Tag: #amediting

Posted in Flash Fiction

On Her Own

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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“Charles, I hate for Adelaine to be stuck in that boarding house.”

“She needs to test her wings, Esther. That’s how young women do it in this day and time. They get a room and a job.”

“But that secretarial position, darling. It seems so demeaning for our daughter,” Esther said.

“Now, now, Esther. Adelaine thinks she can live on her own. Let her try.”

“She needs to be meeting respectable young men in our home.”

Adelaine already had a respectable young man very much in love with her who called on her nightly at the boarding house.

Historical Fiction

98 words

Posted in Flash Fiction

Right Place, Right Time

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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“Janice, you did it again,” Stan cried.

“I’m sorry, Stan,” Janice said. “I didn’t mean to overfill the cup.”

Stan, the cook, was thinking that he was going to have to fire Janice. She just was not a good waitress.

The diner was full for lunch. Many professional people grabbed lunch at Stan’s Diner and he liked for his service to be impeccable. Janice was sloppy with her work, but she was not an experienced waitress. He was just giving her a chance because she couldn’t find any other job.

Meanwhile, Janice was embarrassed. She really needed this job. She was serving a woman in a booth alone. She was so nervous, afraid she would do something wrong. Suddenly, the woman she was serving spoke to her.

“Young woman, could I speak with you?”

“Yes,” Janice replied.

“Is this your chosen career?”

“No. I was an English major in college and can’t find a job.”

“I’m a writer,” the woman said. “Why don’t we talk about you working for me?”

Janice started to smile.

 

174 words

Posted in Flash Fiction

A Solitary Life

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Janice was glad to get out of the house. Her weekly trip to volunteer at the Red Cross was one of her only activities where she actually went somewhere. Not only did she feel useful there, but she had other people to talk to.

Janice had caught the city bus at the bus stop near her home. She lived alone. Janice’s husband passed away two years ago. She had little extended family and they didn’t have much interest in her. She had some friends, but she didn’t expect them to babysit her. She tried to fill her time the best she could. She didn’t even know her neighbors.

When she got to the Red Cross office, she sat down at her desk and started doing the administrative chores she was assigned. It was rewarding. As volunteers came in and out, she got to talk to her friends. One of her friends asked her to go to lunch later in the week. She happily accepted.

She took the bus back home at the end of the day and resumed her solitary existence. She was a reader, a writer, and she did beautiful needlework. She supposed it was enough.

Posted in Challenges, Writing

One Liner Wednesday

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Sixty years ago today, the United States dropped a nuclear bomb on Nagasaki, Japan, killing 70,000 people. A few days before, a nuclear bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, by the United States, killing around 150,000 people. The plane that dropped the bomb was the Enola Gay and the Commander was Robert Lewis.

Commander Lewis said he saw Nagasaki simply disappear. When he did, he wrote one line in his journal. That line is my contribution to One Liner Wednesday. Commander Lewis wrote:

My God, what have we done?

Posted in Challenges

#SoCS – 08/05/2017

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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The #SoCS prompt this week is high/low:

If you’re a writer, you’re accustomed to experiencing the highs and lows of the profession. Think of the lows in the form of all those rejection slips from print publications and emails from online publications you may have received. If you’re a novelist, make that form letters from agents or publishers. You undoubtedly have a portfolio of unpublished material in the bottom drawer of your desk.

The highs. The obvious ones happen every time a publication accepts an article or a story you have worked so hard to write and source to appear on its pages. It’s exciting to have a story or an article to appear in a publication that is unpaid, particularly if you are a new writer. When you start getting paid for your work, receiving those checks, no matter how small, is truly exciting. If you work really hard, you may be able to make a living as a writer. Perhaps you can become a staff writer for a publication. I prefer to be a freelance writer.

If you write a book and an agent represents you so you can get it published through traditional publishing, it’s a real high. Finding an agent is just as difficult for a novelist or a writer of non-fiction books as finding a publication to accept a non-fiction article.

Self-publishing is becoming increasingly acceptable and if your work is marketed correctly, you can do very well selling your book, although there is no doubt that it is more difficult than traditional publishing.

All careers are full of highs and lows. I contend that a career as a writer, whether non-fiction or fiction, staff or freelance, is particularly so. With the ease of using email to query publications and agents, there is more competition in the marketplace. It takes hard work and long, hard hours and is not for the faint of heart.

Posted in Challenges

Compassion

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Ben said, “I’ve rounded up the last of the flowers. I just stuck them in these containers.”

The employees of the flower shop were resting in the back room at the end of a busy summer weekend. Every flower in the shop had sold except these two arrangements.

 

The door opened and a woman walked in, crying.

“My mother is so sick. She loves flowers. Do you have anything? The cases are empty.”

The employees all looked at each other and Ben walked to the back. He got the arrangements and handed them to her.

She left the shop, smiling.

 

Photo credit to Dale Rogerson

 

Posted in Challenges

#weeklysmile 83

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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I was lucky enough to witness an event that gave me a huge #weeklysmile this week! I live in a cabin in the Daniel Boone National Forest, moving here almost 19 years ago now after some trauma in my life forced me to seek peace and tranquility. I didn’t take me long to realize my house was built right in the path that white-tail deer used in this particular part of the forest. We have a huge herd of deer in my state and they have a terrible time finding enough food. I started to feed them. That was in the winter.

By the time the winter was over, I had a herd of deer at the feeding trough. By the time July came, I had a wonderful surprise and that surprise has fascinated me year after year since. It’s my #weeklysmile this week. The does brought their fawns to my feeding trough to teach them to eat.

The fawns are no bigger than large dogs and have their spots. Many does have twin fawns, with the male being slightly larger than the female. It would make anyone smile to watch them try to eat cracked corn out of the feeding trough, corn flying from either side of their mouths while they struggle with it. These beautiful, special babies are true miracles of nature.

Posted in Challenges

#SoCS – 7/29/2017

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Double-Jointed…..Much?

All of my life, within my family, I have heard the term “double-jointed.” That’s because on my paternal grandmother’s side of the family, this rather rare characteristic ran in the family. It was passed down to my dad, then to me.

Being double-jointed doesn’t really mean you have two sets of joints. The proper name is hypermobility syndrome. A person with this syndrome looks like they can stretch a limb farther than they should be able to. Instead, it actually is the ability to stretch the ligaments and tendons around the joint that cause the hyperextension of the bone possible. The person can hyperextend the bone without the pain that a person without the syndrome would feel.

An example is someone who can easily touch their toes. In both my dad’s case and mine, we could/can lay our palms flat on the floor with absolutely no effort and no pain. Sometimes, this “double-jointedness” is due to shallow hip or shoulder sockets. People with this syndrome are often very limber and move very easily.

Often, as a person with hypermobility syndrome grows older, arthritis becomes present in the joints.

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Posted in weekendcoffeeshare

#weekendcoffeeshare – 07/29/2017

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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Good morning, everyone! Thanks so much for meeting Jenn and I at our local coffee shop. I think it is so much nicer, since it’s summer, to sit outside here on the patio than it would be to sit inside my house! There is room for all of us here. The proprietor has prepared hot cross buns for us today, along with other pastries. They are to die for! Choose your drink. You can choose from a wide selection of coffees and teas.

Come sit! I’m glad to see all of you. I haven’t been able to be with you for a couple of weeks. I have been terribly busy.

Good friends are a wonderful thing. Yes, this is related to how busy I’ve been. Most of you know that I’m writing a novel. One of my best friends, and a colleague when I went through the doctoral program, is reading my novel. Right now, he is only reading it for content, though he will probably do the first edit on it. After reading the entire first part of my novel, he was able to give me a completely new perspective on the content. After thinking about it, I decided to take his suggestions and I am doing a significant rewrite. As I write, it is sounding better and better all the time. I am grateful for my friend! This means it will take me a little longer to write the book, but I feel like it will be a better book.

Then there is Hanna, the new puppy. She is absolutely delightful. The sweetest, most affectionate puppy. She’s now 4.5 months old. Hanna is in training to be a dog. 🙂 We are currently working on housebreaking and leash training. At some point, we will move up to crate training and I will try to desensitize her to riding in the car. Every time she gets in the car, she get sick. Very sick. We have to work very hard on this!

Hanna and I had company for two nights this week. My cousin’s little dog stayed with us since my cousin had some business to attend to. Max is a breed about the size of Hanna’s breeds. They got along famously and loved to run together in the backyard. Hanna was a little jealous though! Max is now back home.

My morning glories are finally blooming! I’m waiting on the moonflowers, planted in the same spot. The insects, those darn Japanese beetles, have been hard on them this year.

The weather here has not been particularly good for growing anything. It has been so wet, So much rain the forest looks like a jungle. Not much humdity at times. Intense humidity at other times. Cool days followed by really hot periods. Unusual for my area.

I would love to share a cup with each of you. Please tell me what’s up with you in the comments! See you next weekend!

 

#weekendcoffeeshare is sponsored by Parttimemonsterblog where you can join the linkup. Join us on Twitter at #weekendcoffeeshare.

Posted in Challenges

Progress

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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The announcement in the newspaper said to meet in the school if you wanted to help The Foundation raise money. A large group of students and community members met at the designated spot, by the old pay telephone. They had collected pledges of money from sponsors. The first three finishers in the race would donate to The Foundation.

When they finished the race, they were to meet back at the telephone and call a designated number.

Two hours later, John, Felicia, and Barb finished the race and dialed the phone. No one had remembered pay telephones didn’t work anymore.

Photo Credit to J. Hardy Carroll