Month: July 2016

Flash Fiction Friday: Basking in the Summer Sun

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She stretched her arms up to the sun. She loved the way it kissed her face and warmed her after last night’s chilling rain. The world around her was waking up. Children came outdoors to play, their puppy following closely behind.

The puppy wandered over and sniffed her upturned face. She feared that it may sprinkle on her, but it soon moved on to open grass.

Soon a little girl came close to examine her. An older girl approached. The little girl looked up the the older one. “Pretty flower,” she said. “Yes, that is a dahlia. Now, come along.”

Bonus Post: Meet Another Writing Friend

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Yes, this is another Bonus Post. As you know, I ordinarily only write one post a day five days a week, Monday through Friday. However, once in a while, when I deem it necessary, I add a bonus post and write a second post on one of the days.

Today I want you to meet another one of my writing friends. I like to help my friends boost their blogs and gain more recognition from the worldwide blogosphere. My friend Melinda is a talented writer who writes a lot of Sci-Fi, as well as some other things. She has been posting on a blog for a couple of years here. This summer, she’s doing a cool new blog where she posts a story a week about a vampire in Baltimore, Maryland, and she said she’d never write a vampire story. You can read these fascinating stories here. She also created a Facebook page for her main character in the vampire stories, Niles Gule, which I think is really cool because she even has a photo which is really bizarre because he looks a lot like a guy I know.   😛

Now, I will warn you, none of her writing is Christian and you will encounter some language you may find offensive and, of course, in the Niles Gule stories, some blood and guts. But Melinda weaves some good tales, creates fascinating worlds and characters that grab your attention and make you like them and care about them pretty much from the moment you meet them.

Lyric Poem: Chipmunk Courage

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Chipmunk Courage
by Kelly F. Barr

Chipmunks running across my deck.
I stand at the top of the steps.
I see one peek from under the shed;
It and another come scurrying up
And stop one step below.
I am here, they know.
One decides to retreat
As the other flashes by my feet.

Top Ten Tuesday

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Anyway, this week’s Top Ten Tuesday, according to The Broke and the Bookish is “Top Ten Things Books Have Made You Want to Do or Learn About After Reading Them”.  Being a homeschool mom, this is an easy list for me because we read books and then go to learn things because of what we’ve read.  🙂

  1. Two years ago, two of my sons had an assignment to write an historical fiction story, and my youngest decided to write a story about the Pony Express, so we read several books about the Pony Express. I can’t remember a specific book, but the books we read left me wanting to learn more and gave me my desire and idea to write the current novel I am working on, so I have done a lot more research and learned a lot more about the Pony Express.

2. Misty of Chincoteague by [Henry, Marguerite]

I read the entire series of Misty books by Marguerite Henry with my youngest son, and we loved them so much that we wanted to see Chincoteague and the ponies. So, I looked it up online and planned a vacation, and two years ago we went to Chincoteague and Assateague for a week. We saw the ponies and visited the Chincoteague Museum where we participated in a fun scavenger hunt and saw the family Bible of the Bebee family, the family who were the main characters of Marguerite Henry’s books. We found out that the Misty of Chincoteague series were true stories!

3. 423156

Our first year of homeschooling, I read this story with my two oldest sons, and it made us want to know more about horses. Therefore, we studied horses that year as well.

4. Sybil: The Classic True Story of a Woman Possessed by Sixteen Personalities

I saw the movie based on this book when I was a young teenager. It fascinated me. Being the first story of Multiple Personality Disorder many people didn’t believe it. When I got older, I read the book and still found MPD fascinating, so I did a little bit of studying about it. It is a very real issue for some people. It’s just quite rare.

5. A Girl of the Limberlost (Limberlost, #2)

I read this book just a couple of years ago and it taught me that not all moths are ugly, which is what I always thought. There are actually some very beautiful moths, and I studied moths a little bit afterward to see what some of the beautiful ones look like.

6. Little House on the Prairie by [Wilder, Laura Ingalls]

When I read this book in elementary school, I enjoyed it so much I wanted to learn more about when the country was young and what it was like to travel in a wagon train. Over the years, I have studied this time period and traveling by covered wagon quite a bit.

7. Centralia (Jed Patrick series Book 1) by [Dellosso, Mike]

This is a more recent read, and our family had driven through Centralia once several years ago, and I found it fascinating. After reading this book, my curiosity was once again piqued, and so I’ve done a bit of research on Centralia.

8. Nick of Time (A Bug Man Novel) by [Downs, Tim]

This book has a character who has a bunch of dogs that she trained in a very unusual way that I found absolutely fascinating. Ever since I read it, I would love to learn how to train dogs the way that she did, but I haven’t been able to find anything on it.

9. 

When I read this book when I was younger, it made me want to learn more about why people years ago accused women of being witches. Many years later, when my husband and I were first married and we went to visit one of his sisters in Massachusetts, so I checked to see how far it would be to Salem, and we were able to do some touring there to learn more.

10. 

This book made me want to learn more about rabies and how it affects animals and how much of a danger it is to people.

This list actually turned out to be harder than I thought it would be because I haven’t kept a good reading list for most of the years I’ve been reading. Also, as I created this list, I realized that my desire to learn more about something in particular comes more from nature and my environment and/or news topics than from books I read.

How about you? Have you dug deeper into something because of books you’ve read?

It’s Here — Research Materials!

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You are about to get a small sneak peak into the novel I am working on.

Drum roll, please.    “Rat-a-tat-a-rat-a-tat-a-rat-a-tat-a-rat-a-tat-a-rat!”

My current work in progress (WIP) is an historical romance novel set in St. Joseph, Missouri in 1860, the year that the Pony Express began, and yes, my main male character (protoganist) is a Pony Express rider.  I am doing my very best to keep the historical aspects true to history, so I have done quite a bit of research but still wanted more.

Therefore, after scouring the St. Joseph, Missouri website as well as a few other websites, I decided to call the National Pony Express Museum that’s in St. Joseph, Missouri and see if they had any materials they could send me. I spoke with a very nice young lady on the phone who said it would be no problem to send me a packet of information.

I was excited and eagerly checked my mailbox daily watching for the packet’s arrival. After about three weeks, I thought that snail mail had either seriously slowed down or the packet wasn’t sent or it got lost in the mail. So, I called the museum again and spoke to the same young lady, who remembered speaking to me and asked me how my novel is coming! Then she apologized that I didn’t receive a packet of information and she promised to take care of putting it together and getting it sent.

It arrived last Monday, and I was so excited!  I am enjoying reading over the material and adding information to what I already have. I am having so much fun researching and writing this novel!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flash Fiction Friday: Bull Ride

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Tate Russell stood above the bull, one foot on the fence and one on the gate. He put leather gloves on and reached down with his left hand to grip the thick rope tied around the middle of the bulky animal.

All he had to do was stay on for twenty seconds after the gate lifted. The bull pawed the ground and snorted. A hard knot formed in Tate’s stomach. He swallowed and pushed all thoughts of what could go wrong out of his mind. He had to focus on his grip, the animal and take each moment as it came. He nodded that he was ready. He eased himself down upon the longhorn, the gate opened and the bull jumped out of the gate and started bucking.

Tate held on with his left hand, his right hand in the air helping to balance his body as he was jerked around by the bucking of the bull. Ten seconds in and the bull bucked and twisted its body throwing Tate to the ground.

Tate got up, ran and jumped over the fence to avoid further confrontation with the dangerous animal. He dusted off his behind shaking his head. He didn’t win this one, but there’s always another ride.

A Color Poem: Red

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Red is roses, lips and heat.
Red tastes like strawberries.
Red smells like tomatoes and watermelon.
Red makes me feel romantic.
Red is the sound of burning embers and “I love you”.
Red is flowers, love and a sunset.
Red is a blushing bride on her wedding day.
Red is commitment.
Red is a beating heart.

Coffee Shop Chat

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Coffee Shop Chat

My friend Laura at Caffeinated Fiction found this neat little idea on Tessa’s blog and encouraged me to participate, so I decided I will participate here every other week on a Monday, since I already have specific things I post each day.  So now Mondays will be one Monday I post something about writing or my personal writing journey and the next Monday I will post a Coffee Shop Chat. I hope some of you will joins us in the Coffee Shop Chats as well. (I’m not a coffee drinker, so I’ll be drinking tea).

What’s a Coffee Shop Chat? 

There are a ton of writers out there in Blog-Land, and sometimes it’s just hard to connect. We are so focused on writing our next blogpost/ working/ schooling/ dealing with family stuff – we forget how much fun it can be to just sit and talk! 

Coffee Shop Chats are one way you can connect with other writers, readers, bloggers, whoever! It’s a time to just share, laugh and drink a cup of coffee or tea (or two.) You can share exciting events from the week, the latest book that’s inspired you, a great movie you’d like to recommend, or even share prayer requests. All the things you would share if we were sitting in a coffee shop together, spending an hour away from the cares of the world. 

You can post whatever, whenever you like! Don’t forget to add your ‘link-up’ to the bottom of the original post on my friend Tessa’s blog (listed above). That way we can all find one another and can respond to one another’s blog posts. Click here to go directly to her blog and scroll down to see the Guidelines section and the How to Post section, once you’re ready to participate! Don’t forget to comment on another blogger’s posts first (mine counts!)and to answer and include CONVO STARTERS!

Ready? Ok, let’s get together!

Music I’ve Enjoyed:

I am a HUGE Toby Mac fan and I LOVE his latest album, “This is Not a Test”.

Why do I love Toby Mac and his music? Because Toby is the real deal. He doesn’t just talk the talk, he walks the walk. He donates to charities, reaches out to communities, spreads God’s word through his music and in his concerts and helps other Christian artists reach their goals.  And there are many times that something that is said in our Sunday school class or  our Pastor’s sermons that brings a Toby Mac song to my mind because it applies.

What I did this week:

I started school with my youngest son. We are homeschoolers and we finished our 2015-2016 school year at the end of April and had off the months of May and June and the week of the 4th of July, and because we like extra time off at the Christmas holiday time, we start school while summer is still going on. This week we had one day of Physical Education and Science and three days of History, Math and English Literature.

Here’s what we are reading:

We are studying the Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder for history.

We are studying The Chronicles of Narnia for English Literature.

My son is doing lapbooks on these books. He is artistically inclined and loves doing lapbooking and notebooking.

I had to laugh the first day we started these books this week. I read from Little House in the Big Woods first and my son said, “This is a good book.” Then I sent him to complete two math sheets.

After math, I read from The Magician’s Nephew and when I stopped, my son said, “No, you can’t stop. You have to read more!” Yes, my son could read these books on his own, but one thing my boys and I enjoy is for me to read some of the main subject books out loud to them.

The two convo starters I will answer are from Tessa’s Christ is Write blog:

  1. Do you write more during the summer or take a break?

I write more during the summer because I have more time for writing.

2. Do you prefer summer or fall?

I prefer fall. Here in Pennsylvania, we get quite a lot of temperatures in the upper 80s to mid 90s that are accompanied by high humidity making the temperature feel ten degrees or more than the thermometer reports. I much prefer the comfortable temperatures of fall.

Now here are some Convo Starters for You:

  1. What’s your favorite book of all time?
  2. What’s your favorite hot beverage and your favorite cold beverage?
  3. Where is your favorite vacation spot?
  4. If you could have lunch with any author (alive or passed), who would it be and why?
  5. What is your favorite childhood memory related to reading or writing?