Category Archives: the writing life

On Water and Words

Sometimes we don’t know what’s on our minds until we wake from a dream in a dark room.  This is especially true for me when I’m working on a first draft, living a story in my head as I set down rows of words and take most of them back.  Last night I dreamed of watching our car fall into a… Continue Reading

Lunatic

Sometimes I remind myself of the Don Quixote of our yard.  He’s a lunatic robin doing valiant battle through this long and glorious spring.  I can’t believe he hasn’t killed himself yet.  When morning is only a soft charcoal suggestion, he begins flying into the first window in which his reflection becomes visible, fighting off a ubiquitous rival in his territory.  He keeps at it,… Continue Reading

Men Are Hilarious

My 97 year old father-in-law has always said, “One boy is one boy but two boys are half a boy.”  He doubtless developed this theory because he had two sons 18 months apart.  After five years of that fiasco, he and his wife must have been desperate to improve the balance of civilizing forces (add a girl) because they tried again.  Apparently, they wisely… Continue Reading

Do The Right Thing Even If You Look Like An Idiot

Have you ever tried to do what you were pretty sure was the right thing only to have it explode?  Even have two other seemingly sane and intelligent people tell you yes, you should do it before you went ahead and did that thing that exploded? So here’s the story.  It was Saturday’s chilly dusk and I was driving home.  I’d reached my own quiet… Continue Reading

And Then There Were Three

No fault of the chicken gynecologist’s, but Meg didn’t make it.  She’d seemed much better shortly after the stuck egg removal by Nik and bathtub treatment by Diana, but then she worsened steadily over the next couple of days.  Desperate stabs at word combinations on Google finally yielded a diagnosis that perfectly matched her symptoms: … Continue Reading

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