Good Morning! Whew! I’m glad that weekend is over. High school graduation is all well and dandy, but let’s face it….in the grander scope of things, high school is inconsequential. For those of us writers, it was probably pretty miserable. Add Scifi geek, avid reader and an interest in everything and you can guess how my high school days were spent. Not to diminish the accomplishment, my son graduated.  Yippee! I think, given the teenage disposition, he should be happier about actually surviving to graduate. Me, surviving me. People never fail to ask, “How did you become a writer?” Writers are forged. Oh, we can all improve our craft and each of us has a pile of swill that we started in our youth.

After spending an agonizing weekend in close contact with my folks, I’ll say that writers are born of a fire called CRAZY. I don’t know great storyteller who came from ‘normal’, whatever that looks like. So while I grind my teeth, smile with feigned cheer and drink a lot, I have to enjoy the treasure trove of nut ball that are my folks. My mother may have to drop before I can publish my memoirs, but I have loads of character traits to juicy up the characters in my other novels. It is what it is…..I’ve come to terms with it.

I won’t ever have that warm and fuzzy, “Oh I LOVE my mother” moment, but I have lots and lots of “Holy Cow! I can’t believe she just did that!” moments that go great on paper. Don’t get me wrong, somewhere I love my mother, but understand that’s a deep, still well. Keep a look out for that wacky, ‘Oh no they didn’t’ character and you’ll have a taste of what I call family.