My friend, Dorothy Johnson (http://www.reflectionsfromdorothy.blogspot.com) invited me along on a blog hop a few weeks ago.  I regret that illness kept me from responding to it last week, but – better late than never!

I just started this blog about a year ago – it will be one year on July 9, to be exact.  I had been considering it mostly because other writers told me over and over that I had to have one to get my name out there and establish my platform.  By the way…I’m still trying to figure out exactly what a platform is.    When I do, I’ll blog about it!  Meantime, I finally got encouragement last year at the Arkansas Writers Conference and the fun began.

I have to admit, it IS fun.  My blog wanders from time to time, but has a vague connection to the joy of finding yourself in the writing world.  My friends are beginning to hate me, because we’ll be in a conversation and I’ll stop and say, “Hmmm.  This would make a good blog.”  I find that it has the added advantage of making me write on a regular schedule.  You see, I’ve never been one for schedules, and therein lays my problem in writing.

What am I working on?  Oh dear.  I would love to say I have a single project that consumes all my time.  However, in truth, the main project is this, the blog.  I divide the rest of my writing time to 1) Poetry in the spring…this is because my favorite workshop, Lucidity Poets’ Retreat, is held in April and I spend a few months preparing for it. 2) Short Stories and Essays, mostly in the late spring and summer months, because I find more competitions for those things at that time, and then 3) I get serious and go back to a couple books I’ve had in mind for a few years now.  Yes, I said a few years.  I get stopped on them now and then and have to re-group.  But one of these days……

How does my work differ from others in my Genre?  This question is like asking a mother how her children are different. My three brothers look similar, but are worlds apart. The same goes for writing.  Since I write many genres, this will be a general answer. I like to think I have a unique perspective on human nature, and my writing reflects that perspective along with my own weird sense of humor and irony. (My friends agree on that ‘weird’ part.)

Why do I write what I do? Because it’s fun. Plain and simple. I don’t write about something because someone told me I should. I write because, well, a story, line, or incident sticks in my mind along with a little twist that my brain comes up with.  Now and then, I just want to point out the absurdity of it all.

How does my writing process work? Process?  There’s a process? In a way I’m kidding, because I take a few different approaches.  Short stories often come to me all at once, and I simply write before I lose them, then go back and edit and ‘clean’ up a bit.  For things that actually do have to be worked out, I develop a time-line to the tale to keep things in order and on track.  With essays, I often have to arrange and re-arrange to make sure that I have made my point and not strayed or beat it to death.  A lot of good phrases get tossed aside because they are overkill.(Darn!)  I have no tried-and-true process, because each work has its own unique way of presenting itself to me.  I go with the flow.

Who’s Next?  In this, I feel I failed Dorothy.  She is such a good organizer, and, well, I never know what’s happening next.  I requested several of my blogging acquaintances to join us, but a few had already accepted other invitations, and a few simply declined. Please visit the ones I have listed in my sideboard, and use your search engine to find Linda Apple, Laura Castoro, Edie Melson’s ‘The Write Conversation’ and perhaps Bill and Dave’s Cocktail Hour.  If you check these out, you will understand just how eclectic my tastes are!