R.D. Larson's Blog
March 5, 2014
Be careful
Lady Ruby Rosethorne went walking in the forest after picnicking with her parents. It was beautiful with sun shining through the alders and firs. She hummed a little tune.
Al of a sudden a bear stepped from behind a tree.
“Oh you looks so yummy. I am going to eat you up,” he growled.
“I think not,” said Lady Ruby. She pulled off her red heels, first the left and then the right. She arched her arm back and threw them one after the other into the eyes of the bear.
Blinded and crying the bear stumbled around until he fell in the river and drowned.
“There that's done,' proclaimed Lady Ruby.
Moral of the story: Know who you are dealing with before you start a fight
Al of a sudden a bear stepped from behind a tree.
“Oh you looks so yummy. I am going to eat you up,” he growled.
“I think not,” said Lady Ruby. She pulled off her red heels, first the left and then the right. She arched her arm back and threw them one after the other into the eyes of the bear.
Blinded and crying the bear stumbled around until he fell in the river and drowned.
“There that's done,' proclaimed Lady Ruby.
Moral of the story: Know who you are dealing with before you start a fight
February 28, 2014
Dahli S'Nots-a-Llama
by
RD Larson
You all know how much I love dogs. If you have read any of my stories you know that there is usually a dog. Maybe a cat. Sometimes a cow. Other animals. But mostly dogs.
So when the phone rang last week, and it was my long-time friend and cranky old veterinarian, Hank, I knew there was news.
"I got a dog for you guys, wanna come take a look at Dolly?" He hrummphfted into the phone. Always has allergies. Probably allergic to animals.
So I said, "Tell me more."
"Mrs. So-and-So isn't able to take care of Dolly; she's going off to Arizona to live near her son," Doc Hank says to me.
"I thought she was living in that cabin at the edge of her daughter's property," I knew Mrs. So-and-So. Nice gal. Spun around in a silver car with the front seat of a couch. You know the kind? With gold letters followed by numbers. Silver and gold, I swear.
"Guess not. Want to meet Dolly?" Hank said.
My fool hubby gets a whole-face big-kid grin. He likes dogs, too. I laughed and said, "Surest thing, you know, Doc. Be right up."
You know my dog Max died a year ago Christmas. He was thirteen. That's 91 in human years, I think, if you use seven.
You could say we missed him. Since I am an e-author, I made up a web site for him and wrote a poem. One of the kids said, "You know, I feel bad 'cause Max didn't get to play with his Christmas toy."
It's taken this long for me to try to think about another dog. Even though I love dogs and always had dogs. Candy was my dog as a kid, if you remember and he was the most bacon-stealing dog I ever met. And then there were the terriers who took over my universe when I was also a kid. Those guys could make Mama cry with all their antics. So I have had as many as three dogs staying with me at one time.
So we get ready and drive up to town. Round the hills and over the ridge and up the drive by the gravel pit to the vet hospital.
I have to stop and tell you this. On TV I saw a woman, a dog-owner, see her dog for the first time in over a week after he was rescued from a flood where he'd been trapped on the roof of their house. Dang, I was mad. She didn't even bend over and pet him. I bet you she didn't know his name either. She stood there aloof and arrogant. The poor dog danced the rumba all around her.
Well, I don't do that. So I squat on the floor to welcome this dog, a miniature Snauser. Blam! She jerked the Tech Girl right through the door. Wham! She hits me and I fall over, and die laughing while she licks my chin. Of course, she finds the dog cookie.
Then she looks at him. Big blue eyes meet the snappy black ones. Ah, love is the state that's entered. No dancing, no licking--pure snuggling.
Well, we take her home. Pretty fun. Dahli, as I rename her, races all around the house. Up down. Over the bed. All that dog stuff. She hides the hubby's sock and takes it back to him as a love gift.
We have dinner. She has one of Max's left-over cans of I'm-SO-SLIM dog food. And dog cookies. Fresh water. So we are finishing dinner. She's watching us--looking from one to the other. She really likes me; she really loves him.
The phone rings. It's Mrs. So-and-So's daughter. Her mother has decided that Dolly, now know as Dahli S'Not-a-Llama, should go to the Church Lady she knows. I sigh.
We lay on the floor with Dahli. Smoocher up some. Next morning back to Dr. Hank she goes. The daughter of Mrs. So-and-so calls up again that night.
"I don't think it's going to work out for Dolly to go to the Church Lady's house." the daughter tells me. "I think she thinks it's an obligation."
We miss Dahli S'Not-a-Llama. We talk about her. We listen for the phone the rest of that evening.
Early the next morning, the phone rings.
"She went on a road trip with the Church Lady and she loves to ride," The daughter tells him.
He tells me. I decide I will write for a while.
I think of Dahli riding high in the front seat of a fancy car stopping at Hardee's all across this fine country. And I send her doggy kisses
RD Larson
You all know how much I love dogs. If you have read any of my stories you know that there is usually a dog. Maybe a cat. Sometimes a cow. Other animals. But mostly dogs.
So when the phone rang last week, and it was my long-time friend and cranky old veterinarian, Hank, I knew there was news.
"I got a dog for you guys, wanna come take a look at Dolly?" He hrummphfted into the phone. Always has allergies. Probably allergic to animals.
So I said, "Tell me more."
"Mrs. So-and-So isn't able to take care of Dolly; she's going off to Arizona to live near her son," Doc Hank says to me.
"I thought she was living in that cabin at the edge of her daughter's property," I knew Mrs. So-and-So. Nice gal. Spun around in a silver car with the front seat of a couch. You know the kind? With gold letters followed by numbers. Silver and gold, I swear.
"Guess not. Want to meet Dolly?" Hank said.
My fool hubby gets a whole-face big-kid grin. He likes dogs, too. I laughed and said, "Surest thing, you know, Doc. Be right up."
You know my dog Max died a year ago Christmas. He was thirteen. That's 91 in human years, I think, if you use seven.
You could say we missed him. Since I am an e-author, I made up a web site for him and wrote a poem. One of the kids said, "You know, I feel bad 'cause Max didn't get to play with his Christmas toy."
It's taken this long for me to try to think about another dog. Even though I love dogs and always had dogs. Candy was my dog as a kid, if you remember and he was the most bacon-stealing dog I ever met. And then there were the terriers who took over my universe when I was also a kid. Those guys could make Mama cry with all their antics. So I have had as many as three dogs staying with me at one time.
So we get ready and drive up to town. Round the hills and over the ridge and up the drive by the gravel pit to the vet hospital.
I have to stop and tell you this. On TV I saw a woman, a dog-owner, see her dog for the first time in over a week after he was rescued from a flood where he'd been trapped on the roof of their house. Dang, I was mad. She didn't even bend over and pet him. I bet you she didn't know his name either. She stood there aloof and arrogant. The poor dog danced the rumba all around her.
Well, I don't do that. So I squat on the floor to welcome this dog, a miniature Snauser. Blam! She jerked the Tech Girl right through the door. Wham! She hits me and I fall over, and die laughing while she licks my chin. Of course, she finds the dog cookie.
Then she looks at him. Big blue eyes meet the snappy black ones. Ah, love is the state that's entered. No dancing, no licking--pure snuggling.
Well, we take her home. Pretty fun. Dahli, as I rename her, races all around the house. Up down. Over the bed. All that dog stuff. She hides the hubby's sock and takes it back to him as a love gift.
We have dinner. She has one of Max's left-over cans of I'm-SO-SLIM dog food. And dog cookies. Fresh water. So we are finishing dinner. She's watching us--looking from one to the other. She really likes me; she really loves him.
The phone rings. It's Mrs. So-and-So's daughter. Her mother has decided that Dolly, now know as Dahli S'Not-a-Llama, should go to the Church Lady she knows. I sigh.
We lay on the floor with Dahli. Smoocher up some. Next morning back to Dr. Hank she goes. The daughter of Mrs. So-and-so calls up again that night.
"I don't think it's going to work out for Dolly to go to the Church Lady's house." the daughter tells me. "I think she thinks it's an obligation."
We miss Dahli S'Not-a-Llama. We talk about her. We listen for the phone the rest of that evening.
Early the next morning, the phone rings.
"She went on a road trip with the Church Lady and she loves to ride," The daughter tells him.
He tells me. I decide I will write for a while.
I think of Dahli riding high in the front seat of a fancy car stopping at Hardee's all across this fine country. And I send her doggy kisses
Published on February 28, 2014 17:25
•
Tags:
amazon-com, dog, free-short-story, rd-larson, stories
February 20, 2014
Sharing the Selfish Self
Sharing the Selfish Self
by
RD Larson
People read for different reasons than they did in past years. They would sit around in the evening and read. Or they’d read before bed, not watching the last late night or the final gasp of world news. Or they’d read during lazy Sunday afternoons. They read because it was the MOST entertaining thing to do. Today’s readers now go to the gym, rent DVDs or go online. More work and more fun makes readers feel pressed for time.
Writers today write for different reasons also. It’s less of “I’m written a great story” but more like “I write because I want you to know these people and what they feel and you can‘t do it in a movie or a play. It‘s too personal. It‘s between the writer and the reader. It‘s a contract when a reader picks up and buys a book from a novelist that exists between the two of them, just them, not the other 500 thousand readers that have already read it.
As the population enlarges and people are more assaulted by the instant and often demeaning venue of a picture is worth a thousand words of advertising and quick fulfillment the reader will want more intimacy with his entertainment. The pleasure of reading will rise again as an expression of thought and companionship. In no other media there not such a team, a one on one pair, as the reader and the writer. Even with the popularity of Book Clubs and reading groups, it still comes down to the magic that the writer creates for the reader. And the single reader accepts. A melding of minds and the essence of private communication without the commercials and without the projection from many minds into the reader/viewer, the true self can emerge and contribute to the story in its own unique way.
Sometimes we writers talk about craft and development. But there’s so much more. And our beloved readers know about it. They know the secret magic, the secret potions that feed our imagination, the tangles that assault our minds when our characters come alive on the page for first the writer and then the reader. How many times have you read words that said exactly how you felt? Or how you would have faced the situation? Who knows what a person will do when that enigmatic time of choice arrives? That moment that the writer speaks and the reader hears is the unexplained, the mysterious core of our contract.
What am I working on? That is a question that other writers ask and it is the same question that readers ask. It’s a fair question. The reader wants to know if I can do that magic again, make a character real, trust the reader with my life. For writing is my life. What ever Work in Progress is current, that is my life, my reason and my unreason, my cultural translation of my time in life in this time of the ages and the way people are so vulnerable to life. My job is to translate that to pleasure to the reader. The readers job is to see with his or her own vision my story, my sharing of my vulnerable, and, yes, open self.
What else is left but our care for one another? A writer and a reader care about each other when they share the selfish words of the page. Then it’s no longer selfish, it’s sharing.
by
RD Larson
People read for different reasons than they did in past years. They would sit around in the evening and read. Or they’d read before bed, not watching the last late night or the final gasp of world news. Or they’d read during lazy Sunday afternoons. They read because it was the MOST entertaining thing to do. Today’s readers now go to the gym, rent DVDs or go online. More work and more fun makes readers feel pressed for time.
Writers today write for different reasons also. It’s less of “I’m written a great story” but more like “I write because I want you to know these people and what they feel and you can‘t do it in a movie or a play. It‘s too personal. It‘s between the writer and the reader. It‘s a contract when a reader picks up and buys a book from a novelist that exists between the two of them, just them, not the other 500 thousand readers that have already read it.
As the population enlarges and people are more assaulted by the instant and often demeaning venue of a picture is worth a thousand words of advertising and quick fulfillment the reader will want more intimacy with his entertainment. The pleasure of reading will rise again as an expression of thought and companionship. In no other media there not such a team, a one on one pair, as the reader and the writer. Even with the popularity of Book Clubs and reading groups, it still comes down to the magic that the writer creates for the reader. And the single reader accepts. A melding of minds and the essence of private communication without the commercials and without the projection from many minds into the reader/viewer, the true self can emerge and contribute to the story in its own unique way.
Sometimes we writers talk about craft and development. But there’s so much more. And our beloved readers know about it. They know the secret magic, the secret potions that feed our imagination, the tangles that assault our minds when our characters come alive on the page for first the writer and then the reader. How many times have you read words that said exactly how you felt? Or how you would have faced the situation? Who knows what a person will do when that enigmatic time of choice arrives? That moment that the writer speaks and the reader hears is the unexplained, the mysterious core of our contract.
What am I working on? That is a question that other writers ask and it is the same question that readers ask. It’s a fair question. The reader wants to know if I can do that magic again, make a character real, trust the reader with my life. For writing is my life. What ever Work in Progress is current, that is my life, my reason and my unreason, my cultural translation of my time in life in this time of the ages and the way people are so vulnerable to life. My job is to translate that to pleasure to the reader. The readers job is to see with his or her own vision my story, my sharing of my vulnerable, and, yes, open self.
What else is left but our care for one another? A writer and a reader care about each other when they share the selfish words of the page. Then it’s no longer selfish, it’s sharing.
February 10, 2014
We Put the DER olDER Women
We Put the DER in OLDER
By
RD Larson
Getting older is mostly annoying. Little favorite bits of our body parts fall into disrepair and are more effort to fix. Mascara that used to be easy to apply is now a gummy clump of glue that stays in the folds and creases of our eyes long after the party. The once lightening quick hang-over now extends for three days and makes us as green as the Wicked Witch of Oz. Panty hose, once the force of the business world and our answer to the tie, is more than a fashion covering anymore; it’s strangulation from the waist down.
Bones are oddly appearing in odd places. Those long balloons clowns use to make animals inadvertently appears around our slim tummies and above our bra straps. Shoes we’ve loved now tango with our toes and trip us.
But it’s not all bad. Older women do put the DER into older with great professionalism and hilarity. D stands for Determined, E stands for Enduring, and R, of course, stands for Remarkable.
Grandmothers are now shown on TV splashing their grandkids. And they don’t care; it’s what they always wanted to do, but were too young to respond to vicious remarks from young children. Squirt!
And if the Fashion Police come by the house, we laugh when they point out we’re sadly out of touch with Vanity Fair. If there’s medicine to take, we make a face and don’t care what the dog thinks. NOT only that, sometimes-- oh the shame it caused years ago-- we eat standing over the sink -- who would have thought that the last zucchini would have gourmet properties or that scraping the ice cream contain would be an awe-inspiring experience.
So we’re determined to do as we please.
We’re also enduring. My mother-in-law says a woman that tells her age, will tell anything.
I like her and respect her but don’t agree. I love to tell my age. I say, “Hey, you kid you, put the groceries in the trunk and take a look at me; I’m an OLDER woman and I’m the best I’ve ever been.” Of course, he’s listing to his M&M’s disc but I know he hears everything.
Yep, we’re enduring. Look at what we’ve been through. Broken hearts, ruptured egos, and divided spirits. Yet here we are, a nation of warrior women. Facing the zone of no return, we are relentless as a species, knowing full well the survival of the fittest by walking, gym class and golf.
Remarkable? I’ll say! Each day some of us are starting new careers as a dot.com executives, or leading the young into a better understanding of what ought to be done and making our voices heard in government by email. From runners to sleepers, to skydivers and fisherwomen, from real estate agents to caregivers for the elderly and the young, we’re so remarkable that we’re often the only ones who know the truth, but are willing to hear other opinions.
I do think we older women are wonderful. Stand aside, we’re coming through!
http://www.amazon.com/Ramonas-Barcelo...
By
RD Larson
Getting older is mostly annoying. Little favorite bits of our body parts fall into disrepair and are more effort to fix. Mascara that used to be easy to apply is now a gummy clump of glue that stays in the folds and creases of our eyes long after the party. The once lightening quick hang-over now extends for three days and makes us as green as the Wicked Witch of Oz. Panty hose, once the force of the business world and our answer to the tie, is more than a fashion covering anymore; it’s strangulation from the waist down.
Bones are oddly appearing in odd places. Those long balloons clowns use to make animals inadvertently appears around our slim tummies and above our bra straps. Shoes we’ve loved now tango with our toes and trip us.
But it’s not all bad. Older women do put the DER into older with great professionalism and hilarity. D stands for Determined, E stands for Enduring, and R, of course, stands for Remarkable.
Grandmothers are now shown on TV splashing their grandkids. And they don’t care; it’s what they always wanted to do, but were too young to respond to vicious remarks from young children. Squirt!
And if the Fashion Police come by the house, we laugh when they point out we’re sadly out of touch with Vanity Fair. If there’s medicine to take, we make a face and don’t care what the dog thinks. NOT only that, sometimes-- oh the shame it caused years ago-- we eat standing over the sink -- who would have thought that the last zucchini would have gourmet properties or that scraping the ice cream contain would be an awe-inspiring experience.
So we’re determined to do as we please.
We’re also enduring. My mother-in-law says a woman that tells her age, will tell anything.
I like her and respect her but don’t agree. I love to tell my age. I say, “Hey, you kid you, put the groceries in the trunk and take a look at me; I’m an OLDER woman and I’m the best I’ve ever been.” Of course, he’s listing to his M&M’s disc but I know he hears everything.
Yep, we’re enduring. Look at what we’ve been through. Broken hearts, ruptured egos, and divided spirits. Yet here we are, a nation of warrior women. Facing the zone of no return, we are relentless as a species, knowing full well the survival of the fittest by walking, gym class and golf.
Remarkable? I’ll say! Each day some of us are starting new careers as a dot.com executives, or leading the young into a better understanding of what ought to be done and making our voices heard in government by email. From runners to sleepers, to skydivers and fisherwomen, from real estate agents to caregivers for the elderly and the young, we’re so remarkable that we’re often the only ones who know the truth, but are willing to hear other opinions.
I do think we older women are wonderful. Stand aside, we’re coming through!
http://www.amazon.com/Ramonas-Barcelo...
Published on February 10, 2014 16:17
•
Tags:
amazon-com, old, rd-larson, stories
February 9, 2014
It's a snowy field
I am here blogging about my writing for the first time at Goodreads. So to me it is like a snowy field or a blank sheet of paper. Or blank screen.
I write every day. Something has to be said. Sometimes the words are good and sometimes the words are empty. I keep the good and I keep the bad on secret page so I can trot them out another time.
I like stories that move fast, gets to the chase, the murder, the love or to whatever is important. I want readers to imagine their color of blue not detailed by me as teal or navy. I feel that the reader is as much a part of the story as is the writer. The story must make the reader feel alive in the plot. I try hard to do that every time.
I am working on a story called "Scar of the Blood Diamond" and have no idea when it will be born but soon I hope.
I write every day. Something has to be said. Sometimes the words are good and sometimes the words are empty. I keep the good and I keep the bad on secret page so I can trot them out another time.
I like stories that move fast, gets to the chase, the murder, the love or to whatever is important. I want readers to imagine their color of blue not detailed by me as teal or navy. I feel that the reader is as much a part of the story as is the writer. The story must make the reader feel alive in the plot. I try hard to do that every time.
I am working on a story called "Scar of the Blood Diamond" and have no idea when it will be born but soon I hope.