A DAY AT THE BEACH

 <This blog originally appeared on the Sand in our Shorts blog July 2022>>

It’s that time of year, you know, beach season. A time to pack up your beach bag and escape to the shore for bit of fun and sun (and in my case, the inevitable sunburn).

Popular activities which can only be enjoyed at the beach include body surfing, boogie boarding, sand-castle building, and fighting off seagulls for the last potato chip on your plate.

As the sun goes down, you repack your bag and head for a local beach dive bar. Popular post-day-at-the-beach drinks include Pina Colada, Mojito, Orange Crush, and the much less popular but certainly appropriate Seagull Wine. Not something I've ever heard of, but I'm picturing a nice pinot gris with a soaring seagull on its label. I could not be more wrong.

Those of you with a curious mind will have your finger twitching on your mouse to scamper off to Google-land. I’ll save you the trouble.

THE WRITERLY LIFE: PERCEPTION vs. REALITY

 

<<NOTE: this post originally appeared on the Sand in our Shorts blog September, 2022> 

Many people I’ve met are envious of the writerly life. But their perceptions of what it’s like to be a writer don’t quite match up to reality. Here are my observations.

     What society thinks I do: Spend all day rolling around in my royalty money.

     What my friends think I do: Go to lunch with them (well, yes, I do that a lot) and then go home and roll around in royalty money.

     What my family thinks I do: Binge on Chunky Monkey ice cream while watching TV, reaching out to tap out a few lofty and erudite sentences when the muse hits. (In my defense I do need to “study” the “occasional” movie for plotting and dialogue training. But it’s all under the banner of “continuing education.") And then roll around in royalty money.

     What my agent thinks I do: Write…excuses as to why I need an extension on my deadline. She knows there is no royalty money in which to roll around.

     What my dogs think I do: Wait by the door to let them out. Wait by the door to let them in. Wait by the door to let them out. Wait by the door to let them in. (Anyone who has dogs can relate…) They don’t give a flying fig about royalty money.

     What I think I do: Tap-tap-tapity-tap all day long, churning out page after page of gripping stories, then send to my agent and wait for the royalty money to roll in.

     What I really do:

KICK OFF CHAOS, A Super-Bowl Themed Sleuth It Yourself Mini Mystery

The Super Bowl watch party won't be right without Laura's lucky jersey. But its T-1 hour until the guests show up, and the jersey is missing. Can you help Callie find it for her mother in time to enjoy the game? 

This is a "sleuth it yourself" mini mystery with the solution at the end.

  KICK OFF CHAOS!

“Where’s my lucky jersey?” Mom’s frantic voice echoes throughout the house. As if things weren’t chaotic enough one hour before kickoff on Super Bowl Sunday, now this.

The big game means little to me.

Mom, on the other hand spends months planning the biggest party on the block. It’s not just the excitement of the game, or the heart-attack-on-a-plate buffet, or the gathering of family, friends, and “frenemies,” aka those who root for the opposing team. It’s also an opportunity to show off her lucky jersey signed by some famous quarterback. Don’t ask me who. He played decades ago.

“Callie, come help me!”

I head in her direction, passing the dining table pre-staged with chafing dishes, crockpots, hot pads, and bowls already mounded with chips. I snag one. There are some aspects of Super Bowl Sundays I do enjoy.

WHERE OH WHERE HAS JAYNE ORMEROD GONE?

 I've been in my writing cave as my focus has taken me in a whole new direction. This meme is worth 1,000 words...

Watch for exciting updates soon!

EVERYTHING YOU'VE ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT FICTION CLASSIFICATIONS...BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK...

   

(Whispered conversation between two young ladies recently overheard in a library bathroom…)
          “Do you know anything about, you know…what they’re talking about in there?”
          “No. I’m pretty inexperienced when it comes to that kind of stuff.”
          “Me too.”
          “Is there some sort of book or something that would explain everything?”
          “You mean like an illustrated how-to manual?”
          “Yeah.”
          “Not that I know of. But I’ve heard some of the older girls talking.”
          “And?”
          “I think they’re talking like they know, but they really don’t know.”
          “So how do you learn?”
          “I guess you just learn by doing it…”

No, these young ladies were not talking about the facts of life. They were aspiring authors attending their first mystery writers’ meeting. Words like genre and sub-genre and novella had been bandied about like bits of gossip dropped at a high-society cocktail party, all followed by a knowing look and responded to with an I’ll-pretend-I-know-what-you’re-talking-about-even-though-I’m-clueless nod. It might surprise you to learn that these two seemingly unrelated topics do have a lot in common.

OH, THE PLACES I'VE BEEN

 <Originally Published October, 2011>

 

Congratulations!

Today is your day.

You’re off to Great Places!

You’re off and away!

 

So begins the motivational book Oh, The Places You’ll Go by the esteemed Dr. Seuss. The book was first published in 1990, years after my own graduation from high school, but if someone had given it to me, I would have scoffed. Why would anyone want to go explore that big scary world when everything I wanted/needed was right here in my small Ohio town? I planned to live in the same area–possibly the same house–where I had grown up and raise a whole passel of children who would wear the same unflattering Orange and Black school colors and then they’d grow up and have babies of their own and live right next door to me. In a word, I was wanderlust-less. So even if Oh, The Places You’ll Go had been available, its encouragement to go off and see the world would have been wasted on me. 

"PASSING DIRECTIONS...Which are in No Way Connected to Driving a Motor Vehicle

 

<<In the spirit of the Thanksgiving holiday, I thought it appropriate to pluck from the annals of my military spouse newsletters a column I’d written about the finer points of table etiquette. It just goes to prove that I learn something new every day!>>

'Tis the season…for holiday gatherings which involve too much food and not enough etiquette, much like the one I recently experienced during a large gathering of our navy family. There were twenty people seated around one long table, which had been festooned with Lenox China, Waterford crystal and more forks, knives and spoons than I knew what to do with. But despite the formal setting, there were no butlers dancing attendance, so the meal was served “Family Style.” This requires the passing of the food around the table for each diner to pile mountains of gastronomic pleasures onto their own plate.