Links to other sites may use cookies and/or keep your data if you click on them.
|
|||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||
|
What inspires you? Please contact Sandy. |
InspirationAnything can inspire you.
|
|
I really like your author website. I'm honored to have my tree photo on the Inspiration page. That and Creativity are my favorite pages. I love that your suggestions apply regardless of your chosen media.
Check out Sandy's song, Free Fall, and her poem, The Old Iron Hinge
Micro-memoirs from monthly newsletters are noted * |
||
Have you found any news stories that you'd like to share? |
Check the NewsAccording to KTVB News: "A Yellowstone employee found part of a foot in a shoe floating in a pool in the park Tuesday. An investigation is ongoing and part of the park was closed temporarily." If I wanted to write a crime story, this might inspire a great opening line. Feel free to click on the link to read more. |
|
| TOP | ||
This story was featured in the July 2023 Newsletter.
|
Depth PerceptionI watched a video of Neil deGrasse Tyson talking about time being the fourth dimension. Unlike the three dimensions of space (width, height, depth), we can't move around in time. But if we could, we could travel in time. I was born blind in my left eye. I have some peripheral vision, but I have no innate depth perception. In Junior High School, I had to make something for the Science Fair. I discovered optical illusions when I was in eighth grade. I faithfully reproduced them and explained why we see size differences of the same object with different backgrounds. Some backgrounds can fool us into believing a straight line is curved and make concentric circles look like spirals. Some can make us see the same object as different colors or size. The following year, my view of optical illusions focused on techniques artists use to make a two-dimensional surface (width and height) look three-dimensional. I didn't get great grades on my projects; no judges or teachers thought I did anything special. I didn't know why I was fascinated by these illusions, but when I learned to drive, I had knowledge that helped me cope with my lack of depth perception. Fast forward seven years. I married an engineering student who had a passion for racing cars. We bought a Triumph TR-3, and he raced it. We bought a real race car, and he raced it. I learned first aid, how to cut a driver out of a burning car, and worked corners. I staged race cars for entry on to the track and checked cars for problems that might cause accidents. But, I wanted to race, too. My husband taught me what he knew. We started with gymkhanas—racing one street-legal car at a time. He walked me around the track designated by orange pylons (traffic cones) in mostly-empty parking lots and abandoned landing strips. After each run in our TR-3, he suggested ways I could improve my time: cut the corner closer in turn two, start accelerating sooner coming out of the slalom, and go about fifteen feet deeper at the end of the straight before braking for the turn. Whoa! I couldn't see well enough to visualize fifteen feet. My brake point was a white rock on the right side of the track. “How much time is that?” My husband was an engineer. I could almost hear the gears turning in his head, or the slide rule sliding. “About three-quarters of a second.” My next run, I lined up with the white rock, counted “three quarters,” turned the wheel, and thought,“I'm going to die.” But I didn't die. I learned I could go fractions of seconds farther than that. I don't see depth; I experience it. I thought I was the only one until I read Jimmy Buffett's autobiography. When someone asked him how far it was to fly from Key West to Miami, he told them he measured the time by the number of songs he could listen to on the flight. My world is defined by width, height, and time. Time is my third dimension because I lack the ability to perceive depth except by moving in it. That makes me wonder about your world, the world in which time is your fourth dimension. If you had the ability to move around in time, the way you do in space, would you have a fifth dimension? What |
|
| TOP | ||
 |
Dream Inspiration 1In my dream this morning, someone had replaced all the clothes in my closet with bustiers and butterfly skirts. I had on a slinky black dress, lots of silver jewelry and the only coat I could find was a hot-pink wool blazer. ???? In reality, my idea of dressing up is to wash my jeans and clean the dog poo off my clogs. What would a character who wore clothing from my dream be like? What kind of job would that character have? What kind of trouble would that character get into? Or, cause? What kind of goals, challenges, revelations would that character face? Check out Sandy's story Damn The Dream, and her poem, My Dream. |
|
| TOP | ||
 |
Dream Inspiration 2I put a slab of steak in front of the dragon. He raised his head and arched his eyebrows. "What do you want me to do with this?" "Breathe fire on it. You know: do what you do!" I fixed the rest of my meal. When I went back for my steak, I found the dragon with a full belly and sleepy eyes. "Where's my dinner?" He burped. "You told me to do what I do. So, I ate it."
Does the story need a setting? Is there more to this story? What would you do if this were your dream? Check out Sandy's story Damn The Dream, and her poem, My Dream. |
|
| TOP | ||
|
This story was featured in the Nov 2024 Newsletter.
|
Gratitudes 1Two+ decades ago, a dear friend of mine suggested I get familiar with Free Will Astrology, a column in an independent newspaper. I have mixed feelings about astrology: I'm an Aries with a strong cusp on Rob Brezsny's horoscopes (online now) are positive and give the reader suggestions, like making a list of 100 things to be grateful for. He even gave us one to start with: opposable thumbs. I liked the challenge. The first twenty were easy. I got stuck after forty. How could I get to 100? I had things to be grateful for. The problem was that I'd seen myself as a victim for most of my life. I had to turn my entire self-image around: to be conscious of the good things and let the bad things go. I And then … I started asking myself if that “bad” thing was a “good” thing in disguise. Whoa. At the
time, I was late to a meeting in Denver and stuck in a traffic jam on I25 northbound, thirty-plus miles Rather than curse the idiots who managed to run into each other and the guard rails on a dry sunny day, I wondered what horrible fate did NOT happen to me because I was caught in this traffic jam. How My first author newsletter included my micro-memoir, The Car That Saved My Life. I hadn't started writing under the heading, Times I Didn't Die. My first micro-memoir fell into that category. My car Once I readjusted my perspective, I found well over 100 items to add to my list of gratitudes, including how grateful I was to have so many things to be grateful for. I'd started writing in a journal to have a safe place to vent my anger at all the injustices I'd had to endure. My dear friend suggested I start writing down the good things, too. On New Years Day, for Early in my gratitudes list, I had a friend who was stuck in the victim mindset. She'd call every day after work, and complain about her job, her coworkers, her ex-husband, and everything else that bothered her. The same things I used to say. “Did anything go right? Anything you're grateful for?” Subtlety was not in my toolbox then. I'm not sure if it's in my tool box now. Probably not. She turned her venom on me and cut me out of her life with a few choice words. I didn't intend to drive her out of my life, but her departure went on my list of gratitudes. Somewhere along the way, I stopped adding to my gratitudes. By then, I'd made gratitude an automatic part of my life. I'm grateful for every morning I wake up breathing. I can still walk, mostly without But, I had The Dog Dream, the all-senses dream in which I talked to my soul mate, hugged three of my long-gone dogs, and watched two more romp in the forest. I believe I crossed over and came back. Photo 1 I joined an online writing group of romance writers that gives us a place to say what we accomplished each week. One of my in-progress books is You Are the Road That Led Me Home, a Photos 2, 3. When Leo, my last collie, passed away (December 2023), I was lost. I hadn't been without a dog (or three) for 31 years. Two lonely months later, I went to an almost-empty local shelter and was adopted by a 22-pound terrier-chihuahua mix who showed me that her place in the car was in my lap, NOT behind my seat. At home, she monopolizes my pillow and blanket, pushes against me in her sleep, and terrier-izes me. Sometimes she watches something I feel but can't see. Leo, coming back to check up on us? |
|
| TOP | ||
This story was featured in the December 2024 newsletter.
If you want a micro-memoir delivered to your email once a month, |
Gratitudes 2Last month was a roller coaster ride: marathon days of integrating class notes, and medical appointments for me and my dog. I needed to hibernate. Then I was snowed in, and grateful for the alone time and naps. I learned more about my Honda Element. It has front-wheel drive, with “real time” 4-wheel drive. Years ago, I learned how to make the front wheels slip enough to force the 4-wheel drive to engage. This month, I learned that 4-wheel-drive doesn't engage in reverse. I'm grateful for that knowledge. Not so much for getting my car stuck in the driveway for the better part of a week. I'm grateful for the folks at my insurance agent's office. They sent a tow truck out to get me unstuck. And I'm grateful for the young man driving the tow truck. I used to love the looong driveway to the street. Not quite so grateful now. Twenty-five years ago, I bought this house because of the library. It had shelves for all of my books, sorted by subject and author (alphabetically); trophies and awards; and records, cassettes, and CDs. Boxes of old letters and photographs filled the tallest shelves. A comfy chair-plus-footstool next to a table with a horse-head lamp promised time to read. I made a window seat between built-in shelves and a six-foot tall, three-foot wide oak book shelf I'd had in two previous houses. In the winter, the watery sun lit up that room. I had a computer, way back then, too. In the room next to the library. I went downstairs and down the internet rabbit hole. It was easier to search for artists, authors, information on any subject I wanted. My wonderful library became a storage room. The books gathered dust. And my upstairs music room (above the library) became my office/music room. I get to sit here and write, in the thin yellow light of Colorado winter afternoons. For that, I'm grateful. Last year, determined to move somewhere else, I started cleaning out all of my collections starting with books. I gave some to friends, hoping they'd like the information. The used-book store paid me fifty cents for each paperback they took. I used the money to buy two long-sleeve cotton shirts (blue and black) with “I Read Banned Books” on the front. Carload by carload, box by box, I gave away books, clothes, decorative items, records, cassettes, and two-thirds of my CDs. And wrote about it on Facebook, how I was “trading the chains of ownership for space to create.” I'm grateful I got to experience this release, this room to breathe, this softness in my body—a sweet sound. The voices of my characters, words which will become songs, the knowledge I need to make my writing better—all of the noise in my head telling me it's time to relax, to hibernate, and to put my energy where I will create more space. I am grateful. A lovely lady, Margaret, responded. “I kinda love this. 'Trading the chains of ownership.' Powerful.” I'm grateful for her words. She asked me how I knew which books to get rid of and which to keep. I didn't know what to tell her. I sold all the Harry Potter books. Burn out? Something about the author? Guaranteed sales of used books? But I kept The Mists of Avalon. When the library was still a library, I went on a King Arthur book binge. I was happy to let all those other paperbacks go this year. But for a large chunk of my adult life, I reread Mists of Avalon each winter. And The Wind in the Willows, which takes me back to my childhood: I identified with the badger—that's why I want to hibernate in the winter. I keep them, not for the value of the books, or the stories themselves, or the quality of the writing, but for the feelings, the sensory memories that the books evoke: a scratchy wool blanket, old down pillows, the dip in the cushions, the soft shadows in the corners of my room, the whispers of old houses when everyone else has gone to sleep. I am grateful for these memories. And, thanks to Rona Golfen, RonaPhoto who mentioned that all the Times I Didn't Die are gratitudes. |
|
| TOP | ||
This story was featured in the August 2023 Newsletter. If you want a micro-memoir delivered to your email once a month, I'm writing a memoir about my relationship with my father:
|
My RockWhen I was a kid, eight or nine years old, Mom decided she wanted river rock in the flower beds. Mom was in charge of the house. Dad was in charge of the yard, and he grew flowers in the flower beds. But Mom prevailed, and we headed into into the mountains in our '57 two-door green Oldsmobile sedan. Dad turned from the paved highway onto smaller dirt roads, until he found a narrow two-track path next to a tree-lined creek. As my parents and older sister loaded smooth stones into the trunk, I wandered off. Downhill. And found the prettiest rock. It was rough and jagged, with bright colors, and looked like icing had drizzled down it and hardened. I fell in love with it, but I couldn't pick it up. I trotted uphill. By the time I got back, the back of the car barely cleared the high dirt center of the path, and my family was angry at me for wandering off. They had to wait for me, and I hadn't loaded any rocks. “I found a great rock, Daddy. Will you help me bring it up?” “No. If you want it, you get it up here.” I ran downhill and pushed the rock. By the time I reached the car, my arms, legs, and back ached, my fingers were scraped raw, and one toe throbbed from the rock slipping from my grip and landing on it. “Isn't it pretty?” “It isn't what your mother wants. If you want to keep it, put it in the car.” He pushed the lever that moved the back of his seat forward. I had to lift the rock into the car. I don't know how I did it; maybe the weight of stones in the trunk made the car low enough. I smashed another toe, scraped my knee, and balanced the rock on the door sill. One last push, and it rolled onto the floor in front of my seat. I climbed in and rode home with my feet on the rock and my knees up at eye level. When we got home, Dad stuck my rock in the front garden where everyone could see it. One of my sister's boyfriends told me what I'd found: a large chunk of petrified wood with a calcium liquid that had percolated through the rock and hardened into white crystals. He was surprised when I told him I'd found it in a creek bed in the mountains. I was surprised when he came back again and gave me a little rock collection in a small box. Decades later, I took those little rocks, plus some turquoise and garnets that I'd collected, to a jeweler. She made a necklace for me from those little stones. I still have it. When I married, the last item I took from my parents house was my chunk of petrified wood. My father tried to stop me. “Where are you going with that rock?” “You said if I wanted it, I had to get it up hill and into the car without help. I did. It's my rock.” I've hauled that eighteen-pound rock to eight houses. Now, it sits on the wall that borders the patio, where I can see it from my kitchen window. |
|
| TOP | ||
 photo ©S.L.Reay |
RavensA photograph of a parking lot on a rainy day. Two ravens are in the gravel and rocks above the concrete curb which is painted red with white letters: NO PARKING FIRE LANE. Above the F in FIRE LANE, a raven sits on a sign: No Rollerblading Or Skateboarding. Some might call this image foreboding or sad. The ravens amused me by flaunting the law to park on the gravel and the sign. Have you every taken a picture that tells a story? |
|
| TOP | ||
This story was featured in the April 2023 Newsletter. If you want a short story delivered to your email once a month, |
Sunbathing and BatsThirty years ago, a friend invited me to a hot springs in in the mountains of southern Colorado on Memorial Day weekend. That was my first time in a natural hot springs, my first sweat lodge, and my first nude sun bath. My friend took the picture of me lying on a beach towel, reading. A co-worker once called me “a plant”—I thrive in sunlight. Dusk faded to black, and the invisible flyers disappeared. That night, I believed in magic and fell in love with bats. Ten years ago, I had my house covered with concrete board that looked like wood. The workers found a bat sleeping under the sun porch. I got home in time to keep them from hurting the little critter. Just past sunset, it flew away. The next morning, it was back with a friend. At dusk, they flew away: two bats swirling toward the gold fading clouds. Do you have a story about wild animals? |
|
| TOP | ||
This story was featured in the December 2022 Newsletter. If you want a short story delivered to your email once a month, |
The Christmas MouseI dated a man who ran a shopping mall. Friday after Thanksgiving, he brought Santa into the mall on an antique fire truck. I dressed in a mouse costume I'd made from a remnant of fake fur, a long-sleeve shirt, tights, black shoes, and eye-liner nose and whiskers. A Santa hat made me a Christmas mouse, and I rode in the fire ruck—wearing a heavy winter coat because it was cold outside. I left the truck when Santa did, hid my coat, and handed out candy canes from a red and white stocking to the little kids. I posed for pictures and apologized to the parents of one child who screamed uncontrollably at the sight of a 5'6” mouse and had to be taken home. Children and their parents followed me from business to business where I asked for jeans that would fit over my tail and tried on hats that did not fit over my mouse ears. I asked for mouse food in the pet store and ran away from the cats in cages, shrieking “Eek. A cat.” The sales clerks played along. My friend asked me to go into a sporting goods store where a player from the Denver Broncos was signing autographs. On my way to the store, DJs from the local rock station yelled, “Hey, Miss Mouse.” “C'mon over here.” I did. That was my mistake. They had microphones and speakers up on stands, and shoved a microphone in my face. “Hello, Miss Mouse. What are you doing tonight?” In my best mouse voice, I squeaked, “Trying on hats and jeans.” They smiled and laughed. “Where are you going?” “To find the bronco.” They talked about the football player and the store, and shoppers headed down the mall. I started to leave, and they stopped me. “Why are you looking for the Bronco?” That was their mistake. “Because I wanna go for a pony ride.” The microphone vanished, one DJ hit switches, and the other hissed at me. “You can't say that on AM radio!” |
|
| TOP | ||
The Crab Apple in a Cherry Tree by Rona Golfen, RonaPhotoWe had a Japanese cherry tree in our yard for many years, but it died several years ago. A neighbor cut it down, but left about 3' of trunk standing. I was going to have it cut down, but last year something started growing out of the top of it. This year we actually have a little crabapple tree complete with white blossoms. It looks pretty strange growing out of a dead cherry tree, but it seems to be thriving. It's so interesting to me that a crabapple tree can grow out of a cherry tree. So far the crabapple tree has what looks to be cherry tree bark. I don't understand how that works. I showed it to our rep from the company that takes care of our trees, and he said it might change over time. |
||
| TOP | ||
This story was featured in the January 2023 Newsletter. If you want a short story delivered to your email once a month, I take a book with me when I know I’ll have to wait somewhere, like a doctor’s office, the car repair shop, or an airport. I have a to-read shelf that’s full of thrift-store finds and new books: secrets to uncover. Funny how that photo of little me with a book foretold the reader I would become. Do you want to share your story of how you started reading? |
The Little Girl with a BookI found a photograph of me when I cleaned out my parents' house. I couldn't have been more than two or three years old. I don’t remember the dress or know what hill I’m standing on. I'm holding an old hardback book, not a thin one with pictures, but I have no idea what book or why I'm holding it. I wasn't an early reader like my older sister—she learned when she was four and sick. Mom sat by her bed and read to her, day after day. Once, when I wasn't much older than I look in that picture, the lights went out and the skies grew dark. The wind blew over a huge tree that crushed the front porch of the house across the street. It howled and shook our house. Daddy called it a hurricane. I asked my mother to read to me. She told me to ask my sister. My sister sat close to the window, reading in what little light leaked through the rain-soaked glass. I begged her to read to me and sat close to her—as close as she would let me. Mom took me to the library to find books. Dad took us to thrift stores. I prowled the dusty shelves of worn hard-back books and studied the faded colored pictures on the covers to pick out what I wanted to read. Twice a year, my sister and I got gifts. We told our parents what we wanted. They bought one thing that was similar to what we asked for (within our budget) and something we needed. Sometimes, Mom slipped in a used book (a thrift-store find or hand-me-down). The first year my sister went to college, Mom gave me two new paperback biographies: Jenny Churchill and Isadora Duncan. The covers were bright and shiny, the pages smelled like ink and adventure, and the spines had no vertical age lines. I was the first person to open those books. |
|
| TOP | ||
Do you want to know what's happening with this story? |
The Sinister Umbrella #1In Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez (translated by Edith Grossman) called an umbrella “sinister.” What would make an umbrella look sinister? Later in the book, he wrote, “with his sinister appearance and his vampire’s umbrella.” Mystery solved. A vampire umbrella is intriguing, too—more than an umbrella for a vampire. A black umbrella with two broken spines like bat wings, and old-age holes, two revealing moonlight reflections like malevolent eyes. Now that I have the visual image, I need to decide what to do with it. Is it literal? Does it turn into a bat at night? That's too easy. |
|
| TOP | ||
Do you want to know what's happening with this story? |
The Sinister Umbrella #2Last month I wrote "Does it turn into a bat at night? That's too easy." I surprised myself. I started writing the story, and realized that it needed something to add more tension: the umbrella that may or may not turn into a bat. It looks like one, and flies away, after years of clinging to a rusty table in the back of a courtyard. After that, it becomes a channel for power. Evil power. I have mixed feelings about this. I like bats. One took shelter under my sunporch, and I had to protect it from the workmen who were putting siding on my house. (See Sunbathing and Bats) So, I rationalize. It is not a bat. It is an old umbrella with evil powers that only looks like a bat when tiny lights shine through two holes in the fabric. Is an evil umbrella that might look like a bat under certain circumstances a symbol of evil power? |
|
| TOP | ||
 |
The Sinister Umbrella #3I played Sudoku to shut out the voices in my head, but a male voice interrupted me. "Penitentiary boxes." I'm used to my characters talking to me. This voice didn't belong to any of my characters. And it didn't use words from any of the songs that live in my head. I tried napping, but the voice woke me again and again. "Manitoba" (or something like it) and other syllables that may have been other names or languages. What should I do with "penitentiary boxes?" I Googled it: solitary confinement cells, grim prison cells, cell blocks, and dogs sniffing cardboard boxes. I'm going to put "penitentiary box" into the The Sinister Umbrella. |
|
| TOP | ||
Have you ever found anything unusual in a used book? |
The Old Traffic TicketI love old books, used books, with dog-eared corners, flexible spines, loose pages, hand-written notes and highlighted phrases. The books tell a story before you read the title. Old books contain memories, sometimes in a physical form. I found papers and old photographs used as book markers. One book I found contained an old boarding pass. Before paperless tickets, these passes were issued at the check-in counter and collected at the gate. Someone went to the airport, checked in, but used the pass as a book mark. Perhaps the traveler got sick, fell asleep and missed the flight, or left the airport for some reason. I wonder if I can turn a guess into a mystery story. What if that someone was a criminal, or unjustly accused of a crime, and that boarding pass was proof of their guilt or innocence? What if the person who found that boarding pass knew about the crime, and came forward? Or failed to come forward? Fortunately, Google found no evidence of a crime involving the person on that boarding pass. I still wondered what happened? Sudden illness? A frantic phone call from a loved one? An accident, or a missed flight? I once dozed off in the airport in Naples Italy, and slept through the boarding announcements, which were in Italian. I'm lucky I woke up and noticed the lack of people waiting to board. This traffic ticket is dated Oct 1, 1998. Tickets like this are common. Like boarding passes, they're turned in when the recipient pays the fine or fights the ticket. Twenty-three year old tickets are not common. Why was this ticket in the book for that long? The book looked like it had never been read. Did the recipient of the ticket hide it i a book? Did her heirs load up boxes of books and take them to the used book store? What else did they miss in her books? |
|
| TOP | ||
This story was featured in the March 2023 Newsletter. If you want a micro-memoir delivered to your email once a month,
|
Two Career FailuresWhen I was in my 20s (1970s), I worked as a draftsman. A secretary and I were the only women in the building. She wore silver-hair sprayed into short stiff curls, starched dresses with floral prints, and long-sleeved matching sweaters like capes. I wore jeans, cotton-knit shirts, and tennis shoes. My drafting table was in the office at the other end of the hall. The geologists assigned to the other desks in the room spent their days out in the field, writing in notebooks, collecting data for me to draw. One day, Charles, a man from another office, shuffled into my office holding a camera. Remember Tim Conway's old man on the Carol Burnett show? That was Charles speeded up. I stopped drawing and put my chin in my hand, waiting for him to speak. “Do something sexy.” Sexy? Me? Oh, he was serious. I licked my lips. He snapped a few pictures. I went back to drawing pictures of core samples at different elevations. A few months later, Charles shuffled in with a trophy. “We won first prize.” He handed me the picture. “For that?!?” I think I yelped. “Yes.” He smiled and held up the trophy with a camera and “First Prize” in big letters. I put the photo down, and he let me hold the trophy. It had “Humor division” in small letters. My career as a model ended. One of our projects was collecting data about water levels in a canyon near a ski area. My boss gave me access to our computer and a book about how to use the writing/editing program—it was nothing like Word. I took the user manual home and read it cover to cover. I became the resident editor expert. I'd taken two night classes in computer programming: Basic, then Fortran. Some of my drafting work was repetitive: vertical rectangles divided into smaller boxes. With help from one of the computer experts, I wrote a Fortran program to draft the boxes. It lacked all the details I drew, but it was a start. With less than two hours of data entry, I could run my program and see the results on the monitor. Because we rented time on a computer in a different city, I had to wait one work day to have the printed results delivered—about the same amount of time it would take me to draft one page. If I refined my program, I could have it create a more complex design in far less data-entry time and improve productivity. Excited about this breakthrough, I showed my boss. “It'll never catch on.” He took away my user id. I took another night class. My career as a draftsman ended when I found a job as a programmer. |
|
| TOP | ||
What's your reaction to this picture? |
Writing Prompt #1One of the writing groups I follow online posted this picture with a post encouraging us to write a a microflash story (at least 25 words). This is what I wrote:
Does this tell a whole story (in 55 words)? Or, does this read like an opening for a "real" story?
|
|
Sandy Reay Author
|
|||||
|
