The National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) has run for nearly three weeks.
Bloggers, writers, novelists and other wordsmiths tirelessly tap their keyboards, racing to meet daily totals. No writer wants to be late for the final deadline: 50,000 words at the end of the month of November.
What does it take to spin a yarn worthy of readership? What key components comprise the difference between a successful book and a dust-gatherer, between a novel that sits in the library stacks and one that is checked out often?
Love poetry? Check out Simply Snickers, a brand-new weekly poetry prompt. Try your hand with weekly prompts! Or, look into The Meme Express for daily blogging prompts.
Reflecting on the resounding, though perhaps refreshing, attraction of pre-Christmas sales.
Will you participate in the “Black Friday” sales after Thanksgiving? Will you stand in line before the break of dawn to grab deep discounts for Santa’s “Naughty and Nice” lists?
Love poetry? Check out Simply Snickers, a brand-new weekly poetry prompt. Try your hand with weekly prompts! Or, look into The Meme Express for daily blogging prompts.
Love poetry? Check out Simply Snickers, a brand-new weekly poetry prompt. Try your hand with weekly prompts! Or, look into The Meme Express for daily blogging prompts.
Love poetry? Check out Simply Snickers, a brand-new weekly poetry prompt. Try your hand with weekly prompts! Or, look into The Meme Express for daily blogging prompts.
Are you participating in NaNoWriMo this November? If so, be sure to leave a comment. Want to share your NaNoWriMo screen name? (Click the NaNoWriMo graphic – at left – to view my page.)
(I must express my apologies, in advance, to my FAVORITE writers and subscriptions. If I should fall behind on reading and commenting this month, let’s just blame NaNoWriMo. I’ve joined the challenge to write a 50,000-page fiction manuscript in one month.)
Love poetry? Check out Simply Snickers, a brand-new weekly poetry prompt. Try your hand with weekly prompts! Or, look into The Meme Express for daily blogging prompts.
What a Witch (on a skeleton from our own family closet)
The Wicked Witch of the West
(played by Margaret Hamilton)
in The Wizard of Oz
At Halloween, it seems fitting to ask: Who’s the scariest witch you’ve ever seen in the movies?
If you’re part of my generation, or many others, you might name The Wicked Witch of the West from the 1939 MGM film, The Wizard of Oz. With her green face, pointy nose and hat and creepy cackle, this witch topped them all for terror-striking in viewers’ hearts.
What child didn’t crouch on the edge of his or her seat to behold this big nasty on the television screen?
Even after learning that the woman playing this wicked witch was a distant relative and a former kindergarten teacher, who appeared in more than 60 films, I still found her quite fearsome. (I wonder now if old Margaret’s years in the kindergarten classroom may have prepared her to deal with all of those flying monkeys and even the many munchkins.)
Here’s a video of the casting of actress Margaret Hamilton as the wicked melting witch in The Wizard of Oz:
.
.
Of course, Margaret Hamilton’s claim to fame was no source of family shame.
In fact, not too many years ago, a group of us gathered near Cleveland, Ohio, for a cousin’s wedding. As part of the pre-wedding festivities, an uncle led us on a driving tour of old family haunts, including the childhood home and high school of our grandmother and her cousin, Margaret Hamilton. The scariest thing was probably the terrible traffic we experienced in some pretty foreboding neighborhoods.
“I'll get you, my pretty . . .
and your little dog, too!”
The Wicked Witch of the West
(played by Margaret Hamilton)
in The Wizard of Oz
Bewitching –
An Acrostic Filled with Glee for a Creepy Family Tree
(Posted in memory of a distant relative and infamous actress)
Bony and bewildering,
Epitome of evil –
What? We’re related?
I can’t believe it.
Tell me it isn’t true.
Cousins cackle.
How many families have
Inside jokes like this?
Never mind the nightmares,
Grandmother explained.
And here’s my grandmother’s cousin, Margaret Hamilton, without her wicked witch make-up, as she appeared in the well-known Maxwell House coffee commercials:
Love poetry? Check out Simply Snickers, a brand-new weekly poetry prompt. Try your hand with weekly prompts! Or, look into The Meme Express for daily blogging prompts.
Love poetry? Check out Simply Snickers, a brand-new weekly poetry prompt. Try your hand with weekly prompts! Or, look into The Meme Express for daily blogging prompts.
Love poetry? Check out Simply Snickers, a brand-new weekly poetry prompt. Try your hand with weekly prompts! Or, look into The Meme Express for daily blogging prompts.
Love poetry? Check out Simply Snickers, a brand-new weekly poetry prompt. Try your hand with weekly prompts! Or, look into The Meme Express for daily blogging prompts.
Love poetry? Check out Simply Snickers, a brand-new weekly poetry prompt. Try your hand with weekly prompts! Or, look into The Meme Express for daily blogging prompts.
Love poetry? Check out Simply Snickers, a brand-new weekly poetry prompt. Try your hand with weekly prompts! Or, look into The Meme Express for daily blogging prompts.
Love poetry? Check out Simply Snickers, a brand-new weekly poetry prompt. Try your hand with weekly prompts! Or, look into The Meme Express for daily blogging prompts.
Love poetry? Check out Simply Snickers, a brand-new weekly poetry prompt. Try your hand with weekly prompts! Or, look into The Meme Express for daily blogging prompts.
Love poetry? Check out Simply Snickers, a brand-new weekly poetry prompt. Try your hand with weekly prompts! Or, look into The Meme Express for daily blogging prompts.
Praying Woman
