Love Notes
Fab February is here, the shortest and, perhaps the dullest, of the calendar months. Except for the cultural touchstones that keep it interesting — Valentine’s Day, President’s Day, National Heart Month, and the birthdays of those we hold dear. For writers like me, the month is an uninterrupted span of days to draft, revise, revisit, and polish existing work and to read and research for future endeavors. There is also, for football fans, the Super Bowl.
Now, if my team isn’t in it, I have reduced interest in watching the event, but […]
Resetting the Calendar
No one is happier than me to see 2022 disappear in the rearview mirror. I’m hoping that the new year brings more opportunities to share my writing, to create new stories, to see new places, and to welcome new friends into my life. To accomplish these goals, I first need to cleanse my workspace — exterior and interior – of the accumulated baggage from the past twelve months. Therefore, I’m making a list…
1. Redo all sites and passwords*
2. Clean out all file folders in the cabinet
3. Update the calendar in a timely fashion when new activities are scheduled
4. Respond to as many online and mail notes as possible
5. Assist with the new Historical Society venture Reading Between the Wines…you’re gonna […]
December Girls
December girls stand arrow-straight, wear
winter white, carmine and black, cool
colors for red-hot thinkers, the doers
in the darkest part of the year’s final
gasp. December girls love with fierce
ambition and deep commitment, spend
themselves on soul causes. They draw
Sagittarian bows, release the fletched
and sacred darts toward future fate
not yet revealed, set their sights
on a higher plane and soar, unsullied
into the coming year.
~~~
May you join this December girl in welcoming a new year, new ventures, and new reasons to sally forth like female Quijotes, to leave our mark, however small, upon the larger canvas.
Happy Holidays!
November and Politics: Is it possible to do better?
November may be a dreary month, but I always feel energized by the essay opportunities it provides. After all, in the drabbest month, making a list of things to be grateful for lifts spirits.
There is also the voting thing, which has become fraught with dissension and shows no sign of shifting back to the middle ground. And I serve as a poll worker, so training, which is now obligatory for volunteers in Ohio, demonstrates that even in a non-partisan environment, tension reveals itself. Several people in my training group expressed concern about the automatic polling machines and what they reveal about each voter. The answer is NOTHING. The machines simply tally the votes. They do not identify the ballot caster […]
The Writer’s Way
Every season has a rhythm, an underlying purpose that drives the land and we who inhabit it. Take a moment to think about the rhythms you bring to each change, the cleaning and organizing, the planning and preparations. Just as the land scours itself in spring and fall, so do I. Just this week I finished the grand reorganization of my library, alphabetizing all the books shoved on top of the existing volumes and culling from the shelves those that wish to migrate to other hands.
Some tomes are easy to part with. The handbook on MLA style for research papers has outlived its welcome. So, too, those stories that engaged me once but are unlikely to call me back for […]
September Blog: Time For A Hobbit Journey…
When the leaves begin to fall and the prairie turns brown and gold, I stare from the porch, unable to resist the urge to strap on a backpack and wander into the unknown. Amid the demands of life in the 21st Century, there are days I wish a wizard would turn up at my door, invite himself for tea, and invite me to go adventuring. Of course, our suburban lawns and urban landscapes rarely lend themselves to such fanciful walks, but the mind is a wondrous vessel for taking leaps into story.
I’m not unproductive. I just sent my latest mystery to my editor, and my To-Write list is long and ambitious. I have titles and plots and opening lines, a […]