Cooking the Hook - NEW

found written on a bookmark. "If you can't keep promises to yourself, who can you make them to?" If you can’t keep promises to yourself, how can you make promises to anyone else? Someone who matters.

I haven't posted here in a while, because, you know... writing. This is about how my experience at last year's WUUCON  and the members of the Writer Unboxed  community are still helping me find my way through the writing jungle. You know you do it. Pick up a new book and take it to the bathroom with you, the intention being you'd give the book as long as whatever takes and the author would be lucky if you brought a bookmark. I have two piles on the desk outside the bathroom door and one of them is a lot tall than the other. Now, I know that sounds disrespectful, but I've been multitasking since I was first inducted into Ma Bell's army in 1971. According to the Bell telephone company, if you weren't doing at least three things at once, they were paying you too much and sayonara! This morning the book was “ Author in Progress ”, edited by Therese Walsh , articles contributed by the Writer Unboxed community. WUUCON was five months ago and I'm jus...

A drug dealing ladies man and part-time assassin with psychic skills meets the woman he'll mend most of his ways for. A new age con artist herself, she's got her own brand of psychic ability and a troubling history of being on hand for untimely deaths.  When they meet, he’s on vacation from the Life and she's married to a gangster wannabe who's blackmailing her to keep her in line. Cosmic lust comes before trust, but they must learn to work together if they hope to thwart her husband's plans to sell her and her secrets to settle a deadly debt.                 “So, just how do we turn this darkness into light?" she said and shuffled the cards. The deck was old and soft and made a purring sound in her hands. He picked up her thick braid, squeezed it gently and whispered in her ear,            "One well-deserving motherfucker at a time.” Then he wrapped the braid around her neck, tilted he...

        How long does this last? he wondered, spreading his broad hand across her belly. Inside his head, he heard her reply, closer than his own thoughts,         As long as you want it to,  and she looked at him with that unspoken answer in her smile.

Whack. whack.  He drops the head of the hammer on a large ant making its way across the board he's sitting on. What are you doing? What does it look like? That could have been one of your relatives in another life! Whack. Take that Uncle. But why? Have you ever been bitten by an ant? No, but maybe if you stopped killing them they'd stop biting you? Listen to yourself. Whack, whack. Those two won't bite me anytime soon. But your ancestors! Who the fuck wants to be an ant? I'm speeding them on to a better reincarnation. A nonbiting one. Whack!

It was dusk by the time they set out through the backyard for the short walk into town. The Windsock was lit up like a Christmas parade even though it was the end of summer. When she was a child, she had been allowed to open one gift on the Eve. This early September evening had all the feeling of December 24th and Anna was aglow with it. For a weekday night with no ball game on TV, there were a lot of cars in the parking lot. As they walked in the front door and there were two loud, hollow pops, Billy opening two bottles of champagne in quick succession, Goldy splashing the liquid over two round trays of shot glasses. Friends and neighbors, traveling strangers crowded the bar for their glasses. Billy passed a tequila sunrise to Anna and draft beer to Jack raised his glass dramatically and said,  “To the power of love.” Everyone cheered and drank. “ Stop, stop, don’t make me cry. God, I wish Tam and Murph were here,” Anna said.  Jack whispered something in Goldy’s ea...

This, from last August.... It's important I keep my finger on this pulse as I revise.  It's taken a while, but I've discovered the theme of my book is  touch and connections . I'm not sure how knowing theme matters when the thing is already manifested. I sure didn't think about it going in.  Themes are funny things.They sneak in over time and one day, you flip back a shutter and there it is, a sleeping bat clinging to the wall, it's eyes scrunched shut and muttering "Good. She can't see me." Not much of a reach for a stitcher, this tactile thing. There's just no denying it.