Inspiration

Every so often, I take (mental) stock of the events that have transpired in my life over the months preceding said inventory, and sometimes the things I discover surprise me. For instance, I recently made the comment to someone that I had been to more "book things" in the past six months than I had in the past three years. It started with the launch of J.T.'s third standalone thriller in August and carried me through to the Murder in the Magic City conference I've been a big proponent of since 2003. That was in February. And it brought something home for me that has been quietly steeping on the back burner for six months.

Old friends. In my rather lengthy dissertation on the reappearance of my muse, I mentioned reconnecting with some of my old writer friends. I've been doing that quite a bit over the last six months. In listening to these friends talk about their latest books, their writing process, and where they're going next, I found myself thinking about the book (the one I left untouched for three years before digging it out of the laptop storage files, brushing it off and picking away at it) in much greater detail and with much greater enthusiasm than before. And it's finally happened. The epiphany, the aha moment, that tiny spark of an idea that changes the whole course of your story.

Now, granted, I thought this moment happened a long time ago. A very. LONG. Time ago. Apparently, I was wrong. But it's okay. I'm re-inventing myself. Again. And that's okay too.

Older and wiser. Today is my birthday. Bonus, it's Saturday. And since I've already cleaned the house this week (the WGH will expound ad nauseam on how I only clean when we're expecting company, and that happened Thursday), today I am free to do whatever I want. Two of our three Amazing Offspring will be here for dinner - which I am cooking myself, because, you know, I can - but I have a nearly full day ahead of me to write, watch basketball, write, do some laundry, watch more basketball (go BIG10), run to the store to get the stuff to make said birthday dinner, and, um, let's see ... oh yeah, write.

Hey, it's what I do.

Foster Puppy is happily gnawing on her chew-bone, the rest of the household is still quite asleep, and I need coffee. So until next time, have a great day, and read a book. It's good for you.

Grief is a Funny Thing, Parts 1 & 2

Grief is a Funny Thing, Part 1

It’s not about me. Somewhere in the mid-1990s, the contemporary Christian group DC Talk had a hit called In the Light. If you’ll allow me to paraphrase some of the lyrics from that song, I am the queen of excuses. I’ve got one for everything I do – or in this case, everything I don’t do. And I use them. A lot. Thus begins the litany of the “reasons” I haven’t been writing, REALLY writing, for over three years.

I keep trying to convince you (and perhaps myself) that it goes back to my mother’s death in the summer of 2015. But here’s the thing. It does, and it doesn’t.

When Life Happens

Lemons, baseball, and other analogies. I learned to make lemonade a very long time ago, and it's really a good thing I did, because life has handed me a lot of lemons over the years. I've always been a glass-half-full kinda gal, anyway. Indomitable spirit and all that (thank You, LORD).

There have been times, however, when life has piled a rotten bunch of lemons on me so mountainous that it's been a little harder to claw my way back to the top. Hence my absence from the blogiverse these past 13 months.

I was about as close to the bottom of the ninth, three men on, two men out and full count as a person could get. No, I didn't hit a grand slam. By the grace of God, that last pitch came in "juuuust a bit outside" and I've been walking toward home ever since.

I know, the analogies are corny. It's kinda my thing.

New Year / New Goals

Seasons of change. Since my last post in 2015, there have been a few major changes in my personal life which, in turn, affected my writing life. In June that year, the WGH made a job/career change that forced us to take a step back and re-evaluate our household budget. We addressed the possibility of leaving what we thought was going to be our forever home. I accepted the idea that I might have to return to work full-time. On the heels of that upheaval, my mother was diagnosed with stage IV adenocarcinoma of the lung and passed away less than two weeks later.

As you can imagine - and I hope understand - I shut down. For quite some time.

Fortunately, by the grace of God, things worked out

JB's June Writing Challenge: Z is for ... Zen

Remember the whole "you learn something new every day" thing? I've heard the word Zen bandied about multiple times over my adult years, and I had a general idea of what it meant, but I never knew exactly what it was until today. The benefits of research.

JB's June Writing Challenge: Y is for ... Yankee

My bio says I'm a "bona fide Yankee transplanted to the South." In truth, I'm a bona fide Air Force brat who spent most of her youth in the North after Dad retired.

Years ago my old publisher invited its authors to contribute to a compilation of stories about our mothers (I think it was a Mother's Day tribute or something), so I wrote a piece about my Mom, the military wife, who organized and orchestrated 13 moves from the time I was born until I was about 9 years old.

JB's June Writing Challenge: X is for ... Xanax

There's a funny story behind the topic of tonight's post, but I'm not sure you'd get it if you don't work in health care. Suffice to say that after the week we had at the day job, all of us were seriously considering asking the nurse practitioners for a prescription.

JB's June Writing Challenge: W is for ... Weddings

I decided to go with the "wedding" suggestion (as opposed to the "waterslide") because as many of you may know, The Boy (our 23-year-old son) is getting married in October.

Weddings
The WGH and I have had to do very little in preparation for this wedding. The Boy and his fiancée have been planning and prepping since he proposed last May.

JB's June Writing Challenge: V is for ... Variety

Today has been nothing short of insane. But it has had one very bright spot, in that my request for "V" topic suggestions garnered the biggest response of all to date. I'm choosing to call this one variety because of the long list of varied topic suggestions, all of which I shall list and comment upon herewith.

Variety
Following is the list of topics, and my observations/comments:

JB's June Writing Challenge: U is for ... Unsmart

My friend Lisa and I are always commiserating about how we can't deal with stupidity. The other day, she said, "These people are just unsmart." I decided that was my new favorite word.

Unsmart
True, this is not really a word. Sometimes you just have to make up a word to fit the situation. (We writers do that a lot, actually.) Unsmart doesn't mean stupid, exactly. We think it means

JB's June Writing Challenge: T is for ... Tomatoes

I'm beginning to think that you, my sweet friends, are having more fun coming up with topics for me to write about than I am having writing about them. Evidence today's suggestion from my lovely friend Blake.

Tomatoes
The WGH suggested I talk about the difference between cherry tomatoes and grape tomatoes.

JB's June Writing Challenge: S is for ... Sweetheart

Another Facebook friend suggested the topic for tonight ... which could very well have been a number of other things, like: storms (which knocked out our electricity for a good 3 hours while the CEMC crew repaired a pole on the main road by our subdivision); sabbatical (which I felt like taking because of the power outage); Saturday (which would have been way too easy); Sonic (where the WGH and I went for dinner because of the power outage); and Seuss (which is a very long story).

But the suggestion sparked something that I thought would be nice to share with you.

JB's June Writing Challenge: R is for ... Rooster

One of my Facebook friends suggested the topic for tonight's post, and I'm having more fun with these Google searches than I ever imagined I would. This one returned 13.7 million results ...

Rooster(s)
The first and most obvious rooster is an adult male chicken (did you know that a rooster less than a year old is called a cockerel?). By the way, the Wikipedia article on the rooster has more information than I would ever want to know about this particular bird. Not going any further with that one.

Check out some of these other interesting results:

JB's June Writing Challenge: Q is for ... Quotidian

Quotidian is not really what this post is about, but it's a fitting title because of its meaning:

quo·tid·i·an [kwoh-tid-ee-uhn] adj. 1. daily; 2. usual or customary; everyday; 3. ordinary; commonplace.*

No, the real reason I selected this word is that at first I thought I would be hard pressed to come up with words/topics that started with the letter Q, but the more I thought, the more words I came up with--

JB's June Writing Challenge: P is for ... Pickles

My funny friend Stephanie from the day job is getting really good at coming up with off-the-wall topics for me to write about for the June Writing Challenge. Today's suggestion made me laugh so hard I had to tell the boss about it, and he thought it was a great idea! All I can do is shake my head, crack my knuckles and start typing.

Pickles
I did a Google search for "pickles", hoping to find out how many different kinds of pickles there actually are. When your search engine returns 10.1 million results, you come to realize several things:

JB's June Writing Challenge: O is for ... Organization

Big thanks to my lovely newest writerly friend Blake, who suggested today's topic (she actually said 'organization skills', but I figure the organization part alone is sufficient).

Organization
I'm perched on the bed at the moment, watching the end of the Reds game with the WGH, who would laugh himself stupid if he knew I claimed this publicly, but I do have excellent organizational skills.

JB's June Writing Challenge: N is for ... Nincompoops

Once again my darling sister has offered up a topic that holds both hilarity and potential insight in the palm of its hand.

Nincompoops
One of my favorite memories associated with this word is a Bugs Bunny cartoon: I can't remember (or find on YouTube) which one, but there's a segment where Bugs is making fun of whatever adversary happens to be sharing the stage with him, and he says something to the effect of "What a nincom--" (and here he gets hit over the head) "--poop!" and the last syllable is about two octaves higher and there are, of course, resultant stars spinning about his noggin. Funny as heck.

JB's June Writing Challenge: The Halfway Point

Well, here we are--halfway through the month and I have successfully kept up my end of the bargain and have written something every day this month so far. This is a big deal for me, really. And if you know me at all, you'll know why. So I appreciate your sticking with me through the A-M topics:

• Angels
• Baseball
• Curiosity
• Distractions
• Entertainment
• Fun
• Grace
• Happiness
• Imagination
• Jiggy
• Keepsakes
• Laughter
• Menagerie

Looking back, I see varying levels of insightfulness in these posts, from really thoughtful to downright silly. But my goal has been to write every day, and to this, the halfway point, I have accomplished my goal. We'll see what the rest of the month has in store. I'm very optimistic about being able to do this for another 15 days, especially given that I've found myself exceptionally antsy and wracked with guilt by 9:00 if I haven't done my post for the day. They say it takes 21 days to form a habit, right? Fifteen down, six to go.

Wish me luck.

And read a book. It's good for you.

JB's June Writing Challenge: M is for ... Menagerie

Admittedly, I received some quality suggestions for "M" today--magnificent, mind games, murder mystery, mustache. I even considered migraine, because I've had one for three days now. But as a foot-square spot on our bed is currently being guarded carefully by our youngest pet, I decided menagerie would be the most appropriate subject for me to explore tonight. As in, since my bio includes the fact that the WGH and I share our home with a "small menagerie of cats and dogs", may I introduce you to ours? If you're not a pet person, you have my permission to stop reading. The rest of you will, I'm sure, understand a mummy's pride.

In order from oldest to youngest, our menagerie consists of:

JB's June Writing Challenge: L is for ... Laughter

"The most wasted of all days is one without laughter."
-e.e. cummings, US poet (1894 - 1962)

Laughter
Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard the phrase, "Laughter is the best medicine." This is another concept in which I believe with all my heart. Not only that, it's a scientific fact! Laughter produces endorphins, and endorphins make you feel better. A workplace without laughter is a dull, oppressive, gloomy place. We laugh a lot at the day job--and we're a doctor's office, so we're spreading healthy karma.