Doug Smith

“Think it’s gonna rain?” I ask a total stranger during a downpour.

“Why do you talk with people you don’t know?” my wife asks me. Again.

“It’s free!” I reply.

After more than fifty years together, my wife, Sharon, is still sometimes embarrassed. She mutters words: maybe "disturbed" or "perturbed"? Recently she called me "an impetuous toddler."

More than talking to strangers, I love to make up stories.

“The woman at the next table just left her husband,” I whisper. “She and her college professor plan to open a dollar store in Vegas, as soon as he is off parole.

“Stop it!” My wife whispers as she grins at me.

I am restless. I was born in New Jersey but met my wife in New Hampshire. I vowed to take her away from that slow country lifestyle.

We have lived in six states, and spent almost ten years in San Diego. A lot of my stories take place in California. We finally moved back to New Hampshire, and we love this slow country lifestyle. We’ve been rescued by two shelter dogs.

In 1996 I got sober. I empathize with people who are trying to make this change, and I sympathize with people who can’t.

Each paragraph in my stories start with a sentence, or maybe just a word. I have no idea what will happen by the end of the page. Recently, a skinny puppy with fleas popped up out of nowhere. I love all of my characters. There are villains that I cheer for. There are heroes that could save the day. Sometimes they don’t. There are characters who are demanding, demeaning, demoralizing, and demonstrative.

There are broken bones, broken promises, and broken hearts.

I don’t expect to get rich from writing. I don’t expect to become tall, thin, or blonde. But I do love to make up stories.

Doug Smitty Smith