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Red Delicious (Flash Fiction)
When Loss Inspires
The Poetry of Writing
The Joy of Stolen Moments
Pushing Plausibility and Going Far Enough in Writing Fiction

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Adele's Blog

Red Delicious (Flash Fiction)

His note lay on the rug of the cottage just inside the mail slot. She should have sealed it when she bought the place, but there were too many openings to close them all.
 
She took the beach blanket around to the porch and shook out the sand. Across the dunes, the wind shredded the waves. Who lived at the shore in winter, anyway, except scavengers? She draped the blanket over the loveseat and went into the kitchen.
 
The apples still sat on the sideboard. She should cook them, she thought, before they turned.

When Loss Inspires

Loss can inspireWhensorrow and loss come, they don't have to have the last word. Often, they provide the first words of a new chapter in life. Pain and the intense emotions that come with it force people, writers especially, to make tough choices. What do I value? Where should I invest my time and energy?
 
Pain also tends to slow the writing process, sometimes to a crawl. What do I really want to write about? What do I want to say — since the time I have to devote to this work and life on earth is fleeting?

The Poetry of Writing

Sometimes in hard times, and even just creative times, poetry speaks to the soul in ways that other forms can't.
 
Living in Weather
Lavish sea on outstretched shore
Gentle sands aglow in splendid sun
light the soul
so long in darkness,
like sleeping limbs, awake
in pain of stirring.
 
Awake, beauty,
to this poor but heartfelt word,
of dark and silent mourning.
 
Here's a great comment that somehow isn't making it into the Comments list:
 
Essay Writing Tips
Yes agree. Poetry really reads the soul.

The Joy of Stolen Moments

Take time for joy
It's hard to take time to enjoy — anything. It feels just as the phrase implies —that the time was taken, stolen from a more worthwhile pursuit. Yet, joy gladdens the heart and frees the spirit, not to mention the mind, to expand the limits of appreciation. And that expands the soul. When did you last take time to appreciate what gives you joy? Also see my Online Writing Workshop, and my Word for Words blog on editing.

Pushing Plausibility and Going Far Enough in Writing Fiction

Fiction writers can cultivate a childlike imaginationI had a great opportunity to hear the super children's picture book editor Patricia Lee Gauch, editorial director of Philomel Books (now part of Penguin) for nearly 25 years, speak at the New York Public Library this past Saturday, and although I don't write for children, I learned a lot about writing. One talking point Ms. Gauch repeated more than once was that children's book illustrators need to go far enough in depicting a story. It made me think of my writing and pushing the limits of what I might think of as plausible in a story. It's a matter of considering the what-if, of cultivating a childlike imagination, like an act of childlike faith, to embrace the outrageous. In a time where outrageous rules, this is less about shock value and eyeballs, and more about a broader horizon, not a matter of nonsense, but of a child's sense of what could be. Children aren't afraid to ask why — often, ad nauseam. Maybe writers, even of literary fiction, can ask, why not?