Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. –Benjamin Franklin

Good words written or spoken by, shall we say, an interesting man.  I guess it means that people have two choices in life:  Either be the author and creator of good books or live an interesting life.

Guess what I choose to do.  Well, right now, neither but since I’m gradually writing more. (Which is hard.  The creative part of the brain is like a muscle, if you don’t use it, you lose it.)  My goal is simply two hundred words a day.  No less, but a little more is fine.   It is time for me to step up, not be a whiny wanna-be, and do what must be done.  OK, so writing fiction doesn’t have to be done, but my point is made.

Which brings me to a thought I just had:  If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it.  Is there any scarier phrase in the English language?  It intimates that if you neglect a part of yourself, it will drift into the nether. Quite possibly to never be seen again.  Whatever dreams you have: Never give up.

Here’s a little something I’m working on.  I’ll do more later, but here’s a sample:

           Amanda shivered, not only from the frigid stone, but from the mist and breeze drifting from the coast that lay a short distance away.  Amanda hated the very nature of the gravestone, turning someone so vibrant and loved to simply a name and a set of dates.  Rendering him into facts, nothing more.  The other markers were a blur to her. They were there, but meaningless to Amanda, like a gnat whose presence could be easily forgot. Then she felt a creeping disgust at her self absorbed grief.  Those graves meant something to the families left behind.

/That is what death is--a transformation from beauty and life to becoming nothing more than dust and history.  Death is the loss of what was and what could be--the loss of potential./ Amanda mused as the combination of biting temperature and the somber surroundings left her chill and desolate.

Jonathan Kendall, Born July 8,1976. Died September 21, 2013. Amanda read his gravestone hollowly and for the seventeenth time.  Age thirty-seven.  /Too young. I need him like birds need to sing. It's not fair./ she thought as a familiar unease made her glance up.  A dark blot, gradually taking the form of a man, edged around the cemetary’s grass. His dull boots teased along the line of green. Her eyes took him in, graceful in his black wool coat.  An intricate pin, of Greek design, glinted gold even in the gray day. The gold burned almost too brightly.

        Amanda’s heart sped up.  The man disturbed her on a level she hadn’t anticipated.  Her blood burst wildly and she rapidly walked away toward her car.  /