Category: Uncategorised (Page 1 of 25)

Make My Day

May 14, 2025 / / 0 Comments

It seems the media  headlines are nothing but bad news these days. The constant stream of worry and stress and fear weighs on my spirit. Thus, I was pleasantly surprised when I had to spend a day on foot in my home town. It began when a teenager paused and held a door for me. He could easily have been on his way without that little gesture of kindness. I was at least six feet away.

I did a little shopping, so had my hands full when I approached another door. A mature woman jumped up and opened it for me. She even offered me a spot at her table, but I wasn’t staying. Still, it was nice to be asked.

Then I went to an outside table with my cup of coffee and a workman leapt forward to pull out a chair for me. 

All of these small courtesies were performed with a big smile, a cheery wave and a “no problem” reply to my thanks. These people turned what started out as a grumpy day (I had to take my car to the garage. Hence the “on foot” bit) into a lovely day. I enjoyed my book and my coffee so much more with a bouyed up frame of mind.

I had two takeaways from my day. The first was on a personal level — smile every chance I get! A smile, a kind word, a cheery wave cost the giver nothing and work wonders on the receiver. We seem to live in a soup of anger and distrust and disdain. Even a tiny bit of good can make a difference.

My second reaction was as an author. How could I use this bit of serendipity to enhance my writing? I’ve been mulling over a “nice” character in my WIP and looking for ways to make her more interesting.  So, if she’s the one holding the door, she’ll bring cheer to others but will remain as a “nice” but boring character. If I make her the one sneering in every utterance, I make her more of a villain than a heroine. 

It is hard to make pleasant characters interesting. Perhaps that is why I have more fun with secondary roles. I’m not that invested in the sidekick so I can make him silly or eccentric or stupid or annoying . . . there are no limits. But for my main character, the hero or heroine, I want the reader to like them, to want to get to know them, to want to spend time in their company. As a  result, the protagonist in my work is often afflicted with “niceness,” and readers and editors quickly dismiss the story.

So, back to my day. The workman with the big smile spoke a language I didn’t know. If I put my “nice” heroine in that situation would she be offended by the “foreigner?” That would be a not-nice reaction but maybe she could recognize her own prejudice in the encounter. This might set her down a path of discovery. That might lead to personal growth, a character arc. Maybe my “nice” heroine has some not-so-nice secrets that make her more interesting to the reader.

Maybe she has been trained to be nice but is sick and tired of being the cheerful one in every relationship. Hmm.

I’m still happy I encountered “nice” people on my day out, and I hope my heroine is the type of person who makes the reader feel happy. I just have to work on that “nice” thing.

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4 Ways to Put the Fun in Function

May 7, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Oh dear! I’ve been very remiss in keeping my blog posts up-to-date! There are any number of excuses — Easter, election, gardening, book club, writers’ group — no shortages of excuses, the question is: are they valid?

Whether you are a writer, a swimmer, a chess-player or a biochemist, there are always excuses to avoid the work. When faced with a choice between something fun and important, like family for instance, or demanding and important, human nature being what it is, “fun” often wins out. It isn’t that we don’t want to do the work — after all we chose to write, or swim, or . . . but, the path of least resistance is so attractive. 

Now that I’ve confessed my failings and made my excuses, how do I get back on track? It seems to me that the answer lies in the first question. I’ll chose what is fun. Therefore, I must look for ways to make function (act, perform, work), fun.

Here are some suggestions:

  1. Eavesdrop.  I don’t mean nasty, sneaky eavesdropping, the kind that looks for gossip or dirt. I mean the accidental eavesdropping that occurs while sitting in a coffee shop, or sunning on a park bench, or waiting for the movie to start at a cinema.  Snippets of other people’s conversations can spark all kinds of scenarios in a writer’s mind. An added benefit is hearing a fresh turn of phrase, or the latest slang.               
  2.  Troll for prompts.  Sometimes we just get stuck on “troll” mode and can’t put down that screen. Happily, the internet abounds with sites for writers prompts. Instead of doom-scrolling, and sending yourself into despair, check out some writer’s sites. Here is a great one from Writer’s Digest. Or finish this sentence that I just made up — “My superpower is ___________ and I’ll use it to ________.”                                                                                             
  3. Alternative Endings. If you haven’t the inclination to create new work today, think of a book where you didn’t like the ending. Write your own version. Have fun with it. Wreck vengence on unlikable characters from the original. Spread love on the ugle step-sister. Give the prom queen pimples.  I think many, many writers have had a go at Gone with the Wind.  If Rhett came back, what would happen?                                                                                   
  4. Do a word puzzle. All writers like words, so it’s fun to play a word game. Once you solve the puzzle, try writing a sentence or a paragraph that uses the words in the puzzle. Movie, world, monkey and budget, were the words used in today’s Jumble puzzle. This one is almost too easy. “The low-budget movie featuring the world of monkeys did not win any awards.” Wasn’t that fun?

 

Now, it is time for me to take my own advice. Tomorrow I have a chance for eavesdropping. Right now, I’ll check out some of those prompts. 

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Love is Love

April 9, 2025 /

T.S. Eliot called April “the cruellist month.” Here, in Canada, that has certainly proven true with the weather. One day we are basking in sunshine and summer temperatures, the next an ice storm, or snow, or rain comes barrelling down, flattening flowers, breaking tree limbs, knocking out power lines and damaging roofs. 

Added to the cruelty of the weather is the uncertainty swirling over financial markets and world affairs. A ceasefire is announced and then broken. Medical workers and journalists in a war zone are killed. In Canada, we are in the midst of an election.

In the publishing world copyright issues, Artificial Intelligence, tariffs, and book banning create an unprofitable and frightening world for authors. Many wonder if they should continue to pour love and effort into fiction — especially romantic fiction.

Writers must each answer that question for themselves. 

But, for encouragement, I offer this bit of philosophy. I just finished reading a book with a very tangled and convoluted plot. People fell in love, or out of love. Parents and children and siblings had difficult relationships and unhappy lives. What seemed good often ended badly. What seemed wrong turned out to be uplifting. When I finished the book I had to reread it to find all the dropped threads and tie them together. But — the “moral” of the story was “love is love.”

As we struggle to find our footing in this shifting cultural landscape, I think it is worth remembering that “love is love.” When we ask “what’s the point?” Love is often the answer. Sometimes that is “boy-meets-girl” kind of love. Sometimes it is “the -lost-is-found” kind of love. Sometimes it is finding self-love in a damaged life.  For some, it is finding, and receiving, the love of God. For writers it may mean finding or rediscovering the love of craft. 

It seems to me, that the heart, in the end, is what drives our living. If the turmoil of our world is overwhelming, look deeply into your heart. There you will find an essence that offers solace. There, behind the baggage and disappointments of the mind, is peace. 

If you are a writer, write stories from that place — offer your understanding and your love to the world. Love is love and can heal even the most flawed of human beings. 

P.S. The cat pictures in this post are just to make you smile, and maybe remind you that pets offer their own form of love.

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6 Ways to beat the Sophomore Slump

March 26, 2025 /

The sophomore slump refers to the sense of letdown experienced by second year college students. After the excitement and high dedication of their freshman year, second year looms as a bit of a grind — and their marks reflect that attitude. 

A similar phenomenon sometimes occurs with a writer’s second novel. The first story may have taken years, and too many re-writes to count. The author poured all of her heart and soul, skill and talent into that first work, determined to bring her best work to the publisher. But, having secured that first success, the second novel is sometimes a disappointment. The writing may be rushed, the plot trite and the characters a little flat. It’s still a good book, but it doesn’t live up to the promise of the first one.

I’ve been doing more reading than writing these past few weeks, and I think I’ve been reading those “less than” efforts. Perhaps that accounts for my disappointment with a couple of new books written by authors I hugely admire and enjoy. 

The first ho-hum response came from the latest in a very long series. This author is an auto-buy for me. I love her characters, her setting, her use of language, and her voice. But this latest offering felt a bit — stodgy. Hard to put my finger on exactly why I felt let down, but I suspect that “world famous author” is not getting a good hard edit. Some of the beautiful prose seemed to be there because it was beautiful prose, not because it advanced the plot. 

The second book in question was a new offering from an author with many fewer credits to her name. I have read them all and enjoyed them all, but none seems to live up to the promise of the first. The latest work, to my mind, is her weakest. Again, I ask why? In this case, it seemed to me that I was reading a late draft of the story, and not the polished final manuscript. This can happen when publisher and reader expectations push a writer into producing at a quicker pace than is comfortable for her. Or it could just be that this author is running out of ideas. Her characters were so similar to those in previous books they could almost be the same person but with the names changed. The romance threads seemed facile and shallow. The ending had a “they-came-home-tired-but-happy” feel about it. I got marked down for that in grade three.  I expect better from a multi-published author.

I didn’t set out to disparage these authors in this post. Rather, I was seeking to share lessons I’d learned about keeping my writing fresh. Here are my thoughts.

  • Refresh the characters. Even if they are returning characters used in a series, they need to grow and change — in exciting ways. Just making them older doesn’t heighten the tension. If an athlete is older, make the loss of physical prowess have an impact on his life and the story. Then his aging is germaine to the story.
  • Introduce a new element. If you write small town with the same characters in the same roles over a number of books, bring in a stranger. She can be like a stone thrown into the calm waters of your little town. Let the ripples impact all those stock characters. Unsettle your familiar, cozy small town. It’ll make a better story
  • Cut, cut, cut.  I’ve heard editors reject work for being “self-indulgent.” I think the books I referred to earlier fell into that trap. The author was indulging her love of language to create long, prose passages that read beautifully, but did not advance the story.
  • Take a break. When the words are hot off your pen, or keyboard, they sound like perfection itself. Enjoy that feeling. Walk around for a week or so, buoyed with the sense of accomplishment. Imagine yourself accepting awards for this marvellous book. Then re-read it with a cold eye.  Your masterpiece probably needs another edit.
  • If you have a trusted beta reader (not your mother) send the ms to her/him.
  • Listen to what s/he says. 

Sophomores and second books are not predestined to disappoint, but knowing the hazards should make students and writers alert to them. I look forward to the next offerings from my favourite authors, but if they continue to fall short, I’ll rethink my purchases. There is a saying in the writing world, “you are only as good as your last book.” Let’s make sure our last book is our best book.

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Here, There, and Everywhere

March 5, 2025 /

Last month I published a post here about etyology — the study of the origins of words. Since then it seems I stumble over etyology, linguistics, syntax, idioms and the like at every turn. Even a book on music is talking about the rhythm and cadence of words as a tool to understanding how music affects our brains. Running  into this same concept over and over might be called the Baader-Meinhoff phenomenon, or frequency illusion. 

Writers often discuss experiencing this phenomenon when they have an idea for a new story. Our creative juices my be sludgy and opaque for weeks, months or even years, then we get an idea, or even just the glimmer of an idea. Suddenly, we see that idea playing out all around us. On the flip side, it seems several authors get a similar idea at the same time. Is it something in world events that triggers a common notion? Is there really a god-like muse at play who plants a thought in a dozen minds to see if it will grow? 

I can’t answer that question, but I do know I’ve been running into language delights everywhere for the past few weeks. Here are a few instances:

  • At Bible Study, we heard about Jesus’ visit to Jericho. It would appear that Jericho, both ancient and modern,  is a nice place.”Why then,” I asked, “do we ‘wish someone to Jericho’ when we want them to go away to a not nice place?” No one but me knew the expression but I had read it in the works of L.M. Montgomery. So I looked it up and here is what I found. 

The expression “go to Jericho” comes to us from the Old Testament where it appears as a command by King David to his mistreated and dishonored envoys to King Hānun of the Ammonites. At some point, however—perhaps by the middle of the eighteenth century, to judge from the examples in Farmer & Henley, cited above—English speakers began to use it euphemistically to say “go to hell.” The expression may have persisted in some corner of the English-speaking world, but it does not appear to be in general use today.   Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present 

  • My next example came while watching the Canadian Men’s Curling Championships, known as “The Brier.” An announcer used the phrase “the straw that stirs my drink.” The other broadcasters were flummoxed, never having heard the expression before. So, once again, I looked it up and found

The most valuable or important person or thing in a system.                      The phrase is usually   attributed to baseball player Reggie Jackson.  At the time it was viewed as a boastful commentary about his importance that ruined his relationship with other players. 

  • My last example is a  simile rather than an idiom but the colourful language appealed to me. A book describing a woman trying to make a living on a stony, neglected farm said “she worked as hard as three sled dogs.” Anyone who has seen a team of sled dogs towing heavy loads, while running at speed can understand the reference. 

Using idioms and colourful phrases can distinguish an author’s voice, make her prose memorable, and add a sense of place and time to the writing. But such devices should be used sparingly. Too many and the work becomes a caricature. Sometimes that is the aim — think “Hee Haw”– but readers can be easily turned off if the language becomes hackneyed and trite. Think of idioms in your prose like salt in your stew — a little is essential, too much spoils it.

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New Look at Morning Pages

February 19, 2025 /
VIRA

Last week my romance writers group, VIRA, held our Valentine’s brunch. It was a great time. Since COVID we’ve met mostly on-line so it was a real treat to meet up in person with my “tribe.” The room was loud, the laughter plentiful, encouraging words filled the air.  And that brings me to morning pages.

Writing Workshop

When I first began this writing journey, I diligently wrote morning pages because Julia Cameron said to, and so did Bobbi Hutchinson, the presenter at the very first romance writing workshop I attended. She said, “if you don’t know what to write, start with I remember . . .”  I revelled in those pages, enjoying the flow of words from my brain to my pen, playing with story ideas, creating characters who might or might not show up in a story. I practiced being a writer.

Menopause

But time passed, my writing time got shorter and my career stalled. Menopause gave me the gift of brain fog and stole half my vocabulary. Morning pages seemed a waste of time. It was so hard to drag words from my brain that I elected to use them only in my stories. And writing became all work and no play. As the years passed, I wrote less and less. My “career” died. 

Joy Cometh in the Morning

That brings me back to the VIRA party. I’d been keeping my “shameful” secret — the one about not writing — hidden from my writing colleagues. But, at the party, I told the truth. No one scorned me or pointed fingers. Instead, an old mentor suggested I write about something that I have held dear all my life. “I see passion there,” she said.  She was right. I’ve gone back to writing pages– sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon — in order to tell a story about myself that makes me smile, or weep, and sometimes elicits a wry chuckle.  The words are coming easier — not elequent, but serviceable. I look forward to time at my desk rather than avoiding it. I don’t even think about publishing or having a career. For now, I am thrilled to pick up my pen and write two hundred words that bring me joy.

Society’s greatest loss during COVID lockdowns was companionship. We all huddled in our corners. We did our best to substitute technology for human interaction. We wore masks, got vaccinated and did our level best to stay healthy. But that was then. This is now. For myself, and many others, the time has come to engage with human beings, friends or strangers. Ordering on-line is quick and easy, but grumbling about the weather with a store clerk is much more satifying to the psyche. And, having real, live-person chats with other writers is one of the best things an author can do for herself.

What about you, dear readers. Have you found your way back into the company of fellow humans? Do you avoid crowds or do you seek out like-minded enthusiasts and spend time together? How is your choice working out for you? I hope that whatever path you choose, you find joy in your days.

International Women's Day

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Name that Word

February 5, 2025 /

As a writer, I’m fascinated with words. I love the way they sound. I love the weird spellings of the English language. I even have a list of “beautiful words” that includes lilac, haze, mauve, sigh, lullaby, lily, sly. . .   Notice how many soft consonants are in my list. Maybe it is that melodic (another favourite word) sound tht marks them as beautiful in my mind.

Among my favourite books are Simon Winchester’s The Professor and the Madman, and Pip Williams’ The Dictionary of Lost Words. Both tell of the development of an English dictionary, how words were discovered and researched and used and, eventually, added to our word list. 

The study of words, and particularly their origin is called “etyology,” not to be confused with “entomology” which is the study of insects.  Notice the “ology” in both words. It means study of. Hence theology, astrology, geology, biology . . . etc.

Obviously, I could go on forever about words, but what caught my attention recently was the number of words (usually nouns) in our language that are actually the name of a person.  Did you know the word “Hansom” as used in a “Hansom Cab” is named for James Hansom (handsome), an English engineer who designed the vehicle?

Nathaniel Bigot (1575 -1660) was a Puritan preacher born in Ipswich. His intolerance and zeal were such that none of the sects of the Puritan religion would admit him to membership. He frequently stood up and began preaching at the Globe theatre during Shakespeare’s plays, railing against the vanity and depravity he perceived on the stage. For his pains, he was ejected from the theatre. A supporter of Cromwell, even that dour dogmatic found Bigot a nuisance and had him arrested. He was a staunch Parliamentarian who called for the execution of Charles I. He died of apoplexy when he saw Charles II entering London at the time of the Restoration. It is questionable whether his name was given to our word, “bigot” but he certainly embodied its meaning!

I’ve always considered gingham a very homey, wholesome pattern, but  one source tells me that  Martha Gingham (1580-1648) was a bawdy-house keeper who dressed her “girls” in clean petticoats and neat frocks of striped or checked cloth. So much for my preconceived notion!

Don’t forget the fourth Earl of Sandwich who bestowed his name on the snack we eat between slices of bread. There are several stories about him. In one, he is credited with sponsoring Captain James Cook’s voyages. In gratitude, Cook named the Sandwich Islands in his honour. In a less flattering story, the earl, who was an inveterate gambler,  didn’t want to interupt his play to eat. He created the sandwich so he could eat without getting his fingers greasy, and thus remain at the card table.

There are endless examples of men and women giving their names to the language. The examples I’ve  cited are historical, but just think of how we use “Google” as a verb. A Shirley Temple is a non-alcoholic drink, Reaganomics, an economic theory named after a former president of the United States, or Scrooge to describe a miser.

The study of words provides endless fascination for a wordsmith. I’d love to hear your favourite words, just add them to the comments section of this post.

 

 

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5 Body Language Surprises

January 22, 2025 /

I had a very strange start to the year — I lost my voice. I don’t mean I lost my ability to sing or declaim from the stage. I mean I lost the ability to make any sound using my vocal cords. (Aphonia)  Never happened to me before and was, frankly, scary. Here’s how.

  • I couldn’t call for help. If I fell in a ditch, I couldn’t cry out. I had to attract attention by banging things, or throwing things, or physically assaulting my hearers. Not an efficient way to get help quickly. 
  • By the same token, I couldn’t sound a warning. When I saw danger approaching someone else, I could not call out an alarm. It made me feel helpless and culpable in another’s misfortune.
  • My sense of identity suffered. I am a singer, my voice has always been an important part of my make-up. To suddenly be silenced struck at the core of my self-confidence.
  • I was isolated. I could not carry on a conversation. Meeting with friends left me feeling left out since I could not participate in the exchange of news and ideas.
  • I couldn’t use the telephone. When my brother called from 2000 miles away, I couldn’t even say hello. How disappointing is that?

Writers often study body language as a means of making their words on the page more powerful. Well, being mute for three days, I had lots of time to practice body language! I got a stiff neck from all the nodding and head-shaking. My eyeballs rolled up and down so often they needed a massage. My mother told me it was impolite to point, but I pointed at everything, big, stabbing, forefinger pointing. How else could I tell my husband to feed the cat?

Surprises

I referenced surprises in the title of this post.

  1. Here is the first one. As a writer I’m familiar with the importance of body language in our fiction.   On the page, we use things like “pursed lips” or “clenched fists” or “narrowed eyes” to convey mood or emotion.    In real life, those cues are too small to make up for the lack of words. If no one is looking, pulling your lips into a prune shape accomplishes nothing but to create  facial lines.   Maggie Lawson talks about “amplifying” important moments in a novel.  She adds metaphor and cadence to amplify those pursed lips. i.e. “She pursed her lips so tightly I thought she might choke.”                                                                                                                                                 
  2. Voice is elusive. We are born able to make sound, even if it is just a wail. Every day of my life, I have had a voice — until I didn’t. In writing, the author’s “voice” is just as necessary and just as hard to define. It is that indefinable something that marks a passage as unique to that particular writer. Stephen Sondheim and Oscar Hammerstein II used the same notes of the scale, but the music – voice – they produced was entirely different. It is that distinction that marks an author’s voice.                                              
  3. Characters have voice. Here the possibilities for a writer are endless. We can speak of specific characteristics like a “gravelly voice” or a “breathless whisper” or “as shrill as nails on a chalkboard.” But once we have decided on a defining trait for our character’s voice, we need to stick to it.  Just as a baby can recognize his mother’s voice, we want our readers to recognize the voice of a character without having to use dialogue tags. What a protagonist says and how he says it, should identify him. If the hero and the villain sound the same, the story needs a rewrite.                                                                                                 
  4. Authors can use speech, or lack of it, to advance the plot. When I was mute, I was easily overlooked in group settings. Just like the servants in a Regency novel, I was invisible, discounted. If you write a story about a woman who struggles with self-confidence, make her silent in a crowd. She’ll have plenty of time to observe and won’t be seen as a threat to anyone. Think Miss Marple.                                                                                     
  5. Life experience is a marvellous teacher.  Until I lost my voice I’d never considered the implications of being mute. I expect life experiences used in fiction to be huge–earth-shattering, monumental –things like life and death and love. But small things have consequences. Those small things just might be the trigger to lift your writing to the next level.

Life is full of lessons. As authors we can use every experience to enhance our writing. We need to train ourselves to be aware and take note of all the moments, big or small, that make up our own backstory. That is the well from which we draw when creating compelling characters.

Please share in the comments any surprising discoveries from small events in your own life.

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2 Lessons for the New Year

January 8, 2025 /

I hope everyone enjoyed a good break at Christmas. I know I did, although with the holiday falling on a Wednesday I was mixed up a good deal of the time about what day of the week we were on. It seemed I had two or three Sundays in every seven day stretch.

I got my Christmas wish with a pile of books under the tree — mystery, romance, literary and non-fiction. Love all the choices. I’ve finished Louise Penny’s latest mystery and am now reading a literary novel set in Ireland.

I also found time to listen to a webinar by Alessandra Torre on goal-setting and read an eye-opening article by Donald Maass on Writer Unboxed about taking your moral inventory. Moral inventory? What’s that? And what does it have to do with being a writer? As it turns out, according to the post, quite a lot.

Maass holds that there are two types of story-telling, the mirror and the arrow. The mirror reflects the culture, the arrow points the way to something else (better.) He offers a little quiz to help readers determine which category they fall into by determining their moral inventory, i.e. does the writer believe fate (mirror) determines our path, or does she believe in destiny (self-determination.) Try the quiz for yourself. It’s in the link I posted above. 

When I answered the questions and scored myself, I came down almost in the middle 5/7. That’s my usual fate when faced with a self-knowledge quiz of any sort. Still, I found it useful to consider that I fell slightly more on the arrow side of the equation. At one time I was a teacher and I guess I never got over it. I do want to tell readers what to do. 🙂 

Apart from the total score, I found my answers to the questions enlightening.  I chose faith over reason. I saw each day as opportunity rather than peril. If those are my deeply held convictions, then, if I write characters with the same mind-set, they are more likely to resonate with readers since they are “true” to my beliefs.

Now, I’m not about to sit down and write a story based only on my answers to the quiz, but if I keep in mind that my moral inventory leans toward arrow, it will give me a new way to look at plot points that get tangled up or characters who won’t behave. Are those characters arrows or mirrors?

And, getting back to Alessandra Torre’s webinar, do my readers want to read stories of arrows or mirrors? Which do I want my “brand” to reflect? Torre’s notes were very focussed on marketing and finding an audience. Her own experience shows that readers like an author to “stay in her lane.” That is, they want to know, when they pick up an Alice Valdal novel that it will be like the last one and the next one. 

The Louise Penny novel I just finished is her 19th in the series and the characters and setting are familiar to me. I look forward to spending time with those people in those places. I would be disappointed if Armand Gamache suddenly became a hippie, or Ruth Zardo played nice. The books are not boring, the suspense goes right through to the last page, but they are on brand and I can shell out my dollars knowing I’ll be happy with the book.

I’ve given up on New Year’s resolutions, but I’m happy to have two new lessons to apply to my writing career.

What about you? Any resolutions? Changes? Goals? 

 

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Christmas Short Story

December 22, 2024 /

This year’s Christmas short story is titled, Christmas Lost and Found.

Below is an excerpt.

 

Mary Margaret Murphy slammed on the brakes and wrenched the steering wheel of her late grandmother’s prized 1924 Maxwell, then watched in horror as the big, touring car slid soundlessly into a deep snow drift.

“No! No! No!” she slammed her palm against the steering wheel, then pressed on the accelerator, hoping to ram her way through. She shifted into reverse, then forward, then reverse again, working the clutch, trying to rock the vehicle free, but she was hopelessly stuck. Snow fell, so thick and fast it obliterated her tire tracks within minutes. Soon it would be impossible to tell the difference between roadway and ditch. She covered her face with her hands, despair and frustration clouding out judgement. Judgement! She snorted in self-derision. If she’d exercised even a modicum of good judgement she would never have set forth on a two-day journey to a wilderness cabin to celebrate Christmas.

She’d made a foolish choice because she could not bear the thought of Christmas all alone. Tears stung her eyes and she let them fall. There was no one to see. She was tired of pretending she was all right. The truth was she missed her grandmother dreadfully. Her grief was made worse by the fact there was no one to share it – no sibling, no aunts and uncles, not even a shirt-tail cousin. As the last of the Murphy line in Canada, she was utterly alone. So, when Helen, her friend from the school, invited her to come for Christmas, Mary jumped at the chance.

“Bah, humbug,” she muttered and swiped the tears away. Grandma would not approve. . . . To read more, join my newsletter list using the box at right.

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