Life in progress

Daily Archives: April 1, 2014


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The Simplest Things

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click on the photo to see the detail

It’s funny how the simplest, and sometimes the ugliest, things can be made beautiful by nature.

The frost along the edge of these dried leaves captured my attention this morning while I was outside with Alex, waiting for the school bus.

Speaking of Alex and going to school, I thought he would be staying at home today. Yesterday he came home with a little itch on his wrist. No biggie. I couldn’t see anything, and he seemed to forget about it as he got involved in things to do. Then before bed it began to itch again. I encouraged him to ignore it and just go to sleep but he wouldn’t stop scratching. He was miserable.

After listening to him whine in bed for about half an hour, I went back upstairs to see him. He was covered, head to toe, in a red, angry-looking rash. There were bumps and actual weals on his legs, some of which were five inches across. It was horrible! I gave him an anti-histamine and let him sleep on the couch where it was a little cooler.

This morning, when he woke up, he’d forgotten about it. All that was left of the rash was the scratches he inflicted on himself with his fingernails.

The cause, as well as I can theorize, was stress caused by the simple little itch he had on his wrist – which was also gone this morning.

Funny how the simplest things can take on a life of their own, when given a touch of something extra, isn’t it?


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A is for … About

“I’m writing a novel,” I say, with trepidation.

“Really?” they reply. “What’s it about?”

“Well, it’s about a girl who leaves home and meets a magician.”

“Oh. That sounds … nice.”

“But his family has this deep dark secret.”

(Best case scenario.) Their eyebrows lift a notch. “That sounds intriguing!”

(What usually happens because I lost them after the word ‘magician.’) “What? I was paying attention to something else.”

Explaining what your story is about can be the most difficult thing. From what I’ve discovered by experience, it’s even harder than writing a blurb – because at least with a blurb, if someone is going to bother reading it, they’ve probably committed themselves mentally to paying attention to at least two sentences – one more than you’ve got to grab them with in conversation.

Trying to explain what I do, off the top of my head, is never easy. I don’t have a natural gift for talking about myself. That’s why I write. And so I’m thinking that this may be one of the major reasons that it’s not a good idea to talk about being an author at all.

Before I do, however, publish my novel, I’ll be sure to write myself a sentence which I will recite verbatim whenever anyone asks.

For the short fiction that goes with this post, please visit my fiction blog here: A is for … Aarin, the Topless Pirate.