My thoughts are sharp and barbed about work, drivers, people in check-out lines, strangers in a gas station, and my cats.

Upstairs like distant applause of many tiny hands rain slaps against a blue tarp ruffled by wind and water, but clinging tight where nails bind it to rotten plywood.

Off came the roof the other day and there, eaten by weather mold insects water and mildew was splintering plywood that sagged. Eek.

I get home and look upstairs at Jerry where he works to rebuild a room he peeled open like a can and tossed on the ground. Under the cover of a temporary cris-crossing of two-by-fours he is dry and happy. Rain taps overhead.

You taking the dogs out, he asks.

Yup.

In the rain.

Yup. Lily was jumping yelping nipping spinning since I walked in.

I don't want to ponder coincidences today.

Instead I take out a picture I shot in Maine.

Sunshine sends its pastel shades to push away night's bruised hues. Dew sparkles. The forest soaks in honey.

Lemon-tinted stains slip across tree limbs and pine bows, drip down trunks and chase shadows puddled near stones in the ground.

Sunlight rises like steam, and campers' dawn fidgeting adds to the white noise of living things.

My thoughts are sharp and barbed about work, drivers, people in check-out lines, strangers in a gas station, and my cats.

Upstairs like distant applause of many tiny hands rain slaps against a blue tarp ruffled by wind and water, but clinging tight where nails bind it to rotten plywood.

Off came the roof the other day and there, eaten by weather mold insects water and mildew was splintering plywood that sagged. Eek.

I get home and look upstairs at Jerry where he works to rebuild a room he peeled open like a can and tossed on the ground. Under the cover of a temporary cris-crossing of two-by-fours he is dry and happy. Rain taps overhead.

You taking the dogs out, he asks.

Yup.

In the rain.

Yup. Lily was jumping yelping nipping spinning since I walked in.

I don't want to ponder coincidences today.

Instead I take out a picture I shot in Maine.

Sunshine sends its pastel shades to push away night's bruised hues. Dew sparkles. The forest soaks in honey.

Lemon-tinted stains slip across tree limbs and pine bows, drip down trunks and chase shadows puddled near stones in the ground.

Sunlight rises like steam, and campers' dawn fidgeting adds to the white noise of living things.

Looking through the glass I watch him bend. Sunlight paints his shoulders as he stabs a beach umbrella into the dense, wet sand. The umbrella's scalloped edge flaps and brushes the horizon, its cloth fringes tickling far away tree tops. I crouch lower and sky slips between slightly folded canvas, his carved upper arms trap clouds and swatches of baby blue with him under the shade that he props on the beach. A straight-edged profile. Slender nose. Lower lip pinched to a perfect angle. Tossing my gaze through the lens I follow the contours.

Just a man with hands wrapped around an umbrella post, he leans down. I dip below him, shooting his profile against the sky. A flash.

Photography is about shapes. It is light. Distances. Patience. It is either frustration or surprise, but rarely just right.

Jerry tells me, I am sure these photographers take hundreds of shots, and you're just seeing their best.

I am crumbs on the couch, flipping through a photo mag like it's a blender.

What can I say? Hmmmmm.

Back on the beach. Dropping the umbrella he sits beside his girlfriend. Toes in the water she splashes him and I stop the droplets. My shutter opens long enough to trap shards of light slipping through beads of water.

Then a beach blanket. She turns to press a hand on his shoulder and leans toward him.

On their feet she laughs, hair flying. In his arms he dips her shoulders toward the water and her feet reach the sky.

Later I tell Jerry, they were great. They were playful and happy and perfect.

With a smirk: like you and me, he asks.

He is tough and dirty now with sawdust and grime coating him, making creases in his skin. A few days later, standing in the same place in the kitchen, he shuffles toward me. Droopy eyes and skin soaked with the warmth of sleep, I hug him and press my cheek into the smooth curve beneath his chin.

Photography is a bad dream.

Early pictures of Lily still scare me. Within her shiny eyes I see a vibrance trapped inside diminishing flesh sucked tight to her bones. Where else would that spark of life go? Fur without luster. No longer loping, she pulls heavy feet along behind her or just stops to hang her head. How long did she have left in that photo?

I took few pictures of Lily when she first came to me. No reason to remember days when death was close enough to touch every time I ran a light hand down Lily's knobby spine.

I am singing this song that goes LilyHersheyBanditOzzyLilyHersheyBanditOzzyLilyHersheyBanditOzzy.

Most days that's a great tune, but right now I want them all to just shut the hell up…

Standing alone in the bar with a glass of Merlot, just me and my hopes and the dark. I heard James McMurtry's words shoot from the speakers like well aimed darts. I sipped my wine, swallowed a hint of envy, and began writing down his abrupt, poetic, and sad bursts of words. Little drops of ink sinking in.

Little things. Old photographs, beer, bitterness, standing at a window alone, the flavor of regret like bile clinging to our teeth, are the heavy heavy things that sink us.

We are all a danger to ourselves. The mistakes we make are wasted as we cover our ears and look for something nice, shiny, and distracting. We grasp the bright flash and disregard the lessons.

I glanced past the stacked and clean drinking glasses, over rumpled bar rags, to peer nearly 18 years into the distance where I find an old boyfriend's handwriting in my hands. I remember holding a James McMurtry tape with a red and white strip along the top where faded ink letters ran together.

To my writing rants a friend has replied with tips he found on his own….

Writers sit at their desks for hours, wrestling with ideas.

Maybe. I tend to wrestle the blank spots, however.

They ask questions, talk with other smart people over drinks or dinner, go on long walks. And then write a whole bunch more.

Actually, I have no comment at all for the previous statement. It just makes these damn brainy writers look like swingers or wife-swappers…

Men and women sit at a desk and force themselves to translate profound ideas into words and then to let those words lead them … writing can be magic.

I see a sentence drifting overhead, then struggling against a mental gravity hauling it into the writers head where it becomes bloody chum. Working its way through, the pulp reshapes and oozes out onto a silky page. Some writers' thoughts churn out beautiful patterns and sprays of imagery and thought that strike readers' minds permanently; they are accurate, sharp hatchets.

I often feel that my own pile of spilling words is small. I poke at it with fingertips rubbed raw from the poking poking poking. Can the words lead? Yes. Can the words be magic. Yes. The blackest magic ever. Writing is to put a spell on yourself and to look way into the corners of your brain for wounds to pick, tender spots to press with your thumb, and once-bright memories that often need CPR. Oh yeah, you're gonna bleed.

Words tug me along heroically, urging me toward the end of a sentence. Some of these words will divide the duty as a few get behind me to push. I arrive at the end of these strings of words as if I just woke up. Looking behind me I find a carnage of broken letters and marks left by my heels dragging along.

And here is one that I really like:

When you are actually writing, and working as hard as you should be if you want to succeed, you will feel inadequate, stupid, and tired.

Well, let me lay down my lance! I am there!

Inadequate, stupid, and tired come up whether I am writing or not. Today the three left me standing there in public with thousands of dollars of camera equipment in my hands saying, I just don't know what I want! Honestly, I don't know that much about lenses…

The Camera Shop Guy went through my gear saying, well, here is a wide angle, here is a standard 50 mm. Grabbing my 35 mm to 70 mm he says, this one is junk. With another lens in hand he says, this is a decent lens … you have range. What you're missing is a telephoto. So, what are you looking for?

I told him, I don't know. I will know as soon as I look through it.

He hands me a really good looking 85 mm. I slap it on the camera and look. I look i look i look. Nothing. I don't want this lens, but can't spit out a reason.

Do you like it, he asks.

I say, well. No.

Why?

Can't really articulate that…

I get the blank look and again the question, what do you want? What will you be doing?

I tell him, I am doing some stock images. It's not in a studio, but at different locations. I am looking at one, two, three people at once in different settings. I want to pull them to me in sharp focus in the foreground, with a blur behind them.

Pointing to the 85mm, he says, that's the lens.

To myself I think, it's not the lens. I just looked.

I look through another lens or two, then look at my sad little lens family spread out on the counter.

As I twist a 24 mm and focus on a stack of papers, I see him unscrew a filter on my 50 mm and say, What is this filter? He says this like it smelled bad or just swore at him. I wish that it had.

I decide to take my junky lens, stinky filter, and indecision home. I sit sadly in Jerry's truck, unable to look out the window at ugly Stamford and its camera snobs. If I had known what I wanted, I could have used the damn Internet and ordered it for myself. I guess I went there hoping they could help me find a lens. I should not think such stupid things.

We step outside where I do a little swearing on the sidewalk. I did not want to spend $1,300 without being certain. That cash could buy me tattoos, nice, crisp ink for which I would readily cough up more than a grand. We leave.

I read something from another friend about wine and hangovers. Sounds good to me.

Crushed rocks shattering stone gargling marbles are spewing from some woman's mouth on TV.

What the hell is wrong with her????

She has just been smoking 40 packs a day for years, Jerry said.

Is this show for real, I ask.

It's another one f those reenactments. I can't watch this, he tells me.

Eek.

For Erin again. Keep unraveling your thoughts and stitching them on the page.

Today I read through a few more creative writing tips. I find the following: a really good story can compensate for less-than-brilliant writing, but brilliant writing will not save a bad story.

First of all, a story is built on words. The wrong words will get you nowhere. I suspect I now hear the pages of some good story somewhere falling from the reader's grip. The reader wants spice, something daring bold determined hard strong abrupt surprising and overall, endearing. As in, I don't want my dress to fit well, just like a good story, I want it tight, bright red, with black laces zigzagging up the back.

A well worded sentence is also not an example of good writing. It's white noise. Be outlandish. Be honest.

Nope. Brilliant writing saves everything. Perfect and beautiful and magical writing leaves its characters and plot way down below until they shrink like specks. Good writing is the clothing hung on a character. It is the reason we pause, forgetting about the plot, and tilt our heads back to better hear the words again and again.

I have never arrived at the end of a book, slapped its covers shut, and said, wow, what a great story! I have sat in wonder of a person's dexterity with words. They are not bricks. You don't line them up and build a good story. You fling them wide, chase after them, rearrange their meaning, use them like little blades to cut the precise meaning from the muck. You twirl that same tool around, aim it differently and swing it like a hammer. Words have a job that no good story can carry. Whether by force, or stealth they must creep under your skin or into your ears where they'll remain. Now those are good words.

I think Lily is a good story, but if some obedient student had believed that a good story could compensate for brilliant writing, the student may conclude that more effort should go toward plot than prose. The writer may go on about Lily's day, but forget about Lily. Wrong wrong wrong! You need to let your head run and the words billow out, then fix the mess with an eraser. What will this student have when the good storylines run dry?

Take out the baking soda, sugar, eggs, and flour, and whip up a strong recipe for internal narrative, then you can write well about any topic anytime. Good words make a good writer, not good stories. Good stories may be amusing, but good writing is memorable. What ass gave such limp advice about a good story. I want to reach into the Internet and take a potato peeler to this person.