Allie Potts's Blog, page 20

Lou lou skip to my Loo

There are some people who collect shot glasses wherever they travel and some people who collect souvenirs such as spoons, or postcards, or magnets. I am no different from any of those people, only instead of bringing back your standard knick knack, I collect toilets. Or more specifically, I make sure to take a photograph of a toilet whenever I travel to someplace new.

It started out as a joke. Not to age myself too much, but I didn’t always have a digital camera (I certainly didn’t always hav...

Onward and upward – fun with mind manipulation

Writing a novel is like running a marathon. You train and train, conditioning your body through smaller “fun” runs as you gradually build up some confidence and stamina. Thenit is the day of the event, the thing you have been training toward for the last several weeks if not months. A crowd surrounds you. Their excitement is contagious. “See you on the other side!” and “Let’s do this!” You are anxious, but anything is possible. You take off.

Then, six miles later or so, you see that the cours...

One flu over the cuckoo’s nest

What I originally thought was just a minor sniffle turned out to be a case of the full-blown flu.

Mess up the hair so that it looks like an animal’s nest and make it brown, replacethe stylish clothes with mismatched sweats, add more blankets and used tissues scattered among kid toys and do away withthis whole suffering in silence thing she has going on and this image really captures how I look when I am sick. (Image courtesy of Unsplash)

I do not handle being sick well. While I am mostly bett...

I wanted to write, I really did…

I wanted to write. I really did!

But…

I needed to walk the dog. It was a glorious morning and the two of us could use some bonding.

Then the time slipped away and I still needed to work for my day job which meant traveling away from warm sunny temperatures. I wasn’t worried.

I should have time to write while I wait for my flight.

But…

The gate attendants kept making pesky announcements regarding weather delays, which had the worst way of breaking my concentration.

It was a really, really, rea...

Please forgive me – a letter to the dog

We pulled out your crate this week, unused for the last three years, and brushed off the cobwebs, only we didn’t do it for you. Another four-legged creature joined the family and needed a place to sleep. I think you would have liked her. She’s a mix of Lab, like you, but Boxer too, which was always your favorite playmate. But she’s not you.

Then again, you might find her strange. She doesn’t chase after cats, or squirrels, or stare at a mysterious nothing in the corner of the room making my n...

A Taste of Raleigh

“There is no sincerer love than the love of food” – George Bernard Shaw

“Why did you decide to stay in Raleigh?” It is a question my dad periodically asks, hoping that I might one day see the error of my ways and move closer to him. I like to counter, you can always move here. “I just don’t get what you see in it.” As a recently elected official in a town more than a hundred miles away, I understand his local pride is running particularly high at the moment, but when this conversation comes u...

Are you not entertained?

The original Super Bowl. Image by Sean Molin courtesy of Flickr

My house was ‘destroyed’ as one guest so delicately put it just before leaving on Sunday. We’d hosted a Super Bowl viewing party and toys and chips ground into a fine dust under a stampede of little feet covered the floors. My memory from the time we used to host this party before children is foggy, but at times like these, I wonder if the mess was once easier to clean up when it consisted of only left-over red plastic cups and th...

A birthday wish for my son

Cake crumbs still spotted the table and chairs, remnants from his brother’s birthday party when LT first began asking if it was now time to plan his celebration, an event that wouldn’t take place for several months. Each time he asked, he announced loudly and repeatedly that he was done being three and ready to be four.

Over the next several weeks, there were few mornings (or evenings) in which LT did not ask us for an update on the number of days left until his birthday. This was new for him...

The Fair and Foul by Allie Potts, a review.

What an unexpected surprise and a great way to start my day. Of course, now I have to work doubly hard on the next one.

Eric's blog

This is a sci/fi book with a bit of romance thrown in. It follows the adventures of a scientist Juliane in the near future as she works for a cutting edge technology company. She and her fellow scientists come up with some amazing advancements, that will benefit mankind. As you would expect things don’t go to plan and not every one’s motives are pure.

What I did...

How not to gain a literary agent

background image courtesy of Lissa R and Flickr

Ah, the quest for the elusive literary agent…

For my readers who are not writers, let me explain. You see a literary agent can seem much like a unicorn within the writing world. If you are fortunate enough to stumble upon one, the common belief is that they have the power tocarry an inexperienced virgin writer to the doors of a major publishing house with a flick of their mane, and once there, they will have wishes like advances large enough to...