• Rodeo Research

    For my final piece on the OU A215 course a story about a cowboy came into my head one day in March/April. I’d never been into western riding or cowboys, ever, but there the idea was so I went with it. As I go back to the US every summer, I Googled rodeos in the…

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  • Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn – Goodreads Review

    Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn My rating: 4 of 5 stars Wow, what a read! What totally insane characters. I loved how my allegiance to the two main protagonists/antagonists shifted, I loved how the story kept me guessing, I loved how the entire train wreck of these 2 characters’ lives unfolded across this story with…

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  • Inspiration

    Generally my story ideas come from all the traditional places: what I’ve read, TV, movies, newspaper/magazine articles, a face or action from someone that I’ve glimpsed. Recently I’ve been trying to organize my brain into how I’m going to prepare for what I’m writing. I’m generally a pantser but I know from doing NaNoWriMo that…

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  • Monday Morning Murder

    Monday morning, the sun rose, the world turned, and my dog brought me a fleshy human hand from the creek. I contemplated it for a minute then looked toward the direction of the creek. Sun glinted like dancing diamonds through the leaves of the trees. The cicadas weren’t humming yet but the day would be…

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  • The Gift

    ‘Must be near Christmas,’ Warren said not meaning to speak the words out loud. The fire in front of them glowed a hot orange in its center with charred, blackened wood cooling on the outside. He stoked it to get the flames going again then sunk down onto the floor next to Kristen, using the…

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  • Who is Behind Me?

    Who is behind me Who follows my lead We’ll conquer together An end to their greed The prompt ‘Who is behind me’ is an orphan prompt from the Indie Ink Challenge. I would have liked to have expanded this more – and maybe will separately – but there’s too much poetry to be written for…

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  • The Toddler and the Kitten

    The toddler and the kitten came face to face one day Hello said she Meow said he And each sat down to play Where shall we go To catch a mouse What shall we do Play in my doll house It’s time for our tea I’ll have fish It’s time for a bath A splash…

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  • Dogs of War

    It was October 2001 and it was dark. I don’t know why I was outside. I was in the backyard. Maybe I had seen the lights from inside and that drew me out because it was the lights I was looking at. I had never seen anything like it and I probably won’t again. Up…

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  • That Much I Know

    It was the morning after. She had locked herself in the hotel bathroom belonging to a man she didn’t know. Her heart thudded too fast in her chest; no relief from the adrenalin surging through her. She gripped the white porcelain sink and looked up into the brightly lit mirror. The face looking back was…

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  • Beware Extinction

    The knock against the window is loud enough to wake her. She sits up in bed looking at the window. The sound comes again. She throws back the covers and stumbles out of bed toward the window. She swallows visibly and her expression is tight with fear. Her hand touches the curtains and she pauses.…

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  • Ghosts

    They are everywhere. When I close my eyes I see them. When I open my eyes they are there. I can see them out of the corner of my eye, shifting, floating. The scenes replay over and over again and they are always there. It is burned into my memory, the major events on those…

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  • A Rose that Grew from a Crack in the Concrete

    My Indie Ink challenger this week was Shiv with ‘a rose that grew from a crack in the concrete’ and I challenged Chaos Mandy I watched the blood seep along the pavement. The dark red thickness of it flowed through my hand as I lay there. It was losing color, turning black. Everything around me…

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