The rain has not been steady, the air is warm and there’s no
breeze. It’s enough for a quickie hike and a few wildlife photos.

Telling communicates facts; Showing invites understanding.

My sincere thanks to Dennis G. Jerz for his economy of words.

When you are engaged, transported into the writer’s world, emotionally reacting to the characters and images in the world around you – that’s when the writer is showing, not telling.

Here’s an example:

A brisk, wintry wind whistled along the South Carolina coast. It rattled the ice-tipped yellowed spartina grass and rolled a thick, steely grayed fog in from the sea.

In two sentences writer Mary Alice Monroe has me shivering and looking Skyward (the title of this novel) in my mind’s eye.

Monroe could have written: Winters in coastal South Carolina are characterized by brisk winds and grey ocean fog.

Here are a few tips to invite your reader into your world.

Did NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg really say, “We’re waiting for the gas to pass?”

If not, Keith Olbermann should moonlight as a stand-up comic. His delivery had me ROTFLMAO. I wouldn’t be surprised if that inspired a future Carl Hiaasen character.

Laughing, instead of crying, in the face of danger has been a coping strategy as long as people have been documenting their history.

I turned because I heard a bark, but I wasn’t quick enough with my camera to capture the two foxes retreating back into the woods. I’ll bet a mother was calling her young. If she hadn’t barked I would not have seen the foxes at all.

I’ve been busy noticing the sap rising and the trees budding. If this continues, it will be the first snow-free winter of my life. My real concern is that winter really is on the way and that the branches will snap under the weight of ice or snow.

I grew up in Guilford, CT, where wintergreen was called checkerberry.

Douden’s Drug Store, a fixture in Guilford, created the checkerberry soda. The recipe was a closely guarded secret. I have no idea if they used the leaves, the berries – or maybe the roots; I never tasted anything like it anywhere else. Douden’s Drug Store was sold and eventually closed. I have no idea if
the recipe for checkerberry soda has been preserved – but I hope so.

Meanwhile, here’s a recipe for wintergreen leaf tea:

What do you do when the muse abandons you? How do you cope with the blank page?

Writers, like all artists, get stuck from time to time. Here are a few techniques that will help you negotiate past the obstacles in your writing path:

This is the largest of the annual meteor showers, even bigger than the Perseids.