People Are Like Leaves by Betsy Ashton

People and leaves share much in common. Some hang around your entire life, some only for a season, others for a few days before they blow away on the wind.

I love the evergreens, the pines, the cedars, the firs. While not officially leaves but needles, the greenery stays year after year, decade after decade. The evergreens are with you through good times and bad. They wipe your nose, hold your head, and kiss you no matter what. They are the ones you can call in the middle of the night because ghouls and goblins are warring in your brain. They may be family members. More likely, they are people you've met in your travels and stuck to you like burrs.

Others are seasonal, erupting in new green leaves in the spring, glowing with health in the summer, changing colors and falling in autumn. Some of these are your absolute best friend when you need one and may stay with you until your need passes. Some drift in and out through the seasons, never staying long but always being on the end of a branch if you need them.

Some rare leaves come in only for a few days. They make a huge impact while they are around, but they don't last. You need them, but you don't count on them to appear. You most certainly don't expect them to stay.

We are entering the holiday season, as if we didn't know it. We have enough Christmas ads on TV to kill any interest in shopping. But if we step back and really look at the holiday season, we can see how we fit into our leaf metaphor.

I pick brightly colored leaves in October, add maple seed pods, and gather acorns to fill vases for Thanksgiving decorating. I use evergreens at Christmas, a fir or two every year, decorated to within an inch of their needles. I hang a bay leaf wreath in the dining room, because it smells so terrific, even though it is made of those rare leaves that don't last.

I need all of these leaves. I hope I'm an evergreen person, but I know I've been seasonal and even passing at times. I have been rethinking how I want to use all leaves in my life.

What kind of leaves surround you? And what kind of leaves are you? How many are evergreen, seasonal, or fleeting?

Happy Thanksgiving to all Roses and your families. I'll catch you one more time before the end of the year for a little Ho! Ho! Ho!

The New Face of Friendship by Andrea Downing

I’m dashing this off in the short few days between visitors, so you’ll have to excuse me if this post seems rushed.  The guests who just left included a fellow author and her husband, people I had never met in person but—at least with the wife who I’ll call A (changing the names to protect the innocent!!)—with whom I’d corresponded regularly for some time.  Some time?  I think it’s more than two years now.  For whatever reason, we’d never got around to speaking on the phone, never Skyped or Facetimed, yet knew what each other’s kids were doing, the foibles of neighbors, the illnesses we had, the traumas of too hot or too cold weather in our respective regions, and, needless to say, had repeatedly ranted to each other about the problems of being an author in this day and age and trying to sell books. So, when A arrived with hubby in tow, it was more like a reunion than a first time meeting, more like continuing where we left off than who the hell are you?  As A has written to me, it was “not at all weird because we exchange so many emails that all was as I expected.”

So this has got me thinking.  The way we make friends seems to have subtly changed or, if not exactly changed, found a new inlet.  It used to be that the bonds of friendship were forged in childhood, or perhaps in school as kids or outside the school gates waiting for our own kids, or maybe with neighbors or folks we met in a club or other organization, and through introductions or matchmaking. This still happens, of course, but enter the digital world with instant correspondence through emails, IMs, texts and so on, and bingo! We forge friendships with people we’ve never met, might not even know what they look like (since so many seem to use dogs or other family pets as avatars) nor ever hear their voice, yet somehow develop genuine rapport and bonds with them, travel with them through their ups and downs, highs and lows, and miss them when they don’t write.

Have we entered The Twilight Zone? What exactly constitutes friendship?

Through history there are tales of long correspondences between people who never meet yet seem to find common ground that develops a literary friendship.  And then there have been mail order brides who formed intimate relationships after the sparsest communications.  But this is now and I’m not talking marriage.  We are a wary, suspicious lot for the most part, used to taking every precaution before going out the door, ever fearful of hoaxes and scams.  Internet match-making is known to have its pitfalls, yet internet friendship seems to be alive and well, possibly because it develops at a natural pace with no objective other than sharing—sharing thoughts, ideas, news, complaints, rants, and information.  And if the chance occurs to meet up, or at least talk face to face, so much the better.

 For me, this recent meeting worked out very well and I enjoyed myself immensely.  As A said, there was no ‘weirdness’.  But I’m wondering what others have experienced in the line of internet friendship, and what those experiences have been?  Please tell all. There may be a story in it for me.
In the meantime, the story that was in me has come out along with that of one of my newly minted friends. If you're looking for your Hallowe'en reading, you could do no better than to get a copy From the Files of Nat Tremayne: Two Tales of Hauntings in the Old West by myself and Patti Sherry-Crews. Available through all good ebook sellers, and on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Files-Nat-Tremayne-Tales-Hauntings-ebook/dp/B0767HWT6S/  
The Wild West gets even wilder when Nat Tremayne sends out his agents from Psychic Specters Investigations offices in St. Louis and Denver. Across country and across time, these agents will stop at nothing to unravel the mysteries that beset poor unsuspecting ranchers and cowboys who have no idea what they're seeing . . .or not, as the case may be.
In The Ghost and The Bridegroom, P.S.I. Agent Healy Harrison is sent to Tucson to rid a rancher of the ghost in the bedroom interfering in his marriage to a mail-order bride. Healy doesn't think she's destined for romance--until she meets Pinkerton detective Aaron Turrell. But when their two cases dovetail, will their newfound love survive the ultimate showdown  between mortal and immortal.

In Long A Ghost and Far Away, agent Dudley Worksop aims to unravel the mystery of Colby Gates' dead wife. Lizzie not only seems to have reappeared as a ghost, but has time traveled from 2016 to the 1800s. Can revenge be had for her murder? And can the couple be reunited across country and across time?
These stories originally appeared in The Good, The Bad, and The Ghostly.

Barbara Kerns Johnson – What a Woman, What a Life by Margo Hoornstra

“The Paper Burns, But The Words Fly Away” – Ben Joseph Akiba

You’ve heard the term – ‘You look like you’ve lost your best friend.’ A sort of universal acknowledgement to denote unspeakable devastation, failure or loss. A couple of months ago, I literally lost my best friend. One woman, outside of my family, who meant the world to me.

Barbara Kerns Johnson and I met at a writer’s conference many years ago. Two strangers with the love of words in common, who went on to become inseparable friends despite our differences. While I’m a worrier tried and true, Barb was the exact opposite. She could have been the inspiration for the song – Don’t Worry Be Happy – and knowing her, she probably was. As time went on, we worked together, collaborated together, traveled together, enjoyed life together. That’s not say she didn’t drive me crazy at times. I’m sure she’d tell you I returned the favor and then some.

That bond, craziness and all, extended to my family as well. Barb was almost as a good a friend of my husband, Ron, as she was to me. I’m pretty sure part of that had to do with the fact they were both Libras. She never had any kids of her own, but readily adopted the four we had. That she was a big influence in my children’s lives is something I’m extremely proud of. Her presence was a precious gift I was able to give them, one that came with plenty of memories I hope they will always have to cherish.

An innovator, a writer’s writer if you will, she did get around in our local literary realm. It was Barb who initially introduced me to Romance Writers of America and pushed me to establish a local chapter. Over the years, she also introduced me to many local writers who had gained national fame. Among them William Kinzel and Elmore (Dutch) Leonard. Though never published herself beyond a number of freelance articles and ghost written pieces, it seemed to be her lot in life to help other writers succeed. She taught college level creative writing classes, published a newsletter for writers – Not So Neophyte – and later the magazine Working Writer, and held writing conferences around Michigan. She even tried her hand as a literary agent for a time. Besides writing, her other passion was art—painting, sketching, still life, portraits—and she was very good at that too.

In many ways Barbie, as we liked to call her, had an Energizer Bunny type spirit. No matter what happened, good bad or indifferent, she kept on keeping on. More times than not with a smile on her face and laughter in her heart. Maybe that’s why I didn’t realize how seriously ill she was. What little time we had left to be friends.

She was very sensitive about her age. Understandable since she looked much younger than she was. I won’t dishonor her memory by sharing the actual number now. Let’s just say, given the marvels of modern medicine, she was way too young to die.

Today, October the 11^th is/was her birthday. A true believer in karma, unicorns and the like, Barb also had faith in the incredible power of the universe in our lives. Lord Willing was one of her favorite sayings. I’m pretty sure she would agree this post is appropriate, since the 11^th is my day to blog here anyway.

I’m smiling through tears as I think of Barb Johnson. How much I miss her. How grateful I am that, while she was here, I was blessed to be her friend.

My days to blog here are the 11th and 23rd. For more about me and my stories, please visit my website

Fellowship

By Diane Burton

The problem with being the blogger at the end of the month is that the posters who have gone before have taken all the good stuff. <g> Since this month’s theme(s) have all begun with the letter F, I wracked my brain trying to come up with something new, different, but appropriate. Then it hit me. The reason for this blogsite: fellowship.

I tend to view the word fellowship in connection with church membership. But when I checked the definition, fellowship also refers to a community of interest. One of its synonyms is camaraderie. And that’s what I’ve found in writers’ groups. We come from all over the world. We are of different social, marital, and economic status. We’re young, middle-aged, retired. (Notice, I didn't say old.)  Despite our differences, we have a common interest—writing. And that draws us together.

Writing is a solitary occupation. Yet, as humans, we crave interaction with others. We may closet ourselves when the writing is flowing or when we're on deadline and only come out of our caves for food, drink, or potty breaks. Think of the scene in Romancing the Stone after Joan Wilder types “The End” and goes looking for a tissue only to find sticky notes everywhere reminding her to buy tissues and t.p. Yep, that’s what it’s like.

When we emerge from our caves (aka office, converted bedroom, basement), we desperately need to talk to someone. Our spouses/children/BFFs, as supportive as they are, do not get our thrill of a great day’s/week’s writing the way another writer does. Or the satisfaction of completing a 100,000 word novel. Thank goodness for email and social media where we can post at two in the morning that “we did it.” As much as they love us, even our best friends don’t like celebratory phone calls in the middle of the night.

In the twenty years I’ve been seriously writing, I have met so many wonderful people through writers’ groups--foremost, Romance Writers of America and its affiliated chapters. My local chapter, Mid-Michigan RWA, inspires, bemoans our rejections, and celebrates our successes. And, when needed, kicks our butts when we're discouraged. The online community does the same—and we don’t have to wait for an entire month to get together.

Of all the benefits the writing community offers, the one I saved for last is the most important—friendship. The song “You’ve Got a Friend” certainly applies to writers’ groups in general and the group that makes up The Roses of Prose. I feel very fortunate to have made such good friends with some of the Roses and look forward to becoming friends with the others.

I blog here on the 8^th and 30^th of each month. On Mondays, I “muse” about life, writing, and whatever strikes my fancy on my blog: http://dianeburton.blogspot.com You can read excerpts from my books and other information on my website www.dianeburton.com

See you again on August 8^th.