On the Sixth Writing Class:

Things are coming to a head. Time is up and decisions must be made. The writing piece we are going to try to have published must be presented for a final polish next week before it is sent off with our best wishes for it’s success.

I have made many new discoveries about myself and my writing skills in the past weeks. Some hurt but others brought on some warm fuzzy feelings. I want this to go on for a longer time, a few more rewrites and edits please before my newly birth baby is ready for publication. But class must end and we must move on.

The most surprising thing to me is my abilities for writing in the horror/ghost/ suspense area. I had never attempted it before this class. I guess I felt that since I was not Edgar Allen Poe I shouldn’t try to be. I have loved his stories from the time I was eight or nine and first encountered ‘The Pit and the Pendulum.’

Yesterday I went to Barnes & Noble and I treated myself to a new copy of his works. The black leather bound edition with it’s gold tipped pages and it’s embedded ribbon bookmark. The cover looks back at me with its blood red frippery around the title ‘The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe’ in silver embossed lettering.

Mine all mine. I tore off the plastic covering and lovingly opened the pages all before we left the parking lot. The familiar words waiting to tease my senses once again.

My old paperback copy of some of his works has long since lost it’s luster and some of it’s pages have slipped away. It will be disposed of on his death day anniversary of October 7 in a blaze of fiery warmth in my woodstove. A fitting end I think.

Meanwhile, I will be trying to have one of my short stories published in a magazine in the horror genre category. And then I will be in waiting mode, wishing my story baby luck in the wide world of publishing, while I sit in perfect impatience for an answer to come while reading Poe by the fireside and cursing the clock wondering if it will be among the chosen.