Many people–I among them–have used the image of a giant soup pot for the writer’s mind and stories. Everything around goes into the pot, the pot bubbles along, and at some point out comes a bowl of something good. I notice increasingly though that what comes out depends on how the writer conceives of story…should Read More…
Author: Elizabeth
Writer, photographer, married, mother. Also native plants, wildlife, music, horses, curiosity unlimited, time limited. Pronouns she, her
Seasons
First week of November: our trees and bushes are changing color. Last week we began noticing the glowing green of leaves losing some of their chlorophyll…sun shining through, and not just on, them. But this morning I walked out into a display of yellow: the ash trees, the bois d’arc trees, the western soapberries…bright buttery Read More…
The Green Light
Last summer, when I wrote “Bring Out Your Dead” it was the first short fiction I’d written since the concussion. The first that almost, nearly, sort of, had a true narrative arc. Short fiction is not my main talent. My agent asked if I’d consider writing a story for a particular editor & anthology, and Read More…
Rags & Tigger Show
This evening I fed the horses a flake each an hour before their supper, because, with the time change, they think they should be fed at 4 pm, not 5, and I’m easing them into the winter feeding schedule (I need light in the barn to measure their evening feed, and there’s only sunlight or Read More…
What Writers Argue About
Writers argue about everything. We hold different views on what other writers *should* write about, what topics are too something (ordinary, fantastic, political, politically naive, mundane, exotic, narrow, broad…) or not enough something (same list), how writers should handle certain topics, if writers should use some hot-button term, whether a phrase in common use 150 Read More…
The Elephant in the Room
Two Elephants, actually. One is Election Day, and the other is one party of candidates. The first Elephant is a reminder to US citizens that voting is not just a privilege, but a duty…and a related duty is not interfering with anyone else’s right to vote. So please, if you haven’t voted during early voting, Read More…
Are Horses Off-Topic? Not Really
Most regular visitors here know I am a horse lover, longtime rider, and occasional horse owner, with a list of horse-related injuries to prove some level of inexpert experience. I have fallen off horses over fences, been spun off, bucked off (both western & English tack), and have had broken bones and concussions. Still, the Read More…
NewBook in the Home Stretch (I hope!) And Soup.
NewBook shed several thousand words when I pulled out the stuff that was on the wrong track, and the stuff that didn’t belong in this book at all. There may be more fossils to be removed but…several thousand new words have come along and are about to make connections that flow back through the other Read More…
FaceBook, Alas. Again.
Monday night FaceBook suddenly went crazy on me, and started reloading continuously, which meant it never reloaded completely. I have no idea what happened, or how to fix it. The “reload” icon and “X” icon blinked alternately very fast. So…no FaceBook for me. (I can waste hours on horse videos and old PBS mystery programs, Read More…
And then what?
The most important question for a storyteller is the one asked by anxious readers who are glued to the story…”And then what happened?” In any of its variant forms, this question means that so far the story is functioning as it should. The glue itself varies with the reader…I remember books praised by other kids, Read More…