Happy Trails

 Several years ago, while I still lived in Ohio, I received a Triple A (AAA) magazine. In it was an article by the Ohioana Library Association featuring  “Ohio’s Literary Trail.” Our writing group was intrigued. We researched the sixty-one sites. Some of them turned out to be a mere marker on the side of the road signifying “so-and-so was here.” Others were true sights to explore and gain insight into the experiences of authors familiar with Ohio. 

Ohio Trail Mix: Available on Amazon

We were intrigued. Five of us took it on ourselves to write short stories connected to each site. We had fun 

getting together, exploring the area, and brainstorming ideas for stories. The result was an anthology we published n 2022. It was fun. 

If you follow me, you know my formative years were spent in Florida. After living in Ohio for many years, I returned to Florida when I married Mike. I joined a group of writers called “Citrus Writers of Florida.” They are an eclectic group. I enjoy their diversity and energy.

I wondered if my new writer friends might be interested in exploring writers from our state. I did a cursory search of what Florida’s Literary Trail might look like. Remember, Florida is approximately 160 miles wide and 500 miles long. We’re not talking “a day trip” here. More like multiple trips with a few overnights scheduled.

 
Still, it is interesting, so I decided to feature a few folks you may want to read, research, or “visit.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe Yes, the famous author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. I was intrigued. I had visited her home Cincinnati. In fact, I crafted a split time story for our Ohio anthology based on Stowe’s experiences in the area. It turns out, Stowe and her family “wintered in Mandarin, Florida just outside of Jacksonville. There is a marker there. You may not want to make the trip itself, but you may want to read the book she wrote of the area called, Palmetto Leaves.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings You may not remember the name, but many of us read her book or saw the movie, The Yearling. Rawlings lived in north central Florida in Alachua County. You can visit her home in the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Historic State Park in Cross Creek Florida where she lived when she wrote her award-winning novel.

Patrick D. Smith, though raised in Mississippi, the author of the novel A Land Remembered made his home on the east coast of Florida. He was inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame in 1999. 

Ernest Hemingway I couldn’t post a blog about famous Florida authors without mentioning Ernest Hemingway. But it’s a hike! For this experience, you’ll want to drive to Key West and visit the Hemingway House. Walk through the rooms where he lived. Creak up the stairs and see the typewriter he used. And yes, there are chickens in the yard and the famous six-toed Hemingway cats throughout Florida's southernmost city. 

So...In the words of Dale Evans..."Happy Trails to You!"
    

Visit to the Vampire

 On Growing Old…er …Or… 

A Visit to the Vampire

It happens every day. Every. Single. Day. One breath at a time, everyone…you included…. everyone grows older. One minute. One hour. One day at a time.

It’s just that some days you feel it more. At least I do. 

Basically, I don’t feel all that old. Certainly not the number of candles on my cake…which will boast one more come May.

No, I generally feel pretty good. Strong. Active. Enjoying these retirement years with Mike.

Generally. 

A week or so ago, I made an appointment with my doctor because of a rash. An irritation on my neck and arms. She sent me to a lab for an allergy test. She wanted them to draw blood to test for nuts, seafood, and trees.

It sounded a bit silly to me. Especially the tree part. I haven’t had seafood in a while and I eat nuts a lot, but I’ve always enjoyed them without incident. Still, as I had a few days before the lab tests, I decided to cut out nuts and seafood. I hadn’t consumed much seafood, anyway. 

Cutting out trees was a bit beyond my reach. It’s not like I climb trees anymore. There was a time, though. Many years ago. 

However, we do see a lot of pollen collecting on the cars when they’re parked outside so I wasn’t ruling out an allergy to trees. Yet.

Before my scheduled appointment at the Vampire’s office, I decided to cut out what I could to see if it helped. 

I generally eat unsalted nuts as a snack or I put a handful of them in my bowl of “loaded oatmeal” on Sunday mornings. I stopped both practices and didn’t really miss the nuts. I simply put more blueberries and chopped apple in my oatmeal. It was good. 

Yet, a few days before my appointment, another rash broke out on my arm at the inner side of my elbow. The crook of my arm. The same place it broke out before. 

I wracked my brain to think what I may have eaten. And I got the answer. Or answers.  I remembered making a quick PB& J sandwich while taking a break from my computer. Must be the nuts.

Wait, did I eat a half of a tuna salad sandwich for lunch yesterday?  And those trees are still out there!

I’m feeling like a wimp as I head out to the Vampire. The young man drawing the necessary vial of blood doesn’t look like a vampire. He looks like a kid. Seriously. He’s maybe the age of my oldest grandson. Maybe.

He is polite and careful. I don’t even feel the needle and I didn’t dare look to see if he hit the target. He quietly draws the blood and sends me on my way telling me I did great. I feel like a kid deserving a lollipop for not crying, but apparently, they don’t give out lollipops at the Vampire’s office. At least not to me.

I wait to hear from my doctor’s office. 

I wait and wait. And I wait some more.

I don’t have all the results yet. Until I get the numbers, I’m laying off the nuts and seafood. As for the trees? Well, we’ll wait and see. 

I think that I shall never see…A rash growing on a tree.

A tree that may in springtime wear, 

nuts and seashells in her hair.

Rashes appear on fools like me.

But as long as it’s not chocolate,

My heart springs free.

Okay…Yes, I’m tired…but you get the drift…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Living Through a Drought

 Living Through a Drought

Our neck of the woods has been going through a drought. June first marks the first day of Florida’s rainy season, but of course, there is still no guarantee of rain. The little girl on the Morton’s salt is a reminder that “When It Rains, It Pours.” I hope she’s right. No big hurricane. Just the rain from one.

Not to sound like a poet or something but our daily lament around here has been, 

“The lake is down. Our grass is brown.”

Yep, we need rain. You may see some green in the photo, but what you see is usually underwater...And the dock is high and dry!

My writing went through a drought for a while, too. 

There was a season of life when I struggled to gather my thoughts or sustain my steam if I did have an idea. It was a rough time as a writer. That’s why I have a file full of writing I call “Fits and Starts.” 

It may be the ebb and flow of every writer’s life. I don’t know, but I’ve heard other authors speak of “slumps” or “dry spells” in their writing. It may be that way with all creatives. I know painters who search for that particular “light of inspiration” or people who throw pottery on a wheel and turn out something I like, but it doesn’t have “the feel” they were seeking.

The trick is to trudge onward. I did manage to keep my blog going during that time my writing seemed to suffer. I went through the motions of writing and had a couple of short stories published in anthologies and Chicken Soup for the Soul. 

Fortunately, now...after the drought in my writing world, I have a lot of “irons in the fire” so to speak. 

·   I have a book scheduled to be released in September by Mt. Zion Ridge Press. 

·   I have just completed a three-book series I hope to pitch to Love Inspired.

·   I have a new book I am crafting and another I am still researching. (The research on that one is particularly deep and important since it is my first real attempt at a full- length historical fiction manuscript.)

So, here’s the thing to we all need to keep in mind. Droughts don’t last forever. In the weather or in our personal endeavors. 

And now? As I type this, a light rain is coming across the lake. It’s a reminder: Droughts simply don’t last. Eventually the rain will come. And the words will pour out onto the paper.

 

 

Graduation...in Kosovo

This week marks a special event in Europe. 

And I'm not there to experience it. 

Those of you who have followed my blog for a while, know that I received a message in 2017 from one of my former students at the University. A message that proved to be a gift.

Heather graduated from the teacher education program where I taught and served as the head of the education department. I was one of Heather’s professors as well as her advisor when she studied at the private university in Cincinnati.

Since graduation, Heather had married and now used her gift of teaching at a private school in Kosovo. Think “Southeastern Europe.”

The message was simple. Heather let me know she and her husband were going to have a baby. It brought a smile to my face.

The next part of the text explained she was returning to the United States to have her child. I remember thinking that was likely a good decision. 

Finally, she noted that since she was going to be in the States, she needed a substitute to take her place teaching her fourth-grade class at the school. This was a request for me to take that position.

I gave her the only answer I could. “I’ll pray about it,” I typed. 

And I did. I had taken a group of college students to the war-torn country a few years prior. My husband was with me then, but this trip would be on my own. Tom died in 2014. Mike and I didn't start dating until 2022.

In 2018, The tiny country of Kosovo
celebrated 10 years of being a nation.

I had just moved into a smaller, more manageable home. Still, I was true to my word and prayed about it. Not alone. I talked it over with my family.

A little over three weeks later, I was on a plane out of Chicago heading to Prishtina, Kosovo. 

I taught fourth grade that year. And it was wonderful. There were two Americans in my class and the rest of my class were Albanian Kosovars.

Fourth Graders are Fourth Graders Wherever They Are...

Now, my sweet fourth grade students are graduating high school. Most are already enrolled in universities across Europe and a couple in the United States. I haven’t heard from all of them, but I know these kiddos. They will be successful and make a positive impact wherever they land.

If you want to read about some of my adventures in the Balkans, I’m listing a few links below. And feel free to share in the comments a time you’ve accepted a “challenge” in your life; a time you took a chance; a time you said yes…and didn’t regret it!

The Adventure of Living: A New Chapter

The Bus Ride

Permission to Rest

 *Letters  from Bill Clinton

*I need to  mention, the students also thanked President Bush for the roll he played in helping Kosovo become recognized as a country. I am sure he acknowledged those letters, but not before I  returned to the States.

 

Tell Your Story

 Do You Have a Story to Tell? Tell It!

 

Someone asked me how I keep writing. “Aren’t there times when you just don’t feel like writing?” Sure. That’s when having a plan helps.

 

I was trying to think of a good metaphor to explain my writing schedule. I could compare it to exercise. You just do it on a regular basis, inspired or not. 

Exercise Your Writing Muscle

In fact, when I’m not particularly “inspired” to write, I engage in a writing exercise. There are story starters online or even books with suggestions to exercise your writing muscle. 

 

I’m sure those are helpful, but for me, I will often turn to topics Chicken Soup for the Soul plans to publish and write stories for the next two or three titles. If I like what I wrote, I edit the story, read it out loud to make sure it says what I want it to say and submit it to the publishers. They are not all accepted, but I have had several stories published under various titles in the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. Not a bad exercise. It pays a few dollars and builds my writing resume. I’ll take that.

 

Maybe, for me, a better comparison for those times I “don’t feel like writing” is cooking dinner. Every day I plan and cook dinner. Take that back. Every day I feel responsible to plan and cook dinner. I love to cook but going out to eat is okay, too. And fortunately, Mike cooks burgers every Friday.

 

But most days, I like figuring out healthy and delicious meals for my husband. Some recipes are great. Mike will eat and say, “You should make that again!” Other times, we will try something new and after dinner decide to trash the idea for future meals.

 

I am not always inspired to cook, but we are always inspired to eat. And the more I cook, the better I cook. My writing is like that.

 

I write. I sit down, turn the computer on and write. When I was working on my master’s thesis, one of my professors told me to write five pages every day. She said even if I read it later and trashed every bit of it, I would be better off than if I waited for the perfect words to come. She was right. 

 

Now I write almost every day. Just engaging in the process gets my creative juices flowing. I know I will make cuts, but I also know I will be able to salvage bits and pieces even on those days I feel totally uninspired to write. 

 

For example, when I first started to write, author Jack Cavanaugh read the first ten pages of my book and told me to ditch the first chapter in my book, Breathing on Her Own. He said it was all “backstory” and suggested I weave the backstory into the rest of the book.  He was right. I wound up “trashing” the first two chapters.

 

I can hear you now. You can’t throw away all those words you put on paper. I understand. I don’t literally trash them either. I cut and paste them into a separate file called "discarded text." I still have all the information. I may need it in the future. Or not. But what I know is this: If I want to be a professional writer, I cannot think of every sentence I forge as sacred. 

 

So, my advice to you if you think you have a story to tell? Well, it sounds a bit like the Nike commercial: Just Do It!

 

And let me know how it goes!

 

The Train Ride

 The Train Ride

We had a ticket to ride!

If you read my post a couple of weeks ago called “Yay for May!” you already know my oldest grandson graduated from the University of Cincinnati in the field of cyber-technology. You may recall from that post I said Joshua has other interests, too. If you missed that post, I’ll put a link to it at the bottom of this one.

The station had it's own Thomas the Tank

Ever since he was a young child, Joshua has had a fascination

with trains. He was a huge fan of Thomas the Tank Engine. He loved the train under the Christmas tree. He collected all sorts of track and trains through the years. 

Of course the big draw for us to travel to Ohio was to celebrate Joshua’s college graduation, a week or so before accepting that diploma, Josh graduated from “train school.” Seriously. He graduated as a Junior Brakeman. The first step in the train school in Connersville, Indiana. 

So, while we were in the area, Joshua took us to Connersville to catch a train to the historic town of Metamora. Metamora was established in 1838 and once best reached by the Whitewater Canal. Or on horseback. 

The Whitewater Canal 
(View from the train.)

Now Metamora attracts tourists seeking a touch of history or scouring the shops for antiques, unique gifts, or homemade fudge. Though it can be reached by automobile, most folks enjoy the scenic train ride to the unique community with the population of a little over two-hundred folks.

Yes, the post is short, but the pictures tell the real story. Enjoy!

And click HERE for the post, “Yay for May!”

First Class was "heated" in winter.

JT and his great grandmother. British map

JT talking with the conductor

Mike and I had a great time roaming the town.

True Confession: 

 “I am a paperphile.”

There. I said it. I love paper. I’m addicted. They say the first step to recovery is confession. 

So here it is: I am a paperphile. I don’t think I’ve ever met a blank piece of paper or a notebook or even a paper placemat at a restaurant that didn’t draw me in to retrieve a pen or pencil and start writing. Or drawing.

My mom would send me to my room to clean it only to find me sitting in the middle of the floor an hour later, surrounded by paper, books, or half used notebooks, reading or writing. My paternal grandmother understood. She sent notebooks and calendars my way. 

Even as I am typing this, I am surrounded by five notepads and two pads of post-it notes and four pens.  That is in addition to the legal pad on the other side of the computer where I’m working! This is not a set-up. This is my life!

Poor Mike. I have a desk in our house that I regularly clean out. Actually I mostly stack the paper in neat piles and try to keep the clutter at a minimum. Fortunately, the desk closes up, so if someone should come to the door, I can hide my stash quickly. 

It would be okay if I were organized. You know…one notebook for one purpose kind of thing. But no. I can open a notebook and find the beginning of a story idea, a recipe, a grocery list, a quote I like, names I’ve collected, ideas for future blog posts, and the opening lines to a new book…or two. 

While visiting the Ohio house, I opened the door to my office. What is the first thing you expect to see in an office? A desk, right? 

I have a great desk. I really do. The problem is, you can’t see it. It is stacked with…you guessed it…paper. And notebooks, files, books on writing. Pens, highlighters, and a printer full of paper. The office is better organized. At least, it is useable space. 

I am determined to get better. Someday. It’s hard. I’m thinking I could start a group for people like me.

I’ll call it Paper-holics Anonymous. Wow! What a great idea!

A time to meet. A group logo. Invitations. 

Now to make a list…Yep, I need a sheet of paper…