A Novel Is Like A Dream In

Most People Use Twenty Verbs To Describe Everything From A Run In Their Stocking To The Explosion Of An Atomic Bomb. You Know The Ones: Was, Did, Had, Made, Went, Looked... One-size-fits-all Looks Like Crap On Anyone. Sew Yourself A Custom Made Suit. Pick A Better Verb. Challenge All Those Verbs To Really Lift Some Weight For You.

Who Was I, Really? I Was The Sole Occupant Of My Mother's Totalitarian State, My Own Personal History Rewritten To Fit The Story She Was Telling That Day. There Were So Many Missing Pieces. I Was Starting To Find Some Of Them, Working My Way Upriver, Collecting A Secret Cache Of Broken Memories In A Shoebox.

Girls Were Born Knowing How Destructive The Truth Could Be. They Learned To Hold It In, Tamp It Down, Like Gunpowder In An Old Fashioned Gun. Then It Exploded In Your Face On A November Day In The Rain.

Her Fingers Moved Among Barnacles And Mussels, Blue-black, Sharp-edged. Neon Red Starfish Were Limp Dalis On The Rocks, Surrounded By Bouquets Of Stinging Anemones And Purple Bursts Of Spiny Sea Urchins.

If I Get Ideas Independently Of The Act Of Writing, They Never Really Fit. So For Me, There's No Hanging Out, Waiting For Inspiration.