One year ago, I declared April 11, 2017 as “Write Any Way You Want and Forget about Bridging Paragraphs Day” aka “Babbling is Okay.”
March madness is over, the green jacket has been given away, sunlight before 8AM; Autism Awareness Day, Earth Day, Professional Administrator’s Day, Passover, and of course after-Easter chocolate sales. No fooling, April is quite the month—which naturally brings me to rabbits.
Contrary to what many believe, rabbits do not lay eggs, they deliver them. Honest.
Have you ever seen the movies Hoodwinked or Wallace and Gromit? They’re good mysteries for children. However, both films portray bunnies as being very, very, very bad. The screenwriters totally thought big and out of the box.
One Easter, my dad brought home a huge cardboard box. In one corner hidden beneath brown and green grass lay a gift for us kids—a baby bunny. Turned out that rabbit was magic! No, she didn’t pull herself out of a hat. Somehow she turned into what, seven bunnies, and then twelve, and then… Hey, rabbits taught me practical math. Think about it.
Turns out Easter isn’t a hot item in fiction, but the books that mention the holiday have all done well. For instance the Nebula Award-nominated Black Easter by James Blish, or The Red and The Green by Iris Murdoch. The Easter Parade by Richard Yates is said to be one of his finest works. The Country Bunny was written in 1939 and to my knowledge, has never been out of print.
If a classic movie tickles your fancy, Irving Berlin’s Easter Parade, (comedy/romance/musical), originally released in 1940 is still a go-to film.
April is a popular vacation month too. My cousin’s kid and her family just took off for Hawaii. I volunteered to chicken sit for Silver, Penny, Anna, Scarlett and Gwenelsa. Either Gwen or Elsa died, but since they looked so similar nobody knew which was which so the names were combined to remember the innocent. Haunter, their cat—yeah, I’m a little intimidated by the name too—stays hidden in the pajama drawer. Worry not, she must be alive—well at least something is eating her food.
Many attention-worthy events happened this month in history like the birth of Maya Angelo, the blind and impoverished John Milton is said to have sold the copyright of Paradise Lost in 1667, and in 1992 Betty Boothroyd became the first woman to be elected Speaker of the British House of Commons in its 700-year history.
Which brings me to this month’s lesson, a quote by William James: “Let everything you do be done as if it makes a difference.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A Colorado native, Rainey, (writing as L. Treloar), has been a RMFW member since 2012 (or so), and is happy to belong to one of the best critique groups ever: The 93rd Street Irregulars. She has self-published The Frozen Moose, is currently re-editing the first manuscript in a political thriller series, and has entered two contests with her 2016 NaNoWriMo Historical Fiction novella. In her spare time, she enjoys organizing anything from closets, to military family retreats, to rodeos and parades. Along with teaching her cat to retrieve, she volunteers at church and The Horse Protection League. With an Associate degree in Applied Science/Land Surveying, she learned she far prefers words over math.
*The Frozen Moose, a short story is available on Barnes and Noble in e-book.