stories

Of Grinding Pepper, Banalities, and Seeking That Which We Yet Understand…

Working as both a wife of nearly 29 years, and mother of 3, has prepared me in various ways to accomplish the work of a fiction writer.

Working as a wife and mother requires a lot of what an Islamic Imam described as grinding pepper.

Grinding pepper, from the perspective of the imam encompasses those activities that we here in the west describe as comprising the bane of our existence–mindless tasks, that we view as disrespectful of our intelligence and that devalue our worth as a person.

The world banal implies a lack of uniqueness.

Something that is banal possesses no originality.

It is like the wheel that begs for no reinvention, rather more unique and original ways of bringing a deeper level of presence and attention to the task(s) at hand–tasks that when practiced with a presence of mind and heart sharpen our skills and artistry in all areas of life, yield an original creation, and transform us as individuals.

Of Grinding Pepper, Banalities, and Seeking That Which We Yet Understand… Read More »

Danica Davidson–Why I Write and What Is My Process?

I know this may sound like a cliché to writers, but I never chose to write.

Writing chose me. I started telling stories not long after I could talk, and, by the time I was three, my parents starting writing down the stories I would dictate.

They were simple stories, and usually about cute animals or dinosaurs, but they had plots. Back then, I didn’t think of myself as a writer. I just knew there were stories going through my head and I would tell them.

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Change, Challenge and Seasons of Growth…

I’ve been gone most of the summer, first to Brussels, then to Maui where vacation each year. 



As the opening of the new school year approaches I am amazed at how it seems that just yesterday I was bidding a enjoyable and safe travels to fellow parents and their daughters and sons who attend the same school as my children.

Now nearly 2 and half months later I have received the first in a line of requests from the service that provides lunches at the school our youngest child attends the choices of entrées our child desires.

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Early Drafts, The Journeyman and Our Need for Praise…

The decision to write is a brave choice we make each time we bring pen to paper or place our fingers upon the computer keys and type.

To be sure, very few do it. And of those, even less follow their hearts’ desires with an understanding and commitment to see to the end what we have started.

It is one thing to write; yet another to go back over and over working to reshape and polish the initial words we have written. Writing our thoughts, bringing the ideas of our imagination into sentences if but one half the challenge.

Early Drafts, The Journeyman and Our Need for Praise… Read More »

Of Fear, La Petite Mort, and the Transforming Power of Love…

I named my publishing company, NOJ Publications, after my husband, his named turned backwards.

I write about love, committed and constant, persevering and sustaining, which he has given me.

My stories and novels express what I know and have learned in relationship with my husband.

Love holds a most transforming power.

It dispenses hope beyond our wildest dreams.

Of Fear, La Petite Mort, and the Transforming Power of Love… Read More »