The Blue Ridge Mountains

     Readers frequently ask where my ideas come from and how I come up with the descriptions. Don’t get nervous. I watch strangers and wonder about their lives.

     Here’s an example.  A nurse in my doctor’s office was always nasty. I thought she might be overworked or I had done something wrong. However her coworkers were pleasant. At times overly so. I concluded it was her style. Some people are difficult. That’s a fact!

My short story Acerbic (published in Florida Writer Association Let’s Talk.) captured that experience.

     The story references a character’s pink eyebrows.

      On a previous day, I had inadvertently applied a lip-liner to my brows and never discovered the faux-pa until I returned home. The detail fit the story.

     Recently, I was in another doctor’s waiting room and thumbed through a current issue of Southern Living to discovered an article on must see places. Floyd in the Blue Ridge Mountains got a top billing.

My husband and I had stayed in Floyd and I used that visit describing a group of men having breakfast at the Early Birds Café in my novel Morningside Drive.

Their conversation was unforgettable and still makes me laugh. I hope you’ll enjoy it, because you can’t make this stuff up.  

Chapter 2

Groundhog Day 2014

(page nine)

     Jake, a robust man with a white beard and railroad cap made manly noises. I imagined him scratching his head and passing gas. It was not pretty. Luther wore suspenders. His thin curly hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Several other men’s stomachs lay beneath the tabletop, threatening to tear their pants. They discuss Obama Care and then moved on to love.

     Luther cleared his throat and said, “What negative feelings do you bring to the relationship?”

     A bell chimed when a patron opened the restaurant door preventing me from hearing his response.

       “Are you talking about me throwing the remote at the television or Jane catching it?” Jake chuckled.

      “You could’ve cracked the flat screen,” Lorie commented, refilling glasses with a water pitcher.     “Jane catching it,” Luther scratched his stomach, “that would have pissed me off.”

. . .just saying,

I’ve done a lot of wondering about Luther, Jake, and Jane.