One Way to Start

One day I decided to start writing a story with the words “the wind blew” and headed for the computer to enter that sentence into the Word Processor. By the time I typed the second “w,” I had the next few words. I completed the first sentence, without knowing what the story would be about. I left the computer with the anticipation of writing just one sentence a day until a plot began to unfold. That was July 1st.

The next day I wrote the second sentence and instantly knew at that time, the woman’s husband had died and I understood why she was hanging his clothes on the line outside ten months after his death. The third day I wrote nearly all day, revising as I went along.

From the moment the main male character appeared at the ranch, I saw him as a familiar figure and this image would not leave me. This story did not happen, but the familiar figure I knew for nearly fifty years could have done all that is in the story. Some details are true.

I finished the story on July 4th, exactly fifty-five years from the day I met my husband-to-be.

♥