Family rituals. There have been a lot of them over the years – family dinners, bedtime stories, Friday night waffle night. They have shifted and changed over the years, an inevitability with the birth of each child, with the deaths of my father and my husband, one ritual fading away to be replaced by another. And now that the kids are busy, independent teenagers, most of the rituals are gone….
I’m not much for the spooky stuff, to tell you the truth. I grew up believing that the Devil was a very real and frightening entity. None of that Halloween or cartoon silliness with the horns and the tail and the pitchfork for me. Oh no. He was presented in full power mode: fallen angel, dragon, the darkest forces of evil in one malevolent and powerful being. The only entity…
Villain. It’s a term that makes me think of a black-caped man in a pointy beard and waxed mustache tying some helpless woman onto a railway track. You know that he will be punished and the woman will be rescued. Things are clear cut and pre-destined. Sometimes it’s fun to read a book or watch a movie where the person out to get our hero is purely evil. We find…
A VAGABOND SONG THERE is something in the autumn that is native to my blood— Touch of manner, hint of mood; And my heart is like a rhyme, With the yellow and the purple and the crimson keeping time. The scarlet of the maples can shake me like a cry Of bugles going by. And my lonely spirit thrills To see the frosty asters like a smoke upon the…
Surprise! Welcome to Surprise Week here at the Ball. Seriously – if you thought I would post pictures of me naked in the shower with a snail – or naked at all – then I am the one who is truly surprised. You can blame the title on my fellow Debs who dared me. That said, many surprising things have taken place in both my humble bathroom and my…
The topic of the week here at the Ball is “Writer’s Conferences,” or “Interacting With Other Writers.” As it turns out, I like this topic. I’ve had great experiences both with conferences and other writers, both online and in person. This summer, I celebrated my first ever publishing contract by attending two big writer’s conferences: RT and RWA. That, for a neophyte conference attendee, is a heck of a lot…
We stand in a forlorn little clump on the funeral parlor sales floor – my brother, my mother, and I – attempting to pick out a casket for a man who can’t possibly be dead. We are all a little lost, not sure yet who we are without him or whether the family center will hold. One thing we all see for certain but don’t know how to say: the…
Sometimes, the idea for a book comes to me in a flash – a character walks into my head and starts talking, a bit of a news story catches my fancy, a line of prose shines all sparkly and bright amid the rest of the flotsam and jetsam of my generally jumbled thoughts. Not so with Between. This book has a long and complicated evolution resembling alchemy more than anything…
This week’s topic is hobbies, or “what do you do when you’re not writing?” My initial reaction when I saw it was a blank and clueless stare, followed by the question, “Can Twitter be a hobby?” And then I literally clicked on over to Google to help me out. The first definition supplied by the All Knowing Google is this: An activity done regularly in one’s leisure time for pleasure….
Oooh, looks like I’m the first new Deb on the dance floor. I’m feeling a little self conscious all decked out in pearls and this shiny new tiara, but I’m so thrilled and excited to be here. I had hoped to put my best foot forward and show you all of my star quality dance moves right up front, but alas, it is not to be. The band is playing a…
