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.