How Are You COPING?
Coping:
The Many Faces of Love and Care
I saw the need for this book. People around me are caregivers. Their lives are rarely easy, but they COPE. Personality plays a role, and reality reigns.
Read twelve different short stories about caregivers and a quick novella about a long-distance caregiver. Think about the man who runs away on his motorized vehicle. See how the neglected daughter cared for her mother with care and compassion.
The book cover shows that there is a rainbow, and you are not alone. How did they do it? Learn from their experiences. Look for the rainbows.
This book is not a medical book, but twelve true stories about men and women who cared about their relatives and friends with love and understanding.
Click the button below to see a sample of what’s in the book.
New 4 You!
Fun with Flash Fiction
Our Writers Group attracts a wide variety of people and personalities. In each meeting we bring information about “what and where” we bring to the table. For example, one lady told us her short story of a trip through the countryside. Another loved her teaching job in elementary education by having us write the word Apple on a blank page. Then we wrote as many words as possible referring to the word apple: red, round, tart, dried … .It was fun and made us aware of the eons of opportunities.
When it was my turn, I was thinking about Flash Fiction: writing 100, 1000, or 1500 words to entice readers for delete space, an example from research. With more research I found Hemingway’s famous: “For Sale, Baby Shoes, Never Used,” although there is some doubt that it’s actually his quote.
The more I researched, the more confusion and fun appeared. If we are to publish, we need to pay attention to using ‘arcs’ for our eager readers. I told my group there is often confusion because we may talk about the format using an arc, structured using ABC, or as Beginning/Conflict/Summary.
The arc is a guide for our texts. We know our writing must have a beginning, a middle and end. What does that mean?
A-What is the story about?
B-conflict/contention/consternation-help the reader understand the text, something to contemplate, to fix
C-summary
It can be confusing what to call it. For me, I choose to think of it as an excellent try for your short stories.
If you look at many books, you will find that pattern. Write your story with the arc and keep concentrating on making it shorter. Mine had 700 words in the first draft I wrote. I’ll continue to delete text which is extraneous. The version here has just 593.
Here’s the challenge. Write a shorter story using the arc model for Flash Fiction. A sample is my own short story this month, Decisions: I Don’t Wanna Stay Here! I had a good time with it. I hope you have a good time reading it.
See my Flash Fiction sample.