Tracks in Snow and in Life

Ann H GabhartAnn's Posts, One Writer's Journal 6 Comments

“The footprints you leave behind will influence others. There is no person who at some time, somewhere, somehow, does not lead another.” ~Unknown One of the things I enjoy about walking in snow is seeing track trails. I live on a farm and that means I can see fields untouched by human feet, vehicles or livestock. Cows are confined to one …

Want to Listen to an Audio Book?

Ann H GabhartAnn's Posts, One Writer's Journal 27 Comments

Did you know that before radios and television people did a lot more porch sitting and storytelling? On top of that, people actually read aloud to one another as an entertainment. I can imagine sisters or friends sitting together to do needlework or some other task while one had the pleasure of reading aloud to them to make the task …

Sharing a Sunday Sunrise

Ann H GabhartAnn's Posts, One Writer's Journal 4 Comments

“Cherish the times you can watch the sunrise, there’s only so many in a lifetime.” ~Unknown I post a little description of my Sunday morning walks with my dogs, Frankie and Marley each week on my Facebook page. They are the dark spots in the picture above. We never take a long morning walk. We go for the longer walk …

Story First Line Fun

Ann H GabhartAnn's Posts, One Writer's Journal 2 Comments

A novel needs a good first line. It needs every line to be good but that first line in your story needs to grab a reader’s interest. Those few words need to be a flashing pointer toward the rest of the story. A good first line can also help a writer dive into the story. Most writers, including me, work …

What Makes You Happy?

Ann H GabhartAnn's Posts, One Writer's Journal 8 Comments

Happiness consists more in conveniences of pleasure that occur everyday than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom. ~~Benjamin Franklin Where do you feel happy? And if you found such a place, how often would you make every effort to go there? This would be a place where you would feel loved and worthy and safe and …

Jumping into a New Story

Ann H GabhartAnn's Posts, One Writer's Journal 10 Comments

A story has no beginning or end; arbitrarily one chooses that moment of experience from which to look back or from which to look ahead. ~The End of the Affair by Graham Greene (1951) There’s truth in that first sentence of Graham Greene’s novel. A writer does have to pick that moment to let her characters come to life and …

1st Sunday Devotional – A New Year Awaits

Ann H GabhartAnn's Posts, One Writer's Journal 6 Comments

“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.”~Edith Lovejoy Pierce It’s the first Sunday of the first month of a New Year. 2022. All those twos. In a couple of hundred years people will be able to …