Week in Seven Words #522

This covers the week of: 1/19/20 - 1/25/20.

apathetic
She barely reaches forward with her mind, because so much has stopped mattering to her.

diversions
They've taken a break from studying to play a game of Uno. Every so often one of them says, "How dare you!" in a playful way, chiding the other for a good move.

gender
He gets grief for preferring dance to basketball, and she gets grief for preferring basketball to dance.

hues
We detour through an art gallery, a warren of color.

lingers
"Can I still write to you?" he asks. And yes, I'm fine with hearing from him by email.

response
She gives me honest feedback about my book, and I'm thrilled.

thankful
He mentions a gratitude exercise, a pause to list some things you're thankful for. I start doing this at the end of each day before falling asleep. Just thinking about a few things – moments of interest, progress, contentment, or happiness – I'm glad I've experienced. 

Short Story: When Linda Sketched the Dead

Halfway Down the Stairs published one of my short stories last week. The link to it is here. The opening paragraph:

Down the block from Linda’s home, there was a cemetery. Its southern gate faced her street and stayed open daily until dusk. On afternoons when Linda’s mother lay down with one of her headaches, Linda took a sketchbook to the graves.

Review of An Unexpected Descent

At her wonderful blog, where you will see lots of thoughtful reviews and recommendations of different books and short stories, Naida has shared her thoughts about a story I recently published, "An Unexpected Descent."

I loved reading her reaction to it. She makes some excellent points about the characters (who are children) and what might possibly happen to them when they grow up.

An Unexpected Descent

Bartleby Snopes recently published a short story I wrote called "An Unexpected Descent."

You can read it here.

Enjoy! (Though be forewarned, it's a grim tale…)

Human After All

I've published a short story at Front Porch Review called "Human After All." It opens like this:

After the fire ruined her face and body, Aisling didn’t want to live among people.

You can read the story here.

Week in Seven Words #151 & #152

Week in Seven Words #151

affective
When the book I've worked on makes its way into the world I feel a nervous happiness.

kick
Short clips of improv comedy are like shots of an energy drink.

perpetual
The blink of the cursor measures time.

ploy
She tries to give me 'supercalifragalisticexpialidocious' as a mathematical solution. I am unmoved.

progress
Step 1: Recognizing a problem. Step 3: Doing something about it. Step 2: Inertia.

scattered
At the front of the line there's usually someone whose library card is lost among a hundred compartments in a purse or whose money is floating around in a bottomless coat pocket.

sheeted
The water is beaten down by the wind.

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Week in Seven Words #152

evacuation
He isn't toilet-trained but he's started to seek out privacy when nature calls. He tries to find a quiet spot in the house where he can stand or sit in his diaper, and if you approach him, he warns you off with a plaintive "No, no..." until he's done.

fluidity
I see the sculpture in the wan cloudy light of a winter afternoon, so I don't realize at first that it has color sliding through it - a pale lavender flowing like liquid through its metal veins.

impressionistic
The view from the window is one gray smear, like a Monet painting of London.

palimpsest
I like historical tours of downtown where you learn that criminals were hanged and traitors shot in the peaceful square where people now eat their lunches by the fountain and text each other.

pragmatically
His expectation of instantaneous results have given way to pragmatism; there's so much more work to do, so much farther to go.

prioritizing
I had a feeling she'd stop being angry with me, because she'd want to know how my date went.

shortcut
He's been asked to sort his toys neatly into drawers. But there are so many of them, and he'd rather be playing than organizing his room. So he labels one drawer the 'everything drawer' and piles as much stuff as possible into it. Unfortunately it doesn't pass inspection.

Week in Seven Words #149 and #150

Here's another batch of two weeks of words.

And exciting news: The e-book I co-authored with my brother is now available on Amazon.

A Smoker's Guide to Health and Fitness

On the occasion of the 37th Annual Great American Smokeout, it's fitting that I reveal to you: A Smoker's Guide to Health and Fitness, an e-book I've co-authored with one of my brothers, who's a family medicine doctor.

In his practice he has a number of patients who smoke and many others who used to. The majority of them care about their health, even if they're not always doing what's best for them (including smoking, eating poorly, and not getting enough physical activity), so it occurred to him to write up the kinds of information he shares with them in an e-book that would address their total health and fitness, mental and physical, no matter what stage they're at (e.g. smoking and trying to quit, smoking and not attempting to quit, stopped smoking years ago but have concerns about elevated cancer risk). Earlier this year he asked me to help him with this.

The book is not yet available but we've set up a site for it which we hope will become a community for people interested in improving their health and promoting good health among others - without shaming smokers or focusing only on their cigarette use (as opposed to addressing all of their health needs):

SmokersFitness.com is the site.

Two additional reasons to go there:

1) We're now hosting a giveaway of the book that includes a gift card to a major online retailer you book-lovers out there might appreciate (so don't hesitate to sign up, and also to spread the word to smokers and ex-smokers in your life who would benefit from the book).

2) In the "Contact the Authors" section you'll get to see a photo of me. Camera shy as I am, I've never put a photo up on this blog, but there I'm unveiled in all my co-authorial glory...

Seriously, I'm happy to have helped my brother with this. He's a wonderful doctor, cares about his patients and goes beyond the textbook in thinking about their issues and helping them out; he doesn't see them as a walking checklist of symptoms, but as individuals, and in addition to treating their existing problems he places a great deal of emphasis on prevention and good health habits.

It's also been interesting co-authoring a book, fitting in what I'm writing to what the other person is writing and not being the only one who's got a say as to what goes in the book or is left out as the writing progresses; I've co-authored smaller academic pieces before but not something like this (the other large writing projects I have underway at the moment are just my own).

Introducing Bright Across the Lifespan

Another blog?

Yes, I have another blog. It's called Bright Across the Lifespan and is focused on the psychology and neuroscience of having a well-developed healthy mind at any age.

I started it recently, and figured that if I get past 10 posts, it means I'm committed to it.

If you'd like, you can visit and sign-up to get updates by email (or join me on Twitter - this is my first Twitter account, and it's been interesting so far. I've discovered great people and articles through it.)

The Sill of the World will of course continue as it is (a Week in Seven Words post is scheduled for later today).

Guest Post at Simple Clockwork

As part of Short Stories on Wednesday, which started at Breadcrumb Reads and is now at Simple Clockwork, I wrote a flash fiction piece, "Emptied."

If you follow the link to the post be sure to check out Simple Clockwork, which is an excellent blog with reviews of books and short stories, guest posts by authors, and pieces of original fiction written by Nancy Cudis. Thanks, Nancy, for posting my little story.

Coughing Through Shostakovich

One of my short stories, "Coughing Through Shostakovich," has been published in Subtle Fiction and can be found here.

Several pieces of music crop up in the piece, including this one by Tchaikovsky (here it's performed by Eugene Ugorski on violin and Konstantin Lifschitz on piano; in the short story it's the main character playing it solo on violin):

Cast-offs

"Cast-offs" is a short story I wrote that's been published in the December issue of Halfway Down the Stairs. Their theme for December is Farewell.

If you're interested in reading the story, here's the link. I'll also add it to the list of my writing at the top of the page.

I've guest-blogged today

I've written a post on my "passion for the possibility of words" over at the blog, Come Sit By My Fire. The post also includes a few of my photos.

Relyn, who runs that wonderful blog, has been hosting guest-bloggers this month and inviting them to write about their passions in life (I thank her for inviting me too). It's a great blog to visit generally - she posts good poetry that she finds, shares her beautiful photographs, discusses family, teaching, art (a range of topics), and writes about living life creatively, passionately, with all your heart and soul.

Seven Incarnations of a Spinster

It looks like I'll be late again posting last week's Week in Seven Words (hopefully it'll go up tomorrow); what with lots of work and the Passover holiday starting, I've been busy.

I do have something else to share - a piece of flash fiction I wrote, Seven Incarnations of a Spinster, is published in the online journal Word Riot (I also sent along a very short bio with a link back to this blog, but I'm not sure if they received it). It's a piece I wrote last year for the writer's group I participate in.

The opening line:
I’m an evil overlord, though my campaign of villainy is coming to a close.

I hope you enjoy.

An interview with...

Robert Frost's Banjo features a wonderful weekly series of interviews with writers, "Writers Talk". I'm honored to say that this week I'm the interviewee.

As part of the interview I also submitted a poem to the related Writers Talk blog called Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Pinky Toe (and I talk briefly about the origins of this funny little piece in the interview...)

Also take the opportunity to enjoy Robert Frost's Banjo; it's a blog to explore and savor - there's poetry and short fiction, music recordings (with background for each piece), photography and history and cultural commentary. The blog is run by John Hayes, a poet and musician who features his work there along with other writers' and musicians' work; he's also written books of poetry, the latest one being The Spring Ghazals, an excellent book that has gotten enthusiastic, positive and in-depth reviews.