Other People’s Words

I stayed up late the past two nights and didn’t make up for the sleep lost. As a result,  my attention span hasn’t kicked in, and since an attention span is almost essential to my writing, today’s post focuses on what other people have written.

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Totsymae climbed a ladder the other day but came down by a different route. Read about it here. No one can tell a story quite like Totsymae. She illustrates as well.

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Yesterday marked my first post at Writing Wranglers and Warriors. There are nineteen bloggers in the group. When they asked me to join, I jumped at the chance. You might have seen my post about E-Impulse on the reblog here yesterday, but please stop in at Writing Wranglers and Warriors to see what others are writing. Today Erin Farwell, author of historical mysteries, writes about Keeping the Tradition. Two days ago, Doris McCraw posted Outside the Lines, about leaving the rules behind and making new traditions. Doris also blogs at fivesevenfivepage.

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Gale Albright posts memories of her friend Cinda Cyrus in Visions and Revisions.

VP Chandler outlines required reading for her prospective informal education.

Elizabeth Buhmann posts about a neighborhood in Richmond, Virginia that inspired a setting in her novel Lay Death at Her Door.

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I would express my opinion of the operating system that accompanied my new laptop, but if I did so, you would stop thinking of me as a truly nice person and start thinking something closer to the truth. The fact that four out of five critique partners agree with me would make no difference.

The laptop itself, however, is truly nice. So is LibreOffice, the free office suite I downloaded to handle documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and other functions I haven’t discovered yet.

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The time has come to retire, lest the lose-sleep-lose-attention-span thing start all over again. ‘Night.

She Cannot Get Away

Kaye - testimonial - pictures - croppedIf you read the previous post, reblogged from Gale Albright’s Visions and Revisions, you know mystery novelist Kaye George attended the Austin Mystery Writers meeting last week. Kaye, who for a number of years served as AMW’s Grand Pooh-Bah, moved to Tennessee last winter, leaving Gale and me forsaken and forlorn.

At the Last Lunch, celebrated at the Elite Cafe in Waco, Gale and I presented Kaye a certificate declaring her Member Emerita. It was supposed to say Grand Pooh-Bah Emerita, but, distraught over her impending move, I forgot that part.

The bull pictured on the certificate is an homage to Kaye’s first published novel, CHOKE, in which heroine Imogene Duckworthy narrowly escapes death by goring. I don’t believe that’s a spoiler, since Immy later appears in both SMOKE and BROKE.

Gale and I were foolish to suffer so over our friend’s disappearance because, thanks to the miracle of email, social media, and the Eyes of Texas, which are perpetually upon her, Kaye cannot get away. She’s been gracious about our continued presence in her life. She even suggested AMW publish an anthology of mystery stories, and so we shall. Each member has agreed to write two stories related to a central theme.

The prospect of putting out an anthology is exciting for those of us who haven’t published widely (roughly four of the eight current AMW members), but for me it’s also stressful: What if I can’t deliver? What if I’m already written out? What if I have to tell Kaye George the dog ate my homework? She knows I don’t have a dog.

At this point, I should tell a story related to the questions raised in the preceding paragraph. But it’s nearly 4:00 a.m., David just exchanged sleeping on the couch for sleeping on a bed, and I’m left downstairs hearing, sort of by default, Marvin Hamlisch first say that the music of the ’80s exemplifies our country’s return to family values, and then introduce a very old person I don’t recognize to sing “Under the Boardwalk.”

In other words, I’m outta here. The story will wait until tomorrow.

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Oh, jeez. Now they’re singing “Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog.” Those family values just won’t quit. What are the PBS folks thinking? 

I have to retire now, before we all drown in sarcasm.