Cooking the Hook - NEW

Have I mentioned the fine pack of jackals that I run with twice a month? I used to think that being a visual artist working in textiles was a solitary pursuit, but stitchers  everywhere are finding ways to "bee" together. They gather in public places, gang up in each other's living rooms, or meet in the ether through the web. They knit, spin, crochet, quilt and embroid er  for each others edification, envy or the pure pleasure of just sharing. It's nice. There is nothing as solitary as writing. Long periods of being alone inside your head with your characters and your doubts will make you crazy. Getting together once and a while with similarly plagued individuals is both daunting and uplifting. We learn about the craft from the more experienced members of the group and take turns reading from our works in progress. It's a diverse bunch. We meet in a local, family style restaurant where we used to command a back room, but lately have had to share the space an...

Right there on that beach blanket cobbled together from my husband's old blue jeans. I have a radio plugged in, books and papers and stuff strewn along the edge, stuff weighted down with sweaty bottles of whatever. I stand in the water, armpit deep, and scribble long hand on whatever paper is laying around. The next morning I sit at the computer and decipher the scribbling. It's been going good lately and I'm wondering how this is going to work over at the public pool during the winter months. I'll probably have to go back to writing in the car. ______________________________________________ "She watches him play chess in the park with strangers. He is ruthless, but he loses as often as he wins. "Why don't you read the other player?" she said. "It wouldn't matter. Chess is a game of skill. There is no chance involved. The only way to lose is to let your emotions get in the way of logic. It happens, but the fight is always fair....

I was celebrating my blood pressure being normal for the first time in memory, at the grocery store, of course. I dumped everything out of the basket onto the belt at the register. The commander at this checkout was a 40ish woman with her red hair in braids and pale pink lipstick. She was either bold as hell or a time traveler. The bag boy, a very small teenager from somewhere in the middle east, name tagged "ELVIS", slouched at the end of the counter. Together we studied my choices; Doritos, raw cookie dough, two six packs of beer, a pound of roast beef, a bag of pizza rolls, salsa and a quart of coffee ice cream. "Looks like a frat party." she said "You got everything but the condoms". (Cue the rimshot ) "Aisle six." said Elvis. It was a three-way, silent eyeball showdown to see who would laugh first.  I lost. 

The two men sat at the kitchen table with a pound of compressed marijuana in chunks on sheets of newspaper between them. They were cleaning the pot and making up ounces in  baggies  by hand and eye . It was not their kitchen. So the guy says to me 'thirty bucks for an ounce?' And I say 'yeah, that's right.' So he says 'I only got two twenties.' And I say 'I got no change.' So he says 'Keep it.' and he takes the weed, but he gave me three twenties.  I swear I didn't notice until a half hour later. They look pretty real. Jack reached for a fresh  baggie  and said “That's your ineffable charm, Donald.” “In-eff-able ... unfuckable ?” “That's right, my man. Can  not  be  fucked .”  Jack said.  Donald looked down at the pile of weed he was picking at, wiggled his fingers and brightened.   "I'll use them to pay that parking ticket."

I am reporting from the Whine Mine on the day BEFORE the full Flower Moon - the moon of compassion and healing. I can't wait until tonight!!! The Scene & the Players: Young Miss-On-the-Job in upscale mall ragshop approaches three customers who are busily pawing through the piles of $50 graphic T's straight from the child labor sweatshops back East somewhere. Sig -MOMMA, per her neck tattoo (size 22, platinum teeth and a diamond studded ear piece blinking frantically) complains loudly and profanely to Young Miss-On-the-Job and her phone that there is nothing in this store in her size and it's DIZCRIMINASHUN!  Meanwhile, BUGZY (face piercings, bald head, giant plastic breasts) is busy at the T table stuffing stacks of shirts into her booster bag, but her erstwhile assistant/lookout, ANGELFACE (tiger face tats, three different colored wiglets and 2" red toenails hanging out her sandals) has fainted away under the same table - the drugs finally k...

A train of thunderstorms passed through the area  last night. Brief, violent and not wet enough. The power flicked off while I was wrapping up a long report for a customer. Whoopee! No power means I'm offline until it's restored. Of course, it also means I don't get paid for the missing time.  But, oh well, act o' god and all that. It was too early to sleep and I caught the bones of a good story while paddling around in the pool earlier in the day. I took a few notes at the time, but couldn't read them in the dim light so I just started from scratch scribbling away by candlelight. Five minutes into it,  I heard a huge splash from the pool and went out on the deck to investigate. A large limb fell from one of the overhangs and circled lazily with all the other tree trash that happens every night. The drizzle stopped, the clouds parted and a brilliant moon turned everything blue-white. I shut off the flashlight, took my tarot deck and went down ont...

" The Waterwitch " Now that I can hear them again, my characters are talking to me, talking to each other. Every he said and she said is a stepping stone forward. Dialog is the connective tissue that the story's flesh and bones have been missing. They wake me in the night.