Menu

Prompts

Directory Contests Magazine FAQ

Apps

reedsymarketplace

Hire professionals for your project

reedsyblog

Advice, insights and news

reedsylearning

Online publishing courses

reedsylive

Free publishing webinars

reedsydiscovery

Launch your book in style

Bestseller Podcast Book Cover Art Success Stories

Tools

Book Promotion Sites Book Review Blogs Booktube Channel Guide Book Title Generator Character Name Generator Independent Publishers Literary Agents Literary Magazines Pen Name Generator Plot Generator Publishers Directory Short Story Ideas Writing Contests Writing Exercises Writing Scholarships

Menu

Prompts

Contests

Stories

Blog

Directory

Contests

Magazine

FAQ

Dr Stafford

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Mar, 2021

Stories (5)

Comments

Library

8 Followers

1 Following

5 Stories

118 karma pts

?

Beach Music

Dr Stafford

Submitted to Contest #114

Beach MusicYou wanna do something fun? Back in the day that would have worked. We were those kinds of people then. I could have said, “Velma, wanna do something fun?” and she’d have said, “Sure, how ‘bout cutting a rug tonight, Daddy-O?” Ten years ago, it would have worked. Everything worked for Velma and me back then, but not now.After a lot of talking to myself – what Velma, called airing up the tires so I could get on with it - I park the Caddy on the street and head up the sidewalk to maybe patch thing...

10 likes

Milly's Old Man

Dr Stafford

Submitted to Contest #113

Milly’s Old Man “This is my worst nightmare, Mildred, the bank foreclosing on the cabin. Can you believe this? Me, Mr. Perfect. They call me that, you know. The boys in the plant. Every day at work they’d say, There goes Mr. Perfect. Even though they whispered, I heard them. At the water-cooler, in the break room, even on the floor, sometimes when the machines were not so loud, I could hear them. Look at Karl, the man with the perfect life, the perfect wife. He has a cabin on the lake too. Did ...

17 likes

Road Trip

Dr Stafford

Submitted to Contest #100

Road TripIn my enlightened state, I am ten Chinese men with an Abacus.This is not just a trip, this is the trip. If my Sophomore Calculus teacher could see me now, I’d get an A. That simpleton Einstein be damned with his Theory of Relativity, I’m solving Riemann’s hypothesis. Put that in your pipe and toke on it, Albert.I wipe dust from the lenses of my shades.I stare in the rearview.My pupils, dark, black flying saucers stare back at me.In front of my ragtop, the school bus burps exhaust clouds and turns West at the light.&nb...

7 likes

Hard Times in The Big Easy

Dr Stafford

Submitted to Contest #85

Hard Times in The Big Easy I needed a beer. I needed a smoke. I needed a good-luck broad to blow on the dice. A week in the solitary confinement of one’s soul staring at a blank screen, typing, then hitting erase – delete, slamming the case shut, and walking away only to come back to the same blank screen – the same thoughts forming from words in your mind – knowing that once you put those words out and hit the big send button they can’t be taken back. Lives will change, the perception of paragons will shift… What I had was...

18 likes

Comings and Goings

Dr Stafford

Submitted to Contest #84

Comings and Goings There was a breeze coming off the river. It was one of those late August nights Midwesterners live for, cool, brisk, weather fit for a sweater, or shawl, something to keep the chill off if you had had a mind to be outside. I did. Hadn’t seen my girl in a year. Hadn’t eaten anything except home-cooked, or takeout since our last date. Good air washes over a river on a night like this, if it’s a big river. The Mississippi is, big, and wide, and when it ripples with the reflection of the moon and the cons...

6 likes

Author bio

it's d. r., not Dr.

I'm 67 years old and just starting out on this writing journey. If I can figure some of this craft stuff out and not lose my mind doing so, I'm sure the rest of you can too. Keep writing!!!

I'm a big fan of Ray, Bradbury, Carver, and Chandler.

If I ever get important enough that someone asks what writing a story is like for me:

For me, writing a story is like meeting a new person. In the initial conversation, you may both learn one, or two things about the other. Maybe even decide if the relationship is worth further investment. I’m not talking about a boy-girl thing or anything that would fall under the title of a romantic relationship. That would be too cliché. What I’m saying is that in the beginning, a story may only present a little knowledge about itself to me, and me to it, a little, but enough to know whether either of us wants to get to know the other in more depth and detail. If so, that’s when the real work begins...

We can all dream, can't we? Have fun and keep writing! drs