White Orchid
White Orchid : Flourishing in tropical heat, petals pink, splotched, violet, pale or bright, none can compare to simply white.
100 Words on Travelers with no shoes
100 Words on Travelers with no shoes : Skin stretched against concrete where normally shoes stride protecting feet from all sorts of things like gum & street debris. These brave soles are travelers with no shoes for a good cause in Amsterdam as Participants of the One Day Without Shoes event. Sponsored by Toms shoes,  “One for One” global giving program, they have donated 2 million pairs of shoes to children in over 50 countries. One has to admire those up for the challenge of barefoot walking & the company that gives. Which is why this 100 words is dedicated to all those little feet, here’s the link!
Stained – a novel
Stained – a novel : Had I of known each woman would forever leave her mark, change me with her sorrows and joys I might have passed. After all I have been a therapist for twenty years. Little could be said that I had not already heard in some form or another. And yet, with them each revelation touched my heart as though for the first time. Of course I am getting ahead of myself. I sometimes do. – Idona (A Character)*  *Snippet from Stained by Teresa Little
Angelic Fire
Angelic Fire : If ever one needed proof that we are just a cog in the greater wheel of the Universe, just look up. The stars say it all.    

The Good Earth – Book Review

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Some books sweep you away and the reasons you love them jump off the page. After reading The Good Earth, it’s hard to say what captured me. Of course, it is a classic. A Pulitzer Prize winner. The writing holds up. It is still rich, simple, and beautiful, with an effortless flow from beginning to end. However when I finished the book, I couldn’t say what the ‘It’ factor was that grabbed me. There was no gush, no excitement, no explanation for why I wanted to read Sons (the second in the trilogy) or why in the billions of books Continue Reading →

100 on Pain

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It slides, slipping degree by degree down that slippery slope. A dark diamond, exquisite, tear shaped, catching light along this fiery plight. The pain so ripe, showing me how blood blossoms in beads. Jagged edges, little nicks, cutting flesh, leaving scars upon the heart. Strange how fragile the pain, an elixir of tears in crystal drops. So much more weighty than joy. It wears me low. I crave only dark, a place to shut my eyes. I’m so tired. Vibrating through my nerves, the pain reminds me I am alive. Even here, caught in a landslide, I can still feel.

Binge Worthy – Under The Dome

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Sometimes you need a break. Ben (protag in current work in progress is sliding into a darkness of his own and well, writing said darkness, it really hasn’t been much fun. So despite being so close to the proverbial end, I decided to be a sea slug. Three days of back to back Under The Dome and my couch. Since I’ve been chained to my desk or a book, please excuse my lateness to the party. Plus, if I am being honest, I wasn’t in the mood to watch the show. I read the books. Yeah, plural. So I thought Continue Reading →

Dreaded Red Ink

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I’ve been there and it wasn’t pretty. Think murder scene with lots of arterial spray. That’s how it felt too, like walking in and seeing my butchered baby twitching on the floor in its death throws. Each red line and critical review felt like a personal affront. Sorry. I can’t not take it personally. I mean really, how can I be detached? After countless hours spent pouring over each and every word, (maybe not every word), pulling out my hair and chewing pencils, worrying about plot, characters, living and breathing them for months (or years), this hot mess is all Continue Reading →

100 on Used Books

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Like any book nerd, I’m constantly searching for good books. My favorite place of perusal are used bookstores. The real kind with paperbacks shoved in piles against walls and stuffed on copious shelves that one gets lost between. The slight musty hint of paper/glue lingering in the air. Back in the day, there were no benches, comfy couches, or coffee. Only nooks to lean in and floors to sit on. Books there had dog eared pages, well-worn covers and bent spines attesting to other people’s empty love affairs. I rescued as many as I could before Kindle.   **Thank you Bookworm Continue Reading →

Falling for the Written Word

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I was a goner at my first introduction. There was something magical about opening and closing a book, even if I was reading the same sentences again and again. Okay, the pictures helped and who doesn’t love Dr. Seuss or the Bernstein Bears? It only got worse from there. Newbery Award winners, classics, the ever popular and the tried and true, didn’t matter the genre, just that I could escape into another world. Borrowed library books, hand me downs, comics, even cereal boxes, I read them all. Yes, I fell hard and fast for the written word. The love affair Continue Reading →

Sharks Teeth

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Her toes dug into the sand. “I’m not going.” He didn’t hear her as he bent to pick up another shark’s tooth from amongst the broken shells littering the shoreline. They had been arguing now for the last ten minutes. “Here.” Ben said placing the small black tooth in her hand. Afraid of the words coming his way he quickly bent once more. They had been this way all summer. Him singing her praises and giving chase, her running away. Now that he had finally caught her, she was going away. Why sending her away with a bunch of sharks’ Continue Reading →

Creativity is a grand thing.

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We tend to lump it in with the arts but creativity is greater than this. I think of it as ingenuity’s younger brother having fun. Pushing bounds, exploring ideas, finding solutions can all fall under creativity’s umbrella. We see it everywhere and sometimes don’t even notice. Extreme sports. Wild haircuts. Couture. Even nature gets into the act.   Sure, I marvel at bursts of verse – especially my own. It seems so unexpected, that moment caught on paper: the sentence, paragraph, page, and then if you are lucky – the chapter that rings with its own pulse and you think, ‘how did that get here?’ or my Continue Reading →

100 on Old Clothes

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Old socks, comfortably worn with threadbare jeans. The favorite shirt, stained and faded, hiding the bra that refuses to die with the poked out underwire. Too soft, too well worn, like part of my skin sown inside out with red thread. Stretched out elastic, tiny holes, unraveling strings, popped buttons, weaved cotton, rayon, polyester blend, frayed and abraded from contact sports and sliding seats. The snagged silk, dry-clean only. The hand wash fiasco, dry flat sweater, shrinking and warping with each go round in washer and dryer. All, beloved items yet the closet is full, it needs to be purged.

Tell Your Tale

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Readers are not complicated beings. We want one thing – a good story. Something that grabs us, makes us want to turn the page. I’ll suspend belief if you ask me to, I’ll even roll my eyes and pretend not to notice mistakes if you keep that whispered window of magic flowing on the page. Put me firmly in your world and I might follow you until the ends of the earth. That is the joy of readership. Writing, on the other hand, can be complicated. You have to spin multiple plates in the air, keep them spinning and let Continue Reading →