Delighted and excited at my invite from my dear friend Sarah to feature as her Guest Storyteller today! As a writer of non-fiction, writing a short fiction story (400 words in this case) lets me mix things up a little. In my story, A Blue Coat for Christmas, a Christmas gift isn’t all it seems…Thank you so much to Sarah for inviting me to her wonderful blog, and thank you, as always, dear friends, for visiting and reading!
Sherri has been writing full-time since 2011. Currently working on her memoir, Stranger in a White Dress, she has been published in a variety of national magazines and two anthologies. Sherri raised her three, now adult children, in California for twenty years and today, lives in England’s West Country with her hubby, Aspie youngest, two cats, a grumpy bunny and a family of Chinese Button Quails. She keeps out of mischief gardening, walking and snapping endless photographs. Her garden robin muse visits regularly.
You can find Sherri’s links of interest at the end of this post.
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Sarah says: I’m thrilled that Sherri has agreed to make a return visit to my blog as guest storyteller with a seasonal story to delight us all. Some of you might remember her Christmas-themed story Chocolate Umbrella from December 2014. This story received 54 likes and 79 comments, which was a fantastic response…
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A View From My Summerhouse 
I’m excited to get over there and read this story, Sherri!!
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Thank you so much Melinda… ❤ I'm excited for you to read it and see what you think…writing fiction and putting it 'out there' is a scary thing for me, yikes!!! 😀 xoxo
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No one would know! You do it so well!
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Aww, thanks so much Melinda, what a lovely thing to say…wow…you’ve made my day…again, lol!!! 😀 ❤
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You’re welcome, Sherri. Just the facts, ma’am!
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🙂 ❤ 🙂 Melinda!
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Love your nonfiction and looking forward to that memoir but it’s so nice to stretch your writing muscles and try something different. Like short fiction. I’ve read some of your short fiction and it’s wonderful. Will pop over and read. 🙂
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Thank you so much Sarah, for your ongoing encouragment of all my writing – means a great deal to me – and for taking the time to read over at Sarah’s. Will head over to read your comment! 🙂 ❤
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I love that story Sherri – have I read it on your blog before? It somehow seems familiar – and please excuse my incomplete memory ………
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Dear Pauline, you are quite right and you have a great memory! I wrote a post with the very same title as a memoir piece a couple of years ago 🙂 Thinking of a short fiction piece with a Christmas theme for Sarah’s Guest Post, nothing grabbed me – mild panic, yikes! – then I thought of that blue coat. Elements are true, but it’s great to fictionalise it; embellish here and there, understate in others. Writing flash fiction (which I still do over at Carrot Ranch but haven’t been publishing here lately purely because of time constraints) has helped my writing in so many ways, so I have both Sarah and Charli – chief Buckaroo at Carrot Ranch! – to thank so much for believing in me in ways I didn’t think possible just a few short years ago. And you too Pauline, for the very same! 🙂 ❤
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Given the current state of memory – which seems to have several permanently open doors in it, I think it is probably down to your writing skills – the piece is so evocative, it sticks! Good work my friend!!
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Ha! You are too kind Pauline but you’ve made my day! As for that that memory ‘thing’…I relate tooooo well! 😉 ❤
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I loved the story too, Sherri! Like Pauline, it seemed familiar but I believe you wrote a blog post about the coat sometime ago. Happy Birthday to Nicky! ❤ ❤
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Thank you so much dear Jilly B! As I said to to Pauline above, you have a great memory! I seem to bring elements of truth into any short and flash fiction I write, but I love that I can take a nugget and fly with it, creating characters and embellishing story lines. But…and it’s a big one lol!… I still can’t understand how anyone – you, my dear friend for one! – can possibly write an entire novel!!! How, I say, how????!!!!! 😀 And so I press on with my memoir…but never say never, right?! Ahh…I will send on your birthday wishes to Nicky, thank you so much Jill. I’ve got a short window here before we have a nice Sunday roast so he goes home with a full belly and left over Chocolate Dirt Cake 🙂 Hope you and DFD are enjoying a super weekend 🙂 ❤ ❤ xoxo
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I love Christmas, starfish, and warm winter coats. Imagine finding all of them in one little story! Delightful, Sherri. Shared from Sarah’s blog ♥ ♥
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Oh Tina, and I just love your wonderful comment, thank you so much! I adore starfish too, and this particular one just appeared on the beach, especially for Max 🙂 Love that about writing fiction! Thank you so much for reading and for sharing my friend, I’m thrilled you enjoyed this little read 🙂 ❤ ❤ xoxo
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It hit close to home, Sherri. But since a few things I love were also present in the story, I was able to enjoy the adventure. You write so well; your posts are always a pleasure to read 🙂 xoxo ❤❤
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I’m so glad to know this Tina; sharing your thoughts about the story and how it affected you in different ways is exactly what I want to give the reader. You encourage me greatly my dear friend, again, thank you so much! 🙂 ❤ xoxo
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You are most welcome, Sherri. Love and hugs ❤ xoxo
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Love & hugs right back to you Tina 🙂 ❤ xoxo
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Sherri – this is such wonderful material to read and enjoy it!
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Thank you so much my friend, love that you enjoyed it, means a great deal to me! 🙂 xxx
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The opening paragraph on this page is a perfect, brief, wonderfully detailed description of you, Sherri! So I zipped over and read the “Blue Coat,” and again found such a treat. Such a gem of a post. Thank you.
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Thank you so much dear Marylin, you are always so kind and so incredibly encouraging! ❤ I'm thrilled you enjoyed reading my attempt at short fiction 🙂 Irene Waters, a fellow memoir writer and dear friend, educated me on the writing form known as a BOTS – Based On A True Story! I had never heard that before, but I would call 'Blue Coat' a BOTS…and then I got to play 🙂 xoxo
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Just been over to visit Sarah, Sherri and read your lovely story.
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Thank you so much Andrea…
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Hey Sherri – I left a comment on the other blog – and just wanted to say you. Brought me right in that scene!
I also read your comment to Jill above – and just wanted to say that I know it is hard to see right now – but you have MANY books in you!
I believe you do- and in the meantime just keep working in your current “roast”
😉
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Hi Yvette! Oh I love that you walked right into that scene, and I love your always, amazing encouragement of me and my writing and thanking you as always, so very much for it all mon amie! ❤ Writing forms in ideas, projects, ventures, mega processing, but, as you well know – with that 'roast' simmering away until it's done, ha! – I will keep progressing and seeing where the road leads…but…your belief in me…well, that is priceless. Thank you so much mon amie! 🙂 ❤ xoxo
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and you know I never fake the comments – ha!
and well, I might have to throw one of my roasts in the microwave this week – ha – but it is the kind of project that handle the zap even if a little flavor is lost – 🙂
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I do indeed, mon amie…and it’s good to also know that sometimes, a quick zap in the microwave does the trick…modern technology’s good uses, in more ways than one 😉 🙂 😮
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I got so excited about reading your story over there I forgot to come back here and tell you how much I appreciated it. It reminds me of a poem by Theodore Roethke, “My Papa’s Waltz.” In case you don’t know it: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/43330
The love and heartwarmingness (maybe not a word heh) and the desire of the child to be “in” with the dad are clear, but the undertones of how the mother (the adult) perceives the father’s behavior hangs there.
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What a great poem, thanks so much for the link and again, for your wonderful comment Luanne…wow…I’m over the moon to think my little story both excited and reminded you of those same undertones between the ‘players’…really, I’m beaming from ear to ear…and such a great word – ‘heartwarmingness’! – 🙂 ❤
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Yes, I immediately thought of the poem because your story and the poem seem to come from the same place.
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That makes me very happy Luanne! 🙂 xoxo
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