Of Gifts, TP and Tires

Gifts, presents, things-actual items wrapped and handed to you either on a special day or for no reason what-so-ever.  We don’t like to talk about gifts, so materialistic, but really who doesn’t like to receive a present?

 A few days ago a friend brought me a funny and useful gift.

Comma Confusion part 2

Comma confused? This post will help. Another, "this is a football" / "respect your editor" post

Transformation

TRANSFORMATION - change, grow, develop

 

We all do this and we want our characters to do this.

Comma Confusion part 1

Another post in the “this is a football”/ “respect your editor” line of thought:

Comma’s- tricky, squiggly little tadpole-ish things. I know I use them wrong much of the time.

One of the biggest mistakes is making a “comma splice”.

Baby Steps

My youngest son is joining the middle school track team. He’s been looking forward to this for years. His older brother, now 20, ran track. His sister is on the high school track team, his 14 year old brother is also on the mid school track team. The youngest has wanted to do field events for years. Discus like his sister, long jump like his oldest brother. He doesn’t want to run but the middle school requires all athletes to run one event.

What Would Sophia Do?

I think about my characters a lot, sometimes more than my children. Today, while helping my almost twelve year old make a banana cream pie for his grandfather, I carefully separated the eggs, yolks in one bowl, whites in another and I thought what would Sophia do?

This is a Football (1)

“The story is told that the legendary football coach Vince Lombardi had a ritual he performed on the first day of training. He would hold up a football, show it to the athletes who had been playing the sport for many years, and say, 'Gentlemen, … this is a football!' He talked about its size and shape, how it can be kicked, carried, or passed. He took the team out onto the empty field and said, “This is a football field.” He walked them around, describing the dimensions, the shape, the rules, and how the game is played.

Hike Through the Woods

Sara (name changed) sat in a secluded corner of the YA section of our local library.  She was a small woman made even smaller by circumstance, choices and disposition. Fragile self esteem, unusual health issues, unemployed for the better part of seven years, and fleeing an abusive ex-husband. A man she later came to find was on the sex offenders list, a man bad to the core. “Who would’ve though you needed to run a background check on your husband,” Sara had said in an earlier conversation. She wore a scarf around her head and penciled on brows. Her skin a smooth alabaster with the sheen of silk, devoid of all hair. Cancer a stranger would surmise but no among other things she has Alopecia Universalis and her own immune system was attacking her hair follicles.