Friday Girls

Swishing skirts, high heels and Cadillac-bound,

It's the Friday girls, the Friday girls, the Friday girls.

When I was trying to come up a name for my short story collection I just fell in love with "Friday Girls." The very idea conjured up images of kick-ass women, confident in their abilities but all too human, kicking up their high heels and heading brashly into the weekend. But the name was also practical. Most of the stories were, after all, written about "girls" of all ages, and most were written for #FridayFlash, the Internet meme that transformed me from a journalist who wrote just-the-facts-ma'am into a bonafide fiction writer.

If you've never heard of #FridayFlash, let me quickly explain. It's the brainchild of Jon M. Strother who came up with the idea of writers, from all over the world, concocting a story of 1,000 words or less and posting it on their blogs every Friday. These stories were tweeted and Facebooked with the hashtag #FridayFlash, which enabled other writers (and readers) to find the stories, comment on them, share them and give positive feedback – thus boosting the confidence and visibility of the writers.

I have bloggy friend CJ Hodges MacFarlane to thank for turning me onto #FridayFlash, something I immediately fell head over heels with. There was such a rush in seeing what other people said about my stories. And there was such immense satisfaction in sitting down in front of a computer screen, with little more than an idea, and coming up with a real live story. Usually I had no idea what I was going to write until I started writing and it always amazed the heck out of me when a story turned out right.

Plus, I met the most amazing people. People who were just like me – struggling writers with the self-confidence of fleas. We shared the same dreams, the same goals and the same fervour to get those stories written, week after week.

I wrote a story the week before my wedding. I wrote one on my honeymoon. I wrote when I was crazy busy, and I wrote when I was ill. Bloggy friend Alan W. Davidson said I was "addicted" to #FridayFlash and he was absolutely right.

As my confidence increased I turned my attention to my novel, Green Eggs & Weezie, and, for the most part, left #FridayFlash behind. But I never stopped thinking about my "Friday girls" and I tried not to lose touch with the writing community that changed my life.

I'd like to thank Paula Boon for editing my stories, and Lou Freshwater and Jon Strother for providing introductions, as well as Steven Novak for the beautiful cover. Mostly I want to thank the writers of #FridayFlash who liked, or at least pretended to like (!) the stories that took a little bit out of my heart.

I think you'll like these stories. I'm hoping they make you smile, or make you cry, or at least make you think. These are my girls, the daughters I never had, my friends, my relatives, and they're as special to me as the women in my real life.

Starting tomorrow, for five days, Friday Girls will be free to download on Amazon. I'm working on getting the paperback version together (as well as writing a new novel during Nanowrimo, gawd help me) and should have that together in the coming days. (That one won't be free, however!)

Would anyone care to post a blurb about Friday Girls on their blogs? Doesn't have to be a big deal. Just a blurb that it's out there and it's free for five days. And if you read the book, and you like it, I'd sincerely appreciate a review on Goodreads and Amazon. It's a jungle out there in book publishing land and you really need the help of your friends to get a book launched. I hope I'm not too big a pain in your butts but please know you are soooooo appreciated.

E-mail me if you need cover art or a blurb or a link or money. Oops, sorry, don't have money. I'm a writer, remember?

Lou Freshwater and the tragedy of Camp Lejeune

Twelve-year-old Lou Freshwater in the front yard of her military base home in Camp Lejeune.

I've never met Lou Freshwater but she's a good friend of mine, a smart-as-a-whip writer with a gentle heart made of glass and gold.

As a child, she lived for three years or so in Camp Lejeune, a U.S. Marine training base now known as being one of the worst water contamination stories in American history, right up there, or should I say down there, with Love Canal and Hinkley, California (the water contamination story made famous in the movie Erin Brockovich).

Her mother has been diagnosed with, not one, but two types of acute leukemia. Genetic testing revealed the cause of her illness was exposure to the chemical benzene. In a heart-wrenching story from U.S. news magazine show Nightline, "the improbably named" Mary Freshwater talks about Camp Lejeune, her cancer and the loss of two babies from birth defects attributed to water contamination.

She's not the only victim, of course. Thousands, no, countless people drank the poisoned water at this military base. Untold numbers of people have gotten sick and/or died from the effects.

Through Lou's blog posts and her talent as a writer, my friend is making sense of what might otherwise be just another blip on the evening news. She gives a face to the tragedy; makes it real.

I'm telling you about it because Lou's story, and the story of Camp Lejeune, needs to be shared. She is writing a series of posts about the camp but this one is a good place to start: Poisoned by Your Own Government. Make sure you watch the You Tube video – it has been blocked on Lou's website, but if you follow the link to You Tube you can see photos of Lou as a child, as well as her mom with a tell-tale kerchief on her head.

When I first read Lou's post a few days ago, I didn't have time to watch the video. So I watched it this morning and it had such an impact on me that I'm writing this to you now. I hope you find time to visit Lou's blog and maybe share the story on your own blog. It's the only way people will get the medical treatment they deserve and it's the only way the the military will own up to what it did and defend the veterans who defended their country.