Blog Archives

#8Sunday--Opening Lines Sweet Lenora

8/30/2015

Welcome back to #8Sunday, the weekly blog hop where writers post eight to ten sentences of their work. I've been doing a series featuring the opening eight to ten lines of my books. Over the next few weeks, I'll be featuring the Sweet Lenora series of novellas. I've got a final, full length sequel to these three short books coming out in October, so I'll end the series with the opening lines of the new novel.
This week, I'm featuring Sweet Lenora, the first book of the novella series. Lenora Brewer has just lost her father and she's about to go on a journey that changes her life.

On the day of my father’s funeral, the gray October sky opened and shed copious tears. It was good that the sky was so willing to cry as I could not find my own sorrow. It seemed I buried
it upon learning of his death.
We stood around the gravesite as he was laid next to the mother I had never known. My Aunt Louise looked up now and again from under the awning of her black umbrella to insure herself
that I had not jumped in after the coffin or run off into the rain. To Aunt Louise, I was a spoiled and fractious child, not a young woman of twenty with a mind of my own.
“High time you found her a husband,” she had said to Father on more occasions than I cared to count. “It will not do to let her run wild.”

A little bit of #poetry--About Van Gough

8/26/2015

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I've written a lot of poems over the years. They are gifts, of sorts, to myself. I'm reminded to read through them now and again. Some time ago, I wrote a series of pieces about Van Gough's paintings. Here's one of them:

About Van Gough
It was never about the splash of fire
in the petals of sunflowers,
or the midnight sky circling
a starry night.
Nor was it the incessant babbling of color
that filled an empty canvas with lilies and hay.

No, always
it was something mirrored
in the startled faces of coal miners
as they climbed out of the darkness they ingested daily
leaving the earth
for the painful brilliance of sun.

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#8Sunday Opening Lines-The Lilac Hour

8/16/2015

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Welcome to #8Sunday, the weekly blog hop where writers post eight to ten sentences of work. Over the past weeks, I've been featuring the opening lines of my stories. This week's opener is from The Lilac Hour, the first and title story of my short story trilogy. The narrator is 85 year old Sarah Snow, whose husband died when they were young. The tone is meant to be nostalgic, with a hint of sweetness.

We called it the lilac hour. The name came from my Aunt Delilah, who had a jungle of lilacs in her backyard near the harbor. Every spring, they would open their fragrant buds of deep purple and gentle pink. And so it was that I pointed out those same colors to Zeke as the sun finished dipping deep into the bay and Zeke said, “Yes, the lilac hour.”

We were young then, Zeke and I, new to marriage and still a little reckless, and I thought the term highly romantic.

That spring, Zeke gathered lilacs, bushels of them, from Delilah’s garden and put the petals on our bed. Still dreaming, I awoke to the stubble of his beard grazing my neck and the delicious sweetness rising from those buds. I’ve never been able to pass a lilac bush without thinking of him, and the tenderness of early love. I’ve spent my life looking to find that moment again, that one perfect moment, of lilacs.

#8Sunday Opening Lines--Blueberry Truth

8/9/2015

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Welcome to Sunday Eight, a blog hop in which writers post eight to ten lines of their work. Since we often talk about the opening lines of our stories, I've been doing a series that features my opener.
Today, I'm going all the way back to my debut novel, Blueberry Truth. In the beginning, Beanie is waiting for husband Mac to come home. He's late, as usual.

Johnny Mathis has sung “Chances Are” four times now, and chances are not awfully good Mac will be home anytime soon. I try to be sympathetic; Mac is a pediatric cardiologist. His high-pressure job has irregular hours, and he’s stood me up before, though always with good reason. Mac wouldn’t be Mac if he didn’t go the extra mile for his patients. But despite all his good intentions, I’m about ready to throttle him.
He’s not the only one who’s got a tough job. I teach seven-to nine-year-olds at St. Luke’s, a school for children labeled “at risk.” Like Mac, I love my work. But I’ve had a hard day, too.

More about Blueberry Truth

Find your next great read! Check out the #8Sunday blog hop.

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#8Sunday Opening Lines--Dancing in the White Room #amwriting

8/2/2015

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Welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors, the blog hop where writers post eight to ten lines of their work. Over the past weeks, I've been posting the opening of my books.
Dancing in the White Room is a book set in winter and centered around skiing. Since I'm writing this post on the hottest day of the year so far, snow seems a very distant thing. But, then again, maybe a reminder of cooler temperatures is just what's needed.
In the book, Mallory must decide if her relationship with PD Bell is worth fighting for. It begins with a fight--the challenge here is to show two people who care about each other, but are having some real trouble in figuring things out.

The alarm goes off at four-thirty, and I stare at the skylight of our sleeping loft. Bell
bangs on the clock to keep it from singing out again. I turn my back and nestle under the
blankets. It’s almost March and it shouldn’t be as cold as it is—five below last night according to
the thermometer propped outside the kitchen window. The temperature inside’s not much
warmer. Bell would probably say I’m the one causing the freeze. We spent the past few days
fighting. I did my share of pleading and cursing. I refused to help him pack his gear.

Find your next great read! Check out all the authors at Weekend Writing Warriors

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Inside the Writer's Garret

#8Sunday--Opening Lines Sweet Lenora

A little bit of #poetry--About Van Gough

#8Sunday Opening Lines-The Lilac Hour

#8Sunday Opening Lines--Blueberry Truth

#8Sunday Opening Lines--Dancing in the White Room #amwriting

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Inside the Writer's Garret

#8Sunday--Opening Lines Sweet Lenora

A little bit of #poetry--About Van Gough

#8Sunday Opening Lines-The Lilac Hour

#8Sunday Opening Lines--Blueberry Truth

#8Sunday Opening Lines--Dancing in the White Room #amwriting

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