humorous fiction

Offbeat Letter O

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With O we head for one of my favorite words: offbeat. I love the weird, I love the unusual, as you can see by the titles of my non-cozy mystery books (as in, the rest of them). It’s a different way of looking at the world, a way of seeing through the surface of us as people and the world we create. It’s finding a new angle for the light to bounce off and see what lies below.

Offbeat, I think, implies a sense of humor about oddness, about being different. Sometimes it’s a conscious decision not to walk in step with everyone else, sometimes it’s because it’s just impossible to find the rhythm, but offbeat doesn’t care. It is what it is and it’s fine with it.

The offbeat, in life, can take you places you wouldn’t think to go. It takes the absurd and makes it absurder. Which I didn’t think was a real word, but spell check’s telling me is A-OK.

It’s more than fine to not fit in. Sometimes, it’s glorious.

In honor of the offbeat, check out my flash fiction collection, Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free! Or try my other offbeat novels, if you want. Here they are, because the single cover looked lonely.

gravy3Aunty Ida's Full-Service Mental Instituionfinal

 

 

 

 

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Aloha! Aunty Ida Ahead in the A-to-Z Blogging Challenge

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And we start A with a person approximate to my aorta. Ahh, all this could get annoying. I’ll try not to be too cute with it, although Aunty Ida adores alliteration. Affirmative, our own addled scientist, who isn’t altogether assured of her fictitious nature, is the first book of the A-to-Z Blogging Challenge.


Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only) by Isa-Lee Wolf. Amazon for $3.99. You know that case on LawTV? The one where the judge lost it on national television?

Yes, that was Margaret.

But Ida – who insists you call her “Aunty Ida,” if you want to (no one ever seems to want to) – is there to help. That Margaret doesn’t want her help doesn’t dampen Ida’s delight in playing with her mind-altering toys and calling it therapy.

Besides, the courtroom thing was only a big deal because of the cameras. OK, so it was Margaret’s courtroom, and yes, she was hearing the biggest case of her career, and yes, the LawTV commentators were all over it, but these things always get sensationalized. The restraining order her husband got against her was only temporary.

So she’s suspended. It’s nothing she can’t fix.

Sure, Margaret has no idea who this Ida person is, but if she can get her to sign a form, she’ll be back on the bench in no time. Unfortunately for Margaret, Aunty Ida knows exactly who Margaret is. And Margaret isn’t going anywhere.

With relentless optimism, Ida dives into curing Margaret of her problems, one odd treatment at a time. But Margaret knows there’s nothing wrong with her.

She was set up, and she’s determined to prove it.

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