Archive by Author
19 May

write2freeu

I started writing Maternal Secrets approximately five years ago. One of the reasons it took me so long to write it was because I was weighed down by what other people would think about my writing. I was consumed with what my pastors at the time, past church friends and others in my Christian community would say. I found that I was using a lot of clichés that people who don’t go to church and are not indoctrinated into church social culture would know nothing about. I even altered the story line. The funny thing is after numerous re-writes and peeling back the layers of the story, I found myself back to the original story that I believe I was destined to write.

So now with book two, Maternal Instincts, I have decided to take the limits off. If I want my writing to transform as well as entertain readers I…

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I’m Looking For a Few Good Authors

17 May

On the Porch

Onisha Ellis

I’m looking for a few good authors. I’d like them to be no older than forty years of age. I’ve reached the time of life when the authors I spent my youth and middle age with are dying.  It just isn’t right.  One should never outlive their children or their favorite authors. I will tell you who my favorites are and you can tell me yours.

My all time favorite author is D.E. Stevenson. Here is what Wikipedia says about her. D.E. Stevenson was born in 1892 in Edinburgh, Scotland, and was educated at home by governesses. She started to write at eight, but because her parents and governesses disapproved she had to do this in secret. She later wanted to go to university but her father refused, concerned about having an educated woman in the family. Stevenson was married in 1916 to a captain in the 6th Ghurkha Rifles.

Isn’t that an  amazing bio? She died in 1973 after writing forty novels. It took me years to find all her books but I think I may have read almost all of them and she is one of the few authors I collect. Her books transported me to the gentle countryside of Scotland into the lives of everyday people getting into scrapes  and of course, food was mentioned a lot, which explains to some degree my fascination with her books.

After Stevenson there is no particular order to my favorite deceased authors. I do genuinely miss Eugenia Price. The St. Simon’s Trilogy was a favorite for myself as well as my daughter, requiring a girl’s weekend to St. Simons Island to visit the marshes and cemetery we felt a bond with. Even today all I have to say to my daughter is “John died” and we tear up. Now that is writing. Savannah Quartet is not to be missed either. I went to Goodreads to skim some reviews and refresh my memory and I was saddened to see how hardened some readers are. They can’t relate to a time when human honor and duty were valued.

Eugenia died in 1996 and was buried in her beloved Christ Church cemetery on St. Simon. I foresee another trip to the island to visit her grave. She is buried step away from the pastor she immortalized in her books.

Since I have a self-imposed five hundred-word limit for my blog posts, I can see this will have to be continued. I would love to hear from you. Which authors have you read for years and now they are gone?

: Christ Episcopal Church

: Christ Episcopal Church (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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A Gator in the Street?

16 May

A Slice of Life

Bill Lites

We live in a small Central Florida town in an older subdivision that is quiet and pleasant.  We have a few feral cats, the odd neighborhood dog and even one guy down the block who has chickens and a rooster that we can hear crowing in the morning.

One day I happened to look out my front bedroom window and thought I saw an alligator walking down the sidewalk in front of our house. Surely, my eyes were playing tricks on me. I grabbed my glasses and ran out the front door to get a better look.  Well, it wasn’t an alligator; it was a 6-foot Iguana!  Where in the world did that thing come from?  And where was it going?  The Iguana was just slowly walking down the sidewalk as if it did it every day.

It was heading for the woods just two houses away and I didn’t think it would be a good idea for it to be wandering around out there possibly scaring hikers to death.  So, I walked around and headed it off and It went for our neighbor lady’s front yard.  Uh oh, I hoped she didn’t come out of the house just then.  Oh good, I remembered she wasn’t home.

I watched as the creature crawled up onto her front porch and from there onto a bench. It placed its front feet on the windowsill and gazed in as if looking for someone.  I finally remembered the guy down the street with the chickens and just knew somehow that this thing was one of his pets.  I hurried down the street to his house and knocked on the door.  There was no one home.  A van in the driveway had a business logo on the side and a phone number, so I called and sure enough, the Iguana was his. He said he’d come right away and get it.  When I got back to the neighbor’s, the Iguana was still standing on the bench looking in.

When the pet master got there, he picked up the Iguana as you would a cat or a dog and a strange thing happened, it turned from a grayish/brown to a bright green right in front of my eyes.  What was that about?  Had it been scared and lonely? Did it change colors because it was glad to see its owner?  I was amazed. Do Iguanas have feelings? I don’t know.  Do you?

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What’s Wrong with Potatoes Anyhow?

14 May

My Take

DiVoran LItes

I was just talking to my cats, Lily and Jasmine. I said, “keep on swimming, keep on swimming,” (Dorrie to Nemo)  but they are cat couch potatoes and didn’t know what I was talking about, couch potatoes don’t swim or even do much of anything else, that’s how they got their reputation as couch potatoes. I know, I know, cats don’t swim much either…some cats do and I’ve seen tigers…oh, never mind.

Anyhow, I have a couch I call, guess what? I call it my potato couch. I was showing it to a friend one day, and she gently reminded me that people are not made to lie about but to be up and at ‘em. She is so productive, creative, and organized. I envy her a little.

As for me, I have my couch rigged where I can lay full-out with my T. V. on a table at my feet (fairly big screen) and watch BBC dramas and Masterpiece Theater. Well, it’s cultural, isn’t it?

How did potatoes ever get the reputation for being useless, anyhow? What about French Fries, baked potatoes, shepherd’s pie? What about potatoes being filling and nutritious, especially if they are all you can afford, because they are cheap, or used to be. Bill says the term probably came from people who lie down to eat potato chips and watch T. V. I’m fond of potato chips and I’m just as fond of my potato couch and I love seeing my beautiful cats lying around like gorgeous sculptures ‘cause they go with all the furniture and they go with me, too.

Full-out on potato couch

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Speak Up Saturday- I Learned Life Isn’t Fair

12 May

We  welcome author, Rebekah Lyn to Speak Out Saturday.  Rebekah has published her debut novel, Summer Storms and is almost ready to release Julianne, a novel set in coastal North Carolina.  Rebekah  has her own blog, Rebekah Lyn’s Kitchen but since she was busy editing and needed to rant we offered Speak Up Saturday as a quick vent.  A link to her blog is in the sidebar. So, Rebekah, rant away.

Driving around this weekend, I saw a bounce house in a backyard, presumably for a child’s birthday party.  It made me think about how things have changed since I was a kid. Growing up, we had birthday parties at Burger King or McDonald’s.  I remember wearing a paper crown and sitting in a booth with my friends.  Those were great parties.

As I continued driving in my nostalgic state, I noticed many of the houses had plastic play sets in place of the metal swing-sets I grew up with.  These play sets are fine I guess, but I feel bad for the kids who don’t have the chance to ride the glider, one kid on each side, pretending it was a horse.  I learned not to let my bare legs touch the slide after the first time I burned them on the metal that had been baking in the sun all day.

Sure some of the kids I grew up with had big wooden tree houses or forts, and I only had the rickety old metal swing set, but I had monkey bars, a slide, and swings.  I could climb up the support poles and make my way across the whole set without touching the ground.  I wasn’t scarred for life because some of my friends had nicer things than me.  I learned life isn’t fair, but it is what you make of it.  I’m glad I grew up in the time  I did; I had the chance to learn from my mistakes.

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Being Still

10 May

On the Porch

Onisha Ellis

‎ This was my friend Wanda’s Facebook post this morning.

“Quiet Time” on front porch sitting in rocker with a cup of Newman’s listening to the nesting birds chirp or “tweet” their new song! Flag waving gently in the breeze and shaded by the sun-filtering oak tree. Being still …….. ♥

Adding to my friend’s observations, I’m sitting on my porch now, listening to the wind wave the trees and the tink, tinkling melody of the wind chimes,a gift from a friend. A neighbor has decided to rev up a very sick sounding motorcycle. At first I am extremely annoyed then realize even this is a part of being still. What I am hearing is a neighbor with a problem and if I had the skills I could offer to help.

Now our porch dog, Gus has arrived. He belongs to the neighbor with the sick motorcycle and comes everyday to say hello and accept any treats we offer.

Our bird feeders are full of finches today adding their color and cheery chirrup to the sound on my porch. I think maybe God created the birds and insects to serenade us, even the bees.

I love being still, I wonder why I don’t take the time to do this every day.

Psalms 46:10

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Patio Visitors

9 May

 We’ve added a new blogger to bring a male point of view.We are so pleased to welcome Bill Lites.

Bill is a retired engineer living with his artist/writer wife of 55 years in Central Florida.  He was born and raised in the Southwest, did a tour of duty with the U.S. Navy, attended college in Southern California and ended up working on the Manned Space Program for 35 years.  He currently spends most of his time building and flying R/C model airplanes and supporting his wife’s hobbies with framing and marketing.  Bill’s children and their spouses, two grandchildren, a sister and her husband, also live in Central Florida so he and his wife are rewarded by having family close to spend quality time with.

A Slice of LIfe

Bill Lites

When my wife and I first moved to Central Florida and bought our new house, our patio consisted of a 10’x10’ concrete slab outside our back family room door.  After we got our dog, Baron, we began feeding him on the patio to help avoid the mess in the house.  He didn’t always finish everything we gave him so sometimes there would be food left in his bowl at night.

Since our house backed onto the woods we began to have quite a variety of animals come onto our patio to check out any leftovers.  We had frogs, raccoons, possums, foxes, skunks and who knows what else.  We never really knew what to expect when we looked outside at night.

One night as we sat watching TV in our family room Baron started whining at the door.  It was very dark out and when I turned the light on it only made a glare on the glass door.  As I started to open the door, Baron sprang out through the opening like a streak and was after something heading for the woods.  It was a possum.  They were both running flat-out but Baron was catching up fast.  Just then, the possum stopped in its tracks.  Baron was going so fast that when the possum stopped he ran right over it, skidded to a halt, whipped around and was on the possum in a flash.  But, what was this?  A dead possum?  It wasn’t  moving, not even breathing, just laying there dead as could be.  Baron sniffed around it from all sides, tried to roll it over with his nose and sniffed some more, but to no avail.  Finally, he gave up and came back in the house.

I looked out two or three times during the next 10-15 minutes but the possum was as dead as ever.  Then, the next time I looked, guess what?  No possum!  Sure enough, it had come back to life and just strolled off into the woods.  Now I know what is meant when someone says they played possum.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-2 NIV

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to live and a time to die.

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Touching Heaven

7 May

My Take

DiVoran Lites

We have a friend who calls himself a hedonist. I think that means pleasure seeker. I suppose I must be one too. It’s certainly a pleasure in the afternoon after my nap to brew a cup of coffee (with dark chocolate powder added), cut a California navel into triangular slices and take a book to the back porch to read.

Spring days are so fantastic. When I finished my refreshments, I put my book down to just sit and be for a while. Almost immediately, I became aware of what was going on around me. Everything I heard and saw seemed sharp and clear.

I heard:

hammering as if someone were putting on a new roof.

a rooster crowing

an airplane humming over,

our calico cat chattering at a green anole lizard on the screen

a cardinal too-too-tooted his spring song.

Then the AC came on and I couldn’t hear anything else. Civilization encroaching, thank the Lord for it!

As I looked around the yard, I saw:

yellow, orange and purple flowers, swaying against the fence

dried weeds on the other side that looked like fluffy ostrich feathers,

a brand new sunflower seeking the sun,

Close up I spied a:

pothos growing in a pot

cat in a basket

Chinese Tallow tree, with Florida ferns growing under it,

green garden wagon with balloon tires (one is flat),

stool made from an overturned porcelain pot with a red rubber stepping stone for a seat.

Closer yet:

I touched the binoculars,

picked up the napkin basket,

fingered the salt shaker,

smelled the orange peels on a small white plate,

moved the driftwood I use for a book prop,

and smoothed my hand over the slick cover of the large print book.

Does all that make me a hedonist? See how self-indulgent I am? I not only took the time to jot all that down, I enticed you to take the time to read it too, (I hope). If yes, thank you. Your company pleases me very much.

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Blackbirds, Mourning Doves, and Robins

5 May

We are delighted to have Patricia Franklin as our first contributor to Speak Up Saturday.

Patricia Franklin now lives not far from the small town in the shadow of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range in Colorado which was settled by her ancestors on both sides. She and her husband are Jeepers and researchers of family histories. She has three children and three grandchildren, and spends happy volunteer hours at a multi denominational shelter and charity center. While self-effacing and laid back, she has a brilliant mind and a feisty sense of humor. She’s a small woman, but coming from a family with five brothers she knows how to hold her own.

Blackbirds, Mourning Doves, and Robins

By Patricia Franklin

Blackbirds nested in our lilac bush one year. They hogged the bird bath and dropped trash in it. It was yucky. Last year we had mourning doves. They were quiet and clean, and we kept an eye on them until they hatched and fledged. This year the blackbirds returned, but we chased them away.

I’d been walking around the bush for a few days looking up in the branches to make sure the blackbirds didn’t come back, when suddenly I came face to face with a perfectly formed nest on a lower branch. I’m surprised I missed it, but that was because I looked way up, while this nest was at eye-level. As I watched, a mother robin flew in with something small in her beak to finish up a perfect nest. Now we have a robin’s nest in a location where I can see it from my patio or from my kitchen window. I’m thrilled.

The mama robin is around every morning, but when I go out, I can’t see anything. Because the nest is wide and deep I wonder whether the eggs are in the bottom where they can stay warm without her. Or maybe she’s hunkered down in there too. I don’t know, it’s a mystery.

My biggest fear is of the neighbor’s black cat. He snatches birds right out of our backyard. Maybe my husband will build a fence around the nest. No, that’s not going to happen. Last year he was forced to let a hay crop grow under the bush so the birds wouldn’t be disturbed. He didn’t much like that. Yikes, I can hear him cutting the lawn now. I’d better get out there and guard my little flock while I can.

Bird Nest

Bird Nest (Photo credit: Sikachu!)

5 May
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