Flash Fiction

Check out my flash fiction story, "Dirty Jobs," over at my other blog.

Crop Circles.

Just remember. Crop Circles is still a baby. Her feelings get hurt when you leave her out in the rain all night long. Alone. With no visitors. And no candy.

The Whole Tooth, And Nothing But the Tooth

Apparently, Neanderthals had good oral hygiene.

Who knew?



Now, if they just could have fixed that posture thing . . .

Tomorrow I Will

Tomorrow, tomorrow. . .

Tomorrow I will write for fun. I will play. I will roll and tumble through sparkle bright, glitter glass, ornament ideas. Fields of long green grass will beckon and I will answer. Shoes off. Running. Laughing. Every word will glisten and belong to me. Just me.

Today I write for money. Every word is weighed and valued, a price put upon its black spiny head. With this word I will buy dog food, with that word I will pay for gas. With those words—those superlative ornamental adverbs that got sliced and diced—I was going to buy a dress. But the dress is gone. The words erased.

I write. I live. I breathe.

Tomorrow. The long day of sunlight will belong to me.

Today. The long night of angst and barbed wire words that refuse to be born; today belongs to me too.

Check It Out

Some ulta-hip blogs you might want to check out, in between your sci-fi wardrobe changes:

SciFi Journalist

SciFi Chick

Fantasy & Sci-Fi Lovin’ Blog

Pirate Dreams

Waldo Von Wichtenstein didn't make it into the Pirate finalists, a fact that saddened him throughout the remainder of his life. While the other Pirate wannabees, as he later referred to his competitors, showed up sporting parrots on their shoulders, Von Wichtenstein walked in the door with Fluffy, a two-year-old calico.

Christmas in September

Outside, California sunshine and Indian summer temperatures compete with a devastating horizon of blue sky and sea.

Inside, Christmas trees and vintage Santa Claus ornaments battle with historic photos of the Salvation Army.

Meanwhile, a PR person just sent me another box of rocks. Over the past several weeks, we’ve graduated from a box of dirt to a box of gravel, and now I’m all the way up to a real, honest-to-goodness boxful of black rocks. I still haven’t quite figured out that marketing campaign.

But I have to put it all aside for a few minutes and finish my editorial letter. Something witty, something poignant, something about snow and sparkling lights and sugar cookies. Something trimmed in satin and lace and placed beneath the tree.

I have to switch gears from the garden outside my window, gasping for a drink of water, to an imaginary landscape, dusted with winter magic. It’s time for my thinking cap. I just have to make sure I don’t accidentally wear the one made out of tinfoil . . .

What he said

Paul said,

"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to [His] purpose."

Cow Talk

Look. I just want to make one thing clear. I didn't have anything to do with that McDonald's burger. Yes, I've been taking hormones. Okay? I admit to the hormones. But salt?

Come on.

What do you take me for? Some stupid deer with nothin' better to do than lick on a block of salt all day long?

Hold the Salt, Please

When all else fails, blame it on the burger.

Lost in Translation

Because honest tricks are okay.


When buying gas in a foreign country, be sure to check with the spy and the bomb.


Apparently writing isn't as easy as it seems.


Who owns this pet?


I've been wondering about those monkeys.

Time Travel

One more person who has the secret to time travel.

Hint: It all centers around crop circles.

No, I did not make it up. Wish I did. Then I would get credit for all the laugher.

A New Beginning

It's still an infant, barely able to toddle, words incomprehensible. But I thought I would let you take a look at my new baby.

Crop Circles.

An alien home for my stories and articles. Most of them have been seen here, but they will have a chance for a bit more exposure over on Crop Circles.

My goal is to post what I consider my best Alien Dream articles over there. And occasionally spice it up with something new.

Stop by and say hello. And try not to scare the baby.

Other Cool Stuff

Another very cool thing. Cyber sweetheart and author of the fabulous, Sushi for One, Camy Tang just awarded other fantastic author, Sharon Hinck with the "Nice Matters Award."



Way to go, Sharon!

By the way, I didn't know Sharon was from Minnesota. No wonder she's so nice!

Life Goes On

I may be boring because I'm all worker bee and then some, but, here's the cool thing, there still are some super fantastic things happenin' in Blogger Land.

Pal Rachel Marks is working on a book that will take your breath away.

Check it out here and here.

There you have it. Proof positive that life doesn't come to a screeching halt just because I get too busy to have fun.

Way to go, Rachel!

My Kingdom for a Clone

Where are the clones when you need them? Lollygagging, for sure. I wish I could blame everything on aliens, but right now I'd have to say The Galactic Overlord is the culprit. The Galactic Overlord that pays my salary.

I want to be blogging but I have deadlines. Those dreaded deadlines.

One, I have a feature story to write for The Magazine. And an editorial letter.

Two, I need to get crackin' on my Big Secret Book. Yeah, that one I almost never talk about.

So . . .

I'll be back soon. Meanwhile, I'm going to have to leave you cyber-children alone for a little while. Play nice. Don't press too many delete buttons. And remember the Internet is your friend.

Sometimes.

The Fine Print

The Johnsons were excited when they picked up their new puppy.

After all, he was just a little guy, but the advertisement said he was potty trained.

It wasn't until later that evening that they read the fine print.



"Potty trained on a PC."

The Writing Evolution

I’ve seen a change in my writing during the past year. An evolution. Part of it because of the books I’ve been reading. In grown-up talk: you act like the kids you hang out with. Or in writer’s verse: you sound like who you read. Whether you mean to or not, these books become imbedded in your soul, their words flash across the screen of your mind like neon.

What did I read? The Mermaid’s Chair by Sue Monk Kid, White Oleander by Janet Fitch, Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller, The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, Peace Like a River by Leif Enger. Yes, I read many other books, but they felt like newsprint in my hands, disposable words written with ink that rubs off. These other writers, they wrote with tattoo needles, leaving beautiful scars on my flesh.

Sometimes I wish I could conjure their words when I am laying awake at night, that I could run my tongue over the smorgasbord of syllables and let their magic sing me to sleep.

So, this transformation of ideas works its way through the pressure cooker of my brain, flows down through the invisible path, the journey it must always take, through my arms to my fingers. At that point the words and thoughts are finally given freedom. I touch my thoughts to life. With pen or keyboard. With black and white.

Creator, awaken. Let the verses flow.

And just like certain books have influenced a Renaissance in me, so have certain pieces I’ve written. I can think of two in particular. One was a short story, an experimental piece I wrote about murder and betrayal, all within a very narrow physical space—within a courtyard—and all told through the viewpoint of a narcissistic flower. It opened the doors for a wide variety of metaphors and lovely language. It contained a dark, bitter beauty; one writer friend said it was poetic horror; my husband called it emotional violence.

Huh. Who would think a story about a flower could be so heavy.

The other piece was a painfully autobiographical essay about growing up in the turbulent ‘60s, when all my friends spent their free time in psychiatrict wards and drug rehab, when my parents played a duel of alcoholism and adultry, when I “survived” by running away at 15. I masked the sordid details, for there really were no other details available, and painted a colorful story of metaphors. It was dark, and yet, as beautiful as any tree decorated with bits of drying flesh. From a distance, it looks pretty. You’re just glad you weren’t there when they decorated the tree. That you didn’t have to watch.

Writing truly is an evolutionary process, it forces you to become something else, to inhabit your words and stories, to wear someone else’s flesh. It forces you to explore the world with a new opinion, often not your own, to momentarily accept what someone else believes.

It can be therapy, if you let it.

Or it can lead to your own destruction, inch by inch, as you stalk your ever elusive Muse.

But if you pursue it with passion, it will definitely force you to grow.

A Mooooving Experience

The next hybrid you read about might not be an energy-efficient car.

It might be a human/animal hybrid embryo, designed for scientific research purposes.

"It does seem a little abhorrent at first analysis," said Newcastle University's Doctor Lyle Armstrong, who helped to create the world's first cloned human embryo in 2005.

"But you have to understand we are using very, very little information from the cow in order to do this reprogramming idea.

"It's not our intention to create any bizarre cow-human hybrid, we want to use those cells to understand how to make human stem cells better."

Okay, first those wacky aliens were stealing our cows. Now those wacky scientists are combining those poor cows with humans. What’s going to happen next?



Mooooooo.

There's No Place Like Home

There's no place like home. Unless you don't have one.

Simba, here, a sweet teddy-bear chow mix is looking for a home. He currently lives at the Seal Beach Animal Care Center, in Southern California, and he would really appreciate a loving home. This 8-year-old sweetheart is hoping to find his new best friend.

To meet Simba and or Hemingway, one of his friends, stop by the Seal Beach Animal Care Center, 1700 Adolfo Lopez Drive, Seal Beach, or call 562-430-4993.

Because every alien is looking for home. Even if that alien looks like a dog.