Saturday, January 30, 2016

THE CASE OF THE MISSING FAMILY TREE



THE JOY OF STORY
John M. Daniel’s Blog
January 30, 2016



Greetings! This week begins on the fifth Saturday of the month, which is not rare enough to be called a rare occasion, but mentionable enough to notice. It calls for something different, so this time I’m celebrating the joy of story by posting “The Case of the Missing Family Tree,” a complete mystery story made up of ten chapters, each of them 99 words long. If you’re a fan, or a reader, or a writer of mystery fiction, I think you’ll recognize some of the characters. In the film version, if that ever happens, the cast will include Sean Connery, Basil Rathbone, Margaret Rutherford, and of course Garrison Keillor in the role of Guy Blank, Private Eye.

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THE CASE OF THE MISSING FAMILY TREE
John M. Daniel

In the Ajax Building

A dame shaped like Centerfold Barbie glided into my office. “Mr. Blank,” she purred in an upper-class English accent, “I’m Josephine Toy. My family has lost its family tree. Can you help us?”
         “I know nothing about English trees, Mrs. Toy,” I answered. “Just the ones in northern Minnesota.”
         “It’s Miss.” She tossed an envelope onto my desk, then turned to leave. Her jeans were so tight I could read the tattoos on her buttocks: “Right,” “Left,” in that order.
         “Those are instructions, Mr. Blank,” she said over her shoulder. “So you can get in touch with me.”
        

In the Airport


         As I deplaned at Heathrow I was met by a tall, balding man wearing a tuxedo and a wry smile.
         “Mishter Blonk?” He held out his hand. “Bomb. Jamezh Bomb. Jo shent me.”
         “That’s some speech impediment,” I observed.
         “Shcawtish occnt,” he explained. “Thish way, pleazhe.”
         We crawled into his torpedo-shaped sportscar and Bomb zoomed south to Sussex at 120 mph, leaving a flaming oil slick for pursuing police to negotiate.
         “Great Shcawt!” he exclaimed as we entered the courtyard of an ancient estate. “The cherry tree’zh gone mishing!”
         “That’s why I’m here,” I said, lighting a Lucky.


In the Drawing Room

         “How do you take your tea, Mr. Bomb?”
         “Shtirred, mum. Not shaken.”
         “Mr. Blank?”
         “With bourbon,” I said.
         “Mrs. Britches’s scones are simply scrumptious,” Lord Peter Flimsey declared.
         “Eazhy for you to shay.” Bomb winked at Josephine.
         Lord Peter winked too, dropping his monocle into his teacup.
         “Where are the others?” Dame Agatha Crusty wondered.
         “Skulking about the Ngaio Marshes,” said Josephine.
         Suddenly a tall, caped chap entered the room, followed by a stout, smiling sidekick. “We heard them!” the shorter man exclaimed. “The Nero Wolves! Deucedly chilling, what, Homes?”
         “We’re all here,” Dame Agatha pronounced. “Let us begin.”


In the Kitchen

“Well, if you ask me—of course who asks a cook anything nowadays but what’s for dinner, thank you very much—it was that Bomb bloke what nicked the family tree. Lord knows it wasn’t sweet Miss Josie, even if she does walk about half naked, and it couldn’t have been Master Peter, such a sweet lad he was once. Frankly, Mr. Blank, I think this family’s better off without that bleeding tree. The cherries was sour, if you take my meaning. What say you, Mr. Hammer?”
         Bob, the butler, looked up from polishing silver. “What was that, Mrs. Britches?”


In the Billiards Room

         “Wotsh thot shupposhed to mean?” Bomb lit another Sobranie.
         “Simply that you’re after Josephine’s money.” Lord Peter chalked his cuestick. “Won’t do you any good, old man. She’s betrothed to me.”
         “But you’re first cawzhinzhe!”
         “May I remind you, sir, this is the English aristocracy.”
         I stubbed out my Lucky, watching Sherwood Homes puff his brier. Suddenly his aqueline nose twitched and he turned upon his companion. “Washington, do take that filthy thing out of your mouth,” he thundered.
         “But Homes,” the surgeon protested. “Sometimes it’s only a cigar.”
         “I say,” said Lord Peter. “Shall we join the ladies?”



In the Parlor

         “I’m no detective,” Sherwood Homes remarked, “but I couldn’t help remarking there’s something missing in the library. There should be a coat of arms hung over the fireplace. Looks naked, frankly.”
         “How clever of you,” Dame Agatha remarked.
         “Elementary,” Homes shrugged. “I am an interior decorator, after all.”
         “The coat of arms was stolen,” Josephine explained. “The Crusty family tree.”
         “Wait,” I said. “I thought the missing tree was the cherry out front.”
         “That horrid thing?” Doctor George Washington said. “I chopped that wretched tree down myself. No sense lying about it. I am a tree surgeon, after all.”



In the Library.

         The butler brought coffee to the library, where we were all staring at the empty space over the mantel. “Pardon me, Madam,” he said. “I couldn’t help overhearing that you’re concerned about the Crusty coat of arms.”
         “Distraught,” she replied.
         “It’s been in the solarium for three weeks,” Bob Hammer said. “I’ve been trying to clean it. Someone’s defaced it, I’m afraid.”
         “Heavens!” cried Dame Agatha. “Call Constable Sargent Turner!”
         “Do we need to bother the police?” Lord Peter winced. “So shabby.”
         “He’s not the police,” Josephine retorted. “He’s the artist who designed and painted the Crusty family tree.”


In the Solarium.

         Constable Sargent Turner examined the Crusty coat of arms with a magnifying glass. “It’s true,” he said. “Some blighter has painted over the lower sinister quadrant. Look here, Dame Agatha: do you see this rather inept painting of a monocle? Well, that covers over the area I devoted to the saga of your long-lost daughter, Amanda, the one who eloped with your butler’s brother, Michael Hammer. They emigrated to America, as you may remember, and settled in some woebegone village in the state of Minnesota.”
         The room became deathly silent, and I could feel all eyes on me.


In the Spotlight.

         “What wazhe yrrr fawther’zhe name, Mishter Blonk?” James Bomb asked.
         “Mickey. But—”
         “And your mother’s?” asked the chubby surgeon.
         “Mandy. But their last name was Blank.”
         “Of course it would be,” said Sherwood Homes. “Forged immigration papers and all that.”
         “You know what this means, don’t you?” purred Josephine Toy.
         “That we’re cousins?”
         “Bob’s your uncle.”
         “I always regarded Amanda Crusty as my heir,” Dame Agatha said. “Since you’re her son, and my grandson, I shall will the Crusty estate to you.”
         “The Dickens,” the doctor ejaculated.
         Homes said, “Washington, don’t be an ass.”
         Josephine said, “Where’s Peter?”


In the Garden.

         Munching a crumpet, Dame Agatha squinted and said, “Here comes my bothersome neighbor, Miss Marbles.”
         A spinster arrived, holding Peter Flimsey by the ear. “In my potting shed,” she muttered. “Drinking my Rex Stout.”
         “My heart is broken,” Flimsey whined. “Yes, I defaced your family tree, hoping to inherit Crusty Manor, but only because I wanted Josephine. But she’s in love with that Bomb bounder—”
         “Whoa,” Josie said. She took my hand. “Blank’s the guy for me.” She planted on my lips a kiss sweet as saxaphones on a cold dark night in a city that keeps it secrets.


The End

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Volunteer posters wanted:

Every week beginning on the third Saturday of the month, I turn the stage over to a guest author. If you are an author, preferably one with a published book you want to tell the world about, and if you have thoughts and feelings about the pleasure and craft of writing stories, I invite you to get in touch with me by email: jmd@danielpublishing.com.

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Call for submissions: Your 99-Word Stories

The deadline for next month’s 99-word story submissions is February 1! The stories will appear on my blog post for February 13 and the week following.

note: this 99-word story feature is a game, not a contest. Obey the rules and I’ll include your story. I may edit the story to make it stronger, and it’s understood that you will submit to my editing willingly. That’s an unwritten rule.

Rules for the 99-word story feature are as follows:

1. Your story must be 99 words long, exactly.
2. One story per writer, per month.
3. The story must be a story. That means it needs plot (something or somebody has to change), characters, and conflict.
4. The story must be inspired by the prompt I assign.
5. The deadline: the first of the month. Stories will appear on this blog the second Saturday of the month.
6. I will copy edit the story. The author of the story retains all rights.
7. Email me your story (in the body of your email, or as a Word attachment) to: jmd@danielpublishing.com

THE PROMPT FOR FEBRUARY’S 99-WORD STORY: Use this sentence, or something like this sentence, somewhere in the story: “It was one of those kisses that murmur, ‘Let’s get lost…”

The prompt for March's 99-word story will be posted next week.

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Thanks for stopping by. See you next week, I hope! Meanwhile, happy reading and writing, and may you continue to enjoy the joy of story.






Saturday, January 23, 2016

FATE IS A FACT OF FICTION



THE JOY OF STORY
John M. Daniel’s Blog
January 23, 2016



Greetings! Welcome to The Joy of Story, where I post some thoughts and opinions about writing, reading, and enjoying the art of storytelling. This week I offer my thoughts about Fate, Fact, and Fictionand I invite your feedback. Please let me know what you think about the importance of fate in stories.

Also, please take a look at the promotion of Janine S. Volkmar’s fine travel memoir, France With My Father, which is made up of stories about travel, France, family, and art—and the art of getting lost and turning mistakes into adventures.

Finally, don’t forget to send in your 99-word stories for the month of February. Rules and deadlines are given at the end of this post.

Onward…

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“Fate” is a one-word tautology. Doris Day, that smooth-talker, told us all about it: “Whatever will be, will be.” Fate is the inescapable future, depending on the undeniable present, which is built of the unchangeable past. We can’t change our fate; we can only discover it. We may affect our future, perhaps, by quitting smoking or by driving drunk, by studying hard for the LSAT or by quitting IBM in a huff, but when we do that we’re only acting as an agent for fate.

Whether we bring about our fate by exercising free will, or whether it’s all written in stone, or on the wind, doesn’t really matter. It’s gonna happen. I don’t know if the stars and planets have anything to do with fate, but I’m guessing probably not. Is fate just a sequence of silly accidents that pop and fizzle throughout time and space? I don’t think so. I also don’t believe there’s a Big Dude in the sky charting it all out with a quill pen and papyrus, or maybe stone tablets, or maybe a golden abacus with pearl buttons, or maybe a giant Excel spreadsheet, spread out all over the firmament. Is fate merely the inevitable result of how a bunch of vulnerable dominos were set up sometime during the Big Bang, so that how we fare and how we die are just the consequences of the laws of chemistry and physics, constant and fair throughout the universe? Who knows? Who, for that matter, has time to care?

Fate is a fact of life, the way of the world, and the human condition. But these definitions are too limiting, because the inevitable and interconnected march we’re all on, plodding or racing into the future, also affects other living beings; other gasses, liquids, and solids that may not contain what we self-importantly call life; and other places in the vast universe, hot spots and cold spots where change may be wildly different phenomena. Fate happens out there, too.

Was fate established by an intelligent designer? Nope. Fate just is, always was, and, chances are, always will be. Whether or not it is propelled by intelligent design is a giant can of wriggling worms that I don’t care to open.

Fate is a matter of fact. 

Moving on, fate is also an essential ingredient of the man-made microcosm of existence that we call fiction. We writers have every right to call ourselves the creators of our model-size universes. And we plot our stories using intelligent design. Or if we’re not plotters, we at least hold the reins intelligently. And we get to rewrite and revise, which is something even the mythical Big Dude can’t do.

However we think of fate when we talk about the real world, we can get better handle on it when we make up our stories, based on how we understand the laws of fairness and irony that define the stories in human culture.

The concept of fate is essential to storytelling and fiction writing. And one thing to know, one rule to follow or disobey at your own peril is: Dire predictions come true.

This is true in drama: Chekhov told us that when a rifle is hanging over the fireplace in Act One, that rifle must go off before the final curtain comes down. And when rifles are discharged on stage, someone’s going to get hurt.

The rule works in movies, too. If a character you love starts to cough from some illness, you’d better get out the Kleenex, because chances are that character won’t live long enough to read the credits.

Fate was essential to Greek tragedy. When an oracle tells King Laius that his infant son will one day kill him, he and his wife cripple the child and leave him to die on a mountaintop. Does the infanticide work? No way. The kid grows up, comes back to town, unwittingly kills his dad, and I won’t say what he does to his mom.

In the fairy tale, when the spiteful fairy godmother predicts that the infant princess Briar Rose will, on her sixteenth birthday, prick her finger on a spinning wheel and fall asleep for a hundred years, there’s no point in the King’s ordering that all the spinning wheels in town be burned. He’s be better off shopping for a good mattress.

And when the soothsayer advises Julius Caesar to beware the ides of March, he’s not really telling Caesar to call in sick on the fifteenth. What he’s saying is, “Dude. Better get your affairs in order, because come the sixteenth, you’ll no longer be wearing sandals.” 

So, in fiction as in fact, it’s pointless to try to outsmart fate. The house always wins. To buck fate is to engage in hubris, and the penalty for hubris is always a most unwelcome irony. The so-called Higher Power named Fate shrugs and thunders, “Told ya so.” Of course in real life we can’t help fighting to survive (as we usually should); and because our fiction is about the human condition, our characters are likely to try to beat the odds, even if all they can hope for is a temporary respite.

There is a big difference, however, between human fate in fiction and human fate fate in fact. The fate of a character in a story ends with the words “The End.” An extension is allowed in the event of a sequel, and of course as long as the story remains in print or remains on shelves or on the Internet, the character’s fate is still accessible and knowable, but that fate is a done deal. The character may rest in peace.

In what we like to call “real life,” a person’s fate does not end with the words “rest in peace.” Death is part of the fate of each of us, but it rarely means the story is over. Because most of us, for better or for worse, are entitled to, or saddled with, an afterlife. No, the afterlife of which I speak has nothing to do with pearly gates and golden slippers, or with brimstone and pitchforks. The afterlife that is part of our lingering fate is made up largely of memories stored by friends and family; of tales told about us if we’re in any sense famous; and of DNA passed along for generations to come, for as long as human beings populate the planet, which may sound like quite a spell but is only a blip in the time span that is eternity. The point is: our lives may end but our presence remains and dwindles for a long time before it fizzles and whimpers into oblivion.


I think what makes us writers write and wish to be read is to keep our fates in progress for a while after we die. And why do we write as beautifully as we can while we are still in partnership with our fates? That’s probably the moral to this discussion: we all, willy-nilly, leave tracks in the sand. We don’t want to be remembered for ugly, obnoxious, lazy, antisocial tracks that stink of plastic litter, broken glass, and crap. No. Let us be remembered for having given the world something of value. If we have any influence over our fate, let it be this.

This essay first appeared in Black Lamb magazine.

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And now a word from our sponsor…

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A journey through memory,
art, time, and family
by Janine S. Volkmar

ISBN 978-1-56474-550-7

176 pages, paperback, $14.95



This book can be ordered through your local independent bookstore. It’s also available from Amazon and other online booksellers, or directly from the publisher: 800-662-8351.

Middle-aged adults often find themselves reconnecting with their aging parents. Often this involves care-giving, as the parents weaken into old age. More and more, however, as life expectancy continues to rise, seniors in their eighties and nineties are healthy, adventurous, and ready to travel with their grown children. Janine Volkmar’s new book, France With My Father, celebrates just such a relationship.

When Pierre Volkmar called his daughter and proposed that the two of them travel around France together, Janine was thrilled. She is an avid Francophile, and the fiction she writes is set in France, where she has family roots. But her main cause for joy was the chance to spend time alone with her father: “I felt so lucky to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner with him, day after day.” And these were not fast-food meals. Lunches always took at least an hour. Pierre, also proud of his French roots, fancied French cuisine, eating anything on the menu that caught his interest, and always choosing the perfect wine.

Pierre and Janine Volkmar both proved to be adventurous travelers, open to whatever happened. They traveled without a firm itinerary or advance reservations. More than once they got lost, and when they did, Pierre’s response was “Let’s stop for coffee” if this was before noon, or “Let’s stop for a beer,” if after noon. These impromptu stops invariably resulted in conversations with strangers, who quickly became friends. “My father will talk to anybody,” Janine confides, and her book shows that she’s the same way.

“He was so patient and accommodating,” Janine says. “When I wanted to linger in museums or comb the Paris flea market for treasures, he was always a good sport.” One afternoon in the ancient town of BrantĆ“me, the father and daughter ate lunch beside the river. Waiting for their meal, they lazily tossed bread to ducks, and Janine felt as if she were in an Impressionist painting. “It was clear to me that my father was just as happy as I felt in that moment.”

Janine S. Volkmar is a freelance editor and writer with a special interest in French art and culture. A native Californian and a librarian, she has lived a life of literature and words. She lives in a fishing village in Northern California, where she is currently working on a mystery novel set in nineteenth-century France.


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Call for Submissions: 99-Word Stories wanted!

The deadline for February’s 99-word story submissions is February First. The stories will appear on my blog post for February 13, 2016.

note: this 99-word story feature is a game, not a contest. Obey the rules and I’ll include your story. I may edit the story to make it stronger, and it’s understood that you will submit to my editing willingly. That’s an unwritten rule.

Rules for the 99-word story feature are as follows:

1. Your story must be 99 words long, exactly.
2. One story per writer, per month.
3. The story must be a story. That means it needs plot (something or somebody has to change), characters, and conflict.
4. The story must be inspired by the prompt I assign.
5. The deadline: the first of the month. Stories will appear on this blog the second Saturday of the month.
6. I will copy edit the story. The author of the story retains all rights.
7. Email me your story (in the body of your email, or as a Word attachment) to: jmd@danielpublishing.com

This month’s prompt for next month’s 99-word story:

 You’ll note that the stories will appear on The Joy of Story February 13. That’s Valentine’s Day Eve, folks. To celebrate this coincidence, I challenge you to try your hand at romance writing (sincerely or as a spoof). Use this sentence, or something like this sentence, somewhere in the story: “It was one of those kisses that murmur, ‘Let’s get lost…”

Reread Rule 3, above; this must be a story, not just an essay. If I receive your story by February 1, and  if you follow the rules, your story will appear on this blog February 13 and the week following.

§§§

As always, I thank you for stopping by. I hope you’ll return next week. Till then, stay well, write well, and make the most of the Joy in the stories you write and the stories you read.





Saturday, January 16, 2016

TAKE A CHANCE—PULL THAT THREAD!


THE JOY OF STORY
John M. Daniel’s Blog
January 16, 2016


Greetings! This week, beginning on the third Saturday of the month of January, I’m pleased to present guest author Cora J. Ramos. I’m proud to say that thirteen years ago, I published Valley Fever, a short story collection featuring stories by Cora Ramos, along with stories by Sunny Frazier and JoAnne Lucas. I’m glad to say Cora is still writing, now concentrating on novels of romance and suspense, combined with a paranormal element.

Cora’s essay, as you’ll see, encourages writers to take chances. It acknowledges the appeal of outlining your plots in advance, but she shows what can happen when you abandon your outline and follow the thread where it takes you.

Makes sense. How can it hurt you? If you like where it leads you, you win. If you don’t think it’s working, you can repair it or toss it and start over. Revision is a wonderful gift. It improves your writing, and it forgives your mistakes. Remember: Nobody ever wrote a perfect first draft. So take chances. Now I’ll stop talking and let Cora J. Ramos take over.

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Pull That Thread
by Cora J. Ramos

Remember the first time you found a loose thread on your sweater and wanted to pull it to see what would happen? Did you follow that impulse and unravel the sweater?

I’m not going to talk about the dangers of loose threads in your story. I’m the rebel who is going to encourage you to pull that thread.

After publication of my first novel, I was happily writing my shiny new follow-up story that focused on a male character that everyone loved in book one, writer Jack Hart. My plan was to follow the pattern set up in my first novel of dipping into a past life for greater insight into my main character. And, because of his character arc, I decided Jack needed to have a past life as a samurai. Wanting something other than the usual samurai stereotype, I chose a little known period in Japanese history, the Heian era, before samurai formed clans of their own.

And, this time I was going to plan my novel and not go all pantser. But I was forty pages in and BAM! Something happened that changed everything.

There was a loose thread.

I come from a mystery/suspense background, but my new critique partners were all romance writers. They quickly informed me there were rules for romance. There was something called an HEA (a must-have happily ever after ending). I didn’t have that in my first romantic suspense novel, Dance the Dream Awake. True to my mystery/suspense background, I’d left the ending for the reader to chew on.

My new critique partners now guilted me to create an HEA in this new novel. So, my past life samurai would have to have a romance.

After researching the time period, I fell in love with the “peace and tranquility capital,” Heian Kyo, world of the emperor, Japan of 980 A.D. (pre-Kyoto) and dove more deeply into the story. The world’s first novels by Japanese women in the early eleventh century were written during this era —The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu, and The Pillow Book by Sei Shonigon. Both were about the gossip and romantic goings-on of the participants of the Emperor’s court.

This loose thread of Jack’s past life samurai story continued to fascinate me. I kept pulling that thread until one evening my critique partners all pronounced, “We want more of that story.”

I agreed, pivoted and pulled out that back story. It became Haiku Dance. I was tickled when my story editor, a history buff, became very personally engaged in researching the time period and place and helped me polish it. She even corrected a few of my haiku poems.

We all love to be surprised while reading. But how do you handle change when it rears its head while writing? Do you fight it, find a way around it, or give in and go with the flow to follow that thread?

Remember Robert Frost’s adage, “No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.” Pull that thread and keep pulling; you might end up with a surprising story you love, just as I did.



Cora J. Ramos is intrigued by the edge of things. She is an award winning author of stories of mystery and suspense that straddle that edge, whether slightly paranormal, a deadly decision or the place where science ends and magic resides. A collection of her short stories can be found in the anthology, Valley Fever, Where Murder is Contagious.



Her current novel, Dance the Dream Awake, a paranormal romantic suspense that dips into a Mayan past life, was published by Black Opal Books in 2015.
Her upcoming sensual romance novel, Haiku Dance, set in ancient Japan, will be released in the spring of 2016, by Black Opal Books.

She is currently working on Dance the Edge, the follow-up to Dance the Dream Awake.






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NOTE: It's come to my attention that hot links in this post don't function; they don't open up the pages they reference. If this is the case, and if you want to visit the page, you should copy the link and paste it into the search bar of your browser. I'm sorry for the inconvenience.

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And now a word from our sponsor…

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§§§

Call for Submissions: 99-Word Stories wanted!

The deadline for February’s 99-word story submissions is February First. The stories will appear on my blog post for February 13, 2016.

note: this 99-word story feature is a game, not a contest. Obey the rules and I’ll include your story. I may edit the story to make it stronger, and it’s understood that you will submit to my editing willingly. That’s an unwritten rule.

Rules for the 99-word story feature are as follows:

1. Your story must be 99 words long, exactly.
2. One story per writer, per month.
3. The story must be a story. That means it needs plot (something or somebody has to change), characters, and conflict.
4. The story must be inspired by the prompt I assign.
5. The deadline: the first of the month. Stories will appear on this blog the second Saturday of the month.
6. I will copy edit the story. The author of the story retains all rights.
7. Email me your story (in the body of your email, or as a Word attachment) to: jmd@danielpublishing.com

This month’s prompt for next month’s 99-word story:

 You’ll note that the stories will appear on The Joy of Story February 13. That’s Valentine’s Day Eve, folks. To celebrate this coincidence, I challenge you to try your hand at romance writing (sincerely or as a spoof). Use this sentence, or something like this sentence, somewhere in the story: “It was one of those kisses that murmur, ‘Let’s get lost…”

Reread Rule 3, above; this must be a story, not just an essay. If I receive your story by February 1, and  if you follow the rules, your story will appear on this blog February 13 and the week following.

§§§

As always, I thank you for stopping by. I hope you’ll return next week. Till then, stay well, write well, and make the most of the Joy in the stories you write and the stories you read.

photo by Clark Lohr