I was sitting in the basement with my bike helmet on waiting for the tornado to hit. (Rich was out of town.) Now Rich and kids think this is hysterical, but I was just following the weatherman’s suggestion. It made sense to me. If debris were to fly all around the basement, perhaps this piece of hard plastic would save my brain…maybe my life. I’m very trusting. My mind was crystal clear—I was thinking ninja-sharp. After I put on my helmet, I got two afghans, a pillow, both Rich’s and my laptop, and my purse, stashing it all under Read More
Category: Inspiration
Chakras and Totems and Finches, Oh My!
This is a repost of a blog I wrote in July 2013. It is my most popular blog post, and I continue to get hits on it everyday. I also continue to get comments–some very poignant–about loved ones whose passing is followed by a similar visit. I wanted to share it again because this was such an extraordinary experience for me. What I am about to tell you is true. Caveat: if you are a pragmatist, I will probably make you angry. Sunday night after printing out poems I needed for a poetry group meeting the next day, I shut down my Read More
Five Writing Lessons from the “Ode to Billie Joe”
If you’ve never listened to “Ode to Billie Joe” sung by Bobby Gentry, give yourself that gift right now and click above. If you aren’t able to, or don’t wish to listen to it, here is a link to the lyrics. But listening to Bobby Gentry sing it with her whiskey-silk, Mississippi Delta voice is a treat you won’t forget. Gentry wrote and recorded the song in 1967, and Billboard ranked it as the #3 song of the year. As young teens, my friends and I, like the rest of the country, animatedly speculated about what it was that the Read More
Embracing the “One Little Word” Challenge
My friend Lisa challenged me and our friend Tina to consider the “One Little Word” challenge. This idea is the brainchild of Ali Edwards who in 2006 began to chose one word each January that One of Ali’s One Little Word Projects would be her focus for that year. While I am not taking part in her workshop because I am in the midst of revision for my next novel, I accepted my friend Lisa’s challenge to think of a word that could be my focus for 2015. Embracing my beautiful daughter, Kate While I was watching Ali’s video about Read More
Acknowledging Boris, My Muse
My sister-in-law Karen bought my book The Cavanaugh House today, and about 20 minutes after she left she called to tell me how much she liked my acknowledgement of my muse, Boris. I have a small section called “About Muses” at the end of the book after the Acknowledgements page. Karen had turned to that first thing and was very moved by it. I wanted to share it here to increase the chance that people read it. I admit that I sometimes don’t read the Acknowledgements page or anything included at the end of a book. I usually close the Read More