Maggie, it's all fiction fodder!

I just had a delightful lunch with friends I've talked to but not actually seen in person for a very long time.

And one of the things we got talking about was writing. I truly miss having Tom to collaborate with because we were a great team, although we didn't do it anywhere near enough. I consider myself a lazy writer in that it takes a boot in the butt to get me going. So Tom, who was incredibly organized mentally because of his award-winning background in debate (his high school debate career is what got him his scholarship to Bates College) would basically outline the piece by dictating it to me (or typing it into Word when he could still see). But Tom had a tendency towards verbosity and the passive voice, so as I typed up his dictation, I'd start to edit -- slashing meaningless verbage and punching it up. I also discovered long ago that word limits are my friend. Every time I distilled extra words into harder hitting words, my writing improves overall.

One of my ideas is for The Great American Novel about the dysfunctional printing company. The company no longer exists, by the way. (Big surprise.) It had three owners, one primary and two subsidiary, who hated each other and did everything they could to sabotage the others. The primary was only in that position because mama bought the company for him to keep him out of trouble. I got my entire business education from that company...every last bit by negative example.

One of Tom's first teaching jobs was at a prep school in the Berkshires that catered to the underprivileged rich. The only admission requirement was daddy's ability to sign his name on a check. The school ended up being owned by the janitor. Tom never wrote the novel although I encouraged him to for thirty years. I hope I've kept enough notes for the bones of the story.

I've got to change clothes and go outside and rake some more leaves out of the hosta bed inside the turnaround. The sun is out, it's drying off, and it's in the 60s(F)...FINALLY! I can get some more work (which counts as exercise, too!) done before I have to leave for grief group tonight.

On my way to lunch I spotted a snowdrop blooming on the bank a long way from where snowdrops were planted. Yeehah! Maybe Spring HAS arrived! And the deep gold crocus that looked just about to pop yesterday when I uncovered it is still thinking about it. Soon, soon...

Linn