DEAR INCREDIBLE STORY IDEA...I will find you and I will write you!

      

One of the top questions I get asked by readers is, “Where do you get your inspiration for stories?”  The easier question to answer is, “Where DON’T I find inspiration?”  Everything I see, I wonder what the story behind it is, like these shoes in the image. It’s all about asking a few questions and then making up the answers.  

     Say you’re walking down the street of your small Midwestern town and notice that the large clock atop the town hall has stopped working. You ask yourself when and why did it stop?  A writer might (and one did) wonder if it had been struck by lightning. Hence the time it had been struck was preserved for future generations to cogitate about. That begs the question, if someone were to travel back in time and needed to harness a huge amount of energy, they would know what time the clock was struck and arrange to be there when the lightning struck. Hence with a few questions and a little imagination, you could have written Back to the Future. And you would have made a little bit of money doing so, too.

VERY SUPERSTITIOUS...

Have you checked the calendar today? Yup. It’s Friday the 13^th. Does that scare you?

According to my sources (the Internet), thirteen is an unlucky number. Historically it has something to do with the number of people seated at the dinner table. Why? Let’s see…how many were at The Last Supper? Thirteen. And we all know how that turned out. How many, according to the Norse myth, were at the table before Loki arrived uninvited and then some really bad things happened, like, people died? Twelve, plus Loki equals thirteen. The code of Hammurabi skips right over a 13th Law. There must be something to this...

Twelve is considered a “perfect” number (twelve months in a year, twelve gods of Olympus, twelve hours in half of a day.) It then follows that the number thirteen must be equally UN-perfect, right? Or so the superstitious minded say. Peoples’ fear of the number thirteen, labeled triskaidekaphobia (that’s a mouthful, isn’t it?) is evident through the centuries. Even today you might hop on an elevator in a high-rise and notice there is no 13th floor.   

CELEBRATE GOOD BOOKS, COME ON!

 

Those who know me know I don’t pay particular attention to these National Observance days. There’s too many to track, over 2,100 according to the National Observance Day website << https://nationaldaytoday.com >>. I’ll do the math for you…that averages almost 200 per month! Works out to be about six per day! More than enough to drive a woman to drink…more!

Of course, my lack of attention means I’ve been known to miss the big ones, like National Son’s Day, or National Mutt Day. But since we celebrate those every day at Casa Ormerod, no need to feel guilty about not giving a social media shoutout every time these important dates roll around.

There’s another National Observance Day on the horizon that I also celebrate every single day, but thought it’s time for the rest of the world to show it a little more love. So today I’m dedicating my blog to raising awareness of this little known but very important day.

THE DOGS DAYS OF SUMMER...What the Heck Does that Mean?

         “I’m melting….” That’s my internal thought every time I step out into the unbearably hot and horribly humid sticky-icky summer days.  But at least I can sweat, or “glow” as they say here in the south, to cool off. 

Dogs don’t sweat. Their only cooling mechanism is to pant, drawing air across those long fat tongues. Only it’s hot humid air flowing across their tongues so it doesn’t seem as if it would be all that effective. Which explains why they often resort to Plan B: digging holes in the dirt deep under the front porch where it is maybe three degrees cooler. It doesn’t seem as if they have a Plan C.

Melting dogs under porches is why these summer days are known as “The Dog Days of Summer.”

THE OH-SO-SUBTLE SOUTHERNIZATION OF A YANKEE…

Those sneaky southerners! They draw you into their gracious mannerly ways and hypnotize you with that charming long-voweled speech. Before you even realize it, you've been Southernized. I’m a born and raised Buckeye, a Yankee through and through. But most of my thirty years as a Navy spouse have been spent in the south. Virginia, South Carolina and Tennessee, to be specific. When I ran across a porch plaque defining The South, I realized I just might be one of them now. 

 

The South

\t͟hə ‘sau’th\, noun

A Place Where…

 

Tea is sweet and accents are sweeter. I’ve been known to slip a “fixin’ to” in as often as possible—and it must be said with a twang in order to truly be southern.

SWEET KINDNESS

On the occasion of a recent celebration on my behalf, a dear friend contacted a woman who not only makes the best sugar cookies, she also specializes in custom decorations. My friend ordered two dozen cookies, telling the baker that I am a writer and suggesting she decorate them with writerly things like quills or a typewriter or other icons that represent my love for creating stories. The baker asked my name and my friend shared Jayne Ormerod. Isn’t that a thoughtful surprise?

When my friend picked up the cookies, the baker was so excited to share her beautiful creations reflecting images of my book covers. The sweet woman had gone above and beyond to look up my writerly profile and decorate the cookies accordingly. Isn’t that a delightful gesture?

THE WRITERLY LIFE--Pen Musings

Ballpoint pens. One of those things you probably use every day but don’t give much thought to. As a writer, I am (seemingly by definition) a ballpoint pen collector. At any given moment in time, I probably have more than one hundred in my inventory. (It’s not “hoarding” if you actually use them, correct? Just checking.)

Pens are everywhere! Tucked in spines of notebooks and journals; stuffed into coffee cups throughout the house; MIA somewhere in my car (I usually harvest at least twenty from underneath the driver’s seat every time I go fishing for a dropped French fry); and often i have at least one jammed into a sweatshirt pocket—which I will hopefully remember to remove before sending the shirt through the laundry.