Tag: authors

Mood: Monday

Photo previously posted here was of a version of Cindy Ruskin’s painting I’m Nobody, oil on canvas. You can check out more of her work on that link to her Instagram account.

More from me:

Back on June 7, I posted this photo with the intention of coming back to both those books when I felt less scattered and could create a post about them. Later in June, in a Mood: Monday post, I shared a painting of a pinecone and talked at length about Maggie Smith’s memoir. But I’m not sure I ever explained why I had all the Post-it Flags in the book of Emily Dickinson’s poetry.

Acts of Light is a beautiful book filled with paintings and drawings by Nancy Ekholm Burkert to accompany some of the eighty Dickinson poems within it. It’s possible my friends Christine and John gave me this book as a balm for being the first ones to tell me that much of Dickinson’s poetry can be sung to the tune of “Yellow Rose of Texas.” I whimpered to them that from that moment on, I could only sing, “I heard a fly buzz when I died/ the stillness in the room” as if it were “There’s a yellow rose in Texas, that I am gonna see.” I love yellow roses and have nothing against this wonderful old Texas standard, but it’s a little upbeat for the poem. =)

Disregarding all that, I decided that at some point, I’m going to print the pen and ink drawings and color them, and those are the pages I’ve marked. I’m not sure I can ever share them online because of copyright issues, so they’ll be only for my own enjoyment. But after finishing Apple TV’s “Dickinson,” I began to wonder about art that might have been inspired by her poetry, and that’s why I found and chose the first painting on this post.


I have a few books with Dickinson’s best-known, studied, or taught poems, but I’m delighted to have received this collection (derived from a three-volume set shown in the TV show) that contains 1,775 poems and fragments. I finally have one source I can keep at hand to read favorites as well as poems I’ve never seen before. I’m sure like many writers and artists before me, I’ll get lots of inspiration.

happiness with a conclusion

I was able to see the last season of “Suits” on Peacock (it’s very helpful to have a husband who, unlike me, is an avid television viewer and subscribes to a handful of streaming services), and I’ll miss those characters who’ve kept company with me. It was a fast-paced show with a lot of clever banter.

Since I was finished with “Suits,” I went back to complete the third and final season of “Dickinson.”

Poetry is such a love of mine, and Emily Dickinson ranks high among my favorite poets. This show was unlike anything I expected it to be, the 1860s setting juxtaposed with contemporary themes and cultural references. Emily Dickinson’s poetry is woven into storylines that are by turns fun, sad, silly, nightmarish, and often replete with wisdom. I imagine any writer, whether a poet or not, would enjoy this retelling of her story.

I was always delighted when the character Death, played by Wiz Khalifa, showed up, and this season didn’t disappoint. I grabbed some shots of Death and Emily (played by Hailee Steinfeld) in her garden.

There’s a moment during the last episode, when Emily, who’s grappled with what it means to be a writer throughout the three seasons, is alone in her room. She speaks aloud.

You know what. Even if I can’t change the world, I’m still gonna write. And even if no one ever cares, even if it makes absolutely no difference that there was a person named Emily Dickinson, who sat in this little room day after day and wrote things down just because she felt them.

It’s a beautiful place for a creative person to find herself.

All photos © APPLE TV+

ETA: Almost forgot, happy full moon, blue moon, and super moon all in one!

Watermelon sugar


Today is National Watermelon Day! Lindsey has grown some sprouts from seeds and given a couple to Debby, the plant person of Houndstooth Hall.

Today, I am the RELAX person at Houndstooth Hall, so a bit of watermelon and some cherries fit right in with my plan: drink water and start training my eyes to read with the new bifocals while delving into this 2016 biography of Randy Newman that I’ve had on the shelf since February of ’22.

It’s like my third rendezvous with watermelon this week. This one on Sunday:

And this brunch on either Monday or Tuesday of watermelon, veggies with ranch dip, hummus with pita chips, and walnuts.

I wonder if I can read and listen to Harry Styles at the same time.

Hump Day

I’ve got two of the manuscripts fully revised and printed! Started reading the third this evening.


Pixie would like you to know that she’s serious about her approval of the arts. She has a dad, uncles and aunts, and friends who are creatives and work in the arts. If she were a writer or an actor (and we don’t know that she’s not an actor, really), I suspect she wouldn’t cross current picket lines. Not even for a carrot, because if I recall correctly, her dad doesn’t let her eat carrots. Maybe something to do with an incident many years ago.

I’m in the creative arts, and I’m writing about people who are in the creative and performing arts. And I struggle with what I’m currently writing because when I’m down, the jerk voice in my brain says, Some critics would say these stories center privileged white people who have liberal guilt. And there’s another voice inside to defend what I’m writing: You’re attempting to create a diverse world of decent people through the stories of their lives. I’m doing it because it’s what I love with zero expectation of what an audience for it would look like or think like or even if one exists.

Creatives are easily dismissed with the assertion that what they do isn’t “important.” I think of all the people I know who are creative, some who don’t even call themselves that, and the happiness and inspiration they give others, which is immeasurable. So I really appreciated this statement from Brooke Ishibashi dropped by fellow writer Jeffrey Ricker on his socials yesterday.

Even if someone is not involved in the commerce of creativity, imagine how much money people who, for example, sew/knit/crochet/needlepoint, craft, scrapbook, jewelry make, or build and carve things contribute to the economy with their purchasing power.

That’s my middle-of-the week perspective.

Tiny Tuesday!


It’s work to love, but the small print is tough. I have post-surgery prescriptions for both my bifocals and my computer glasses, and you’d think after several months of vision misery, I’d have raced to get my new pairs of glasses. But you’d reckon without the heat, the other demands on my time, and my currently-limited driving.

I’ve reread the first book in the saga, made edits, and it’s ready to print. Today I start my reread of the second book. I’ve learned I need to pick my glasses from my (top to bottom) older bifocals, computer, and last year’s bifocals, because what may seem to work is not always the best choice, and even when I pick the best choice, my eyes easily tire, and moving on to a different pair helps. I plan to take a day’s break between each manuscript I read.

The novels themselves are a pleasure to revisit, however. Looking forward to the day they’ll be ready to release to 1. no fanfare 2. a world that barely reads 3. no way to classify as a genre to find an audience 4. no publisher/industry oversight 5. the potential distaste from anyone who liked what I’ve written before 6. the people who do read but don’t read ebooks 7. this is a list that can go on and on and on and it’s not unique to me. Writing is not a best choice for the faint of heart or the glory seeker or the person who just wants to be a storyteller telling stories about people who are all storytellers in their individual ways.

Saturday chill


Yesterday was a challenging day, and it’s just so freaking hot here, like everywhere, that when I finally settled in last night, I decided to open up my ebook of Carolyn Haines’s latest Sarah Booth Delaney mystery set on the Mississippi Delta, Tell-Tale Bones. I just kept reading and reading and finished to realize it was around three am. Oops!

Still woke up a bit early, so I decided to make it a gentle kind of work day in front of the fan with lots of water nearby.


For one thing, after that big writing sanctuary reorg and cleanup a couple of weeks back, I put my day planner, for which I use Patti Smith’s book as a reflection point, above my eye level. Thus I was something like eighteen days behind in making entries. But there were lots of things I wanted to make note of during those days (like, for example, the birth of our grand-niece!), so I applied myself to getting everything up to date.

On a whim, I pulled the 300 Things To Make Me Happy book off the shelf, too, and flipped through it until I came to this page and answered the questions.

Recently, when I was organizing some craft bins, I found a bunch of 30-year-old iron-on transfers that I’m sure are way past their usable date. Instead of tossing them, I decided to save them as coloring pages.

I colored this one today and kinda love him.

Now I’m ready to read and make small changes to the first book in the Neverending Saga. I hope this is a fast process for all first five books. Then I’ll be ready to input my edits to the sixth and move on to writing number seven!

Hope you’re all having a comfortable Saturday, whatever the weather’s doing where you are. Please stay hydrated!

Hump Day


One of my two readers has finished reading the manuscript and given it a thumbs-up. The other reader is about a third of the way through and everything’s been positive so far. I’ve reread it and caught some errors and a few other things I want to change, but the substance and story of it remain the same.

Meanwhile, I’m about to go back to the first book of the six to start another reread of them all. There are details I know now that need to be added. At one point, a different reader once said, when discussing an early manuscript, that I knew everything that was going to happen. It’s true that I wrote a version of these books more than once in the past, but they are so different now, in both characters and plot, that I’ve actually had very little idea all along what would happen. I might have thought I knew, but I didn’t. I’m glad of that, because it’s kept me engaged to be surprised.

There was one event that I clung to for so long because it was just the way I wanted it and the way it had always been. But because of the changes to characters, it was wrong to let it stay. It took me almost three years to come to that decision, but as writing advice often suggests, “Kill your darlings.” It was right for me to change it, and it opened up a new-to-me solution that I think will provide fresh insight into a character’s choices.

Wisdom for today from Adam J. Kurtz.

Mood: Monday

Name that mood.

title unknown, circa 2020
street mural in Torremolinos, Spain
©Nesui, urban artist based in Malaga, Spain (on Instagram, he’s nesui.src if you want to see more of his work)

I’m not yet finished with this book, but it’s a much faster read than I’d expected it to be (at 750ish pages). Set in 1969, published in 1971, it captures the mood of a time and generation (or three generations). Based around six characters from around the world, one narrator, and a very large supporting cast, and in that way, there are similarities to the Neverending Saga, though the writing styles are quite different. I feel like I’ve traveled–am still traveling–all over the world (including the Spanish coastal town of Torremolinos, where this art can be found).

I can imagine my character reading it when she was twenty-one, her age at that time roughly corresponding to the six main characters (which is why I decided to read it). She would be reading with very wide eyes.

It’ll have such a tiny mention in her story, but these are the paths I like to take in understanding who I’m writing.

Hump Day


Last weekend, one of my industrious activities was altering the sleeves on a couple of shirts. In the process, I ran out of thread on a spool. It’s been YEARS since that happened. Those are my bifocals pictured with the sewing stuff. Since the surgery, they’ve actually been useful to me for the first time since I got that prescription…last July. Progress.

I didn’t get enough sleep last night. I tried to take a nap after meds and breakfast and eye drops and all the things. Nap wasn’t happening. So I kicked into gear and started doing things that I had no idea I intended to do.


First, I began to gather things for donation. These were my first items–some pristine stuffed animals, Houston Rockets souvenirs, lots and lots of throw pillows (none that were sewn for me, but including four I once sewed for myself), a couple of gently used quilted bedspreads and pillow shams, other bed linens, a beautiful shower curtain we haven’t used for years, some clothing, and all my old VHS tapes (if those Disney movies are worth something, then I hope someone with more energy than I have grabs them from one of the Goodwill stores and eBays the crap out of them). I’m sure there was more, because by the time I had it all gathered for Tom to load in the car after work, both dining tables were covered. The items have been donated!

We started a redo in the large guest bedroom (aka Lynne’s room), but it’ll be a few days before I can share photos because it’s a work in progress. Naturally, I failed to take before photos of anything, but I may have some old ones that’ll work.

I turned a brutal eye on the second guest room, or since 2020, the Writing Sanctuary (which at different times has been called the Butterfly Room, the Winnie the Pooh Room, and maybe the Quilt Room; I can’t keep up).

Here’s an example of how the bed can look in here when I’m full-on writing and otherwise multitasking. This is from mid-May.

That’s the collaged sketchbook I keep my completed coloring pages in, my wee CD player, the CD binder I’m STILL in (it’s like the freaking 1974 of CD binders), my day planner, Patti Smith’s book that I often use as a prompt when I’m writing in my day planner, the binder that I keep up with my bills in. So… that day, I was writing, listening to music, coloring, paying bills, and journaling. Behind it all, against the wall, is a little crate where I keep a bunch of the books I use for blogging ideas. Keep those books in the back of your mind while I move on.

I didn’t take a photo of the cabinet in here. The big box of CDs that won’t fit in binders was on it. A lot of medical stuff post-surgery. But other than all that extra stuff, the top part usually looked like this.

Some doll muses, a little bit of Dennis Wilson and Beach Boys stuff, Beatles-related stuff, and up top, a shadowbox with mementos of our late friend Steve and photos of him.

I was ready for some order and some change. Below, I’ll share a photo of the shadowbox (reminder: Winnie the Pooh and Piglet were our thing–on the top of the cabinet, not pictured here, there’s usually a stuffed version of both that Steve kept in the hospital with him, plus a Pooh bear Lynne made that I’d given to our late friend John). Those are now in a cabinet with the other stuffed animals because after I donated some, I had room for them. It’ll be better to keep them dust-free.


The shadowbox has been this way since… 1992? ’93? Shiny fabric lining the back was wrapped around the amethyst crystal hanging in there (upper right), a gift from Steve to me one Christmas, put together by one of his RNs, Billie, from a metaphysical shop she owned, and secured into a bag tied with gold cord that I don’t think is visible in this photo. It also contained a dried rose that’s hanging in here toward the middle. Next to the amethyst crystal is a quartz crystal that Steve kept around his neck most of the time. A tiny mirror has fallen behind the Pooh scene I cut out of a greeting card. I never asked, but maybe there was a time before I met him when he and his friends did bumps off that mirror. It was the ’70s, it was the ’80s, and everyone was young and beautiful and life was a party until AIDS crashed it.

So now you need to remember those writing prompt books and this shadow box, while I show you this.


A lovely little pillow I bought sometime in the ’90s, cross-stitched with a scene featuring Winnie, Tigger, and Piglet. After the turn of the century, a young dog with a penchant for destroying linens and other fabric items chewed up part of this pillow. Could have been Margot; could have been Guinness. I well remember their team and individual exploits. Anyway, it’s been on top of that cabinet, too, and today I took it apart.


It became part of the redone shadowbox. Still contains the shiny fabric against the back, the two crystals, the dried rose, and now you can see the mirror. I also put Steve’s Armchair Conductor baton in there. He used to listen to classical music on one of my little boomboxes I took him and direct an imaginary orchestra with that baton in the hospital. Steve was a graduate student in music, a band director, and a conductor.


Beneath that is a picture that was also on the top shelf with Langston Hughes’s “Poem”:

I loved my friend.
He went away from me.
There’s nothing more to say
The poem ends,
Soft as it began–
I loved my friend.

Below that is a photo of Riley playing guitar. The poem was true of Steve in 1992. It became true of Riley in 2008.


So now there’s a corner, and on the other wall is the drawing I bought in 2010 from Gilbert Ruiz, a Houston artist, that makes me think of the novel I’ve yet to write about a ghost. The story contains elements of teenage Becky and includes characters inspired by My First Boyfriend and Riley, and borrows from a terrible thing that happened in our little Alabama town. That shadow box also contains strands of love beads from the ones Lynne and I strung all one summer.


Steve’s two 8×10 photos and a photo of Riley playing piano have joined the Family and Friends Gallery in the hall (of Houndstooth Hall).


I think you’re caught up to the redo of the little place where I had that mess of books. Now it’s just my various eReaders and the CD player I use for my playlist when I write. Tidier, right?


Those books moved to the top shelf that used to be all Steve stuff. They join some journals that had been on a tavern table in the dining room, my day planner, the Patti Smith book, my manifestation dude, sitting next to little herbal bags that were also from Steve and from Billie back in the day, and the “Sisters are forever” art given to me by Debby.

Next shelf down are more muses: Dennis Wilson, Beach Boys things, and four of my character dolls.

Bottom shelf are my Beatles things.

You have no idea what a mess those shelves were. Maybe now that my space feels so much clearer and uncluttered, my brain will follow suit and help me write again? When Lynne was here, she sat in this room as I read chapters aloud to her that she hadn’t previously read. She liked them. She said I NEED TO FINISH THE BOOK.

Tiny Tuesday!

I’ve mentioned it before, but my eReaders are tiny libraries with lots and lots of books. I’ll occasionally binge-download several, and then I’ll forget the ones I haven’t read (especially since I also have plenty of unread books in print on the library and living room shelves–do any readers ever catch up their TBR pile?).


Usually as soon as I finish a book from either the Nook or the Kobo and Kindle apps on my iPad, I’ll go to my online Goodreads library and add it to the titles I’ve read. Usually. Last week, I realized I was behind in listing the ‘Nathan Burgoine titles I’ve read, and I also read some new-to-me titles last week and this week. It’s fun to find character names in his stories (like, a couple named Rhonda and Lindsey, the use of the last name Byrnes, and a couple named John and Matt–all names of real-life mutual friends of ‘Nathan’s and mine).

I can’t say for sure what dates I finished all these, but they’ve now been added to my Goodreads library. I have three of ‘Nathan’s books in print versions–Light, and the first two in a series, Triad Blood and Triad Soul, (with Triad Magic yet to come).

I also have a print copy of his latest release, Stuck With You, on the way and am looking forward to reading it. I haven’t tried reading physical books yet–with eBooks, I can adjust the light and font for my recuperating vision.

Below are ‘Nathan’s ebooks I’ve read over the past couple of weeks or in years past, a wonderful blend of romance, spec fiction, LGBTQIA+, and a mix of friends and birth/found/chosen family (chosen family being an element of all my fiction, as well).


In Memoriam (magic/psychic/other, chosen family, humor); Of Echoes Born (anthology, fantasy, queer); Exit Plans for Teenage Freaks (young adult, fantasy, romance, LGBTQIA+); Saving The Date (light erotica, gay romance, co-written with Angela S. Stone).


Handmade Holidays; Faux Ho Ho; A Village Fool; A Little Village Blend; Felix Navidad
Romance, chosen family, friendship, young adult to senior, LGBTQIA+, and a bit of magical realism. These are all part of ‘Nathan’s Little Village series and don’t have to be read in order; locations and characters are shared among them and can also cross over from some of his other works.