The Wild, Wild West

12/03/202012/14/2020 / Liz H / 1 Comment

In TUFF Love, Carrot Ranch’s Charli Mills asked participants to revise an original western romance through a 99-59-9-99 word process with each step requiring a different craft twist. This event is an exercise of inspiration thru changing POV and final edit.

Original 99-word Draft: The Wild, Wild West

Anton shrugged out of his jacket, kicking off his boots,and with them, the urban muck of cow shit and cheap whiskey. Padding into the foothills in bare feet, he wrinkled his nose, drawing his lips back from canines that glinted moonlight. Continue reading →

Slim’s Search for Inspiration

05/19/2020 / Liz H / 5 Comments

There’s fun to be had at the Ranch as we read and write our way through quarantine. Come and join us (Hyperlink below)!

Sunlight flashed a line ‘cross the floor

Rusty squeak of batwing doors

A buckaroo walks into a bar… Continue reading →

Serenity and Dead William’s Island

11/06/201911/06/2019 / Liz H / Leave a comment

(Not sure where this came from, but consider it a delayed Halloween treat.)

The good ship “Serenity’” welcomed all who dared tread her boards and strut the stage after sunset. But there was a price for admission, one that a surprising number of folk from all walks and situations were willing to pay. Continue reading →

Free Association Writers: Saturday Morning Edition

06/01/201901/28/2021 / Liz H / 4 Comments

She hunches over the library table, and rubs planed fingers over an already-slick forehead. Canadian forests are burning in the northwest, and the haze is thick, humidity high from last night’s rains. Her other fingers wander back and forth across a college-ruled composition book, cheap pen jagging with arrhythmia. In search of inspiration, but there is none to be found. Continue reading →

Blank, Blank, Energy Breakthrough

02/17/201804/21/2018 / Liz H / 2 Comments

The room sits at low-tide. Eddies twirl sluggish through muddy gray waters. Slow eyelids blink, sleepy frogs gathered ‘round in a circle. We hope that gathering and moving pen across paper will stir enough energy in this morning’s free-association writing group to stir those eddies into rivulets of free-flowing inspiration. Continue reading →