The Writer's Life 1/28 - Negative to Positive

In an op-ed piece in today's NY Post, Salena Zito offers an inspirational story. Here are excerpts, edited by yours truly: Decades ago, when Diane Black said she wanted to be a nurse, her mom replied, “Honey, we don’t have money for you to go to college. You just need to get married and have babies.” Her high school guidance counselor saw her spark and pushed her. One day she was called into the principal's office and handed a check from a local charity that covered one year of college. She attended full-time and worked nights and weekends cleaning houses, ironing other people’s clothes “and any other little job I could find..." She married and was left by her husband when she was pregnant with her third child. She worked 16-hour shifts to support her family. Her life turned around when she met an ex-Marine who eventually adopted her kids. As she moved up in nursing, he earned a doctorate in forensic toxicology, and they eventually started a drug-testing company that grew to 900 employees. They sold it for $77.8 million. Despite zero political experience, she won a state house seat in 1998 and a state senate seat in 2004. Six years later she ran and won the sixth congressional district seat of Tennessee, the first time the territory has been represented by a Republican since 1923. Now she is running for governor. As for how President Trump has treated her as often the only woman in the room, Black says he is not only incredibly respectful, he never fails to ask her opinion.

A blurb accompanies a Post piece by Michael Kaplan on the advances of DNA technology. In 1994, in order to I.D. a criminal, the sample had to be the size of a nickel. Today it needs only to be the size of a pinhead.

Also from the Post: Five friends, Sylvan Schefler, Lew Rappaport, Al Schragis, Larry McDonald and Harvey Rothenberg, whose ages range from 79-84, have attended all 51 Super Bowls together. Unfortunately, this year Shragis has been sidelined by pneumonia. Here they are:

To my chagrin, I will be going back to the drawing board on my ninth book, Present and Past. I found the dreaded egregious error that must be corrected on page 117: "Had he even 'knew' instead of "known." This will probably delay publication by two weeks. It will allow me to correct another minor error I found, and to fix a few more sentences that didn't extend to the margin. Given that and the rain lingering a little longer than predicted and putting the kibosh on a trip to Park Slope, I was bummed. Fortunately, I scored the premium parking spot at my usual nook. I returned to the apartment, read another chapter, and went out at two PM hoping to set up shop under the scaffold. Although the sky still seemed threatening, I wanted to turn the negative of the day into a positive. That happened when Jimmy, who always buys in bulk, came along. He took all my cook books, a how-to on building decks, and a large paperback on vitamins. My thanks, and also to the woman who donated a sci-fi work and non-fiction on da Vinci. Her husband, who's in his late 50's, suffered a stroke while on a cruise. He's not doing well. I have nothing to complain about.
Vic's Sixth novel: http://tinyurl.com/zpuhucj 

Vic's Short Works: http://tinyurl.com/jy55pzc

Vic's 5th Novel: http://tinyurl.com/okxkwh5Vic's 4th novel: tinyurl.com/bszwlxh

Vic's 3rd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/7e9jty3

Vic's Short Story Collection:http:// tinyurl.com/lh2tepa 
Vic's 2nd Novel Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/kx3d3uf
Vic's 1st Novel: http://tinyurl.com/l84h63j

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