I am writing a short story based on a middle-of-the-night idea. Those are the best kind, right? I am so intrigued by the idea that I open my notes app right there in the bed and "make a note" of it. I stay awake a while thinking about it. I think about it for the next couple of days. It comes to mind every now and then in the passing months. I don't do anything with it for perhaps a year, or more. Why not, you ask? Because I don't consider myself a short story writer. Oh, yes

People enjoy the glass half-empty/glass half-full mini psychological evaluation. Thinking to myself, I realize I’m certainly not a dedicated pessimist (half empty). Never an undying optimist (half full). Which type am I? I’m a “there’s water in the glass, dumkopf” type of person (Just facts all day long). Just ridiculous, deliberate and determined joy-killing. Facts only. No joy. It is within my threshold to tell an overtly smitten twosome that it’s not “love”. It’s just bio

A neighbor comes to me one evening while I am checking the drought damage on one of my potted trees. Assuredly, I’ve always known I don’t have a green thumb. Though I want one. Here’s the thing, I don’t like Nature. She’s wild and undignified, bouquets of flowers die and the colours don’t match. I have no skill to raise large, fluffy plants like gardeners with award-winning shrubbery. But I wish I had a green thumb. I do like tidy lawns, good landscaping and architectural-enh

Happening upon a discovery of the ways in which my writing has morphed over the millennia of my life, four phases stand out in my mind: the high school papers stage [too cowed to run away], the college student stage [too much false hope to run away], the “no is one making me write” stage [so much desperate hope keeping me in], and the “now” stage [hope gone. resignation set in]. The “now” stage is a piece of work. grumble mumble. I’m hoping my final stage is historical and ri

Long, long ago, in a sunny, too-hot office in Georgia, sits a girl at a desk. Rather than focus on her work, she picks up the phone, dials her sister’s desk number and happily reads to her the latest chapter. The guffaws, sniffles and snorts from too much laughter, and breathless sentences that start with “Th-that s-s-sounds like som-something I would do!!” informs the girl in the too hot office that she is on to something. By gar, she is going to be an author. And, oh, isn’t

I’m pretty sure I’m a writer… Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken. — Oscar Wilde. I decided to let the Oscar Wilde quote stay. It came with the furnishings. But you’re wondering who I am. I am most definitely a writer. I write better than I speak. My feelings and ideas are expressed pretty well though the written word. They are expressed so well in this medium that I’ve made my sister cry. I never feel too guilty about that. She was a grown woman at the time…and she