Fond Farewell

When Marilyn Johnston, Tracy Hurley, and I created Lyrical Pens almost ten years ago, we were all novice bloggers and all working on our new fiction stories. It was an exciting time for us. Mobile Writers Guild - Tracy and I started it - was in its infancy, our critique groups were thriving, and hauling refreshments to each of the meetings seemed like a small price to pay for the growth process and exchanges of new ideas.
 
Through Tracy’s innovative ideas, she secured top talent to speak to our meetings and led the parade that created Home for the Holidays for Mobile Writers Guild - great food, crafts, readings, and book sales. Tracy was the first writer who told me I had a gift for writing and should not ignore it; it would change my life. Her organizational skills dreamed and made the MWG annual Christmas party a hit, securing Carolyn Haines as our first speaker.

Marilyn (cj) was the first treasurer for MWG. She got the ball rolling by organizing our accounts, managing our funds, opening the first checking account, paying bills, etc. She was the business head behind what is still an active organization in Mobile. Marilyn gave me the first truly valuable critique that went beyond “I liked it.” My writing has grown tremendously under her editing and advice. It was a joy to create annual calendars and new ideas for Lyrical Pens. Together, we sought out well-known writers and local talent on their way up the writing ladder to pen unique blogs for you.

As you all know, Tracy left us much too soon, only a few short months after moving from Mobile to Maryland. It was a shock that left Marilyn and I reeling. Tracy was the computer “geek” who had secured the URL, set up the blog site, and she maintained it. She was our sense of humor, a major creative think tank on her own. When she was gone, I was thankful that I am a good note taker, or Marilyn and I would have been lost on more fronts.

To create the blog initially, the three of us drank gallons of tea and coffee and worked over Tracy’s laptop at Panera’s for hours. Marilyn and I were full of advice but not so full of computerese. The name Lyrical Pens was Marilyn’s idea, and we loved it from the start!

Over the past year, Marilyn has grown the followers and weekly bloggers who check into Lyrical

Pens, while I was off growing my editing and writing business, creating my new website, newsletter, and Barefoot Writing Academy. She has two great books on sale, has won numerous contests, has appeared in many printed anthologies, and secured a name for herself in the world of mystery writers. I am proud of her work and especially happy to be her friend. Oh, and ever so grateful that she still makes time to review my work.

This is my last post on Lyrical Pens. I thank all of you who followed and commented on my blog posts, entered my crazy writing contests, and support Barefoot Writing Academy. I hope all of you will join me at http://editwriteteach.com. My site lists my editorial and writing services, updates on new classes, and you can sign-up to receive my newsletter, Tea & Empathy. It is designed especially for writers and contains current industry information, marketing tips to Celebrate Your Book!, tea recipes, and more.

I leave Lyrical Pens with a definite sense of loss, but if my growing years have taught me anything, it is that sometimes we have to let go to get where we need to go. I leave this wonderful site in the capable hands of the excellent mystery/thriller writer, c j petterson.

Time flies and another door opens

cj Sez:  Next week, my grandson leaves home to begin his first year of law school, and I am awash with melancholy. The event reminds me how fast time really does fly when you’re having a good time. I moved to Alabama to be near my grandkids and don't you know, they grew up. (sigh) Too soon, I say. Not soon enough, says he. I miss the hugs, giggles and piano concerts already.

Doesn't matter where the future takes him. To me, he will always be the dark-eyed cutie ready to save the world. 

Feeling maudlin about the changes in our lives, I found myself thinking of my childhood in Texas and how far away that special time seems. What follows is a poem I wrote years ago that was ePublished by The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature in 2012. 

DAYDREAMS

In quiet times when past and present flow into one

Moment and melancholy dulls the senses and time ceases,

Memories steal me away to a place of tiny towns and meager farms

Worked by a few determined immigrants coaxing bounty from a dowry of hope,

A bundle of dreams wrapped in desert tan, banded by ribbons of

White caliche roads and faded asphalt highways,

Dotted with corn stalks,

Grain shocks

And monoliths to crude fortunes

That spill upon the land in clear pools

Or spout in unctuous streams.

I roam prairies where The West begins;

Where dust devils haunt wide-open spaces;

Where shimmering heat mirages join in gay dance,

Dodging prickly cactus and gnarly mesquite.

I wander pastures skirting clods of Angus,

Shielding my eyes from the livid sun

Punctuating a sky swept by mares’ tails

And little funnel clouds that spin around

The heavens but never touch down

Like the big ones do.

Awash in twilight stands a child,

Barefoot in the hard-scrabble dirt

At the edge of a cotton field,

Wearing a sun-faded dress

Handstitched from a cotton feedsack.

An ethereal landscape on a sepia canvas;

Where dusk brushes the sunset in smears

Of gold and purple and pink and mauve;

Where color drains into the horizon

With the sinking sun, applauded

By the throaty rumble of thunder

Chasing lightning through distant clouds

That only sometimes rain

But send breezes to winnow the dust

From the cool night air,

Where I shall sleep . . .

Under a canopy of stars.

Grandson will kill me when he sees that picture. That’s all for now. You-all guys keep on keeping on, and I’ll try to do the same. Comments? Questions? Drop me a line.

cj

Memories and character sketches .

Memories are great fodder for stories, settings, and character sketches. The following is a journal item I wrote several years ago. I re-discovered the piece just last week, and it reminded me why it's important to journal. I submitted the entire story to a literary journal, and it was accepted. What follows was the first page of the story of an authentic wedding:

“Mark called,” my mother said without looking up from her crossword puzzle the moment I got home from work.

“Oh?” A rush of love coursed through me. I couldn’t keep from smiling.  My first born.

“He’s getting married.”

Panic obliterated the rush of love. The urge to wail rose in my throat.

I gulped and croaked, “When?”

“They haven’t set a date.”

“No. I meant when did he call?”

“About an hour ago.”

“Oh.” That certainly didn’t give me time to intercede. I was in Detroit, Michigan, Mark was in Mobile, Alabama, and I could be reasonably sure his relationship with his future bride was longer than an hour old.

“What’s her name?”

“He didn’t say.”

I looked at her in utter exasperation. Swedes can be so cryptic. “I hope she’s not some barefoot cutie he found in a field picking cotton,” I muttered as I punched in my son’s phone number.

My mother lifted her brilliantly white coif and smiled. “I have a picture of you doing that very thing.”

“Mom! That picture was taken in Texas more than four decades ago. I was three-years old.”

“And your point is?”

“Hi,” I said when I heard the lilt of Mark’s baritone reverberate in my ear. “Grandma said you called.” My voice trailed into thin air because I was still choking on the “m” word.

“Mom, are you sitting down?”

The word “No!” strobed like a neon sign in the back of my head.

My legs couldn’t hold me, and I collapsed onto a kitchen chair. “I am, now.” I leaned my forehead in my hand. It’s true, I thought. My baby’s getting married. “Grandma says you might have some wonderful news.”

“No might about it, I’m getting married.”

I remember that I was a blathering idiot for several minutes after those words. But the marriage was and is perfect, as is the daughter-in-law. But if I hadn't found that piece of journal, the exact memory would have been lost. Do you journal? Have you used the memories in a story? Let me know, won't you?

You all-guys keep on keeping on, and I'll try to do the same. 

cj

PS: The picture of a Dauphin Island, AL, beach sunset is by Jeff D. Johnston