friday files, because writing, like life, is a process

(Here I am in 1970. Two years old and already very interested in cake. My cousin is providing the boost because I couldn’t reach. Still can’t.)

**Homeschoolers, come back here Monday for a fun giveaway.**

For comic relief, I am going to use Fridays (‘cause everyone is in a better mood on Friday) to post some excerpts of things I have written that will never see the printed page. Some of these will be better than others. All will be embarrassing – because I can do better now, I hope. I think it helps sometimes to see how far we’ve come, while remembering that they journey is still ahead of us. (No, that’s not the Friday File.) These files are OLD. I am not going to say how old, but trust me, this isn’t the first (or fourth) computer they have been transferred to over the years.

I will do this for as long as I can stand, which might be just today.

The porch was deep—a full ten feet—enough to provide an oasis on even the hottest days. Rocking chairs would be in the budget one day, and her waiting room would be cooled by massive brass ceiling fans and the breeze that made her sign come alive. One day. For now, the blue-gray of the porch mingled with sap that had risen to the surface of the cedar planks that comprised its backbone, and a hundred summers had blistered the paint into warts. Beyond its confines, the front yard had been stolen inch by inch, as the farm road of another time had swelled into a growling four-lane. It had forced Esther to turn Mr. Jacob’s remaining patch of backyard fescue into a gravel lot.

 

P.S. I don’t even venture into fiction these days. You’re welcome.