As part of the 15 Habits Of Great Writers Challenge, I’ve been dared to practice in public.  Last Friday, I shared a little snippet of Zach the Zombie, and everyone was so encouraging that I’m starting Fiction Friday.  Like last week, go easy on me…this is raw, unedited stuff.  This week, the verb tense jumps back and forth.  I know this.  I’m sorry.  Grammar-police, please check your red pens at the door.   “Arthur, I need to go.” Arthur takes a deep breath and heaves it back out again with a long cough.  He spits a chunk of phlegm and flesh out […]

Read More

As part of the 15 Habits Of Great Writers Challenge, I’ve was dared last week to been to practice in public–to post something here like nothing I’ve ever posted before. Now, Jeff has dared us to “Start Ugly.” This means that I need to confess something to you.  What you normally see here?  That’s not how it starts.  Thoughts don’t typically come pouring out of me like a beautiful flowing river (nor do they end up looking like that, either).  They look a lot more like a Class 6 rapids.  Messy.  Doubling back on themselves.  Lots of rocks. Then I edit. […]

Read More

As part of the 15 Habits Of Great Writers Challenge, I’ve been dared to practice in public–to post something here like nothing I’ve ever posted before.  And while I have posted a few short creative pieces here in the past (Moonlight, The Hitchhiker, and one about my mother’s death), I’ve never shared any bits of fiction. In my defense, I started this story last Christmas break, before the news was filled with zombies.  It came out of reading Zechariah 14.  So it’s a bible story.  Sort of.  That means that my mother-in-law will forgive me for using a bad word in it.  And […]

Read More

Work has picked up lately.  More specifically, travel for work has picked up lately. When I’m not on the road, I work from an office in my house.  In my yoga pants. Travel means putting on big-girl clothes like the rest of you do every day.  Makeup.  Shoes. I have to look like a real live human being.  And sit in conference rooms and draw on whiteboards and lead conversations and make decisions.  That takes a lot of effort, and to be honest, some days I wonder if it’s worth it. I wonder why. Last February, I was honored to […]

Read More

Last week I went to the office. This required dressing up in more than just a pair of yoga pants and fuzzy slippers. Looking like a human being.  Sitting in a room for three solid days with other people that I told to show up and look and act like human beings, all together. For an ultra-introvert…that’s hell.  On earth. (side note:  why can’t our office be someplace that’s located at the intersection of hell and atlantis, otherwise known as Florida?  I did not know that air could be both wet and on fire at the same time.) Furthermore, I suck […]

Read More