It's official, I'm an occasional muse

Since this is becoming a habit, I thought it fair to note I charge nothing for unintentionally inspiring other writers.

Last night in my writing group, Bill Fowkes told me he was reading a piece that I could have written, inspired by me. And in fact, it was. A recent rant on the perils of being a book designer turned into his very funny story "Dummy Copy, This is For Position Only." I was telling the members of River Writers that I place dummy copy into design proposals but then some editors actually start editing the fake text. I then tried placing "Greeked" copy, which is actually Roman, and an editor once got upset that it was gramatically screwed-up Roman...and corrected it. I just have had the worst time getting uber verbal clients to disregard the words and concentrate on the page layout, color treatments, heading hierarchy, and the other elements that make up a design. But when Bill's story gets grabbed by a lit journal, please do not assume that I am the protagonist of the story. I have never, to my knowledge, packed or used a loaded gun.

When I told my friend Joe Hayes that I'd like to write a multi-generational one act play using my own experiences as a starting point he got so excited for me that he gave me a great plot device, the mother, the grandmother, and the granddaughter are on a bus, talking. He even wrote some dialogue... A month went by. Another. Then, sheepishly, Joe said he couldn't get the idea out of his head and could he please write my play. And he did, it's called Slow Ride. I said sure, whenever I get around to writing that play, it wouldn't be the same as his. I'll have my characters walking in a park. Or riding in a hearse. Sitting under an umbrella on Coney Island. Or maybe just waiting endlessly in a waiting room...er, someone has done that one.