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Summer Days People ask me how I spend my summers. I have few human relatives near me, so Norris, Madam, and Opal Pearl are the immediate family. The true answer is I spend my summers doing whatever I want. I met two and a half goals this summer, and I rarely set goals. The first
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Collections Inventory Dishes Antique furniture My journals Cats 2 Dog 1 Twins Lotsa boys Almost two books Two published things I’m in a writer’s permutation of life at the moment. I collect books about writing and writing advice. I have writing friends and their books. I go to writing conferences and groups. I write blogs,
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“You majored in theatre in college, in your twenties and thirties, you were active in community theatre and children’s theatre, you taught theatre, yet you never took your boys to a play or got them involved in theatre when they were little. Why is that?” the news anchor asked me. I had been expecting this
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Mom lost her mind and married Roebuck. None of the kids could stand him, but she was entitled to her midlife crisis, same as anyone else. Since his house burned down on their first date, something about gunpowder gun cleaning equipment and an explosion, such a catastrophe, that they moved to Texas soon after they
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Smile. I biked to the cathedral in the spring. I was an overweight 40 year old American woman on a bike tangled in British traffic. The underpass near the roundabout before the cathedral was scary, traffic came from everywhere and all directions. I should not have survived the rides into town. That’s the cloister walk.
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Dear Creativity, It’s time we stopped piddling about and started dancing together. Since I was little, you’ve been working against me instead of with me. You and I have been out of time and one ingredient shy of success since I was born, and you know it. You left me in the dust, or did
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“Turn in your papers.” “I’m not finished. You didn’t give us enough time,” said Jason. “You had two days to copy ten sentences correctly. That was enough time,” I said. “I wasn’t listening, that’s not fair. I’m calling my mom,” said Jason. Pressure. I wasn’t listening either. I wasn’t listening half of the time when
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Leonard’s Top 10 My current favorite book is Elmore leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing. It might be my favorite. It has pictures. It is what a book should be. It is complete. It is auditory, visual, and kinesthetic, if you get the hardback, which I did. Twice. This book is special. My first copy
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I Can’t Sleep written by: Devonne Brown @athesaurus1 I think. I thought. I have thoughts and prayers about this. I’m not brave. I can’t sleep over … I Can’t Sleep
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Mania is an expensive disease of unspeakable joy. I missed a day of school and missed professional development trauma training with personal trauma self-care/ My world rocked. I took a sick day, ended up taking two without a fever. Sickness doesn’t always come with high temperatures, sometimes it looks like notions and I took one
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The Storm
Hurricane Ian “Make a wish. Cross your fingers and close your eyes. Blow a kiss onto your fingers and into the fire. Open your fingers as you blow. That’s right. Now your wish will come true,” said the storm . “It’s a Fire wish.” Ian, the mighty Hurricane was at category five and powerful. A Read more
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Mom’s Lasagna
The best recipes come from old cookbooks. Those suckers have been tested and perfected. They have the right ingredients, lots of love, and you would have to hold your mouth just right to mess them up. Mom’s Lasagna recipe traveled to England and back with me. It is faithful. I remember when I spilled the Read more
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Why Write.
I write in general because I always have. I have always kept journals, written stories, essays, poems, and papers. I write because my thoughts, feelings, ideas, language play has to come out somewhere. Writing is problem solving. It’s fun. It’s frustrating. Writing is my best friend. It’s something I have to do. Now, I’m writing Read more
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Rough Puff
Pasty? It’s pronounced PAST- E, not paste with an E like the strippers wear, but PAST+EEE, pasty. Someone told me there were pumpkin pasties in the feast scene in Harry Potter. I know it’s a sin, but I’m not a Potter Head, so I don’t remember. Yet, I’m sure a pumpkin pasty is a delightful Read more
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Summer Days People ask me how I spend my summers. I have few human relatives near me, so Norris, Madam, and Opal Pearl are the immediate family. The true answer is I spend my summers doing whatever I want. I met two and a half goals this summer, and I rarely set goals. The first
-
Collections Inventory Dishes Antique furniture My journals Cats 2 Dog 1 Twins Lotsa boys Almost two books Two published things I’m in a writer’s permutation of life at the moment. I collect books about writing and writing advice. I have writing friends and their books. I go to writing conferences and groups. I write blogs,
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“You majored in theatre in college, in your twenties and thirties, you were active in community theatre and children’s theatre, you taught theatre, yet you never took your boys to a play or got them involved in theatre when they were little. Why is that?” the news anchor asked me. I had been expecting this
-
Mom lost her mind and married Roebuck. None of the kids could stand him, but she was entitled to her midlife crisis, same as anyone else. Since his house burned down on their first date, something about gunpowder gun cleaning equipment and an explosion, such a catastrophe, that they moved to Texas soon after they
-
Smile. I biked to the cathedral in the spring. I was an overweight 40 year old American woman on a bike tangled in British traffic. The underpass near the roundabout before the cathedral was scary, traffic came from everywhere and all directions. I should not have survived the rides into town. That’s the cloister walk.
-
Dear Creativity, It’s time we stopped piddling about and started dancing together. Since I was little, you’ve been working against me instead of with me. You and I have been out of time and one ingredient shy of success since I was born, and you know it. You left me in the dust, or did
-
“Turn in your papers.” “I’m not finished. You didn’t give us enough time,” said Jason. “You had two days to copy ten sentences correctly. That was enough time,” I said. “I wasn’t listening, that’s not fair. I’m calling my mom,” said Jason. Pressure. I wasn’t listening either. I wasn’t listening half of the time when
-
Leonard’s Top 10 My current favorite book is Elmore leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing. It might be my favorite. It has pictures. It is what a book should be. It is complete. It is auditory, visual, and kinesthetic, if you get the hardback, which I did. Twice. This book is special. My first copy
-
I Can’t Sleep written by: Devonne Brown @athesaurus1 I think. I thought. I have thoughts and prayers about this. I’m not brave. I can’t sleep over … I Can’t Sleep
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Mania is an expensive disease of unspeakable joy. I missed a day of school and missed professional development trauma training with personal trauma self-care/ My world rocked. I took a sick day, ended up taking two without a fever. Sickness doesn’t always come with high temperatures, sometimes it looks like notions and I took one
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Familiar Strangers
“Do I know you?” they both asked simultaneously, then laughed. Susan stepped backwards two steps. That laugh of his was more familiar than his face and all the warmth and funny drained out of it. She didn’t like the way she felt at all. She held a smile on her face. Maybe it wasn’t him.…
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The Appointment
***Warning! Trigger warnings. Contains thoughts of suicide and mental illness. Possible School Shootings. “Do suicide hotlines keep a record of who calls when and why?” Bob talked suicide over with the shrink at his last appointment. “Probably,” she was taking fast notes on the computer as well as on the notepad beside her. Her soda…
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Remembering Elouise on Her Birthday
Elouise, tall and elegant, shrank to five foot nothing by the time she died at seventy-seven. Her youngest daughter, Dagmar, stayed all night with her the day before she died and dreamed of Grandma, Elouise’s mom, that night. She called me that morning to tell me all about it. “I dreamed about Grandma last night,”…
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Fin
The sequel to Norris Tales is written, twenty-five thousand, one hundred nine words. Norris Lives. It’s a book of short stories and vignettes about Norris, the seventeen year old cat that I’ve fought and lived with for a long time. Hey, this is a big deal. I have two more big deals to go, formatting…
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Some thump
“What the fuck? It’s three a.m. and my kitchen is as nasty now as it was when I fried chicken at noon today,” thought Tess. Something had woken her up out of a sound sleep. Some thump. “What the fuck?” She found the fuck passed out on the couch in the living room. How dare…
Devonne Brown 