A Writer's Life - In A Nutshell

To Sleep, Perchance To Write

I have to admit that I haven't done much writing lately...while awake. Last night I had a vivid dream of sitting in the dark with a scrap of paper and a pen, scribbling wildly a string of prose that flowed as smooth as water. Was this my conscience trying to tell me that it's been too long since I picked up with the stories I have started? Perhaps I should listen to my inner-therapist. (it's a lot cheaper and easier to get an appointment!)

So...you may be asking "Well, what have you been doing?". The answer is reading....reading....and more reading. I seem to go through books pretty quickly, I think, and usually have several going at one time. I am also the happy chapter leader of the Shreveport area Pulpwood Queens book club (the Red River Pulpwood Queens). Once a month my friends and I (some who happen to be authors in their own right) meet to discuss books and literary happenings. I am quite disappointed that the Louisiana Book Festival has been cancelled this year, for I was looking forward to another exciting literary excursion to Baton Rouge this fall. My framed poster of last year's La Book Festival hangs on my living room wall, reminding me of all of the wonderful people I met in 2009. I suppose I shall have to get my "meet-the-author fix" by taking smaller trips throughout the year... Ooh! I see that one is coming up this weekend!

News: Awakening Inspiration Lost

BARATARIA BAY, La. – The sand dunes and islands of Barataria Bay, a huge expanse of water and marsh on Louisiana's coast, have become the latest casualty of the environmental disaster spewing from BP's offshore well. And fishermen are bitter.

Barataria has played a vital role in Louisiana history. It is where the pirate and Battle of New Orleans hero Jean Lafitte established his colony of Baratarians. The estuary was also the setting for "The Awakening" by Kate Chopin. Like other wealthy 19th-century New Orleanians, Chopin spent summers on Grand Isle, to the bay's south, and made the evocative island a focus of her work. (source Yahoo! News)