Writing Update and Soft Promo

This poor blog has such a herky jerky existence. It’s coming up on ten years old next year, and I’m a bit pleased that, although I haven’t achieved what I expected, not remotely, in the intervening period, this little blog was my inconsistent little tracker. Things I forgot wait here for me to click back and be reminded.

Going forward in my writing journey, I’m not abandoning this space, but it’s not going to be the first place I post my writing, other than when I have books ready to release. Yes, that will be a thing, barring disruption via the inevitable apocalypse of the month.

Wandering in Whereabouts

I finished reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s Whereabouts (2018) yesterday, it took me three days to pick through the first 60 pages or so and a couple hours to devour the second half. I knew from the moment the Google algorithm early last year threw me an article , I wanted to read this book. The only Lahiri I had read thus far is the short story “Interpreter of Maladies”—the collection waits behind me now for perusal—but I knew this would be a good book, my experience as a critical reader was confident from sight go.

My Branch of Buche de Noel

Oh, the Yule Log, it’s already been almost a month since I baked that Buche de Noel. My mother asked for something ganache, something rich chocolate for Christmas. I poured near four days and two sleepless nights up to Christmas Eve preparing this decadence. I don’t regret it. I discovered artistry I didn’t expect, and pride. For the first time in my life, I understand why it’s a religious sin to indulge.

Not just this cake, above and beyond anything my mother ever intended. I remembered something my grandmother would make and my mother loved: chocolate truffles.

And Then There was Bread Pudding

Nobody asked, but here’s my deal with bread pudding: I’ve had it at restaurants, curious impulse, no idea what goes in it, it’s sweet, cake-like, perfectly good dessert. I’ve watched the GBBO for a couple years now, and the defining of “pudding” remains a bafflement.

Evolution in Red

I had not worked on If A Tree Breaks, as David’s story has been officially re-titled, since May when life shifted from regularly scheduled to upended again. It both exasperated and delighted me that, as soon as I sat down for a fourth edit, I put red all over the first page. When I looked back at the previous edit there was very little red on the first page. But this story has massively evolved over the more than decade that it’s been with me. At the time of its inception, I could not have written the story that I have now.

Shadowed: A Short

I have been skimming through and organizing notebooks and old bits of writing. I liked this one, and it will be folded into a character’s backstory.

Title: Shadowed

Elise heard her mother calling from downstairs. Eyes thick and blurred, she shoved aside clinging covers and stumbled across the room. She might have tumbled straight down the stairs, but bony fingers grasped her shoulders and dragged her back. By habit, Elise clamped her mouth shut instead of screaming. Her grandmother smelled of lavender and sour alcohol and whispered to her ear, “I hear it, too.”

Her voice so close to Elise woke her properly and she knew her mother was dead. They stared together down the unlit stairs, waiting.

Three Years Later

This post follows This post.

 

Abbreviated Manifesto

 

Crumple this up, don’t read it
If you don’t want to know.
I was never going to be enough,
I was never going to be perfect.

A Whack Dream About Pancakes

A Whack Dream About Pancakes

 

Pancakes have been on my mind for a couple of weeks, because I had eggs, but not a lot of eggs, and I’m really not a lover of cooking. There’s a process and clean-up that go hand in hand. Scrambled eggs are more protein, less carbs and way simpler process and clean-up than pancakes.

A Year Later

Finished filling a journal today. Picked up another I knew had a few used pages. Found three scraps tucked in the back from last summer. A flight itinerary, a time sheet, a page of yellow legal pad.

Copyright note, there are some lyrics of Nahko and Medicine for the People slipped in the second part, “Wash It Away.”

Take a Walk

Take a walk on the beach
Take a walk at the cliff

Charge: 2017

First blog of a New Year, new hopes, ambitions and intentions. First blog ever transcribed to my phone.

Title: Waxing

I’m laughing too hard to answer, as he takes in his left hand the leather journal I brought from Basel. He can see half of the five point star embossed in the center of the journal and framed by an intricacy of knotwork, bound shut by two leather strings.