The Blogosphere

I'm new to the world of blogs, so the other day I checked out writer blogs.

Writers are usually interesting people, so maybe it's the time of year, but no one is up to much these days. Lydia Joyce is cleaning her cupboards; Karen Templeton is listing the items on her nightstand. Alesia Holliday opines that she should really try to leave the house sooner or later. Authors I don't recognize are taking their cats to the vet and potty-training their kids. Nothing against anyone - and no, I don't have to read them - but these blogs are, er, a little bit boring. It's kind of like blogging gone mad - too much trivia. Life has too much trivia already.

I ended up at Paula Reed's blog. How interesting, I thought, an English teacher. A passionate one, too, with lots to say. Her blog about funerals led to a musing about her own grandmother's; and in the middle of it she drops this little bomb:

For one thing, [in her coffin] they put her hairpiece on - well, I don't know - maybe the person who did it was drunk, maybe it was to cover the bullet hole.

Um.

The next paragraph explains that her grandmother did, in fact, commit suicide by shooting herself in the head; her way of taking control after a series of strokes showed her the end was coming.

Two paragraphs later, she writes some of the most gripping prose I've read anywhere recently, online or off:

I was almost desperate to see Rachel. I knew before I went home on April 20th that she had been killed outside. It snowed that night, and I couldn't get it out of my head that they might have left her on the ground while they investigated the massive crime scene. I fretted all night that no one would put a blanket on her. I thought, Dan and Isaiah are in the library. It's sheltered and carpeted, but Rachel...

It's no secret anywhere on her website, or in her blog: She is an English teacher at Columbine High School, still combating the effects of PTSD. Now she also writes romance, good escapist stuff about pirates and tropical islands and stowaways. Eat that, Mr. "Transient" Stein.

Guys, we're writers - let's write something, okay?

Abby