A Novel Creation www.WatersWords.com

This past weekend I hosted a brunch at my house for my family. Actually, it wasn’t my idea. My youngest daughter had a yen for breakfast pizza. Not the college dorm leftovers from Friday night. This is a dish I made when we went on a ski trip or for special holidays. It features sausage, eggs, hash browns, and cheese baked on a crescent roll crust. My whole family likes it. Kendall called me one day and told me she really wanted me to make it and they’d come to my house for brunch: Unless of course I wanted to come to her house. She called her sister who lives nearby and my mom. She then let me know everyone was coming to my house around 10:30 or so on February 22 for brunch.  I made the pizza and coffee. I cut up a fresh pineapple. My son-in-law Scott made waffles and my daughter Allison scrambled eggs for the “littles” who preferred them with their waffles instead of the pizza. It was a wonderful Saturday. We ate and talked and played. As it was George Washington’s birth...

Where Hope and Quirky Meet: Introducing Author Jodie Wolfe Fellow Author Jodie Wolfe  creates novels where hope and quirky meet. I’m very happy to have her here with me today for this interview and introduce her to my readers. Me:  Welcome, Jodie! Jodie:  Thank you. It’s so great to be here. Me:  Jodie, I’m always interested in the path successful writers have taken to get published so let’s get started.  How long have you been writing? Jodie:  Many years.  J I started writing little stories while in grade school. I wrote my first full-length book as a young teenager. Me:  That sounds a lot like me. I mean, I started writing stories young, but a full-length book as a teen? Wow! That’s cool! Jodie:  It was!  I wrote a lot when I was younger - poems, stories, plays, articles, books and then I got married and had kids. We were a homeschooling family so most of my energy went into educating my two sons. It w...

“I want to be a veterinarian or a weather ‘woman,’” my youngest granddaughter told me, gesturing quotes with her fingers in the air. “Or maybe I’ll be a car designer. I have lots of options.” My six-year-old granddaughter’s dreams are certainly different from my own at her age. I wanted to be a teacher, writer, and cowgirl. Okay, I completed the first two and for a while I rode my pony, Flicka, around our Ohio farm hunting buffalo with my trusty cap pistol…even if the beasts did look quite a bit like Holstein cows.  Still, being a teacher was reinforced as a respectable job for any woman. Nursing fell into that category. But being a veterinarian or a weather forecaster or a car designer? My parents would have encouraged any route I took, but there simply were no role models out there. I had no Doc McStuffins to watch. The only weather reports on my three channels of television came from men. Design cars? Never even occurred to me anyone did that. Design Barbie clothes...

I’m not sure why we tend to complicate things. Let me change that.  I’m not sure why  I  tend to complicate things.  For example, my dishwasher stopped working. Several weeks ago. My family and I had just returned from Florida. My daughter and her family headed home to Kenosha and we all settled back into our various routines.  I don’t use my dishwasher every day. Generally, I wash the few dishes I use after each meal. Occasionally, I entertain friends and throw the dirty dishes in the machine to simplify my life. But this time it didn’t work. Not even a light came on. I checked the breaker box, flipping the switch back and forth several times. Nothing. I pulled everything out and hand washed the load.  My dishwasher isn’t very old. I bought it in 2017. I didn’t buy an extended warranty. I started imagining the repairman coming, tearing the thing apart, water and grease and whatever’s inside all over my kitchen floor.  I wondered...

You May Be a Writer If… You Sit Back at Parties and Create Scenes in Your Head With the People in the Room as Characters Ever at a boring event where you don’t know the people? Seated at the table where everyone else only speaks Italian?  You Can’t Help But Mentally “Edit” Facebook Posts Need I say more? You Look at Troublesome Moments in Your Life as Possible Tension Points For Your Next Novel Every life has them and every novel needs them. Not to mention this perspective helps you endure the frustration of the car not starting or the electric going off.  You Watch a Television Show or Movie, Noting Inciting Incidents, Arcs…and the Resolution of the Story  Watch the old western series called Wagon Train . The stories are perfectly formed. You Rewrite Endings to Movies or Books You Wish Had Different Outcomes All the time.  You Study People in Line While Waiting to Renew your Driver’s License and Mentally Craft Biographies For...

You’ve likely seen the movie with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicolson. Fighting cancer, both men know they have a short time to live so they form an unlikely alliance and set out to do all the things they would like to have accomplished before they die. Interesting. You may even have your own bucket list. This past summer, my six-year-old granddaughter had it in her heart to see Mount Rushmore. “It’s on my bucket list,” she told me.  “Exactly what is a bucket list?” I asked her.  “It’s everything you want to do before you grow up,” she answered solemnly. That may be a healthier concept. We would likely get more done in our lives if we didn’t put off our dreams to “someday.” My daughter and son-in-law surprised my youngest granddaughter with a trip to Mount Rushmore. In the picture you cans see the pure joy on her face. (As an aside, she also had the Statue of Liberty on her list. They made sure that happened this past summer as well.) I can’t say I ever h...

People often speak of “birth order.” When people speak of family, I often hear them grouse about their position in the family.  “I was the oldest so I was responsible for all my brothers and sisters. It wasn’t fair.” “I was the youngest. I never got to do the stuff my brothers and sisters got to do because I was always ‘too little’ or ‘a baby.’” But the pain and suffering of “the middles” must be the worst. According to them. I can’t actually speak to any of this since I’m an “only.” Then again, there is  one  person I’ve known all my life who says she always thought she was the luckiest person in her family because she was…are you ready…the middle. Yep. She was smack dab in the middle of seven, count them, seven children. She had an older sister and a younger sister. She had two older brothers and two younger brothers. The middle.  With My Mom 2019 Why did she view herself as lucky? She had the best of both worlds. Mature enough to be in...