Saturday, September 24, 2016

MEETING COUSIN GUY



THE JOY OF STORY
John M. Daniel’s Blog
SEPTEMBER 24, 2016




Note: A longer version of the following true story was first published in Black Lamb. Though it tells a sad story, it also celebrates the happy fact that writing stories can bring friends and relatives close to one another. Far-flung members of a dispersed tribe often know the same stories, although the versions they know and tell may differ in details. Here’s a tale about how writing stories brought me and my cousin Guy together: two very different writers, who shared their stories with each other and became close friends, even though they never met in person.

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Sometime back in the early 1990s I wrote a short story about my grandmother’s funeral. She, Hannah Mallon, died in 1952, when I was ten. I didn’t attend the funeral in Cincinnati, but all of her eight children did, coming from as far away as Texas, Denmark, and Germany. These eight adult siblings, my mother and my aunts and uncles, gathered to bid adieu to the bossy, loving matriarch who had so shaped their lives. I don’t know what really happened at that gathering of tycoons, diplomats, wives, wits, and wastrels, and so the story I told was fiction, but I was as honest as I knew how to be about the personalities of the eight Mallons, all of whom were dead by the time I wrote the story.
The story was published in September 1994 by a small Southern California literary quarterly called Innisfree, which has also gone to its rest. I received my contributor’s copy, reread my story, and moved on.
About a year later, I received a letter from Guy Waterman in Vermont. Guy was a first cousin of mine whom I had never met, the son of my Aunt Mary, my mother’s oldest sister. As much as I loved Aunt Mary, I never knew her five children. I’d heard about Guy, though, whom family gossip had called a black sheep, one of several black sheep in the Mallon family. Guy had eloped when he was a teenager, had played jazz piano professionally, and now lived on a homestead in rural Vermont.
Guy opened his letter with the standard “Although we’ve never met…” and moved on to tell me that his wife, Laura, was a short story writer who subscribed to a number of little magazines, one of which was Innisfree. His and Laura’s favorite form of entertainment in the evening was to read aloud to each other, by lantern light. Usually they read classics from bygone centuries, but whenever Laura discovered a story she thought Guy might enjoy…
Bingo. “Those are my aunts and uncles!” Guy exclaimed to her. “Who wrote that story?”
And that’s how I met Guy Waterman, my first cousin, for the first time, when I was in my fifties.
As our correspondence took off, I got to know Guy better and better. I also corresponded with Laura, swapping short stories and congratulating each other when we were lucky enough to be published by the likes of Innisfree.
They called their homestead Barra, after the Scottish island ancestral home of one branch of our family. Their homestead was one and a half miles from the nearest village, East Corinth, Vermont. They had built their house entirely by hand, bringing materials in via paths through the woods. They lived without road access, electricity, and running water, except for a stream that ran through their little valley. The house was barely big enough for the two of them and Guy’s Steinway grand piano. Outbuildings included a guest shelter and an outhouse in the woods uphill, with a glorious view of their valley. They grew and canned all their own fruits and vegetables, and they harvested syrup from hundreds of sugar maples, all of which had names, many named after baseball players.
Guy was a baseball historian. He didn’t go to games or even listen to them on the radio because they had no radio, but he followed the statistics. The more I learned about Guy Waterman the more I realized he was a man of statistics, records, and lists. He kept years of meticulous records of the yield of their blueberry bushes (the bushes had numbers). Not how many pounds or how many pints per bush per year, but how many berries per day per bush. He also kept records of how many cartons of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream they consumed, sorted by flavor. They were obsessively frugal. Many of the letters I received from Guy were typed on the backs of food labels.
Guy and Laura Waterman were best known as mountain climbers and stewards of the wilderness. Guy had scaled every mountain in New Hampshire that stood over 4,000 feet, in winter, from all cardinal directions; and of course he kept records of each trip. The two of them wrote articles and books about conservation and wilderness history. They were widely published in their narrow niche.
I also corresponded with Laura, whose short stories got better and better as we exchanged writings and critiques. Her list of credits grew, with bigger and bigger little magazines. Many of her stories were drawn from her life of climbing and camping.
In the late 1990s I was hoping to expand my literary career to include agenting good writers to the small-press publishing world, where I’d made contacts and connections at book conventions and writing conferences. I proposed to Laura that she and I put together a collection of her best outdoor short stories, which I could try to place as a book. Guy intercepted the idea and came back with a different proposal. How about a book by both Guy and Laura Waterman, with short pieces, both fiction and nonfiction, all having to do with mountain climbing?
I said okay. I didn’t have any colleagues in the mountain-climbing publishing niche, if such niche existed, but I’d give it a shot.
So the two of them sent me a box of manuscripts and a table of contents. Guy’s essays and stories were wonderful (including a ghost story and a hilarious fantasy about mountain-climbing dairy cattle), and Laura’s stories were superb. I edited a bit, but only a bit, wrote a proposal package, and sent it to The Mountaineers, a book publisher in Seattle. They responded quickly and eagerly. I had negotiated a sale for A Fine Kind of Madness: Mountain Adventures Tall and True. My first sale as an agent, which turned out to be my only sale as an agent.
The next bundle of paper I received from Guy was an enormous, unfinished autobiography, from which I learned more about Guy Waterman than I’d ever known before, and perhaps more than anyone else (other than Laura) knew either. He told me he had no intention of publishing the book, but he wanted me to read it.
So I did, and that’s how I learned about Guy Waterman’s lifelong struggle with  what we now call bipolar disorder. Guy adamantly refused to consult any professional or even read any book on the subject. His soul was the battleground between two warring personalities, whom he named after characters from The Tempest: Ariel, the high-minded, light-hearted idealist, mountain climber and jazz pianist; and Caliban, the dark, angry, self-loathing failure.
I learned facts about Guy’s life that surprised the hell out of me. Not only was he a baseball nut, he was an ardent Republican who had written speeches for Nixon and a whole roster of Republican Senators and Congressmen in the 1950s. After that, he quit Washington and moved to New York, where he wrote speeches for the Public Relations department of General Electric. He and his wife couldn’t get along, and by this time he had three sons. He began drinking seriously, three-martini lunches every day, and he passed out almost every night on his living room floor. Caliban was in charge of his life.
Then, without AA, without counseling of any kind, Guy cleaned up his act. He started walking—marching—instead of drinking lunches. As he walked he memorized Paradise Lost. Not all of it, but eight books out of the twelve. In the process, he dried out. He began climbing mountains. He left his wife. He took his sons on climbing trips. He met Laura, and they began hiking, camping, and climbing together. They married. They bought property in rural Vermont. They left New York and built Barra, their homestead in the wilderness. Guy had a new cause to work for, the stewardship of the forests, trails, and mountains. Ariel prevailed.
But Caliban had never really gone away. The closer I got to the end of Guy’s manuscript, the sadder it got. Two of his sons died in mountain-related accidents, and Guy blamed himself for their deaths. As for the causes so dear to him—wilderness preservation and stewardship of the mountains, he felt the books he and Laura had written had failed to make a difference.
The ending of the autobiography was unwritten. The last chapter I was allowed to read ended with Guy wondering who would win the ball game, Ariel or Caliban. I got the feeling Guy was rooting for both teams.
Then, in February, 2000, during cocktail hour, the phone rang.
“Johnny? It’s Nicky. I’m afraid I have some rather dreadful news.”
Nicky, another cousin, told me by telephone that our Guy Waterman had frozen to death on Mount Lafayette in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.
On purpose.
About two weeks after his death I received a hand-written letter from Guy himself.
“Dear John,” he wrote, “I have decided that old age is not for me.…” The letter was personal, recounting the way we had met and the importance of our correspondence to him. He thanked me for helping him to find a publisher for what was to become his last, and posthumous, book. He assured me that Laura would be provided for, with a new house in the village, and that suitable new owners and stewards would be found to care for Barra.
I later learned from Laura that during the last few weeks of his life Guy wrote other such letters, each different, to family and friends who mattered to him. He wrote them by hand, sealed them, addressed them and stamped them, with instructions to Laura to post them when she got word that Guy had been found.
Yes, Laura was in on it. It was the hardest thing she ever did. But Guy was determined, and it may have been that the only happiness he found in the last winter of his life was in writing more lists, as he planned every detail of his death.
Finally (for once a proper use for that adverb) Guy did it. Said goodbye to his wife and walked off across his snow-covered valley and up into the woods, where he disappeared from Laura’s sight. She cried and began the wait. She opened up the manuscript he had handed her that morning: the conclusion of his memoir. Caliban had won the struggle.
The funeral service was in the community church in the village, and it was packed. Later Laura sent me a tape of the musical climax of the service, a medley of waltzes that Guy had played into a portable cassette recorder on his Steinway Grand. They were all American standards, traditional favorites like “Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland” and “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.”
In June 2000, we assembled, some twenty or so relatives and close friends, at Barra to scatter Guy’s ashes around the homestead. Susan and I came from California. Cousin Nicky and her husband came from Texas. There were several cousins I hadn’t met before. I had never met Laura before in person either, and it was a bittersweet joy to finally hug her. Of all the seventeen Mallon first cousins (grandchildren of the Hannah Mallon who was buried in Cincinnati in 1952), the oldest (Guy’s brother Alan, then in his eighties) and the youngest (Nicky, in her fifties) were both on hand. Friends and family spoke, sang, played the piano, ate, and drank.
And then we scattered Guy’s ashes according to his wishes, on each of the blueberry bushes, at the base of several of his favorite maples, and on the compost pile.
As I held a handful of Guy in my hand, I realize that in a sense I was finally meeting Guy Waterman in person. If I was not shaking his hand—and who knows, maybe I was shaking his hand—at least I was making physical contact. 
Greetings, cousin.


§§§


Call for submissions: Your 99-Word Stories

The deadline for October’s 99-word story submissions is Octoboer 1. The stories will appear on my blog post for October 8, and will stay posted for a week.

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: Write a story inspired by the following sentence: Are you trying to tell me that you never even met this person before?

§§§

Calling all published authors—

I try to feature a guest author the third Saturday (and week following) of each month. If you’re interested in posting an essay on my blog—it’s also a chance to promote a published book—email me directly at jmd@danielpublishing.com.

§§§

Thank you for visiting. Please drop by next week.

 




Saturday, September 17, 2016

WRITING CAN SAVE YOUR LIFE!


 THE JOY OF STORY
John M. Daniel’s Blog
SEPTEMBER 17, 2016





How does a writer go about saving someone’s life? By “saving” I don’t mean some heroic feat requiring superpowers, courage, intelligence, magic, or the Heimlich Maneuver. I mean the kind of saving that we do with a safe deposit box. Preserving and protecting and setting aside for the future.
We write life stories. Biographies as short as an obituary sketch or as long as Boswell’s The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Somebody will be glad to read such stories. Those lives will be saved in a permanent record. And with the pen of a good writer, they can be full of fascinating and entertaining stories.

This week we are fortunate to showcase an essay by Barbara LaSalle, author of the honest and heart-moving book Finding Ben: A Mother’s Journey Through the Maze of Asperger’s, about which Dr. Bernie Siegel had this to say: “To love a  child is to give them the gift of life.… Finding Ben shows this beautifully.”
Barbara’s essay this week for The Joy of Story is a celebration of writing the stories of our lives, in which she stresses the importance of preserving one’s own adventures for safe-keeping.


§§§


HOW I SAVED MY LIFE
by Barbara LaSalle


Every life, like every story, is finite. It starts at the beginning, moves to the middle, and finishes at the end. There are all kinds of ways of saving stories. We can write them, tell them, act them, sing them, and even dance them. But how do we save our lives? Aren’t our innocent beginnings, our meandering middles, and our wise-weary endings worth saving? But how to do it? How do we paste our lives, in all their millions of particles, into permanence? How—before we are gone and forgotten—do we save our lives?
This has been a question that has haunted me since I was small. It always seemed wrong to allow my life to go to waste. It’s not as if my life is extraordinary, just the contrary. Rather, it is its very ordinariness that begs for capture. And why not? My ordinary life is as precious to me as King Edward’s was to him. I have been just as happy, as sad, as desperate, as bored, as scared, as vulnerable, as weak, and as strong as anyone else, famous or not. But no one is asking to write my biography. No one will be checking my life out of the library, ordering it on Kindle, or listening to it on audiotape. Only I can recognize the uniqueness of my life and grant it recognition. Only I care enough to grant it safekeeping, if only for myself.
So that’s what I do.
And in the process of capturing my life on paper, I give it honor because honor is what it deserves. The act of saving my life requires my memory to sharpen, my perspective to broaden, and my sensations to invigorate. In revisiting my past, I understand it in a way I could not the first time around. In appointing myself author of my life, I vow to be its faithful custodian. Though I am tempted to pretty it up, I force myself to remain vigilant, depicting it as unbeautiful, and ungraceful, as it often was. Sometimes, I want to look away, to stuff my mistakes and misfortunes back down into the safe alley of forgetting. But it is then that I re-dedicate myself to my self-assigned task by reminding myself that I alone hold its memories, I alone can tell its story.
Funny things happen on the road back to yesterday. Unexpected epiphanies rise up, answers to long-buried questions find answers, forgiveness wraps me in its comforting arms, and the prize, the treasure that inevitably awaits at the bottom, is always this: breath-taking, awe-inspiring gratitude.
The road to saving my life is a hard one to travel, but it’s worth it, because not only have I saved it but find myself thankful for it, so very, very thankful. Writing about my struggles with all my life’s demons, tamed and untamed, I realize that I have done my best, even when my best showed up as my worst, and that I have lived, truly lived each and every mindless and mindful moment.
It is only a life, little though it is, but it is mine. I am its unconditional mother and my job is to love it, to adorn my house with its scribbles, to paste its heartbreaks and longings into soft, cloth scrapbooks, to wrap its triumphs and trophies, its successes and failures in the attic of safekeeping.
My life, like each of our lives, is a thing of beauty, a thing of courage, a thing of honor. It is by saving them that we give our lives their due.



Barbara LaSalle is a marriage and family therapist who runs a psychotherapy practice in Los Angeles. A tireless advocate for people with mental illness, she is a frequent lecturere, workshop leader, and documentary filmmaker whose films include It’s Not All in Their Minds, Living with A.D.D., and What Happens When My Child Grows Up?

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Call for submissions: Your 99-Word Stories

The deadline for October’s 99-word story submissions is Octoboer 1. The stories will appear on my blog post for October 8, and will stay posted for a week.

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: Write a story inspired by the following sentence: Are you trying to tell me that you never even met this person before?

§§§

Calling all published authors—

I try to feature a guest author the third Saturday (and week following) of each month. If you’re interested in posting an essay on my blog—it’s also a chance to promote a published book—email me directly at jmd@danielpublishing.com.

§§§

Thank you for visiting. Please drop by next week. Meanwhile, may your lives be full of stories, and and may your life story be full of joy. 







Saturday, September 10, 2016

SELF-DISCOVERY: DISMAY OR DELIGHT?



THE JOY OF STORY
John M. Daniel’s Blog
SEPTEMBER 10, 2016

<photo: john teaching>


The ever-quotable E. M. Forster wrote, “How do I know what I think till I see what I say?” Often writers are surprised by what flows out of their pen and onto the paper, or what pops up on the screen because of their wandering, wondering fingers. For example, I don’t know where I’m going with this paragraph, and whether or not I’ll keep it. But I believe I think that writing stories is a good tool for following Socrates’s advice, “Know thyself.” Whether you’re writing fiction or memoir, if you write honestly you’re more than likely to commit yourself to words and thoughts that make sense to you.
Yes, I do think that’s true, so I’ll keep that thought and move onto my next unplanned (or barely planned) observation: writing stories is often like a magic mirror. You write the story, you read the story, and you’re surprised to see what you’ve said or shown you believe. Sometimes you’re pleased by what you read. Sometimes you’re shocked.
Embrace the surprise. Learn from the shock. You’ve written honestly (to make the mirror’s magic work), so what you’ve written is likely to reveal something about yourself, maybe something you never focused on before.
Having just read what I just wrote, I have seen in the magic mirror that I have a tendency to pontificate. Phooey. I was going to pompously wonder if the authors of this month’s 99-word stories learned anything about themselves when they read what they had written. The answer, I must admit, is probably not. What their stories all show is that the authors had fun writing them. Period, and that’s enough. That’s the truth, and you can take it to the bank.
There: that’s what I really think. I know that because I wrote it, or at least I think know that’s what I know I think.
This is too complicated. Let’s just enjoy the stories.


§§§


MIRROR, MIRROR, ON THE WALL



THE PRINCESS ON A PLANE
by Phyllis Povell

She boarded the plane.
Halfway through the flight nature called, so she made her way up the crowded aisle. As she entered the restroom she glanced up and thought she saw someone in the bathroom. Stepping back, she realized it was just the mirror reflecting her new image, since she had recently lost over sixty pounds.
She felt like a princess. “Wow,” she said. “I can’t believe that’s me. I’m going to stay like this forever.”
Ten years later the princess found herself looking in the plane’s bathroom mirror again.
This time she gasped, “You’ve got to be kidding.”

•••

ANOTHER FAIRY TALE ENDING
by Carol Dray

It was the morning of the most important day of her life. She was alone with her thoughts, striking out like soggy match heads those prompting her to flee.
The taffeta crackled beneath the lace of her dress as she crossed the room to her veil. For a moment, she pretended to be a princess on her way to the ball–striking a pose before the floor-length mirror.
Lifting her head she looked directly into her healing bruised eyes that had begun to tear.
Her fiancé appeared from behind.
“Now,” he said. “Now.”
“Never!”
Loosening from his grip, running.…

•••

PRINCESS JOHNSON
by June Kosier

Princess Johnson began to drink her morning coffee. It spilled out of her mouth.
She tried again. The coffee spilled out again.
Being a nurse, she worried that she might be having a stroke.
Her arms moved correctly. Her legs moved normally as she walked to the bathroom without a problem.
She looked in the mirror. What she saw made her think, You have got to be kidding.
 Staring back at her was a face with the left side drooping and an eyelid that wasn’t in synch with the right.
“Oh, darn! It isn’t a stroke. It’s Bell’s Palsy!”

•••

EXPECTATIONS
by Tom Donovan

The princess with the golden hair
Stamped her foot. “You’re so unfair!”
The mirror replied, “surely you jest.
I’ve acquiesced to your every request.”
 “You sent me a frog who’s now a prince
But he burps and croaks. He’s sour as quince.
He looks like a man but sleeps in the bog.”
“Well yes,” said the mirror, “deep down he’s a frog.
 I could send a regal prince your way,
But he’ll look like a frog most of the day.
Princess, dear, the problem’s thee.”
“Foolish mirror, how can that be?”
“Remember, my dear, that business with the pea?”

•••

TRANSFIGURATION
by Helen Fuertes

Awaking the next morning, she was thrilled to find her dream had come true.
She had kept her promise: she had slept with the hideous amphibian.
And he had kept his promise too. There he lay, smiling in his sleep by dawn’s first light. Now a handsome prince indeed!
The Princess left the bed and padded toward the bathroom. She lit a candle. She looked into the mirror to congratulate herself. Her reflection scowled back at her. Its pond-colored skin was leathery.
It opened its scummy mouth and croaked, “Good morning!”
She gasped. “You’ve got to be shitting me!”

•••

THE ENTITLEMENT
by Jim Gallagher

The Princess looked again into the mirror and said, “You’ve got to be kidding.”
Still only a Princess, after a forty-year career in the “royalty business,” she nevertheless feels entitled, despite decades of failed policies, blatant lies, and corruption under her watch. 
 She blames the proletariat’s support of a commoner who opposes her ascension to the throne. They’ll no longer tolerate any career politician who repeats costly blunders, while expecting different results—a practice described by a highly respected sage as “the definition of insanity.”
 They know, by rejecting her, and all career politicians, such insanity is less likely.

•••

THE PRINCESS AND THE PASATRAMI
by Jerry Giammatteo

The Princess and her entourage entered Katz deli in lower Manhattan. Recognizing royalty, the wait staff catered to her every whim, from the matzo ball soup to the pâté, and finally the famous pastrami on rye.
The soup was delicious and pâté exquisite. The wait staff breathed easier.
The Princess then bit into her pastrami sandwich and a frown came over her face.
“Is something wrong, your Highness?” inquired the waiter.
“This sandwich needs more Russian dressing,” she said.
The waiter fidgeted nervously. “I’m sorry, we’re out of Russian dressing,”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” the Princess said.

•••

PRINCESS IN THE MIRROR
by Ryan Matthews

Pretty pink dresses, frills and ruffles abounded. My sisters played dress-up princess.
I secretly wanted to play too. I grabbed the fake rhinestone crown from their toy chest, placing it on my head, looking in the mirror.
“You look silly. Boys can’t play princess. They don’t play dress-up either. Now give back the tiara.” My sisters Peggy and Kay giggled.
“I was only kidding, really!”
The girls played with their dolls. Waving their Barbies in the air, both girls animated and ventriloquially chatted their dialogue.
“Can I at least play the Prince?”
Although capitulating, shaming wouldn’t squelch my creativity. 

•••

FROM HAIR TO ETERNITY
by Christine Viscuso

“Christoph, you’ve got to be kidding.” Princess Rapunzel threw the mirror at her hairdresser.
“But Rap, short hair is all the rage in the kingdom this year. Look how it brings out your finely boned features.”
Rapunzel stuck her head out of the window while her tears streamed down the brick walls. “How do you think my prince will rescue me from this dumb tower?”
“By boat, perhaps? The moat is overflowing from all your tears.”
Hours later, Prince Albert stood on the window’s ledge. “I’m here, dear Princess.”
Rapunzel screamed. “Without a boat? Idiot! Moron! I can’t swim!”

•••

THE  PERCEPTION OF POWER
by Pat Shevlin

The princess looked into her mirror, shocked.
“Where is my hair? What has happened to my hair? A woman’s crowning glory is her hair! I told you I need Drump’s magic red hair!”
The Royal Stylist was summoned.
The red, white, and blue crown had fallen over her thinning blond head, landing heavily upon her shoulders. “Get this off,” she screamed.
Princess Clary shouted to her henchwomen, “Go quickly, find Drump and behead him before I have your heads dyed red. The coronation is weeks away.”
She then contemplated her future as the people’s first queen, “I’ll be huge.”

•••

THE MAKE-BELIEVE MAKE-OVER
By Diane Morelli

Princess Hubrissa looked again into the mirror.
“You’ve got to be kidding, Leola. I said I’m done with being the center of attention. How will that change? I still look extraordinarily beautiful.”
The cosmetologist, who dutifully applied layers of glittery makeup to camouflage acne and overgrown facial hair for the demanding customer, disagreed. “You look so ordinary, I’ll give you a full refund if anyone cruises you on your walk to the limo.”
The women shook hands.
Within minutes, the frantic princess stormed back into Leola’s Hollywood Boulevard salon. “I’ll pay you double. Restore my irresistible good looks now.”

•••

THE FROG PRINCE
by Cathy Mayrides

The beautiful princess had to kiss some frogs to find her prince. However, her prince turned out to be a frog, so the princess needed to be a frog as well.
Her local magician gave her a spell. He guaranteed that she would be turned into a stunning frog and she and the frog prince would find true love.
She cast the spell.
She looked into the mirror and said, “You’ve got to be kidding.” Staring back was another frog prince.
So, under the Marriage Equality Act, they tied the knot and lived happily ever after. And shared clothes.


§§§


Call for submissions: Your 99-Word Stories

The deadline for October’s 99-word story submissions is Octoboer 1. The stories will appear on my blog post for October 8, and will stay posted for a week.

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: Write a story inspired by the following sentence: Are you trying to tell me that you never even met this person before?

§§§

Calling all published authors—

I try to feature a guest author the third Saturday (and week following) of each month. If you’re interested in posting an essay on my blog—it’s also a chance to promote a published book—email me directly at jmd@danielpublishing.com.

§§§

Thank you for visiting. Please drop by next week.