So here’s a mystery. Last Thursday, the nest held five eggs.
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The New Tenants, Part 2
Here’s what I know so far.
First, my new tenants aren’t much for planning ahead. They moved in on Sunday. By Wednesday, this was happening: Continue reading
The New Tenants
This morning, I woke to a chorus of chattering birds. At risk of anthropomorphizing, I’d have to say they sounded irritated, agitated, and/or downright pissed off. I didn’t understand why they’d be so stressed until I opened the front door and saw this: Continue reading
The Novella Dilemma
Novella: a work of fiction intermediate in length and complexity between a short story and a novel.
(Source: http://www.merriam-webster.com)
So here’s the situation. You sat down to write a story. You didn’t think about form or length. You just wanted to tell this particular tale. When you finished, you found that it was 20,000 words long. “Gee,” you thought. “That seems kind of long for a short story.” And then you did a little research, and you found that most literary journals want stories of less than around 5,000 words (some less than 3,000).
Getaway
Everyone has a cherished place where they can get away from the world. When I was eight, it was the upstairs bathroom with no windows and the door locked, where I could read in peace and dream of the day when I would no longer have to share a bedroom with my sister. Fifty years later, with an entire house to myself, my special getaway place is a mere thirty-five minutes from home: The Spa At Norwich Inn.
Celebrating
On Friday, April 13, 2018, I wrote the word I sometimes doubted I would never write:
END
One Hell of a Holy Week
Last weekend, I started writing a blog post about my sweet Buddy. He was lying in my lap as I wrote, dozing and sometimes purring.
And dying.
That post ended up getting bumped when a friend called to advise me of the horrible tragic death of someone I’d known as a friend and to whom she’d been much closer. I thought I had more time to write about Buddy.
I was wrong. At least if I wanted to write about him during his lifetime.
Writing From Real Life, Part 2: When to Refrain
Photo credit: Viktoria Hall-Waldhauser
Last night, a dear friend called to tell me about a horrible tragedy [the “Occurrence”] involving someone who was once very important to her and whom I knew as a friend, although he and I lost touch many years ago. The Occurrence will have repercussions, not only in breadth as people farther from the event are notified–ripples in the pond–but in depth as all of us explore and deal with our own reactions and those of others. Continue reading
On Time: Too Young, Too Old, Too Soon, Too Late . . . Or Maybe Just Right
Time is one of those subjects that never seem to wear out their welcomes. A Google search for “time” with no qualifiers turns up “[a]pproximately 11,300,000,000 results”. Small wonder, when so much of our lives are devoted to talking about it, thinking about it, planning for it, using it, wasting it, managing it, killing it, maximizing it, praying for more of it. Whether seconds on the clock, hours in the day, or years in a lifetime, time is a universal obsession: Continue reading
On Not Thinking
I am the Queen of Overthinking.
If there’s a way to dissect an issue, I’m there. Maybe it’s the lawyer training, or maybe it’s the writer instinct. Either way, I can meet practically any statement with “but what if . . . ?” (Not everyone loves this about me.) Continue reading
P. Jo Anne Burgh 