This is my one and only TEDTalk. Thank you for coming!
23 March 2025
Novel vs Short Story?
This is my one and only TEDTalk. Thank you for coming!
15 February 2025
The Usual February Blues
A crowd gathers to see who this figure might be,
as none have come from the east for years – none worth addressing, at the
least. Stragglers with tales of flameless fire and putrid illness. A wave of
death. Fleeing criminals hoping for a break. The rare lost tax man or some
ignorant seeker of opportunity, random scalawags and bold outlaws. A gunslinger
or two. A foolish family hoping to survive.
Dark in road-rough garb, the figure glares from
beneath the rim of the felt hat at the townsfolk gathered: passersby, the
curious, morning shoppers, businessmen going to offices. Another cow town, the
stranger seems to acknowledge with a disappointed shift of chin. They’re
harmless, and unarmed, the dark figure notes.
The figure, looking more to be a woman in man’s
clothing as the people examine, lays her hand upon the grip of one of two pistols
set upon her hips, ready to use it.
“Skinner Canyon?” asks the stranger in mild
tone.
“Yes, ma’am,” says an older man, wiping his moist
brow, beady eyes set in a permanent squint. “This’s the place.” He gives her a long
look, not approving. “What’s yer bidness in town?”
Townsfolk can see the two pieces of cargo lain
in the cart. There is a crudely constructed wooden box, looking like pine,
large enough and in the shape to hold a laid-out man. The wood is well-smudged
with dirt, grimy like it was dragged up from the earth. A coffin, they presume,
nailed tightly shut. Who could be inside?
29 January 2025
Welcome to 2025
29 December 2024
End of 2024 Review
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24 November 2024
THANKSGIVING for 2024
With the right glue and some duct tape, Dr. Frank N. Stein was able to put the #parts together again after an amusing yet ultimately inappropriate Thanksgiving dinner with relatives.#vss365Protagonist can't handle cheery Thanksgiving dinner he's been invited to, goes outside for some air, sees first snowflakes falling, thinks of his daughter(who died)'s first snowfall....#WritingCommunity[not actually #vss but was in my files; it relates to the plot of my novel EXCHANGE*]
Thanksgiving #strike. Drove to neighborhood grocery for bread and deli turkey, jar of mayo, and bottle of pumpkin spice latte. Made a sandwich and checked that holiday off my list.#vss365Every year I give thanks the Thanksgiving Day #parade doesn't involve me.#vss365This year's Thanksgiving is like a #mosaic of every lucky turn we've managed to get.#vss365Just that old #pigeon on the window sill, making noise. But we have each other this Thanksgiving.#vss365Yes, he was full to bursting with Thanksgiving turkey and trimmings but #starved for attention sitting in the lounger in the corner. Someday that chair would be unoccupied.#vss365The tryptophan worked, slept 12 hours, missed family drama.-my #journal entry, Thanksgiving 2021#vss365It's looking like I won't have any turkey for Thanksgiving. Should I #worry? Or just make a lot of side dishes?#vss365
A hand weighed on his shoulder. He turned, found Jennifer beside him, holding his coat. He accepted it, pulled it on. She wore her coat but crossed her arms in front of herself. She noticed it was snowing and gazed up, smiling.
“It’s beautiful,” she spoke. “My favorite season.”
“Mine, too.” He counted snowflakes. “Hey, I’m sorry if I came off as rude. You understand, I’m sure, how it can be...being surrounded by so many people who have not experienced trauma.”
“Yes, I completely understand.” She gave him a grin. “And forgive me if I seemed too…I don’t know, too cheery? They invited me a month ago. I didn’t know you were coming. But it’s good you did. Get you out of the house. No moping around on a social occasion.”
“Yeah, social occasion. That’s it, all right.”
She asked how he had been occupying himself during the semester and he retorted that he was talking with Griffin’s wife, the psychologist, and giving a lot of free assistance to the local police. She chuckled at his phraseology.
“I brought Wendy over here just for a few days,” he said with more determination, “because our house is…. There’s some punks trying to make it their playground. I didn’t want her to be involved. I spent the past few days sitting inside, waiting for them to try to break in again—”
“Again? Oh my!”
“Or out in the backyard, in the dark, waiting for them to arrive. Then I’d…” He raised his hand like he held a pistol, then dropped his arm. “I would call the police, like any rational citizen.”
“Oh, that’s scary.”
“I’m getting used to it. Always something to hassle with.”
“I’m sorry, Bill. At least I never had that with Larry’s accident.”
“Well, the police—detectives—they have everything under control, they say. They’re on top of things. But, you know, if it takes twenty-five minutes to arrive at my house after I call in a home invasion, then they are not quite on top of things. More like on the side.”
Again she laughed, touching his arm. He noticed her gesture and she saw that he noticed. But she left her hand on his arm.
“I’m thinking of moving to an apartment. Something small and cheap. That nobody would think to break into because nothing of value would be there. I’ll sell the house. Give everything away. Start a new life.” He had to stop. “Like nothing ever hap—”
“Happened. I know what you mean. All the what-ifs….” She took his arm in hers, leaned against him like she was cold. “It’s easy to want to try and pretend it never happened. But there are still memories we want. So we don’t really want life to be as though nothing happened.”
Bill gazed at her, saw a kind face staring back. “You’re right.”
“Those memories…. They continue to exist in you. You’ll always have Becky doing her thing, and Barbara doing what she does. Don’t give that up just to be without the pain.”
“You’re right,” he mumbled, turning on the front stoop, ready to head inside. “I guess I’ll go back in.”
“And your guest. Wendy is so lovely. Smart, talented, pretty. It would be easy to become enamored by her.”
Bill grabbed the door handle, opened the glass door, reached for the door knob of the wooden door, leaving Jennifer outside.
“Sorry,” he called, pushing the glass door back open for her.
“Let’s see what the others are doing.”
27 October 2024
The FLU SEASON SAGA ends!
Back in the ancient year of 2019 the beginning of the end began. That's a mouthful but not an incorrect tautology. Things happened, which prompted me to want to write something. I had trouble getting started. I spent the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020 planning a story which I finally got started later that year. I imagined what was then our present situation - lockdowns, restrictions, shortages, desperation, fear - and took it six years into the future - a possible future, granted.
After three books, I thought the series was finished at a trilogy. Yet a new idea kept pestering me so I started a fourth book, calling it a sequel. But the sequel led to an even newer idea, something lighter as I imagined it. As I concluded that fifth book, I had ideas for a sixth book, which I am working on now. I feel that I can end the series with this final book - but it will be a long one, covering a lot of territory as we venture further into the uncertain future. I may introduce zombie-like denizens of the desert at some point (medically accurate, of course).
25 September 2024
The Writing Life: Behind the Scenes of the FLU SEASON Series
In Book 4: THE BOOK OF DAD I bring in Isla's last child, a boy named Fritz (named after the family patriarch) who was born at the end of Book 3. Now he is a grown man with a family but in trouble with the government due to his making of a video of elderly Isla telling her stores about the decades of trouble she lived through. But now the government wants to disavow all of the hardship, the official narrative being that the pandemic was mild and the decades of lawlessness weren't so bad. Fritz is a nervous man and gets into further trouble in the novel, but doing so reveals much of what is wrong with the new, rebuilt society. In Book 3, Fritz's family is mentioned briefly. In Book 4, we meet his children: 2 brothers and young Maggie, all stuck in the oppressive capital city.
14 September 2024
THE GRANDDAUGHTER Launches!
Does that end the series? Hmmm. I thought I was writing a stand-alone novel when I wrote the first book, THE BOOK OF MOM, but I realized half way into it that the story would have to continue. Because I couldn't see a two-book series, I immediately went for a trilogy while writing Book 2 THE WAY OF THE SON. However, as I was concluding Book 3, DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS, I had ideas for another book. Then, while writing Book 4, THE BOOK OF DAD (out this past June), I had ideas for Book 5 THE GRANDDAUGHTER. I began to wonder when the madness would end while hoping it never would. (I am currently well into the writing of Book 6, THE GRANDSON, which should be the final book in the series.)
Everything changes when you lose your mother, even more if you lose her during a pandemic when everyone is fighting for survival and it is your responsibility to protect her and you fail.