Losing a Friend
Early this morning we learned of the passing of a dear friend and terrific writer. Lynn Carney will be missed by many of us who've known her for so many years.I first met Lynn when she walked into a night class I was teaching for the University of Arkansas on Writing the Romance novel. A beautiful young woman, she was enthusiastic, soft spoken and eager to carve herself a niche in the writing world. She certainly did that. The first time she read from her work to the class I knew she had a natural talent for writing.This excerpt from an award winning short story The Shores of Oblivion: Comfort isn't just a word. Sometimes comfort is a bitter

DREARY DAYS OFFER TIME TO RUMINATE
For the past two weeks we've been blessed with warm, sunny weather and I've spent time soaking up some Vitamin D or simply enjoying my new patio just outside my office. But yesterday the fog and rain crept back into our Ozarks, and today the temperature started down from the 70s into the 30s. The only place I want to be now is indoors with the heat going and bundled up in sweats.I'm sitting at my desk thinking about what I'm going to write next. Every Tuesday brings a deadline for my weekly historical column, Wandering the Ozarks, in our newspaper, The White River Valley News. Recently the Arkansas Gazette merged with the Morning News in Northwest Arkansas and I wasn't

There's No Such Thing
Plans fall by the wayside easily for writers, and I've learned there's no such thing as catching up. Something always happens to detour the planned journey. Thankfully, The weather has been sunny and warm for a little over a week, so I soaked up some Vitamin D every day. Upon returning from our trip out west, I had originally planned to start some badly needed house cleaning. Windows needed washing, spider webs holding everything together nicely needed swiping down and many other things attended to. However, I came home to a spotless house, sparkling windows, not a web in sight. All taken care of by my one and only favorite daughter. I gratefully scratched that off

Catching Up
All last week was filled with catching up on projects left to rest on my desk while we were gone. I missed a couple of deadlines after returning. A new volume (#5) of Echoes of the Ozarks is due out soon, and I was supposed to have ordered my copies November 1. I planned on doing that as soon as I returned, but didn't get to the order blank in time. A Christmas list loomed. As I shop online it took a day or two to get that out of the way. We only have three grandchildren and one great-grandchild, our daughter and her husband and each other. Small family, but it still takes time to think about just the right gifts and find them. That done, I turned to some writing tasks.

Night visitors raid food supply
This was a bag of potato chips and a package of two cookies, which are gone. I had been peeling apples and didn't finish, so I left the bowl and peels near my chair to begin on them today.