Tag Archives: Writing

The difference between typing and writing

Posted on by February 25, 2020

I have told this before. And I think I will repeat it until the end of my life, until it stops haunting me. In grad school, I lost my writing. I felt it drain out of me one idea after another.

I wrote a story, something about police and cats, and I couldn’t feel the next one there behind it. It wasn’t writer’s block. I wasn’t stuck. I had loads of words floating around in my tank. But I had no more stories at all. For four years, I stopped being a writer.

I’m good at the butt-in-chair thing. Always have been.… Read the rest

Rent

Posted on by February 25, 2020

Lady Beatrice whispered, “Magda can’t find out.”

Lord Bertram pulled her thigh closer to his lips. “Never.”

Then the world rent open with a piercing scream and a jagged hole in the wall. Lord Bertram threw Lady Beatrice onto the bed. A crier shouted, “To arms! To his majesty’s chambers!”  Bertram scrambled into his breeches and a tunic and ran to answer that call.

And then he reappeared in the wall’s hole, but it wasn’t him at all. This man looked exactly like Bertram, but he wore a mud leather helmet and a strange mask. Instead of a tunic, he had a short coat and strange breeches. … Read the rest

Hope

Posted on by February 25, 2020

Hope is seeing  your grandmother’s flowers in your aunt-in-law’s backyard. It’s watching second cousins who have only met once latch onto each other with ease and love. It’s eating sausages cooked by a young man who fought back childhood cancer that could have killed him. It’s taking pictures as directed by a tiny girl and complying to her demand, “Me see em!” entirely to hear her squeal “Oh my GOD!” even if you just took a picture of a water glass.  It’s watching a total of ten first and second cousins ranging from 18 down to 2 years in age play joyfully together for an entire afternoon and evening, even after rain drives everyone indoors at a small lakeside cabin.… Read the rest

Curing the Ramsays with a little help from Eden Fantasys

Posted on by February 27, 2020

Holy cowabunga people. This is going to alienate some of you, and I apologize. Because this is TOTALLY a sponsored post. I am not selling out. This is just completely irrefuckingsistable. I get to blog about sex toys.  This is going to be fun. I have read about Eden Fantasys and their products over on Blogging Dangerously.  And here’s the cool part. The folks at Eden Fantasys don’t expect me to blog about their products. They don’t want me to review jack shit. All they want is for me to’ talk about their company in a way that’s ‘comfortable for me’.… Read the rest

The Jester Reads: Woolf 7-12

Posted on by February 25, 2020

I’m in a book group headed up by Lisa over at Seeking Elevation. It seems to be the thing that has replaced Friday Fluff (which had probably run its course anyhow, though if it comes back, believe me, I’ll be all fluffy again.) Anyway, we’re reading Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse.

If you want background on the characters and story, Lisa has both on her blog. Start here, then go here,  here, here, here, and here. I’m just going to jump in and assume you’re one of the other people in the group though and already know what I want to talk about.… Read the rest

Old Alabama Town

Posted on by February 25, 2020

Well, since I didn’t explode the blog yesterday, it’s time to try this slideshow thing again today. Yesterday’s show was a little on the small side, IMHO, so I’m going to go for bigger. But I don’t know if I’ll get it.

We went to the Alabama book festival yesterday and wandered around with the heady smell of intellectualism in our noses for three hours until Sam started trying to break antiques. The festival was housed in Old Alabama Town, a sort of miniature Ye Olde Williamsburg. I’ve avoided the place before, because I feared it would be all Gone With the Wind veneration of the old South.… Read the rest

Beginning at Woolf

Posted on by February 25, 2020

I’m reading  To The Lighthouse in a group led by Lisa Harvey of Seeking Elevation. So I’ve had Virginia Woolf on my mind. But also, we’re cleaning house, and I mean cleaning house around here. And that’s got another famous Woolf piece in my head just now.

Back in January, we took 13 bags of clothing out for donations as part of the quest to Find The Bedroom. Since then, we’ve thrown out or relocated three pieces of huge furniture, opening up the house  and making it begin to look like people really live here. One of the largest changes we’ve made is the transformation of our guest room.… Read the rest

Game of Herb

Posted on by February 25, 2020

I was six and Jenny was five. It was our first year in different schools, and I hated being apart from her every day. So we spent our weekends together. One night, she informed me she had met a ghost. His name was Herb, and he lived in my house. Herb communicated with us via the First McGuffey Reader. Yes, that McGuffey Reader. My mother had scads of old books, and Jenny and I were precocious.

I’ll never forget the hard brown cover or the black ink picture of children sitting under a leafy bower. Paging through the text, we would recognize words that felt out of kilter and interpret Herb’s instructions to us.… Read the rest

Dine In, Carry Out

Posted on by February 25, 2020

Algy jammed everything back onto the last tabletop after wiping it clean.

Edith said, “Easy now.”

“Rob sent me another letter,” Algy told her.

“Did he?”

“He wants me to send him my paycheck.”

“Ohh.” The sound was a cross between a groan and a sigh. Edith went to the cash drawer, counting the money twice over to be sure. Then she asked, “Did you write him back this time?”

Algy grunted.

“You did, didn’t you.”

Slowly Algy nodded.  “I said to ask me nicely.”

Edith counted out several stacks of bills, then went into the office for her deposit slips.… Read the rest

Wolf’s bane

Posted on by February 25, 2020

“Wednesday Washday,” Mam always said.

She had sayings like that for every day of the week. The only other one I remember is “Monday morning do the darning”, probably because it rhymed. But she died when I was small. Everybody in town says Daddy should have given her at least a month in the ground before he started poking around in other women’s holes. But if he had waited, I wouldn’t have gotten Ona for my new mam, and we’d not have Ruby for our baby. Of course, she isn’t really a baby any longer. She’s got five summers on her, and she can do more every washday.… Read the rest