3/22/22 3/22/22

Blog Bio It has been a long journey to my latest book

As we contemplated whether or not to offer this series as individual books or as a collection, I decided I liked the idea of offering my readers one book for the entire series. I am glad I went this direction. Who knows what tomorrow might bring with health and other issues? The full trilogy is now published, and I am happy with the result.

Three Sisters of Stanhavon Castle has been released. It is a collection of three complete inspirational Regency romance novels that make up a series. We decided on this direction because it takes enormous effort not only to write and prepare a book for publication but also to market a book properly.

As a child, I loved listening to Dad read everything from Alice in Wonderland, the original to books about people from Martin Luther to Bible storybooks and Bible passages. Those characters on the page fascinated me. Long before I entered school, I learned the alphabet. I learned to put letters together At, Bat, Cat on down, even little rhymes.

How exciting to actually read in school and to be able to take home my very first book. I became a voracious reader. My imagination flew. In elementary school, I began writing some stories. By third grade, I dreamed of being a writer.

Once my parents read my writing, they encouraged me. In Kansas, I contracted Juvenile Rheumatoid arthritis and soon rode a wheelchair, not my horse. Those years were filled with pain and frustrations, I poured out in my writing.

In high school, I placed in some writing competitions. When dad took a church in Iowa, we discovered a published author in the congregation. She showed me how to format my work, research, and send my work to appropriate markets. With her assistance, I began selling children’s stories and features. Features led me to pursue a comprehensive degree in journalism from UNK (then KSC). In fact, we moved to Kearney so I could attend college--at a time no one was too concerned about wheelchair accessibility.

By the time I graduated, I regularly sold features and program material (skits, recitations, plays) to several different markets. I also had extensive surgery to walk again. After I married, I continued to freelance. For my birthday one year, my friend Gloria gave me a novel. She challenged me, “You can do better than this.”

I took the challenge. It was ten years of learning my craft, effort, and time before I sold my first novel. I wrote several books for Barbour Publishing’s Heartsong Presents line before moving to Trebleheart Books where I released several more books—including my first complete series.

I also worked with several small publishers, had some good agents, and finally landed contracts with Harlequin--the publisher with all those books in Walmart, Target, etc. Then a company bought Harlequin and forced them to delete some lines. One was the line I wrote for. After I had a severe fall my writing was sidelined. When I returned to writing, I worked on updating books for which I’d received back my rights. Some I resold. Others I brought out under my own imprint. I also wrote the draft of a new series. I worked on it now and again, while I released other non-series books.

In 2021 I returned to my series Three Sisters of Stanhavon Castle. This time I rewrote, reworked, and edited. It took most of the year, but it was done and ready for release before the holidays. It was such fun to give away this book to friends and family. For now, my attention will be on my novel and my Hub columns. We’ll see where my writing takes me after that. Who knows, I may be more surprised than anyone else.

Have a dream? Don’t let it go. Take the steps needed in practice, education, and growing—including the willingness to accept suggestions and constructive criticism--to make that dream come true.

Published Hub Column 3/21/2022

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1/17/22 1/17/22

Blog Why we must nourish hope

A new year always brings a sense of newness and hope. We let the old year go, sometimes with regret, lately more with relief. Surely the new year will be better, safer, and more back to normal. Of course, that’s what we were told about 2021. And yet, hope still rises for a future better than the past couple of years.

We have hope because that capacity is built not in our culture or race, but within the very fabric of our DNA. A farmer may plant a crop looking for a harvest due to years of farming and experience. But however many years of experience a farmer may have, farming carries risk.

It is hope that makes a difference, providing the farmer the edge that there will be a harvest and it will be good. Hope is a large component of almost every endeavor from investments and inventions to personal relationships.

Marriage begins with love, faith that the relationship will last, and hope that it will. When we do something to hurt someone, when we apologize we do so with the hope a relationship can be restored. What is interesting about hope is that it is often dashed in light of reality, and yet, we move forward with an element of hope.

Orbison Sweet Marsden said, “There is no medicine like hope. No incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something better tomorrow.

Hope may not seem all that important until it is gone, leaving only darkness and the belief that life is no longer worth living. Losing hope means losing everything. Losing hope leads to depression, anger and even quitting to the point of taking one’s life.

This is why we need to nourish hope in ourselves and others, especially our children. It is filling our minds with life-affirming words, pictures, and other media. It is lifting up through encouragement--a letter, a phone call, an email, or even a text can make a difference in someone else’s life.

Only a short time into the new year and our resolutions are most likely broken. We wonder why we bothered to make them. But broken resolutions can become the foundation for hope and a better tomorrow--regardless of our circumstances.

Life will never be all roses and sunshine. Bad days, weeks happen. There are illnesses, cancer, and death. Tragedies happen. Hope is the difference between wallowing in the hurt and pain and allowing time to grieve, but still moving forward with faith and hope.

John Greenleaf Whittier wrote, “Behind the cloud the starlight lurks,
Through showers the sunbeams fall,
For God, who loveth all His works,
Has left His hope for all.

In this new year, let us choose to always keep hope alive.

Faith will help us get there.

6/8/21 6/8/21

Blog Bio New hope as pandemic gives way to hugs

It’s a new day. More and more individuals are leaving masks behind, along with their fears. Others are no longer afraid to greet family, neighbors and friends. Six feet is too far away these days. Hugs are back in though most ask before making that move.

Do you know how good hugs feel after a year without them? Hugs, time together, and face-to-face conversations are not only something humans do, but an essential part of being mentally as well as physically whole and healthy. We haven’t been healthy as a culture for over a year, a year given over to fears and wondering what and whom to believe about our medical well-being.

Spring has brought new hope and sunshine as well as needed rain. It has opened doors for us to reach out to one another again. We had close friends drop by for a few moments to say “hi.” and to give us a loaf of homemade banana bread bought on a jaunt out of town.

Another neighbor who was walking by with her little dog stopped in when she saw our friend’s car. Not much time then, but we checked out schedules and made plans to meet at Perkins in a couple of days. That was the beginning of the evening.

Two days later, Keith and I got out of the house for haircuts. Got out to buy pots of flowers for cemetery plots for Memorial Day. Got out to meet our friends for supper. We ate, laughed, talked and simply enjoyed each other’s company. After last year we valued our time together.

After supper, we met back at our house and gathered around our card table to play a game Keith bought that had us using words from songs we recalled. It was one of those games in which coming up with songs from the trigger words was fun even if you were in last place on the board.

Again we laughed, talked, and checked up some songs on cell phones. No one cared who moved the pieces on the board. We were friends from long-standing, who knew each other, trusted each other and had always been there for one another. Now we were able to enjoy being together as we hadn’t been able to do during the last year.

We played two games filled with songs, conversation and laughter. Overhead, the sky thundered. Rain fell. It was time to break up and for our friends to head home. We said our goodbyes and watched them go.

For some, it was a small thing, friends getting together. I saw it differently. Friendships had been renewed and deepened. My lips curved into a smile and my heart filled with joy as I filed away a brand-new and precious memory.

My husband and I decided to make this evening a beginning for friends, fellowship, fun--and the making of positive memories. Is it time for you to do the same?

I plan my life out a day at a time, so my posting schedule can be erratic.

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