Good Lord, how did it get to be November already?

You know what that means…the holidays are upon us! I’m going to have to schedule some overtime so I can afford presents this year, what with the hurricane claim and the deductible and all. Maybe I can sell a story or two

I’m hoping to have the back porch restored by the end of the year IF I can find a contractor and agree on a reasonable price that’s within my insurance budget. I’ve just got off the phone with a roofing/siding company who’s been contracted to check out the house for possible damage, so that’s one thing going right. Now if I can find someone who can rebuild the porch …

What are some of your holiday traditions? For American Thanksgiving, we almost always have a turkey with all the trimmings (cornbread dressing with gravy, green bean or broccoli casserole, and pumpkin pie for dessert). At Christmas, we usually do something off the wall like barbecue or lasagna. I do like to decorate a little, but not something crazy that I will then have to turn around and take back down to store again. A few Fall tokens, as in the above photo, then a few Christmas items for the porch. We may or may not put up a tree … that depends on our mood at the time and whether or not we have the library floor cleaned off so we can actually fit the tree into the corner. I do like having a tree up, but it’s a lot of work.

Comment and let me know some of your family traditions!

As Han Solo would say, “I have a bad feeling about this.”

Not about this roadblock–they resolved that after a few days. No, it’s StoryFest, the South Carolina Writer’s Association Conference!

We got an email today saying they would be refunding our hotel cost and the price of the special Friday “Master Classes” with the agents/editors/publishers. There is an ominous reference to “donations” further down in the email which makes me think they are NOT planning to refund the $300 price of our conference itself. I don’t know about you, but that kind of money is not something I can just throw around. I’m semi-retired now, living on a fixed income and watching my pennies. I had to save up to pay that money and I need it back!

Yes, I’m going to be fighting if they don’t give me at least part of that money back. I wonder how much a lawyer costs…

So I was all set to go on my mini-vacation to Columbia, for the South Carolina Writer’s Association StoryFest Conference. Had my bags packed and everything. Sure, we were supposed to get some rain and maybe a little wind from Hurricane Helene, but we’ve had storms before. We’re not on the coast so we don’t worry about things like storm surge and flooding. I figured the power would probably go out and sure enough, we woke up to a dark house.

However, Helene had other plans. She swerved and hit Greenville dead on. Right before the eye came overhead, I heard a god-awful clatter from the back of the house. Yelled at the roomie to see if he was all right because it sounded like he’d fallen somehow. He said he was fine but the back porch was gone.

We were lucky in that we didn’t have any big trees to fall on the house, but when I tried to get out of the subdivision to head for my conference (I paid a lot of money for that thing, darn it! And when I got hold of the conference chairwoman, she said Columbia was fine, they were still having it), there was a gigantic oak down across both lanes of the main highway out.

So I came back and sat in the dark until around 2:00. We could hear chainsaws, so I was hoping they were clearing the highway. One of my local writing buddies said a tree fell on her car and she was desperate to get out of Dodge so would I give her a ride to the conference? I maneuvered past the half-trees the road crew had left scattered along the route and met her at the grocery store. On the way to Columbia we found most of the traffic lights out (thankfully, the really bad intersections seemed to be OK–or the crews were concentrating on getting those back online quickly). There were trees down all along the interstate and we were stopped for about 15-20 minutes once, waiting for the road crew to clear one lane. We even ran over some downed power lines in one spot.

When we got to Columbia, however, it looked promising. The traffic lights were on. The gas station was open and busy. The Cracker Barrel was hopping.

Then we got to the hotel. They were running on emergency generators. The Friday night dinner we’d all paid for was canceled and we were told to find something on our own. Adrienne and I met up with Barbara, another from the Greenville group, and we opted for the Cracker Barrel 3 minutes down the road. The wait wasn’t horrible (we’d left fairly early for the dinner hour) and we had a nice meal and a lovely waitress with a good sense of humor.

After that, the keynote speaker for the evening gave us an interesting speech on AI and Screenwriting in the lobby (no overhead lights in the conference rooms), after which everyone went to their respective dark rooms to try to sleep. It was hot and stuffy but I dozed off.

When we woke up, we learned the conference had been canceled at 6:00am (which was too late to prevent some of the coastal people from leaving for the Midlands, so they had the same problem we had, of driving all that way only to turn around and head home again). We still don’t know for certain that they are going to refund any of our money.

Back home, I maneuvered to Adrienne’s street and got as close to the downed tree as I could because there were power lines wrapped in its branches. I actually dropped her at the neighbor’s house across the street. Then it was back home to the dark, stuffy house and some non-perishable food items. The local grocery store didn’t get power until Sunday afternoon so we were eating totally junk food until then.

My boss tried to open the store Tuesday because the office next door called and told him they had power and internet. Well, we had power, but the internet would not come on, so he closed it up again and sent me home. I did work Thursday because he figured out how to run the internet through his phone. Seemed to me it would blow up his cellphone running that much data through it, but it was fine. We’ll be doing the same thing Saturday (today was the other pharmacist’s day to work).

Duke Energy swears we will have power by midnight tonight. I’ll believe it when I see it. At least Starbucks came back online so I have WiFi if I drive down to the store every day.

This is the drive headed back towards our subdivision. It’s on the right where the car is turning onto State Park Road. You can see the Road Closed block up ahead, where a sinkhole developed when the tiny creek underneath the road was flooding around the culvert.

Here are fifteen things almost nobody knows about me:

• I taught school for five years
• I was a short order chef in college
• I have completed eight novels and am working on Number 9
• I am a certified SCUBA diver
• I published my first piece of writing in the local paper in high school
• I was a state park naturalist for a summer in college
• I had a pet rooster trained to walk on a leash when I was a child
• I have picked cotton
• I used to play on our roof as a child
• I took a sailing class in college
• I used to swim in the baptismal pool at our church as a child
• I have fired a musket
• I was a tour guide in college
• I have a Master’s Degree in Education
• I flunked physical education in middle school

One of the interview questions I’ve seen for writers is “Which TV show from your childhood would you like to see brought back and why?”

Of course, you know it’s going to be a Western! I’d like to see Alias Smith and Jones brought back, though, with a comparable writer similar to the one they had back then. This was a show from 1969 to 1971, so only three seasons, but it had a lot to offer.

The plot should be familiar to anyone who’s read my stories: a couple of outlaws trying to go straight. The catch on the show was that they were still wanted in Wyoming until the governor decided to grant them amnesty, so they were still chased around by posses and sheriffs and bounty hunters.

The writing on this show was great. It had a lot of humor along with the action, and the characters were well-delineated and different from one another, not cardboard cutouts like so many shows. Of course, we’d have to find some good actors if we rebooted the show, because one of the main actors died suddenly and was just replaced with another guy with no explanations. However, I feel certain we could find someone who could fill their boots for a modern show.

If you like old Westerns with a lot of action, clever gimmicks, and humor, check out Alias Smith and Jones. They still show it on the METV channel and METV+ or you could just purchase the DVD set.

Next week is Valentine’s Day, so don’t wait until the last minute to buy those flowers and chocolates!

The holiday itself has obscure roots. All we know is that sometime around the 1840s, its popularity as a lover’s day took off in the US and the UK. The first commercial Valentine’s Day cards were printed about that time. During the Civil War era, “window” Valentines were often sent to one’s sweetheart, so called because the front flaps opened to reveal a message. Men with spare money could purchase “eating chocolates,” made by Richard Cadbury and sold in keepsake boxes that then served to protect a lady’s mementoes (love letters, locks of hair, etc.).

After the war, many men left the war-torn East for the Wild West, and left behind such things as printed Valentine cards or chocolate boxes. Instead, they would craft something for their ladies with their own hands, such as a tooled leather sewing kit or a wooden blanket chest. The educated man would pen a love letter or even a poem for his sweetheart to keep. By the last decade of the 1800s, mail-order catalogs brought goods such as jewelry, hat pins, or parasols within easy reach to the man who had the money to spare.

Here’s a romantic ad from the 1873 Matrimonial Times of San Francisco: “Any gal that got a bed, calico dress, coffee pot and skillet, knows how to cut out britches and can make a hunting shirt, knows how to take care of children can have my services till death do us part.” What woman could resist such an eloquent invitation?

So buy your sweetie some flowers and chocolate, or write a love letter or poem. If you’re crafty, make something with your own hands. You’ve still got nearly a week left!

February is Library Lover’s Month so show a little love for your local branch!

Our library not only lends books, but audio books and equipment, board games, and even seeds (OK they don’t loan the seeds – they give them away). They also offer help with homework and taxes. Plus, we have a bookmobile. You can always help your local library by volunteering or joining the local equivalent of our “Friends of the Library” (members pay a small fee and get perks like early showings of the book sales). Or just promote the library on your social media platforms and to your friends and neighbors. You can find your library’s hashtags on their websites, so tag away!

Well, we started off with good intentions anyway, no matter what happens next.

We had blackeyed peas and collard greens for dinner on New Year’s Day. I stayed up to welcome the New Year in with a glass of champagne but the roomie crashed on me.

What was your New Year’s like?

Now, we’ll see what 2024 has to offer. I’m hoping things turn around and improve all around, especially in regards to selling some books and short stories.

It’s the end of the year–seems like 2023 just began a couple of weeks ago!

What are some of your New Year’s traditions and resolutions? Here are some of the most popular resolutions for 2024 so far:

• Saving money
• Exercising more
• Eating healthier
• Spending more time with friends/family
• Losing weight
• Spending less money
• Spending less time on social media (!)
• Reducing stress on the job

We’ll probably sweep out the house (Irish and Scottish tradition) at midnight, then on New Year’s Day eat collard greens and black-eyed peas (US South tradition–the greens represent folding money and the peas are supposed to represent coins).

Here are some other traditions from around the world:

• Lucky Foods: 12 grapes (or raisins) are eaten on New Year’s Eve in Spain, Portugal, and most of South America (In Italy it’s 12 spoonfuls of lentils, one with each chime of the midnight clock). In Germany, you’d eat a marzipan pig for good luck and in France, the lucky food is the pancake.
• Polka Dots: In the Philippines, round shapes are considered lucky, so wearing polka dotted clothing and eating round foods is the thing to do.
• The Empty Suitcase: In Mexico, you ensure a year filled with travel and new experiences by carrying an empty suitcase around the house (sometimes literally all the way around the outside) or walking around it inside.
• Predicting the New Year: In German-speaking countries, as well as Bulgaria, Czechia, Türkiye, and Finland, you can predict what may happen in the New Year by melting a little bit of lead or tin and dropping it into cold water. The shape it forms tells you what your future will be (a ball means luck will roll to you).
• Jumping Waves: In Brazil, you wear white and run into the ocean to jump over seven waves, each representing a different wish or request of a different god.
• Throwing Out the Negative: In Cuba, all the house’s negative energy (and bad spirits) are gathered into a bucket of water, which is then flung out the front door before midnight.
• Red Undies: In Italy and Spain, wearing red underwear is considered lucky (Spaniards believe it must be new underwear to work properly).
• First Footing: In Scotland, your first visitor of the New Year may bring luck to your house, but they must traditionally be a tall, dark-haired man bringing gifts of coal, shortbread, salt, a black bun, and whiskey!

There are at least ten–maybe 14 or 15–significant holidays this time of year. I’m not counting Peppermint Bark Day or National Joy Day or even International Animal Rights Day.

Whatever you celebrate, I hope your holidays are happy and that your New Year is a good one. See you in 2024!