Ask Elnora--About that Blarney Stone??? Lenora Worth

Happy St. Patrick's Day Eve, my little leprechauns! I hope you enjoyed our Irish tale yesterday. Don't you love a good tale? Writers are supposed to be good storytellers and these off-the-cuff stories are so much fun, we can't resist diving right in to see what will happen next. That got me to thinking about why a writer becomes a writer. Does it begin with a love of reading, or does it begin with a love of spinning tales? Which came first, the book or the need to write a book? I remember clearly when I knew I wanted to be a writer. It was in the fourth grade back in Georgia. My teacher was stern and prim Mrs. Braswell. She scared me to death but I learned a lot from her. When she assigned a writing project, I gleefully worked on mine while the other students whined and moaned. I wrote about a little deer lost in the woods and then I added some poetry and a few pithy quotes. One of those Elnora quotes read "And all that jazz." Mrs. Braswell called me up to her desk and said, "You might make a good writer if you apply yourself." (This would be the quote I got from teachers every year after that.... "You might be ..... if you'd just apply yourself.") Could Elnora help it that I was more interested in shoes and boys than math and science and .... research papers??? But back to Mrs. Braswell. She then asked me where I'd heard "And all that jazz." I stared down at my hot pink loafers and scratched my teased hair. "I don't remember." I truly did not. Then she looked at me through her cat-eye glasses and said, "It's a bit too risque for a fourth grader. Please erase it." And so I did even though I had no idea what risque meant. But ... I love all that jazz. I still do. I love jazz music and the Delta blues, too. Never one to be sad for long, I wrote romantic short stories and promptly sold them one by one on the playground for a quarter per story. I always had extra milk money. And when Mrs. Braswell heard of my shenanigans, she just shook her head and kept walking. So I guess I have a bit of the blarney in me. But then, don't you think all writers should? We have the gift of words, the gift of spinning tales out of thin air. It's the gift of waking up and sitting straight up in bed with the best idea ever for a story!!! Until we try to execute that idea. But then, that's part of the fun and magic of writing. We truly have to find that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. (Rainbows are kind of like a story arc, right??? So let's discuss. How and when did you know you wanted to be a writer? Do you have a bit of blarney in you??? In those beautiful lyrics by Eleanor Farjeon, we can find some of the answers we seek: Morning has broken, like the first morning, Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird, Praise for the singing, praise for the morning, Praise for the springing fresh from the word. Amen!

Reader and Author St. Patricks Day Round Robin Short Story

Hello from Lisa Mondello! It's been a while and I'm so happy to be here today to kick off what I hope will be a lot of fun for the Craftie Ladies AND for our Readers! Yes, that's you!! And to give one lucky commenter the chance to win a $15 gift certificate!

We get so much response from our readers about how much they love our short stories here on the Craftie Ladies blog. Last Christmas we had our first round robin story that included READER participation and we had a BLAST! We thought it was so much fun that we'd do it again for St. Patrick's Day so we could share some more fun.

Now, for this to go smoothly, we need a few ground rules to let you know exactly how this ROUND ROBIN STORY will work.

We are doing a 1 DAY short story where the Craftie Ladies AND our readers can each write a 140 character addition to a short St. Patrick's Day story that I will start at the end of this blogpost.

I will start the story at the bottom of the post to get you all started. It's up to the Craftie Ladies AND our readers to fill in the rest of the blanks. This story will start at Midnight and keep on going until we get our HEA (Happily Ever After) at Midnight on the 15th...or beyond since we're all in different time zones. We'll be having fun so it won't matter when it ends!

As a special thank you to our READERS who participate in the short story round robin, the Craftie Ladies will be giving away a $15 Amazon gift certificate. So don't be shy! We want you to jump in feet first and participate. We know there are a lot of fans who lurk on this blog, who read posts but don't comment. Well, today we want to hear from you!

Okay, back to rules. I will start the story at the bottom of the post. YOU will read my post and you can take the story from there by adding to it in THE COMMENTS AREA. Take the story in whichever direction you want to take it. Again, this will go on ALL DAY TODAY (And into the wee hours if you're posting from around the world) and by the end we'll have an entire story.

So...the rules!

1. Read the posts at the bottom of this blog AND in the comments area.
2. Add a few sentences about what happens next. (Just a few sentences will do.)
3. Keep coming back to see what everyone else adds so you get the whole story and keep adding to it!
4. Please, no comments about how much fun you're having or WOW what's going to happen next. Just add to the story so we call can all read the story straight down until the end.
5. At the end of it all, we can comment about how much fun we had.

It's meant to be fun. It's meant to make us all laugh in between all the hustle and bustle of daily life and book deadlines. Please join in. All are welcome to join in so make sure you post on Twitter and Facebook so your friends will come and join us!

Without further ado...

Deep in the heart of Boston, Eric O'Malley flicked the lights on to the pub that shared his name. The place was ready for the St. Patty's Day scavenger hunt. But there was only one Pot of Gold Eric was interested in finding by the end of the evening.