Barbara V Evers

  I thought all men’s legs looked like that—harsh crevices outlining the muscles, puckering around the edges. Long gashes ran down his thighs, the shape of a huge eye to my youthful imagination. I stared at them, not because they were unusual, but because they were at eye level. Dad stood at the bathroom sink every morning, the scrape, scrape of his razor rasping away his overnight beard growth. Water trickled in the sink, swishing when he rinsed. I sat on the floor or on the cool edge of the tub and watched the foamy white cream disappear behind each stroke. His legs were not my focus, but children see what’s at eye level, soaking it in. I saw Dad’s legs. Confirming my belief that Dad’s legs were normal was the balance between each limb. The symmetry of the scars gave them permanence. I accepted those legs as sculpted and muscular. Not the ravaged remains of skin grafts after a bomb in France blew up beside a young soldier. War warranted a brief mention in my childhood years, the reas

With the onset of November, I've begun to see some of my fellow writers posting about NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). This is an annual event where writers commit to getting 50,000 words of a story written. A novel is much longer than that, but it gives them a start. This got me thinking about other things writers do. What else do writers do? I decided to try my hand at creating an infographic about this. It took way too long, and I'm not thrilled with the platform I used to create it, but I did create it, so I'm going to share it. If you like it, feel free to share it too. What would you add?

Woo wee! What a few weeks! Last time I posted, we were headed to my daughter's wedding in California. What an AMAZING celebration that was! With my daughter and her new husband's love for all things fantasy and science fiction, this wedding was a speculative fiction lover's dream. In fact, we may have been attending the Fairy Queen of Spring's wedding with all the enchanting touches. Heidi had four adorable flower fairies armed with unicorn bubble blowers.  Her brides fae wore ear cuffs—butterflies and dragonflies—while the matrons of honor wore elf ear cuffs. Oh, and she had one male brides fae whose ear cuff I covet—a dragon!  I didn't get any photos of the grooms men's cuff links but each one was based on their particular fandoms:  Indiana Jones, Game of Thrones, Spider Man, Mandalorian, etc. It never ceases to amaze me when I see the artistic talents of my children. Heidi spent months creating the full enchanted forest experience including fairy lanterns usi