pen and a notebook still work. Years and years ago, when I first began writing, that was the way I started – with a wirebound notebook and an ink pen. Not a ballpoint like this, but a real fountain pen that I filled up out of a little glass jar of ink. The jar had a little well at …