Tag: Writing

The Chess Game

~ Meg ~ 52 Comments

A ten sentence short story… I also think this one should be expanded before adding it to the collection. Some history between these old friends… 

Every day Abraham Stein set up the chess board in the park. The game was always in progress, but Abraham never accepted offers to play. Every day he sat for an hour, staring at the board, not making a move. At the end of the hour, he would slide all the chess pieces back into the box, fold the board and walk the five blocks back to his apartment at Temple Beth Israel Retirement Home.

The ladies of Temple Beth Israel wondered about Abraham Stein, trying always to dissuade Abraham from his routine. As he walked each day to his appointment in the park, he would shoo them away with a wave of his hand.

One day, after some weeks had gone by, a man in a wheelchair was wheeled by his nurse to the place opposite Abraham in the park. Abraham smiled, without looking up from the board and said, “It’s about time you showed up.”

Saul Rosenberg snorted and said, “I missed you, too, you old meshuggener.”

Abraham pointed to the board and said, “It’s your move.”

“They want me to NaNoWriMo… I say, no, no, no.”

~ Meg ~ 13 Comments

Today, being the first day of November, is also day one of National Novel Writing Month. For the last several weeks, my email box has been filling with correspondence from the local Bucks County NaNo group, the national organization and other assorted promotional advertisers for the event. I’m not buying into the hype this year.

Last year, I participated in order to kick start the fifth book in my novel series. I’d written a few hundred words, had the basic plot outlined but hadn’t made any progress beyond that in months. I managed to come close to the 50,000 word goal by the end of November but the story was far from finished. In fact, here I am one year later, still working on it. It never took me this long to publish the previous four books. So much for NaNoWriMo.

Nevertheless, I am going to use the month as a deadline for the revising and editing of the book. I am giving myself 30 days to make the changes to the story, proof the grammar and dialogue, read aloud for awkward sentence structure and double check for timeline inconsistencies. Then it goes to my editor for final approval before loading to Amazon and CreatSpace for publishing, hopefully before the holiday season.

That clears my desk for 2017. Bring on the new year and a new start to another novel! Brace yourselves for more WWI history posts.

By the way, the first of November and it’s still green in Bucks County… Weird.

Seven Days, Seven Photos (Day Seven)

~ Meg

My good friend, and super talented photographer, Beach (sonofabeach96) has tagged me for this intriguing challenge: “Seven days. Seven black and white photos of your life. No people. No explanation. Challenge someone new each day.” If you don’t already follow his amazing photography blog, please check it out. He should get paid to travel the world and take pictures. Calling Conde Nast! As for the rules, well… I’m not going to nominate anyone, but if you’d like to jump into this challenge, consider yourself nominated!

Here is the seventh: