I can and I will

 

From the time I scribbled in the back of my blue pressed cardboard notebook in the fifth grade, penning a childish attempt at a novel, I knew I wanted to be an author.

It took several decades, a lot of living, more words than I can count, and endless efforts to make the leap.

My dream and goal was always to write a novel but it was always something I would do someday.

One day, with twin toddlers, I realized if I didn't try to write a novel then, I might never do it. I didn't want to look back as an old woman with regret because I never did. My dad always taught me that there's no such word as can't so at the craziest time ever, I started writing a novel. I wore out a word processor in pursuit of the dream and then I wrote another.

That would eventually become my first accepted novel, Kinfolk, that was accepted by Champagne Books in 2010 and came out in both paperback and as an eBook in 2011. By then, I already had some other titles out.

My last two full length novels debuted in 2017 - Canaan's Land (World Castle Publishing) in January that year and Still Waters Run Deeper (Evernight Publishing) in October.

 

 

That didn't change until last year when I got back in the saddle with The Cure For Love, The Conjure Supper, The Cowboy Gladiator and A Time For Peace. Now in 2022 I have either out or upcoming under contract Where Dreams Come True, By Any Other Name, Scrooge And Marlee plus The Púca’s Forever Mate by Liathán O'Murchadha. That's the first in a new Faery Folk series with The Lone Wolfe of Killarney and The Last Love of the Leanan Sidhe.

 

Also under contract are Tall, Dark And Cherokee, Return Of The Christmas Bride, At Face Value, Miss Good Samaritan (a reprise) and Scarred Santa (also a reprise).

 

 

In November 2017, my world and life shifted when my husband had the first of four surgeries. The first took place the day before Thanksgiving and the last in May 2018. Although the surgeries were related to back issues, the fact that he also had Parkinson's factored into his recovery. By then, I worked full-time at the Neosho Daily. I kept hope alive that we'd get back to the place we had been before that first surgery through five hospitals and eventually a long-term care facility. I put my writing career on hold to focus on Roy and our family. I still wrote, with his encouragement but not as much.

After he died in early 2019, it took time to find a new path in life. I worked on fits and starts but nothing really worked until this year. Due to changes in ownership, the sale of the newspapers I worked for and was editor for (Neosho Daily News and The Aurora Advertiser), I accepted a buyout offer in December 2020 and have never regretted it.

Being a widow has been a journey and I'm still making it, one day at a time. But although I may no longer be a wife, I am still a writer and writers write. I'm back at the keyboard, working on a series about Boone Wilson and his family which will be at least seven novels and possibly nine as well as a work titled The Cowboy's Last Chance. And a new WIP I've started.

After all, like my dad always said there's no such word as can't - so I can and I will.

 

A Time For Reflection As We End October

 

Birthdays are a time for celebration but as I mature, it's also a time for reflection. I will mark my birthday later this week.

 

 I was born scant days before Halloween with a name one short syllable shy of my grandmother’s dead daughter’s name as another kinswoman departed this life. I like to think Aunt Lottie and I high fived on the way in and out or at least said hello. My parents took me home to an old brick Victorian house where generations of doctors lived and practiced. In that house, the paranormal was the normal because odd things happened often. I also inherited a few psychic gifts from my grandmothers, a great-grandmother, and one great-grandfather who happened to be the seventh son of a seventh son. Some of my true strange experiences have appeared in Fate magazine. So, it’s no wonder that I’ve always been attracted to things both supernatural and paranormal with curious wonder.

 

 Although it may sound like something out of one of my novels, all of the above is true. With my birthday so close to All Hallows Eve, many of my early birthday cakes were decorated for the holiday with orange and black frosting, black cats, and even witches. Autumn is my favorite season and as an adult I usually burn a traditional fire on October 31. Good little Catholic girl that I am as well I go to church the next morning for All Saints too. I

 

 Since this is the month for Halloween, I’ll share a spooky and strange personal experience, one of many. I lived deep in the rural Ozarks when I first got married and in the hollow down below our home an old derelict farmhouse remained. My imagination always gets fired up by old home places so I talked my husband into trekking through the woods, literally over hills and through the brambles to see it. I brought along my camera, shot a lot of pictures and we went in but not far because it looked dangerous. The staircase that led to the upper floor had rotted away. I shot the pictures with my Canon camera using 35 mm film. When I got the pictures back I looked at them and then looked again. I saw people in the upstairs windows.  In the side window, a woman of about thirty leans to peer out through the glass. In one of the front windows, I could see an old woman with a big apron tied about her waist pointing one finger in the direction I stood taking the pictures. There was another picture of an old man, very distinct.

 

 I showed them to my husband and he saw them too. I still have the pictures and everyone I’ve ever shown them to shiver. The people look very real but no one human could have been upstairs because there was no way left to reach it. Since then, I’ve shot a few other pictures of old houses that have images in the windows too but none are as clear as these.

 

 That’s my strange but true story to share this Halloween season.

 

If you like strange or spooky stories, check out my titles – I have vampires, Irish legends and fairies, and more!

 

https://youtu.be/z1Oq7ashPEc