On Writing

Someone asked me if I still get time to write fiction. Sentences twist in my mind and float, plots form and fade, and my mind struggles with the puzzles of how to start, continue and end, but the pages still remain empty. Here is the start of a story. Today I am fatigued and I will let this story go, like I have had to let go many other things.  I hope someone, someday pursues the following opening.

• When people smile, you can tell when they learned to smile, was it as a child, fresh and without feedback,  or as a preening teen, practiced in the front of the mirror and as a invitation to be a friend, or as a grown adult, when one has identified and accepted their quirks and strengths, the smile is whichever element won out, and will persist until one is laid down under the ground. She of course had the smile she learned as a child, simple when it appeared, expressing her joy and nothing else. I cared for her and vowed I wont let her smile change, and of course I failed.