This is how it works:
You inch onto the edge of the world
With nothing more than a kite of
Trembling words and a slender string.
You fling yourself into thin air.
Then you write things that desperately
Need more than a line of little cloth strips
Tied to triangles of
Color in a dark tumbling sky.

I do backwards Lent.  Instead of giving up something, I ADD something.  That way I’m not obligated to give up my lattes or my evening wine or my foul mouthed ways.  Sweet!
This year I’ve decided to add one writing task a day toward publication.  Forty days (if you don’t count Sundays) and forty nights of sacrificial [...]

 
For the umpteenth year in a row, I’ve missed Ash Wednesday and its compulsory ashes heaped upon one’s forehead.  I did, however, manage to consume only one eensy-teensy piece of chicken before remembering it’s a no-meat day for all us wild and crazy Catholics.
Truth be told, I’m a Catholic Loser!
You can call me a Cafeteria [...]

Here’s what happened:  I woke up; nothing hurt, at least not much; but I woke up.
This morning I counted up the number of surgery scars on my body.  Eleven in all.  Dan says I’m done now with surgeries.  I believe him … he’s never lied to me — ever.  We made a pact.  I’ll have [...]

Tomorrow.  Scary Tomorrow.  Arrive at 8:00 a.m.  Check
In.  Dress in the gown that opens rudely in the back.
Think plump veins.  Close your eyes and turn your head,
Praying for the one fat vein that will open and flow like a
Fountainhead.  Think of raspberries ripening in the sun.
Plan your garden; round tomatoes, melons, sunflowers,
cucumbers the size of [...]

ACT ONE
SCENE 1
(AT RISE we see DAN, handsomely dashing, standing in the middle of the kitchen.  He is fidgeting with an electric screwdriver.  After a few moments, AUBURN, fetchingly beautiful, enters.  DAN sighs.
DAN
Are you sure we need to do this … this house thing?  We already have a perfectly good house.
AUBURN
Of course.  It’s our patriotic [...]

 
I respect my latte.
It warms me; my hands, my throat, my heart.
Its foam lingers on my lip, telling all the world it is mine.
It doesn’t mind a little biscotti now and then; neither do I.
We’re compatible that way.  We’re faultless in
warm admiration, kind compliments.
My latte and me — we’re going steady now.
At least we will as [...]

We cross our bridges when we come to them and burn them behind us, with nothing to show for our progress except a memory of the smell of smoke, and a presumption that once our eyes watered.
                                                   Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead
 
In some stories, the opening starts just before a moment of change.  [...]

I drift.  One thing leads to another.
I heard from a friend today.  We talk sporadically; it’s like we just spoke two hours ago to one another.  “Hey,” she says.  I’m right with her.  All I need is one word and I’m there, without any passage of time, without our many miles of distance.
My friend tells [...]

An admirer once wrote to Rudyard Kipling: “I see you get a dollar a word for your writing. I enclose a check for one dollar. Please send me a sample.”
Kipling responded: “Thanks.”
Beautiful, perfect brevity.  I shall remember this little lesson.