Who has the time to use hand cream? I would like to meet the lucky lady who does and learn her time-management secrets. I keep hand cream close-by, in eye-shot, so that I will remember to apply it to my flaking hands. But then every time I think I’d better moisturize (usually just after accidentally glimpsing my crispy skin) my very next thought is I don’t have time. I am not even making that up.
Seriously.
In the interest of best-utilizing my time and providing you, my dearest readers, with fun stuff in which to bathe your mind, I thought I might serialize some of my short fiction. For the next bunch of Fridays I will post some of my long-ish short stories, a little at a time.
The first story I selected is from a story series I’ve been working on here and there for a few years. It’s loosely based on my childhood. But all events and characters are fictitious. I made them up. That’s what writers do. Those of you who know me might recognize some glimmers of other people you may also know, but I swear I made most of it up. You won’t find yourself no matter how hard you look. Except you. Yeah, YOU. You know who you are.
I’m kidding! (Am I, though?)
Once, after reading a novel I had in progress, the reader (a friend) said, “You need more of the Steve character.” Steve is my husband. (Steve is not his real name—I blog-o-gized his actual name for his protection. From what is he being protected? I have no idea.) Steve was not in that book, though. The husband in that book is NOTHING like Steve. The reader automatically assumed the protagonist (a woman) was me and her husband was Steve. Other readers assumed the sister of the protagonist was my actual sister and the mother my actual mother.
Truth is, some of my characters are hybrids of people I’ve met and some are entirely made up and some are blatantly stolen (but in that case only people I don’t know well and I suppose it’s more an imagining of how I think they think and act, their histories and opinions). The danger in knowing a writer is that something of you might just find its way into her work. You should know this: we artists are thieves. But it’s still mostly a lot of imagined stuff.
Come back next Friday for some short story enjoyment! Unless you are moisturizing. Oh, wait—I have a better idea. Read the story while you moisturize. That is called multi-tasking, a required skill of the 21st Century, and probably how the lucky ladies get it done.
(I might even find the time to moisturize, too. I doubt it, though.)