Today’s assignment is to recreate the events of a single day. This one will be easy, since I will draw on memories of my recent stay with my friend, Sue, in her rental condo in Orange Beach, AL I wake up when I wake up, without an alarm or obligation. I know without getting out of bed whether Sue is up before me. The first thing she does each morning is open the glass […]
I. April 20, 1999: It was a Tuesday, the end of a normal school day. I packed up the papers I was taking home to grade and locked my classroom. That year, due to a student enrollment that had outgrown our building, I was teaching in a mobile classroom on the front lawn of Woodstock High School. It was a short walk across the street to the parking lot and my car. I started the […]
Today’s assignment is to write a post in the form of a letter. I am writing to my maternal grandmother, Hilda Hagen Hahn (1892–1957). My Dear Nana, You chose to end your life in 1957. I was 10, old enough to understand some of it, but not as much as I do now. Craig was 7 and has only vague memories. Though it was 60 years ago, I remember our phone ringing early in the […]
Note to my readers: I’m finding that creating a post worthy of publishing every day is more time-consuming that I expected. So I am going to spread out the assignments and take some days off. Today I’m going to take another liberty and combine yesterday’s topic, which was to write about a photo, with today’s, which is to write about a quote. You are looking at an original copy of the First Folio of […]
To my readers: I’m continuing my blogging class with today’s assignment of writing a list. Things I like about being 70 At 70, when I meet someone new, I no longer get suspicious glances when I tell them I’m retired. That was not always the case when I retired at 55. If I uttered the R-word 15 years ago, faces looked at me with a combination of surprise, envy, and resentment of my good […]
To my readers: I am beginning the new year by taking a class on blogging. For the next three weeks, I will be writing responses to daily assignments. This WordPress icon will identify posts that are part of my coursework. Today’s topic: Why I write. I write because I like the challenge of pulling an intangible thought from my brain and recording it in tangible form, whether on paper or a screen. I write […]
Maybe 7 is a lucky number after all. It was 7 years ago that I moved into my new Abbey, which eventually led me to begin this blog. It was also 7 years ago that I began the first draft of a new novel that I expected to be quick and easy to write. After all, it is a sequel. I already had developed most of the main characters, the setting, the genre (cozy mystery). […]
Where do you get the ideas you write about? Readers sometimes ask me this question. More often, though, I ask it of myself. Where did that idea even come from? And where can I find more of them? It’s a good question because it doesn’t have a simple, clear cut answer. Sometimes, my topic comes from a reader’s suggestion. Other times, I stumble into a situation and realize it would be fun to write about. […]
I try to convince myself that I do not care much about statistics when it comes to evaluating this blog. I’m writing for my own enjoyment, I tell myself, to convey my excitement in living where I do, to connect with others, to exercise some creativity. All of this is definitely true. But… WordPress, the company behind my blog, is so very expert at sharing statistics with its users. With one click, I can find […]
Today I am pleased to welcome my first-ever guest blogger to Home Sweet Abbey. Joe Accardi, a friend, neighbor, and fellow writer, shares memories of the music that has shaped his life on Life Out of Tunes. This morning, both Joe and I commented on the same Facebook post about the anniversary of the Kennedy assassination. Seeing that, I realized we each had something to say about that fateful day. He agreed. Here is Joe’s […]
Where do you get your ideas? Everyone who writes must hear this question from time to time. I know, I do. It’s a hard one to answer. When I tell the truth — I get ideas everywhere— the person seems dissatisfied with its vagueness. But I can’t do better. I go through my life, and ideas just come. Or I should say, they usually do. They don’t always appear as often as I would like. […]
When I began writing Home Sweet Abbey a year ago, I had a lot to learn about blogging. A half-day workshop I had taken a few months earlier had hit the high points. But there was so much left to learn that I kept studying to try to improve my craft. And I’m still doing that. One of the first things I learned is that a well-written article is not necessarily enough to attract readers. […]
A year ago tomorrow, on February 9, 2013, I took a deep breath, and another, crossed my fingers and toes, and then clicked on the Publish button that launched this blog. Home Sweet Abbey went live with my first post, My Journey Home, and a short About the Author article. I had drafts of two more posts ready to go and a list of perhaps 7 or 8 ideas to draw on beyond that. I […]
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