by AB Plum A picture, they say, is worth a thousand words. As a visually challenged writer, I’m going to test this truism. (With more than one picture and fewer than a thousand words). Life is a puzzle right now. Taking a different perspective helps. So does a bowl of popcorn. Beauty still exists in […]
by AB Plum What day is today? A friend recently wrote me she’s thinking the above question is a good book title considering our current shelter-in-place practices. I’ll admit, it’s the first question I ask myself every morning while still in bed. Actually, as soon as I wake up, I turn the question into a […]
By AB Plum When was the last time you shook hands? BCVD? (Before the COVID-19)? Even before this latest virus became pandemic, most of us shook hands almost reflexively. We meet new people, old friends, business acquaintances, our doctors and multitudes of others. Out come our right hands. Before I broke the scaphoid bone in […]
by AB Plum aka Barbara Plum Between the ages of 4 and 6, I spent every Saturday night with either my grandmother or my cousins. I loved stayovers at both places because reading the Sunday newspapers occupied us from seven to bedtime at nine on Saturday! First, though, we went “uptown” to the local drugstores […]
by AB Plum 1975. Not a birthday. Or anniversary. Or personal celebration. But … a memorable personal event. (Personal, versus of world import, namely the end of the Vietnam War). Following up on my non-NY’s resolution to clean out 3 boxes of old manuscripts, I found the prologue to the first novel I ever composed […]
by AB Plum Welcome to the New Year, a New Decade, and a New Direction No writer’s block here. Gazillions of potential blog topics cry for the Stiletto Gang’s “insights” over the next 365 days. This year, the Gang has decided to add a new subject: the craft of writing fiction. We expect to learn […]
By AB Plum A few weeks ago, a friend told me jubilantly, “The date’s set.” December 3—the date for her husband’s hip-replacement surgery. They’d waited for over six weeks for a definite date … because of Thanksgiving and the approaching year’s end. A scheduled time was still up in the air. And that detail was […]
by AB Plum aka Barbara Plum The political junkie in me really, really, really wants to write a blog this month with a political slant. The common sense adult in me demands I holster my trigger finger. Three repetitions of the adverb in the first sentence wakens my Inner Editor screaming one question. Why? What […]
By AB Plum aka Barbara Plum Laughter, so goes the cliché, is the best medicine. Some days Colbert is not enough to counteract the news headlines. Some days, despite their screams, the headlines seem to begin and end with a whimper. Some days news headlines demand a prescription for twenty-four hours of nonstop laughs. Enter […]
By Barbara Plum aka AB Plum “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness …” (Innocents Abroad) On the other hand, there’s no place like home. After a summer of living in Denmark, with side trips to Iceland, Scotland, Finland, and Estonia, I boarded what I hoped was my last airplane for a while on […]