Quick Review - Short Story Month 2011

I have a quick review up over at The Best Damn Creative Writing Blog in celebration of national short story month. Go check it out.

SSM 2011: STORIES - All New Tales

Have a favorite short story collection, or just a single favorite short story? Let's talk about it in the comments section!

My Wife, A Mother Without Peer

Mother is the name for God on the lips and hearts of all children.

- William Makepeace Thackeray

Six years ago I witnessed you perform the most amazing feat I have ever beheld another human being accomplish. After nine months of lost sleep, heartburn, tired feet, exhaustion, an aching back and a body that changed on a daily basis, you brought into this world a remarkably beautiful baby girl. You performed this momentous accomplishment with no desire for recognition, no want of any accolades. I remember like it was yesterday. As you lay on that hospital bed, tears mingling with the sweat on your face, holding our newborn miracle, I asked you how in the world you had managed to pull it all off. You looked into my eyes and with a gentle shrug and a soft smile you murmured, "I am a mother. It's what I was meant to do."

Since that chilly November day, when I didn't think I could ever possibly be more in awe of you, you have consistently shown me that what I had observed was simply the beginning of an amazing journey.

Harry the K - Has it Really Been Two Years?

Unbelievable. I can still hear the voice, as clear today in my mind's ear as it was pouring out of the radio in the humid summers of my youth. I wrote the following piece the day we lost him. Phillies fans have missed Harry every game since that dark day in DC when The Voice was silenced forever.

Godspeed, Harry the K

It is cliche at times like this to say that life is uncertain and that it turns on a dime, but many cliches become so designated because they are true.

I, like many of the Phillies Phaithful, watched Matt Stairs crush that pitch last night into the visiting team's bullpen to give the Phills a two run lead. I whooped and hollered as the voice of springs and summers without number serenaded the ball with the immortal call as it soared over that Colorado fence. Had I know it would be the last time I would hear that call live, the rich bass elevated to a higher level in direct proportion to the flight of the ball, I would have paused.

Daylight Saving Time Once Again - With Bibles!

As today is the time of year to set the clocks ahead one hour in honor of Daylight Saving Time (Thanks Ben Franklin, for more summer time to be outside) I thought I would pull out a post on the topic written two years ago. Would love to have you opine in the comments. This post was originally written on March 9, 2009.

DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME...WITH BIBLES!

As we cruised up the highway on the 40 minute commute this morning, the wife and I were having a discussion concerning daylight saving time. It went something like this...

Wife: (yawn) I am really super tired this morning.

Me: Hrmm. (While driving and reading a Tweet on the phone at the same time...an activity I don't recommend)

Wife: I said, I am really super tired this morning.

Me: (Putting the phone down and concentrating on the road before I plunge the three of us into a fiery death) Why is that?

Wife: Well the clock on the dash says that it is 7:00, but the internal clock in my body is telling me it is really 6:00 so I am pretty tired.

Grooming Future Scribblers or Kids, Writing Doesn't HAVE to Suck!

I have been a devoted fan of writing since my heady days in the third and fourth grades when a few friends and I took pencil to paper to create our own (illustrated!) series of Choose Your Own Adventure stories and Doctor Who fan fiction (chicks dug us...HARD). It is an activity I have continued to enjoy (and even make an infinitesimal amount of money at) ever since.

Because of this long lasting affection for the written word, I take particular joy in the teaching of writing to my class of fifth graders. They come to me in late August, almost always completely united in their collective hatred of the craft I myself enjoy so much. If given a choice between writing a page long story or having a few cavities filled, many of them would gladly pull up the dentist chair, attach the little blue drool-bib themselves, and open wide.

With the fervent desire of the rabidly fundamentalist, I see it as my duty to change as many of these minds as I can over the course of the school year. To get my students to see writing not as some brutal holdover from the medieval torture chamber days, but as a worthwhile, artistic (they don't call it language ARTS for no reason), and dare I even suggest it, FUN, way to express themselves.

The Duck Defines Me - The Lie

I don't know why I chose the occasion of my first Crusader Blogging Challenge to write a fictionalized account of myself waking up on a mysterious beach and hallucinating a conversation with a duck. It just happened.

I am sure that says something about me, but I am not sure what. If you have an opinion, comments are open.

I got a lot of positive comments about my strange entry. Thanks to those of you who read and commented. Comments are to bloggers what crushing unions is to Tea Party funded governors (What? Too soon??).

Crusade Challenge #1 - The Duck Defines Me

My entry for the first crusader challenge over at Rach Writes is finished. I had to introduce myself in 300 words or less within the following parameters. I had to tell one secret, one lie, one personal quirk, one annoying habit, one of my best character traits, and one of my most favorite things in the whole world. I also had to work in the inclusion of four words; bloviate, fuliguline, rabbit, and blade. It was a lot of fun to write. If you can find the lie, drop it in the comments section.

The Duck Defines Me

The first thing I became aware of was the sound of the waves as they fell upon the shore. Then the smell of salt on the breeze. I lifted my head, cracking open one gummy lidded eye, and winced as a blade of bright sunshine shut it tight. I opened the other eye and sat up.

One Family's Tragedy - A Plea For Help

I have previously written on this blog about the cliche that declares life can turn on a dime. I think a lot of cliches catch on because at their center rests a seed of truth. This seed tends to be a truth that is fairly universal, thus leading to the birth of the accepted cliche.

On Christmas Eve 2010 here in Delaware, life once again performed its cruel dime trick. The Haxton family, Paul and Trina, along with their two daughters Lyndsey and Hayley, were traveling to see family for the holidays. Sadly, they never arrived at their destination. They were involved in a horrible accident en route to their family celebration. Both Paul and Trina were thrown from the vehicle. Paul Haxton lost his life. His wife Trina was flown to a trauma center in Baltimore, her condition desperately critical. The two girls, ages six and four, escaped the accident with minor injuries. Nearly two months after the accident Trina remains at a rehabilitation center in Maryland. Her recovery has been long and arduous, yet she has been making great progress.