New Voices at the Durango Library

Writing is a lonely endeavor, especially writing a novel, which takes a long time, and it can make you crazier, assuming you're already crazy enough to try to string together that many words. A writing group can offer useful feed-back, and even help to keep you sane--or at least assure you that you're not the only crazy one.

The writing group I belong to has been meeting and morphing for about ten years. On Wednesday, March 10, we'll be reading original work at the Durango Library, so if you're in town, stop by at 7pm. Doug Walker and Haz Said will be reading poetry, Dinah Swan will read a ten minute play, Terry Junttonen, Blake Crouch and I will be reading short stories. The lineup will run from sublime to seriously sick, I'm sure.

What else? Oh yeah, tomorrow night I'll be reading from my teenage diaries (along with others, anxious to be humiliated) for OMG at The Abbey Theater at 7pm. Along with other adolescent ramblings you'll be subjected to my poem, "Super Stud," written when I was sixteen.

Desert Places--the movie!

Awesome news for Blake Crouch--his first book, Desert Places, has been optioned by a very savvy, award winning, young director, Marc Wilkins. And Marc has hired Blake to write the screenplay.

This book is soooo dark, I had to keep putting it down--just to catch my breath, and keep my sanity. (Guess that part didn't work.) The movie promises to be deeply disturbing , but classy--how can it be anything else with the team of Blake and Marc? And I'm excited, because they're planning to film it in the Four Corners Area. I told Blake I'd love to be a go-fer, but forget about Kraft Services.

Hooray Blake!!!

Abandon

Wow...just realized my last blog was almost exactly like what I wrote ten months ago...have I been in a time wharp. Maybe a black hole. In any case, Blake Crouch came out with a new book, Abandon, a thrilling twisted story that takes place in the Four Corners in and around Durango, Colorado. Read it. Blake not only has one of the sickest imaginations I have ever come across, but the man can really write.

MOTA 9

My short story, Rock Bottom, will be published in the MOTA 9 anthology published by Triple Tree--currently downloadable at Amazon. The collection focuses on additions. I call the story fiction, but I have to admit I did a lot of research. Won't go into that here--that's why I'm in therapy. Not that I've ever been addicted to anything (or anyone) but some of my best friends... Okay, enough about that! Anyway, check it out: MOTA 9

Addicted to icecream, love and writing

Good news: my short story, "Rock Bottom," has been accepted for the MOTA 9 anthology. The topic is addiction. Never knew I was an addict till I wrote this story. Now I realize I'm hooked on icecream and love. What's the difference?

Lately I've been back to working on a novel--my fourth (or fifth). This one is contemporary psychological suspense. I done hours and hours of research--mostly by dating. Through dating I have learned just how insane I am.

And now I'm on facebook which is what spurred me to write this post.

Dark Night of the Blogger's Soul

This is blog, so once again I'm procrastinating instead of doing a rewrite or plotting a new novel.

I've been searching for my soul--which took a detour from the highway of my life about three years ago. Before my divorce, I knew where I was going, but my GPS leads me round and round on these back roads.

The first year I spent lost in ancient Rome while I wrote a romantic suspense novel entitled, Vestal Virgin, preferring to imagine being tortured and buried alive than face my current life. The feedback: good writing, but too dark. Too dark for the Roman Empire and Nero? Does that give you some insight on my divorced state of mind?

Then short stories started popping out. Dark (imagine that) comedies about the breakdown of my marriage and my attempts at dating after being with one man for twenty years. Six months of Match.com provided me with plenty of material.

The back roads turned to dirt and mud, then disappeared. Dragging myself from the bog, I clung to words of poetry. I wrote this while I was there:


How many noes?

How many noes
will be required
to dismantle our friendship?

How many questions
must be left hanging
in the night?

I remember making pasta,
kneading dough
as smooth as skin.

Water coming to a boil,
steam beading
on our foreheads.

Rivulets running
down my chest, your back,
as the pasta cooked.

Even in that rising heat
you never let me
quench your thirst.

How many noes
before we say goodbye
and really mean it?

Standing here,
in this Zen emptiness
I search the dark for yes.

"City of Joy" a poem

My driver wears a turban
and white gloves.
I stare out of the window,
sipping bottled water.

Fumes from burning tires
sting my lungs.
Through smoke,
an elephant appears.

People walk barefoot
along the highway
avoiding mud-holes
and construction.

Others peer from hovels,
plastic bags for rooftops.
Family and ancient gods
shield them from the elements.

A cow wanders
along the overpass
past billboard gurus
and Bollywood smiles.

Motorcycles, rickshaws, bikes,
women wearing rainbow saris,
beggars, dogs and businessmen,
no one stopping for red lights.

Back home in Colorado,
cars zoom along an empty road,
people locked inside,
buckled-up in safety-belts.

I press my nose
against the glass
attempting to get
closer to this life.