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I’ve updated a blog from yesteryear on the writer’s site, A Slice of Orange. Squeezed between Halloween and Christmas, it often feels like Thanksgiving might become a holiday wannabe.
Click the link here to read – Happy Hallothanksgivingmas.
14 Sunday Nov 2021
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I’ve updated a blog from yesteryear on the writer’s site, A Slice of Orange. Squeezed between Halloween and Christmas, it often feels like Thanksgiving might become a holiday wannabe.
Click the link here to read – Happy Hallothanksgivingmas.
31 Friday May 2019
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It’s been a rough spring largely because I missed it.
In December, we made a sudden decision to spend February through April in Florida. Our primary reason was to spend time with elderly mother-in-law in assisted living before she forgot who we were. Secondary reason is spousal unit’s desire to skip winter in Pennsylvania.
Who could blame her? It was a rough winter as well. My initial fear, however, is what would it do to the time I reserve for writing. I’d just come off a promise to the long-suffering muse in my head that I’d not neglect her; (click and read – The Silent Light of a Winter Night, December 2018).
Turned out, I wrote more than usual. Cranked out 40K on the book I’m rewriting, and still had time to format and post blogs on our group’s GLVWG Write Stuff Conference™ blog about every three-four days that began in mid-January through the end of March. Lot of work, but something had to give.
Yep, bless me readers, but I haven’t blogged since February.
During this rather busy period, I heard from an ex-colleague who used to follow humorous articles I wrote for a travel magazine overseas. Would I submit something for a quarterly newsletter they do? More specifically, would I write about our first ever snowbird experience in the same voice as my former writing experience? How could I turn down a fan from yesteryear? It published a few weeks ago, and he’s given me permission to post it here.
The article is in a different voice from what I pen today, but as penance for not keeping up in blogosphere, I offer it below. I hope you find it humorous, and perhaps it will brighten your day as well.
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Snowbirding
Graphic From: Sarah Barendse – Creative Services
Never thought I’d be a Snowbird, defined as those who abandon the bitter winters of Northern America for sunnier climes in Florida. I like the change of seasons and don’t mind shoveling the times Nature dumps solidified water on my driveway. It’s also my most productive season as a writer, when I don’t have to answer the WYWA (Worldwide Yard Wrestling Association), or involuntarily submit to projects assigned by my wife.
It was an impulsive decision, sparked by a need to spend more time with my 90-year-old mother-in-law in an assisted living facility in Naples. Wheelchair bound, she’d weakened the past year after her husband passed-away in 2017. My bro-in-law knows everybody in the South Florida boating industry, and he found a place in Ft. Myers beginning February if we were willing to take it for three months.
Three months? What the heck do I do for three months in a territory commonly known as “God’s Waiting Room”.
30 Sunday Jul 2017
Posted Humor, On Writing
inConsidering I haven’t posted a blog article in a couple months, you might be tempted to say I’m lazy. Just for the record, I’ve been allocating all my time to finishing a damned sci-fi novel, in between standard and a few non-standard life issues.
Cue the sound of blowing raspberries.
Truth is I am easily distracted in my writing process, defined as taking too many side trips in storyville, or getting shanghaied by other projects. It’s not unusual for me to write 10K words, then dump over half of it next day, cussing aloud for allowing myself to be drawn to unrelated tangents. It has something to do I think with my inability to compartmentalize a random synaptic twinkle without bounding after it like a dog after a stick.
As for diverting to other projects, it’s better demonstrated with an example. A couple months back, a group of fellow writers I hang with thought we should do an anthology. For those unfamiliar with the term, it is commonly a book or collection of selected writings by various authors, usually in the same literary form, or the same period, or on the same subject. It can also be a collection of selected writings by one author. Never been much of a short story writer. How hard could it be?
Don’t answer that.
10 Monday Mar 2014
Posted Guest Blog, Humor, On Writing
in≈ Comments Off on Guest Blogging with Author D.B. Sieders
Author D.B. Sieders is hosting me on her site this week. D.B. and I share a similar educational background in biology. She stayed the course through graduate school to become a working scientist. My road to a biology degree took a few detours. Join me as I muddle through the tricky wicket of advice on the writing craft.
Read More of: “I’m Confused Enough Already”
D.B. Sieders – Musings from the Music City Writer
14 Friday Feb 2014
Posted Humor
inAh … L-Amour. Let me measure the depth of my love for you. TWO FEET. I’d use inches, but you’d get the wrong idea.
I know you wanted chocolates, my dear, but I bought two shovels instead. Aren’t they cute? His and hers, and I made sure to get bright red, the color of love. It’s easy to find if you drop it in a snow drift. Think of the fun we’ll have, side by side like the pioneers of yesteryear. Afterwards, we can build a snowman, or snowwoman, laugh at our icy Michelangelo sculpture with anatomically correct parts. I didn’t realize all you have is flat tops for shoes. Maybe an extra pair of socks will help.
I know we had reservations at Maxim’s, but I think they’re closed. I forgot to hit the store yesterday, but I have some Vienna sausage and a can of cream of celery soup. Might have some jerky left over from my last hunting trip. We can warm our toes by the fire in our long johns, drink the airline miniature liquor samples I’ve been hoarding for days like this, maybe watch Groundhog Day. Yeah, we’ve seen it, but 14th time’s a charm. Oh, forgot to mention the weather forecast. They’re calling for another 4-6 inches tomorrow. Won’t that be fun? We can sing the holiday classic – “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow?”
What’s that, my dear? Go what myself ….?
Hey, come on now. Isn’t my fault that Punxsutawney gopher got all transgender on us, changed his name to Phyllis and said she wasn’t coming out until May. No, dear, that was caused by something called a polar vortex. The arctic Inuit natives put a whammy on us southerners for causing global warming and melting the ice packs, messing up a lifestyle that goes back thousands of years. I think those rascally Canadians caused this storm. They got it out for us … something about wanting to share the love … of winter. Sure, we can pack up and visit your sister in South Carolina, but the car has been buried in a snowdrift by the road plow. They charge a fine for parking in a snow emergency route? I didn’t know it was going to be an emergency. Besides, your sister got a foot of snow as well and her town doesn’t have road plows like ours, so consider ourselves lucky.
Should have gone to the Olympics in Sochi, I hear the weather is balmy. What? I thought it was funny. Gee whiz, what a grumpy pants.
Hey, look what I found … a couple of Hershey kisses left over from Christmas. Looks like you’ll get chocolate after all. Give me a hug.
Oh, babe … you kiss your mother with that mouth?
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