I love quotations. I love how they take the wisdom of the ages and turn it into bite-size pieces.
So I was happy to see this gift idea from Luke Reynolds in Writer’s Digest magazine. Mr. Reynolds’ wife surprised him with a wooden tea caddy filled with handwritten quotes about writing to inspire his own writing. [...]

Transitions: Take Two
Before I write
I empty the dishwasher
I make the bed
I start the wash
I fold some clothes
I make the coffee
I feed the dog
I feed the fish
I feed the kids
I load the dishes
I sweep the floor
I check for messages
I answer a few
I pay a bill
I fill out a form
I lift some weights
I take a shower
I pluck [...]

6. Claire
Claire woke and lay still for a moment, warm under the heavy comforter. The house was quiet, but she could hear the ticking of the grandfather clock down the hall and the gentle roar of the furnace starting up in the basement. She smelled coffee and thought for a moment that Nick had woken [...]

5. Ashley
The couple had seated themselves at their usual table in the corner of the patio. It was a popular spot thanks to a natural canopy of low-hanging branches, but Madeline and Ted always arrived early to beat the Saturday morning brunch crowd.
Ashley brought them water and coffee, black for him and cream and sugar [...]

4. Sarah
The adults cleared away the dishes and sent the kids to the basement to watch a movie. Sarah put the leftovers in the fridge, retrieved her glass of wine from the counter, and joined the others at the table.
She and Brad knew three of the couples well. Or as well as you could know [...]

3. Beth
“How was your day?” Beth asked as Chloe buckled herself in.
“Good.” She was already texting, her dark head bent over her phone.
“What was good about it?”
“What?” Chloe said, removing one ear bud.
“I said, what was good?”
“I dunno. Just stuff.” She put the ear bud back in.
Beth persisted. ”Who could be texting you already? Weren’t you [...]

2. Becky
Becky sat in her car, watching people go in and out of the gym’s outer doors. They all looked impossibly fit to her, members of a secret club she’d never been able to join. She slumped down in her seat, hoping for invisibility. Which was usually not a problem.
Becky glanced at her phone. Her [...]

Ernest Hemingway, they say, wrote the best short story ever. History is fuzzy but the general idea is that Hemingway bet some friends he could write a complete story in only six words. No way, they said. Hemingway jotted some words on a napkin and passed it around. His friends read it and handed over [...]

1. Transitions
Grace backed out of the room slowly. It had taken nearly half an hour of nursing to settle Jake down. It always surprised her how hard he fought the transition from awake to asleep.
She quietly shut the door, then glanced at her watch. It was one o’clock. He’d sleep for at least an hour, [...]

While the youngest three were in swimming lessons recently, I had a leisurely 45 minutes every day for two weeks to catch up on my stack of Writer’s Digest magazines. One article that caught my attention was “Pinterest is Worth a Thousand Words” by mystery writer Laura DiSilverio.
I’d never thought of using Pinterest as a writing [...]