I left my first class with Steve Watkins filled with anxiety. Not that anxiety is something new to me. I seem to live with it these days, though that’s another story.

But his instruction to write five pages of a short story by Sunday night made my stomach flip. I tend to write short poems, short articles for the Front Porch, and short pieces of prose. I’d spent the day still mourning my sweet dog, feeling like my head wasn’t working right, and noticing all my conversations seemed slightly off.

So when he said: Write! I panicked. And couldn’t sleep. Which is also nothing new.

But this morning at my 7 a.m. dental appointment (who goes for a cleaning at dawn?), I had an inspiration. I can’t say more about it or I”ll be revealing too much about my dentist. But I came up with a kernel of a story that interests me.

Writing inspiration comes in the strangest places…..