Summer Wouldn't End

And then it was winter...

Flooded River-Walk Theater - Columbus, MS

The last time I posted on this blog was August, in the middle of the oddest summer I have spent here in Columbus, Mississippi. It was my fourth August, counting the first one in 2016, three months into living here. That summer, it was miserably hot and dry and near drought in much of the state. So dry, in fact that the pavement was rising and cracking and I stayed quiet around what few people I knew, afraid that I had brought New Mexico dryness with me.

But in 2019, this summer and now into fall, we've had rain, epic rain, flooding rain, so much rain that the Riverwalk Theater on the west side of Columbus was flooded and stayed that way for days, because there was nowhere for the water to go.

Yes! This is my backyard...er...uh...honest!

But this past August and in fact most of the summer of 2019 was wet and rainy and my back yard became a monster and I haven't tamed it yet, and it's already November. Even by the middle of October it seemed that the summer would never end, and then when it did turn, and I thought we were in for some nice fall weather (my favorite time of the year) it went straight from summer into winter. And the rain has not yet abated, and my backyard is still a monster. I'm having to investigate some real power tools beyond the mower and trimmer—neither are capable of taking down the 10-foot high bushes with 1.5-inch branches that have sprung up this summer. I can't even get out my backyard door! I didn't realize that the bushes had encroached on the house in the northwest el-shape of the house.

I can't hire anyone either, because I'm on a fixed income, and Cliff smiles over the phone when I talk about my home-ownership woes, and he reminds me that home-ownership was something I might not have been too wise about wishing for. Hahaha...he's right, but I love my house and I must, absolutely must, knuckle under and get out there with my elbow-grease-powered hand saw and clippers and pocket knife (?!?) and try to uncover my back porch stoop. And get the vines off the house, which I thought I had under control two years ago—they're ba-a-a-a-ck! But I've settled on a plan. I'll invite friends and relatives to come for a vacation (especially those from the desert who might like a little rain and green and Southern cooking, and I'll get them like Tom Sawyer did to paint my fen—I mean cut my bushes.

But make no mistake. I still love it here. I've only begun to scratch the surface of what it is to live in Mississippi, and alas, but ah-well, now that I'm living by myself with my two calico girls, I'm revamping my stable of books. I have just issued a 30-year-anniversary edition of Common Sons, because it had somehow fallen through the cracks at my publishing partner lists and wasn't available for several months. So I took the opportunity to revamp the format and the look.

And now that I'm aware that my titles are in disarray on the publisher's lists, I'm revamping several others—all to bring them into the new format. I'll no doubt post those new formatted books here for anyone who might be interested. It's interesting here in Columbus, at the writers group I belong to, I'm surrounded by church goers. I think 90 percent of the people in this small Southern city attend churches regularlarly, and even though my work is meant for an LGBT audience, several of the members of the group have gotten copies of my work and when I'm called on to read passages from my projects, I try to find those passages that delve into the deeper aspects of my characters, without subjecting anyone to something a bit lgbtq-ish...if you know what I mean. Being on my own, as it were, I can write and create to my heart's content, and I do, and it's time for me to think about finishing several projects. I am, after all, in Mississippi, the heart of Southern letters!

Here's the Ten Commandments of Writing...at least one author's rules.