Writing a blog post is magical–right? Words appear in the right order and photos sift down from above and settle into a nifty niche between paragraphs. Well, sort of . . . When I created the post Mennonites, Ventrlloquists, and Memoir, 3 things happened in succession:

1. In Vladimir Nabokov’s memoir I read that the author can “ventriloquize” his voice by inventing incidents, characters, and relationships.

2. The word “ventriloquize” sparked an image of Howdy Doody and the forbidden TV show I sneaked off to watch.

EmersonTVHowdyDoody

3. That reminded me of a story about our next door neighbors, the “red-light” Rentzels whom I wrote about 10 years ago.

Writing that post wasn’t fast or easy but it was smooth, not usually the case.

So I invite you to the website of author Kathleen Pooler, who is hosting me today in a blog post which features me “undressing” some of my posts in public. Click here for secrets divulged! (You can leave a comment below or better yet on Kathy’s blog.)