No Way to Have a Wedding

No Way to Have a Wedding

  The pastor seemed to grasp onto that word, accident. “Yes”, he said. “That’s it.”      Tears filled Della’s eyes and coursed down her cheeks. “Is he all right?” she whispered.      Squirt hurried to Della and knelt in front of her. “You’ve gotta be brave, Della.”      “Well, where is he?” she demanded, jumping […]

The Altared Wedding

The Altared Wedding

  “Della Louise, if you don’t hold still, I swear I’m going to stick you,” I said, trying to pin the pink rose corsage on Della’s silver-colored silk suit.      Della giggled. “I probably couldn’t feel it if you did. For goodness sake, I’m not a starry-eyed bride, but I’m so jittery, just as giddy […]

Ned’s Close Encounter of the Decker Kind

Ned’s Close Encounter of the Decker Kind

Among all my Thanksgiving blessings, I am thankful for you, the friends of Darcy, Flora, and Ned. This morning, I’m posting a chapter from By the Fright of the Silvery Moon, when Ned was thankful to just be alive. Chapter 5 The next day passed peacefully. I kept an eye out for questionable people, invited […]

The Cozy Mystery That Almost Wasn’t

The Cozy Mystery That Almost Wasn’t

  As I completed the third Ned McNeil moonlight cozy mystery, Moonstruck and Murderous, I looked back at the last one, By The Fright of the Silvery Moon. I remembered the terrifically hard time I had writing just the right opening scene. On this one, Moonstruck, I think I wrote no less than six beginnings […]

Waiting for the First Snowfall

Waiting for the First Snowfall

  Anticipation, eagerness, impatience–will it or won’t it? I gaze out at the dark morning, waiting for the first snowfall of the season. The morning is dark and damp. Although I can’t see rain falling, it must be raining some, a fine mist, perhaps, because driveway, street, and deck are wet. The temperature is dropping […]

A Day of Remembrance

A Day of Remembrance

  It was exactly one hundred years ago. My mother recalled the day well. On the eleventh day of the eleventh month at eleven o’clock, in 1918, Germany signed an armistice agreement with the Allies and the Great War ended. Millions of people had died but now, the world could begin to recover and, perhaps […]