Happy, Happy, Happy Anniversary

Writing is a solitary activity punctuated with flights of imagination and often drowned in sheer boredom of being in your own company. Enter the Writer’s group. Definition: A gathering of whacked out counterparts on a mission to do everything but write. As a group, we Paddle Creek Writers, have that last part nailed.

Things That Suck and Blow

 

The vacuum cleaner sucks, my cpap blows and the shop vac does both. What, you may be asking, do these things have to do with writing? Two have nothing at all and one of them has more than you could imagine.

The Saga of the Chickenfish

According to Wickipedia on birds, “The scientific consensus is that birds are a group of theropod dinosaurs that evolved during the Mesozoic Era…Fossil evidence also demonstrates that birds and dinosaurs shared features such as hollow, pneumatized bones, gastroliths in the digestive system, nest building and brooding behaviors.” As well as Wickipedia on fish, “The evolution of fish began about 530 million years ago during the Cambrian explosion. Early fish from the fossil record are represented by a group of small, jawless, armoured fish known as ostracoderms.” This tells me the chickenfish has been around a bazillion years, has a beak not a jaw, is covered in feathers over armour plating, enjoys the benefit of a gizzard, clucks, builds nests, swims and fails at flying when falling off a cliff but is okay when it crashes into the ocean. I haven’t a clue why such an odd creature has a saga, but it must because it says so on my awake-dream list. I also could have been dreaming about a television commercial re-run starring Charlie the Tuna tasting like chicken. Either way, the chickenfish did not come into existence without thorough research.

All Things Wackadoodle

While typing a blog post after the word association half-awake thing on May 10th, I noticed that the word wackadoodle did not highlight in red. Huh. I dreamed a real word. Sure enough, the Oxford Dictionary definition is “NOUN 1. An eccentric or fanatical person: “an alarming number of wackdoodles predict the world will indeed end “ADJECTIVE 1. eccentric or fanatical: he had given credence to a lot of wackadoodle beliefs”.” Did you catch that deja vu moment in the noun definition in reference to the first in this series of blog posts. Today is May 11th and here we are. Did you notice the world did not end?

Into the Mind of a Writer

 

This morning I thought a little half-waking word association would kick-start my creativity and produce some book plots or blog post ideas. Half asleep I grabbed my kindle, scrolled through to get to my note app and hastily, one fingered typed the all-important list.  Abandon all reason and come follow along with me.

From Beagles to Books

About ten years ago, two months after our beloved beagle, Annie, went to that big dog bone market in the sky, I decided I could no longer bear living in a house without a dog. My daughter, married and and mom to my two perfect grandsons, concurred and began “shopping” via the internet at  local Pet Shelters.

“Mom,” she would say. “You should see Precious. What a doll—I think she’s perfect for you.” I’d check Precious out on-line and say something like “nah uh—no Great Danes.”

I remember the day …

I remember the day I wrote my first fiction story. I know that sounds odd, but I do. Well, I had written a skit or two in high school. And there was probably a paper here and there that was fictional, but not a real fiction story.

Do I Hear a Ding a Ling?

 

Exiting my vehicle onto the craft superstore parking lot, I beheld a sight which gave my inner writer a thrill. The right and left door guardians of the red kettle couldn’t be more diverse. Left door ringer was singing Jingle Bells at the top of oh his lungs. No, not the song, just Jingle Bells, over and over with different cadence, inflection, notes and volume on each repetition and fierce bell ringing to accompany his solo. I kept my distance and headed to the right door which was manned by a tall, bear of a man, standing completely silent with barely a flicker of his bell to indicate he wasn’t a blow-up version of a lawn ornament.

Hail and Farewell

HAIL AND FAREWELL

     Did I tell you that my friend is moving? Not just a down the street and over two blocks move. It’s a pack-the-china-carefully, hit the highway, and drive across the country move. And I am not happy. In all truth, of course, it isn’t about me. It’s about my friend and the enormity of what lies ahead for her. But in the nitty-gritty of life, it is about me, because I am going to be left behind to miss her.

Ah, Those Pesky Struggles

Our dog Willie recently had surgery and was required by his Vet to wear a “cone” for 10 days. To say it cut into his worldview would be to minimize the trauma this caused the poor pup. He banged into doors, and tripped over his own feet. He had to smush the edge of the cone into the floor in order to eat his food or quench his thirst. But worst of all, the wold passed him by without him ever seeing it–encased as he was. There were squirrels he couldn’t chase and butterflies that flew by without a “woof” or a growl. Apples fell from the trees and lay, untouched by canine teeth, in the grass where they rolled. To put it mildly, Willie struggled.