Ann H. Gabhart's Blog

This is a favorite keyboard. I used it for years. I wore away many of the letters from the keys. It has dents in the bottom row made by my fingernails. My thumb rubbed away a section of the hard plastic space bar. I surely have a space bar callous on that thumb. This hasn’t been my only keyboard. I’ve had many over the years. But this is one I surely used for many of my blog posts. I should have pulled it out and used it tonight to celebrate my 2,000th blog post.  I did a quick average computation of the possible number of words I’ve slid out into the blog cybersphere. With a conservative estimate of 750 average words per post, that adds up to a million and a half words. That’s enough words to fill up fifteen 1oo,ooo books.

Tonight I am strolling down memory lane to that very fist blog post when I was tentatively tiptoeing into the blogging universe back in January 2008. That’s seventeen years ago. Since then, I’ve worn out more than the letters on my keyboards. I’ve worn out four, maybe five, maybe more, computers. In that first post so many years ago, I had high hopes of connecting with readers with my words.

January 8, 2008

Hi, everybody. I’m just a country girl who’s been writing forever. I hope to share some of what I’ve learned about writing over the years and some about being a country girl through and through.

I’m an author with 16 or 17 published books.

~~

So, you can see that’s been a while since now I have 40 published books.

At first I was going to do a blog post on Saturday or Sunday. Then on Wednesday I would share something simple like a few quotes or maybe a reason to smile like this September post in 2008.

September 25, 2008

Here are some zany words of advice and a few definitions that make entirely too much sense.

Plan to be spontaneous – tomorrow.On the other hand, you have different fingers. (This one’s my favorite.)Mosquito – An insect that makes you like flies better.Dust – Mud with the juice squeezed out.Yawn – An honest opinion openly expressed. (Hope you weren’t yawning while you read my book.)Gossip – A person who will never tell a lie if the truth will do more damage.Adult – A person who has stopped growing at both ends and is now growing in the middle. (Ouch! I could have left that one off, couldn’t I?)

Hope something makes you smile every day. Better yet every hour. No, not every minute. That would just be too much. You’d feel like a beauty pageant contestant and your smiling muscles would wear out.

~~

Then in 2011 I shared about writing my many blog posts.

September 22, 2011

Your blog is your unedited version of yourself. ~ Lorelle

How many blogs can a blogger blog before a blogger gets bogged down in all those blogs and feels blah?
Say that 10 times fast if you dare. I’m not sure if I was trying to come up with a tongue twister this a.m. or if I felt the blogging blues coming on. Maybe not the blues. Maybe creative panic instead. I’ve written a lot of blog posts. What if I run out of anything to say? Maybe I’ve already run out.

But then again, maybe not. I’m pretty laid back about my blog. I’ve always liked writing in my journal and that’s what this blog is for me. One Writer’s Journal. But I do have to admit I might not write exactly the same things I might write in my notebook journal for my eyes only. A lot of the writing related entries in my journals that stretch way back through decades of writing were about my writing progress or lack of progress. Many of the entries were an attempt to boost the spirits of one tired writer – me.

While I don’t know how many eyes are actually going to be reading this – maybe very few – I am aware of the potential of people reading my thoughts. And I do think Lorelle got it right in her quote above. Blogging here is a kind of unedited writing for me. I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about what I’m going to write. I spend more time trying to find a photo to dress the blog up a little. And then once I find the photo, it usually makes a difference in what I write. Sort of like those improvisational actors and actresses who ask for ideas from the audience and then do a skit about the idea on the spot. That actually sounds great to me. Throw some ideas at me and let me try to come up with a few paragraphs.

The picture is one I took last year when I went to California and we rode down the coastline. When I was casting about for a picture and thinking about blogging, the idea of blogging being a bridge of communication between people came to mind. Tenuous, for sure, but I needed a picture and an idea.

So do you think I’ve gone over the bridge and into the blogging blahs? Do I really want you to answer that? Yeah, go ahead. I like hearing what you’re thinking. I like the description of a blog below. I think that about covers it all. That and a “blog is a bridge across the internet to connect a writer and a reader.” So thanks for being that reader today.

~~

In the following post, I wrote about blogging through the years and quoted some of my 1st blog post as I did at the beginning of this post. I didn’t share that again, but then I share more of that first post.

April 15, 2020 – Writing Out Loud

Here’s the last paragraph in that first blog in 2008.

I’ll tell you more about growing up in the country next post. Wouldn’t want to give away all my secrets the first day. These blogs have a ravenous appetite for words.

Boy, was I right about that ravenous appetite of blogs! Words, words and more words. This will be my 1469th post. Wow. Maybe I should have written more books instead. But I like journal writing as I said in Post 2 back in 2008.

I’m figuring out what exactly I want to write about in my blog. I’ve been a journal writer forever, but that’s writing to myself. Now this may be writing to myself too, but it’s like leaving my journal open out on the kitchen table where anybody can read it. That might be okay. I’ve done some of my best writing in journals. 

Since then I’ve left my journal open on a lot of nights. I want you to know I’ve appreciated each and everyone of you who has taken a peek.

Some of my next million words will be here on One Writer’s Journal where the great thing about blogging is this from an anonymous (no doubt blogging) writer. “Blogging is not rocket science. It’s about being yourself and putting what you have into it.”

“Blogging is to writing what extreme sports are to athletics: more free-form, more accident-prone, less formal, more alive. It is, in many ways, writing out  loud.” (Andrew Sullivan)

Writing out loud. That’s a good way to look at blogging.

~~

A blog is a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space. A political soapbox. A breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to the world. ~(blogger)

You and me – we’re a partnership. Here, but especially with my books. The stories come from my imagination, but it takes your imagination while reading the stories to truly make the story circle. Thanks for reading this 2,000th post and for others through the years and making our friendship circle of words.

Have you ever thought that you are in a partnership with a writer when you read their words?

~A birthday is just the first day of another 365 day journey around the sun. Enjoy the trip.  ~Author Unknown

Do you love having birthdays? Sometimes we might groan at the way those numbers make us feel old, but I’m glad to add one on each year anyway. And today I’m happy to have the gift of a new year, another trip around the sun, coming my way. The picture is of one of my granddaughter’s cakes – the one who loves chocolate. If it were mine, it would need many more candles.

I had the gift of some of my family coming to wish me a slightly early happy birthday last night. So, I didn’t get time to post here. When thinking about what I could share on my birthday, I remembered some of the quotes I’ve used in our church bulletins through the years. Br. Fred, our preacher for over thirty years, before he moved on up to heaven, also had a birthday in September. That made it even more fun to share birthday quotes in our bulletins. Br. Fred always said each year that his favorite birthday was the next one. He would also say his age was this or that number of the anniversary of his thirtieth birthday. Sometimes we do sort of stop counting and in our heads, we are still that younger age forever.

~Of course, I know how old I am. Well, I know when I was born. I don’t like doing the math. So, I usually just ballpark it. -Author Unknown

~Old age is always 15 years older than I am.  – Oliver Wendell Holmes

Thinking about my birthday made me remember those birthdays when I was a kid. My sisters and I didn’t have birthday parties with the whole family showing up to celebrate back then.  While I’ve had plenty of family visits and dinners for my birthday after I got older, the only official birthday party with guests other than family was a surprise party my church had for me when I turned fifty. We had black streamers, a cake with black icing, and a lot of laughter. And I was surprised.

But back to those birthdays when I was a kid. There were never piles of presents the way my grandkids are blessed to open on their birthdays. But I had an aunt who made our birthdays special. She never married and loved us girls like she was our grandmother. She would decorate a cake for us and bring us a couple of presents – probably something to wear and maybe a puzzle or book. I really don’t remember the presents. I do remember running out our lane and standing there to wait for her car to come down that bumpy road. I think now that my mother gave my aunt a gift by letting her make our cakes and be our birthday angel. Her visit with the decorated cake and more made our birthdays special.

~Most of us can remember a time when a birthday–especially if it was one’s own– brightened the world as if a second sun has risen. ~Robert Staughton Lynd

Since then, I’ve been blessed over and over by my family and friends on my birthday. The days have almost always been days when I can smile. Special gifts have come my way many times. The desk where I write my books was a special gift from my husband many years ago. It was a big old secretarial desk that he had someone refinish. It’s lovely. Another time he gave me a cocker spaniel puppy because I had loved one as a child for a brief few weeks before it had to find a new home. I wrote a story about that, A Gift of Love. Perhaps I should share it here. I don’t think I have before.

First, here are some birthday smiles.  ~Always laugh when you can…It’s cheap medicine. ~Anonymous

~Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.  – Mark Twain

~Don’t let aging get your down. It’s too hard to get back up.  – J Wagner

~Birthdays are good for you. Statistics show that the people who have the most live the longest. ~Larry Lorenzoni

~It would be easier to remember your age if you didn’t change it every year.  ~Anonymous

~At my age, flowers scare me.  ~George Burns

~You know you’re getting old when all the names in your black book have M.D. after them. ~Harrison Ford

And on to quotes to keep the best attitude on a birthday.

~The secret to happiness is to count your blessings, not your birthdays. -Unknown

~Those who love deeply never grow old. They may die of old age, but they die young. – Dorothy Canfield Fisher

And this one is maybe my favorite quote to remember on a birthday or any day.

~The other day a man asked me what I thought was the best time of life. “Why,” I answered without a thought, “Now.” ~David Grayson

I hope the quotes make you smile. Thank you so much for reading my words here and in my books.

Do you like celebrating birthdays? Yours or those of your family and friends?

 

Poetry is a fresh morning spiderweb telling a story of moonlight hours of weaving and waiting during a night. (Carl Sandburg)

I found this absolutely perfect spiderweb last week on one of my morning walks. On many days when I’m out as the sun comes up, dew paints the spiders’ webs to make them easy to see. Often they show up by the dozens low among the grass or  hanging between the tall weeds the way this one does. Sometimes the web is small, no bigger than a saucer or you can have one like this that’s the size of an umbrella as a friend said on Facebook when I posted the picture there.  Not that it would have stopped the rain, but the webs do capture dewdrops.

Other readers used words like exquisite, amazing, beautiful, miraculous to describe the web. In a way it does seem miraculous that the spider in the middle of that web could have woven such an elaborate web in its moonlight hours.  And not that many hours either. The internet says that orb-weaver spiders, responsible for the intricate, wheel-shaped webs, typically build a new web every night maybe in an hour or two. Then they take it down in the morning. Each night a spider weaves an almost identical web. A marvel of nature and God’s plan for the spider.

While this web looks like it might have taken all the web building material this spider had, those who have studied spiders assure us spiders can’t run out of web material because they can continuously produce silk from spinnerets at the end of their abdomen. They can also recycle proteins by consuming their old webs, especially if they had a bad day with no caught bugs and get hungry. Then they eat their own silk to conserve energy and proteins needed to produce more materials for new webs. 

I like spiderwebs. I prefer not to catch my face in them. The spiders prefer I don’t too since when I do, I become a web wrecker. Sometimes if I see them when I’m walking a path, I try to duck under them because I think of all the work the poor spider did just to try to catch its breakfast.

I admire a spider’s patience. First it spins that amazing web. The ones that aren’t as striking as this take a lot of spinning too. The ground spiders weave a thick web with an inviting tunnel opening where the spider lurks waiting for an unwary bug. Some spiders just throw a few lines from bush to bush waiting for that flying bug to not dive or duck its sticky web. Sometimes the web looks as if the spider woke up dizzy and couldn’t quite figure out any kind of pattern. But then that is its pattern. However they spin their webs, they then sit on them very quietly waiting for their dinner to come to them.

When I walk in the same pastures or hayfields without dew highlighting the webs, I rarely think about all the spiders that must be hiding out in the grass waiting to spin their night webs. Even if I did remember to look, I doubt I’d see those spiders. They would scoot away from this big monster of a person who could step on them. I might spot one or two if I carefully kept looking, but not the dozens that will be weaving by moonlight.

Spiders aren’t the only thing we overlook in our daily walk through life. Nature’s wonders are spilled out all around us. This morning when I went out the sun was coming up and a few clouds were iced with pink. If I had been out a little earlier, the sunrise might have been even more spectacular.

How often do I stay inside at my computer instead of going out to enjoy the wonder of the stars or note the rising of the moon? There are so many marvels of nature that can be mine if only I’ll just look. The sparkle of creek water in the sun. Mushrooms growing on a tree. The pattern of ice on a creek in the winter. The underside of a butterfly. A dragonfly’s wings. Persimmons turning golden in the fall. A bird taking a bath in a puddle. Lightning bugs sprinkled through the dusky air of evening.

Common things we take for granted can be those marvels that light up our spirits the way stars light up the night sky. And spiderwebs in their many shapes and forms can be among those wonders.

What are some of nature’s wonders that you like to see?

Poetry is a fresh morning spiderweb telling a story of moonlight hours of weaving and waiting during a night. (Carl Sandburg)

I found this absolutely perfect spiderweb last week on one of my morning walks. On many days when I’m out as the sun comes up, dew paints the spiders’ webs to make them easy to see. Often they show up by the dozens low among the grass or  hanging between the tall weeds the way this one does. Sometimes the web is small, no bigger than a saucer or you can have one like this that’s the size of an umbrella as a friend said on Facebook when I posted the picture there.  Not that it would have stopped the rain, but the webs do capture dewdrops.

Other readers used words like exquisite, amazing, beautiful, miraculous to describe the web. In a way it does seem miraculous that the spider in the middle of that web could have woven such an elaborate web in its moonlight hours.  And not that many hours either. The internet says that orb-weaver spiders, responsible for the intricate, wheel-shaped webs, typically build a new web every night maybe in an hour or two. Then they take it down in the morning. Each night a spider weaves an almost identical web. A marvel of nature and God’s plan for the spider.

While this web looks like it might have taken all the web building material this spider had, those who have studied spiders assure us spiders can’t run out of web material because they can continuously produce silk from spinnerets at the end of their abdomen. They can also recycle proteins by consuming their old webs, especially if they had a bad day with no caught bugs and get hungry. Then they eat their own silk to conserve energy and proteins needed to produce more materials for new webs. 

I like spiderwebs. I prefer not to catch my face in them. The spiders prefer I don’t too since when I do, I become a web wrecker. Sometimes if I see them when I’m walking a path, I try to duck under them because I think of all the work the poor spider did just to try to catch its breakfast.

I admire a spider’s patience. First it spins that amazing web. The ones that aren’t as striking as this take a lot of spinning too. The ground spiders weave a thick web with an inviting tunnel opening where the spider lurks waiting for an unwary bug. Some spiders just throw a few lines from bush to bush waiting for that flying bug to not dive or duck its sticky web. Sometimes the web looks as if the spider woke up dizzy and couldn’t quite figure out any kind of pattern. But then that is its pattern. However they spin their webs, they then sit on them very quietly waiting for their dinner to come to them.

When I walk in the same pastures or hayfields without dew highlighting the webs, I rarely think about all the spiders that must be hiding out in the grass waiting to spin their night webs. Even if I did remember to look, I doubt I’d see those spiders. They would scoot away from this big monster of a person who could step on them. I might spot one or two if I carefully kept looking, but not the dozens that will be weaving by moonlight.

Spiders aren’t the only thing we overlook in our daily walk through life. Nature’s wonders are spilled out all around us. This morning when I went out the sun was coming up and a few clouds were iced with pink. If I had been out a little earlier, the sunrise might have been even more spectacular.

How often do I stay inside at my computer instead of going out to enjoy the wonder of the stars or note the rising of the moon? There are so many marvels of nature that can be mine if only I’ll just look. The sparkle of creek water in the sun. Mushrooms growing on a tree. The pattern of ice on a creek in the winter. The underside of a butterfly. A dragonfly’s wings. Persimmons turning golden in the fall. A bird taking a bath in a puddle. Lightning bugs sprinkled through the dusky air of evening.

Common things we take for granted can be those marvels that light up our spirits the way stars light up the night sky. And spiderwebs in their many shapes and forms can be among those wonders.

What are some of nature’s wonders that you like to see?

 

“You never climb the same mountain twice, not even in memory. Memory rebuilds the mountain, changes the weather, retells the jokes, remakes all the moves.” –  Lito Tejada-Flores

No, I’ve never had the urge to climb mountains. I like to hike up trails into the hills, but I’ll leave the actual mountain climbing to others. But when I saw this quote I thought how very like it is to writing books. You never write the same book twice, even in memory. Memory rebuilds the story, changes the setting/weather/time of year, retells the conversations with new words, and remakes the whole story.

That has happened even when I wrote new stories about familiar characters who had peopled stories for me before. I had to be sure they were the same people, but then just as we are all changed by living longer, facing new challenges, meeting new people, having new experiences, characters must change from one story to the next. Characters even change from the beginning of a story to the ending. At least the best characters, those who come to life in a story, do.

Last post it was all about mysteries and how much fun I’ve had with those Hidden Springs mysteries. Alas, after I rescued a couple of those mysteries off my reject shelf and poured new life into them, I had no other stories I thought could be rescued. I do have some more that I perhaps should pull out and look at someday. But before I thought about doing that, I was ready to write new stories with Kentucky settings and Kentucky history.

I pulled out my Kentucky history books and started combing through them, hoping something would grab my interest. The first to do so was the history of the Frontier Nursing Midwives in the Kentucky Appalachian Mountains. Fascinating history. I was amazed at what one determined woman, Mary Breckinridge, could accomplish. Her aim was to help mothers and babies and that she did by finding midwives willing to come live in the hills of Kentucky and ride horses up to the mountain women’s cabins to deliver their babies. There were no modern conveniences. The weather in the winter could be horrific, but rain, sleet, or snow didn’t stop them. When someone came for them, they went. Then they stayed until the baby came even if that was a day or three days or more. I loved learning about these dedicated women and the mountain people they helped and couldn’t wait to write a story about them. These Healing Hills was my first book set in Appalachia.

Writing about Appalachian people and Appalachian settings took a hold on my heart and mind and I have often been ready to go back to the mountains for another story. So much history and adventure there. I don’t live in that part of Kentucky, but I did grow up on a farm that has been in my family for generations. I still live on part of that farm. My roots go deep and I have a feeling for the land the same as the mountain people did in the times I wrote about them and still do today.

I haven’t always gone back to the hills. I came across the true story of a slave turned hero during a cholera epidemic in 1833 and what he did for Springfield, Kentucky, a town not far from where I life. While details about Louis are sketchy, I wrote a fictional account of that time, River to Redemption. Maybe after I finish this writing journey, I’ll sometimes write more about what inspired this or that story I’ve written.

After that, I shocked myself by wanting to write another Shaker story. My inspiration for The Refuge was a first line that kept sliding around in my thoughts. You can’t cheat death. In this story I highlighted the way the Shaker sisters must have bonded with one another and how many of the mothers must have felt if they were separated from their babies and children since the Shaker children lived in a Shaker house away from their parents.

After that, I went back to the Appalachian Mountains for two more stories. I wanted to share more history of the Frontier Nurses and especially Mary Breckinridge and was able to do that in An Appalachian Summer. And then I had the fun of researching the Packhorse Librarians, a work project for women in the mountains during the Great Depression. A bookwoman, something like a bookmobile on horseback, had to be tough to make her way along the rough and often nearly non-existent trails in all sorts of weather. At the same time I believe they must have had a love for story and for sharing as Tansy did in Along a Storied Trail.

Eventually, after a book set on a Kentucky farm, When the Meadow Blooms, and one set on a riverboat (that was loads of fun to research), In the Shadow of the River, I went back to the mountains for yet another story, The Song of Sourwood Mountain. I fell in love with those characters. Of  course, I fall in love with the characters in all my books, but there was just something special about Ada June and her dog, Bo. Maybe it was the dog. Or maybe I just like to write from a kid’s perspective now and again.

To catch all the way up on my writing journey is my May release, The Pursuit of Elena Bradford. That story is a little different for me since I go to a setting catering to those with more money and a higher place in society than my usual characters. But people are people wherever they are. Still, it was good to go back to Appalachia again for A Chance for Kallie Mae due to be released next year in May.

And so I come to this pause in my writing journey. Not really a pause. Just a pulling in of breath as I explore potential ideas for another story. Again I will be in the mountains, back at Sourwood checking in on Ada June, Mira, and Gordon and the rest of the Sourwood people. I’ve been considering what might be happening to them or going to happen to them. I’ve taken some time to read more about mountain women and mountain life and think about what my people will look like or be like after several years have passed. I’m excited to be able to trod those hills again with my characters. It’s time to start sliding words out of my head to my fingers on my keyboard to write yet another Appalachian story.

Thank all of you for sticking with me through this recounting of my writing journey. It’s been a lot of years since I was a ten or eleven year old girl with a ballpoint pen and wire-bound notebook and the improbable dream of writing a book. I’m grateful for every reader who has read my words and helped make that little girl’s dream come true.

And the Winner is:

The additional  winner of my Writing Journey Posts Giveaway is bn100. I’ve sent out an email to you, so check your email box, bn100. I look forward to hearing from you.

September seems to have come in a rush. Seems I’ve spent most of the summer on here talking about my writing journey. You may be thinking Whew, I’m glad she finally got to the end of that trail. I do appreciate all of you who went with me on the journey. And now it will be on to something else.

What kind of posts are your favorites? Nature? Shared stories? Personal experiences? Book related? A mix? Something else?

 

 

 

And happily, in addition to that little bit of sinister, there are cats in Hidden Springs! Specifically Two Bits, Grimalkin, and Miss Marble to help save the day at just the right moments in the stories.

If you’ve got a cozy mystery, and a dog is introduced, readers’ first question is, ‘Does the dog die?’ They never ask about a cat. They know that the first rule of cozies is: The Cat Never Dies.  -K.B. Inglee

I have always loved a good mystery. Remember, how wanting to be a female Hardy Boy led me to try to write my first book, a mystery naturally, when I was ten or eleven. It’s an unanswerable question why I jumped into other types of fiction instead of going straight for a mystery when I wrote my first novel once I was seriously trying to be a writer who wrote words others would read. But I didn’t. I don’t remember enough about those first practice novels to know how much mystery was part of those stories. Some in the first one, I would guess, since I was trying to write a gothic novel. Gothics always have some mysterious features. But after that I went into the historical romance genre.

Actually, a number of my novels, both the ones I wrote for young people and then the historical novels often have a thread of mystery. Words Spoken True had a serial killer along with all the history and romance. The Innocent, one of my Shaker novels, had some mystery and suspense. Others had threads of mysteries about relationships. Not enough to be counted as mysteries, but perhaps enough to satisfy my love of mysteries.

Then while I was walking through rejection valley for several years, I wrote a couple of mysteries that hadn’t found a publisher. After they made the rounds of publisher with no success, I never gave them much chance of coming to life off my rejection shelf until readers of Christian fiction began to want mysteries. Publishers paid attention. Mystery and suspense novels were released to find those readers. I thought about how I had rewritten that first Shaker book, The Outsider, and then my Louisville book, Words Spoken True. Again  nothing ventured, nothing gained. Perhaps my mysteries could be reworked and find readers too.

I love cozy mysteries. You know what makes a mystery a cozy mystery? First, a cozy is almost always about a murder, but the violence takes place off screen. Second, the victims are either people you haven’t met in the story to develop any feelings for or if they are part of the story, they are not nice people that you really don’t mind when they end up as the victim. Usually the main character, the one who solves the murder, is a woman – think Miss Marple or Angela Lansbury in Murder She Wrote. Often a cat or dog is on the cover and along for the mystery. At times, the cat or dog do the mystery solving with the help of the main character. Almost always, police are not helpful in these murder mysteries. And the dog or the cat or whatever animal is part of the story never dies.

Here’s what one reader, Anne T., says about reading cozy mysteries. “I feel cozy mysteries offer a place where we can escape, exercise our brain a little with the mystery, but know the dog isn’t going to die. A safe scary place.”

My Hidden Springs books sneak in as cozies even though I broke a lot of the rules. I guess I didn’t know the rules when I was writing them. My main character is a man and a deputy sheriff. The setting is a small town. That’s good for a cozy. Hidden Springs is actually based on my own small town’s Main Street if the big box stores had been kept out so that the downtown businesses could still be along Main. My main character’s Aunt Lindy made sure that happened. Who knows how, but that didn’t really matter in my stories. The second Hidden Springs mystery, Murder Comes by Mail, broke a few extra cozy rules since it’s more suspenseful than most cozies and with a few more murders.

But I was saved by the cats. Two Bits made the cover of the first mystery, Murder at the Courthouse. When I turned in the second mystery, my editor and the cover designer asked if I could make a cat more important to the story so it could make the second cover. I did a little rewriting to let Aunt Lindy’s cat, Grimalkin, the only cat that made appearances in all three books, have a part in a dramatic ending scene. The cover for that book is gorgeous. Nobody had to encourage me to come up with a cat for the third story, Murder Is No Accident. That cat was right there at the beginning and all the way through in this or that scene. I asked for suggestions for a name for a calico cat on Facebook and got dozens of great names, but had to go with the one my daughter suggested, Miss Marble. Sort of a take on Miss Marple and the swirling colors of the cat’s fur that made me think of marbles I played with as a kid.

I had such fun writing those mysteries and throwing in those fun small town characters that sometimes might have had readers thinking my deputy sheriff was the only sane person in the town. Someday I would love to write one more Hidden Springs mystery. Maybe I will. I do have readers all the time asking me to go back to Hidden Springs for a story, but unfortunately the mysteries didn’t sell as well as the publishers hoped. But I haven’t completely given up on the idea yet.

Those books didn’t get professional contracts for audio books. A couple of years ago, I got the rights back on them and did the narration for the audio books. I had so much fun revisiting my Hidden Springs characters and being neck deep in those mysteries again. You can find them online or by going to my Hidden Springs book pages and looking for the links to audiobooks.com or Audible. Murder Is No Accident is half price right now on Audible.

Instead of writing more mysteries, I found a new setting that I have come to love. That’s for Writing Journey #16. I think #16 will be a good place to end the journey for now.

Oh, and just so you know. No cats or dogs were injured in the writing of these books.

I know many of you love my mystery photo game here that I started when these mystery books were first published. The question today is “Do you like reading mysteries as much as figuring out mystery photos?”

Leave a comment and get an entry in my book giveaway. Deadline is Saturday, September 6 at midnight EST. Prize is winner’s choice of one of my books. You must be 18 or older to enter. Any comment will do, but you can answer the question if you want.

I sent off copies of Small Town Girl to the previous winners, Janice and Judi, who surprised me by picking the same title.  So watch your mailboxes, ladies.

 

 

 

 

,,

The three great essentials to achieve anything worth while are: Hard work, Stick-to-itiveness, and Common sense. ―Thomas A. Edison

Tomorrow is Labor Day. Hope you are having a good holiday weekend as we near the end of summer. When I was a kid and after I married too and we raised a crop of tobacco, labor day usually lived up to its name. We labored out in the field getting the tobacco in the barn. I’m sure many farmers will be laboring tomorrow cutting hay or harvesting other crops. Many other workers will have to be working too and probably a lot of writers will be coming up with words for their new stories.

Do you think about writing being a job? Being work? When I was beginning down my writing path, I did often feel I had to find spare moments to write in between my “real” work of taking care of my house and kids and secretarial work. I always thought I couldn’t really call it work if it was something I so wanted to do and also something I was getting very little income from. Work should produce income. Not that raising my kids was producing income, and sometimes mothers who didn’t have outside of the house jobs were often considered to not have work. Without a payday could it be called work? Well, yes, of course it can be.

But it took a while before I actually felt comfortable telling people my work was writing. With that attitude, it was hard to make sure I had the time I needed for that writing. But one thing for certain, no matter how much you want to write, it still takes work to write a book or to write anything. Even a blog post although journal writing was always my play time writing and so that’s my One Writer’s Journal blog now.

I was very happy when Angel Sister was finally published three years after I wrote it since the two Shaker books my editor had talked me into writing were published first, The Believer and The Seeker. I was even happier when this story that had so many of my mother’s memories as background found readers. I had proposed follow-up stories back when I first sent in my proposal for Angel Sister and the publishers decided they only wanted me to write the one Rosey Corner book. Naturally, I was disappointed, but I moved on with other projects. In spite of saying I didn’t want to write more Shaker stories, guess what? Yes, I agreed to write two more, The Blessed and The Gifted. During this time, I often told my editor, Lonnie, that my next book was going to be The Ending. She always laughed and would say she liked the title, The Beginning better.

But I didn’t only work on those Shaker stories. You remember that book I wrote way back when that my agent said had the “earmarks” of a bestseller and then had been rejected for being too clean? Well, after I had success with dusting off my first Shaker book and having it published as The Outsider, I thought nothing ventured, nothing gained. So I dug out that old manuscript from my reject shelf and gave it a once over. Since I had already rewritten it twice while making the rounds the first time and had cut out 50,000 words or so, it didn’t need a major rewrite. I really wasn’t sure the story would be one that my publishers would like. It had dramatic history, some mystery, plenty of romance, but didn’t have a lot of Scripture or Bible references that my other stories had. It was more Christian worldview. But I did some edits, changed a few things here and there and sent it off to my agent who sent it off to my editor. And she liked it. It eventually was published as Words Spoken True. Some readers say it’s their favorite of my books. It did have that dramatic history of the election riots in 1855 and plenty of newspaper history at a time when newspapers were the way people got their news.

Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it. — Madeleine L’Engle

I was keeping my keyboard warm and turning out stories. It was exciting to have new books out there for readers. But I hadn’t forgotten my  Rosey Corner characters and those other stories I had wanted to write about them. It turned out that my readers did me a great service and asked for more stories about the Merritt sisters and Lorena Birdsong. I was thrilled when the publishers decided I could go back to Rosey Corner for a couple more stories. These were no longer as much about my mother’s memories. Instead the Merritt sisters had come to life in my imagination and headed down their own story roads. I loved writing about their loves and marriages and challenges in Small Town Girl and Love Comes Home. Love Comes Home was picked as the Selah Book of the Year. I was so surprised and even more pleased.

Then I went back to my fictional Harmony Hill Shaker village again. There was that Christmas story my editor and agent had talked about and had me wanting to do when they came to visit. And another Shaker book even though I thought I had probably run out of “The” titles, but no. We came up with another one, The Innocent. In that story I had a dog character, Asher, that played a big part. I always like writing in a dog or two. But what about cats? Tune in next week to find out when cats started showing up in my stories.

Do you like reading books that have dog, cats, or other animals in important roles in the storyline?

Don’t forget the book giveaway is still going on. Leave a comment and get an entry. If you’ve already entered on other posts, you get another entry if you comment on this post. I love hearing from you. The deadline for entries is Saturday, September 6, 2025 at midnight EST. You must be 18 or older to enter.

Eva Marie Everson presenting me with the Selah Book of the Year Award for Love Comes Home

 

Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on. ~Louis L’Amour

Last post I shared how my editor encouraged me to write two more books featuring the Shakers and their history. When I had reservations, she dangled a carrot out in front of my writer’s nose. She said that if I would do these extra Shaker stories then I might gain more readers who would then be willing to give other books I wrote a try. Books that weren’t about the Shakers. Books like the one on her desk that she had yet to read.

Besides, how many years had I wished for any editor to want to see a book I wrote and here was an editor enticing me to send her not one book but two that might have a very good chance of being published if I could tell a good story. About the Shakers. If I agreed, I’d make points with said editor. I was very eager to make points with said editor who would be reading Angel Sister, my story inspired by my mom’s memories of growing up in the 1930s. I wanted said editor to think kindly about my writing and not think I was a difficult author who wasn’t willing to take a challenge when offered one. An exciting challenge when I thought about it. Two books in one year. Perhaps if they sold, twice as much money in one year.

Nothing wrong with thinking about that with my family growing. The kids were all married and my sons were giving me the blessing of grandkids. Our house was small. When all the kids came to visit at the same time, we were wall to wall people.  We had decided to build onto the house. Years before we had built an office for me and a second bathroom on the back of the house. Now we wanted to add a large room across the end of the house that would give us more space when the kids came to visit. That building project was underway when I plunged into writing these new Shaker books.

First, since it had been so long ago since I had written The Outsider, I had forgotten most of my Shaker research. I had to bury myself back into Shaker history books and tour the nearby Shaker village while coming up with new characters and new happenings. The Outsider did have Shaker history, but it also had much history of the War of 1812. I decided for this second Shaker story, I would concentrate more on sharing the Shaker history and why people decided to join a Shaker village with their unusual rules, especially that of living celibate lives as brothers and sisters. Marriage and individual families were taboo.  If a married couple came into the village, they were parted with the men living on one side of their houses and the women on the other. They even had separate stairways so that a chance touch between a man and woman wouldn’t plummet the believers into sinful thinking.

And of course, I wanted romance in my stories. You can imagine the challenge of introducing romance where romantic feelings between a man and woman was looked upon as sin. I had to sneak romance in through the back door of those Shaker houses, and of course, by the end of the story, my characters, if love made an appearance, did leave the village for their happily ever after lives. The Believer is my Shaker book with the most Shaker history. I came up with a young woman with a younger brother and an unusually free-spirited little sister. When their father died and left them with no options, they went to the Shaker village, where Hannah, the little sister, struggled to follow the many rules.

A word after a word after a word is power. ~Margaret Atwood

I kept my fingers on the keyboard and in spite of workers banging right under my feet as they put in a new heat and air system and plenty of pounding and wall tearing down going on as the room was built, I somehow got that story written and without taking time to pull in a relaxing breath, went straight to Chapter 1 of Shaker book 3, that eventually was titled, The Seeker. It is set during the War between the States and has history about how that conflict affected the Shaker villages in Kentucky and about the Battle of Perryville. I got those stories written in a year just as my editor had wanted.

Meanwhile, my editor, Lonnie, had finally read the manuscript of Angel Sister. Turns out she hated to fly, but sometimes due to her work, she had to take to the air. Often she would read manuscripts to take her mind off the fact that she was floating in a big machine through the air. So, she took the manuscript of Angel Sister on one of those trips. She also liked to read paper copies. That’s rare these days with everything digital, but that was a few years ago when I sent in my manuscripts after carefully typing them on great quality paper I bought by the box. Turns out that Lonnie had copies made to leave back in her office. I, of course, kept a paper copy too. But she took the fine paper copy with her. When she told me this story, she said that I was probably going to be distressed to know that when she was reading on a trip, she would throw away the pages she read. My fine, expensive paper straight to the trashcan once she’d read the pages. No doubt she took notes about what she liked or didn’t like.

She had read about half the story when she need a restroom break. She took what she’d read to throw in the trash and lighten the load in her carry-on bag. But when she got back to her seat to continue on with reading the story, she discovered she’d accidentally thrown away the part she hadn’t read yet instead of the already read part. Now if she’d been a digital reader, that would not have been a problem. For me, the good part of her story is how much she wanted to read the rest of the story. She didn’t want to wait until she got back to her office to find out what happened next. She decided to retrieve the discarded pages from the trash. There were two restrooms. The one with the manuscript in the trash was occupied. The other one was not, but she hung out waiting for the right door to open while she felt like all the other passengers were staring at her. And what was taking the woman in the necessary restroom so long?? Eventually, she did get into the restroom. She did manage to retrieve the pages although she said that was not easy either. I told her she was lucky nobody decided she was acting suspiciously.

I suppose all’s well that turns out well. Lonnie loved the story. And although publishing it had to wait until after the Shaker books which was a sorrow for me since my last remaining aunt who loved to read had died suddenly. She would have loved the story. And my mother began a decline into dementia that made reading difficult. When I realized publication of the story was going to be delayed, I let her read the story in manuscript, but by the time the book was published, she couldn’t really keep a story in her head any longer.

Shortly after I wrote those two Shaker stories, my agent, Wendy Lawton, and my editor, Lonnie Hull DuPont, decided to take a road trip together and come visit me. What a treat that was, and of course, we had to go tour the Pleasant Hill Shaker Village near where I live. The picture is one we took while we were at the Shaker village. While they were here, they talked me into writing a Shaker Christmas story, Christmas at Harmony Hill. For somebody who didn’t want to write but that one Shaker book, I was already up to four with promises to write two more.

Angel Sister did make it out to readers before I wrote more Shaker novels,  and whether it was because I had gained readers with those two extra Shaker books or because people loved the cover with that adorable little girl to match my character, Lorena Birdsong, on the cover, readers did read the story and fall in love with my Merritt sisters plus one. More to come on that along with more writing stories in this writing journey.

Remember, the giveaway is still going on for another week or so. Deadline to enter to win a choice of one of my books is September 6, 2025 at midnight EST. To enter, just leave a comment on this post. Each time you leave a comment on one of my Writing Journey posts, you get a new entry.  I did hear from Janice from Kentucky, who surprised me by also wanting a copy of Small Town Girl. I love it when people read my Rosey Corner stories.

And thanks for following me down this writing road.

Was the Shaker history in my Shaker stories interesting to you? If you haven’t read any of the Shaker stories, do you know anything about the Shakers? 

You never say never. There’s always a chance to do things in the future. ~Nick Cummins

Have you ever said you are never going to do something and then never shows up and pokes fun at you? I’m not sure I ever actually thought never but close to it. But wait, let me start at the starting point.

Last post you read about how excited I was to finally be in the publishing business again with Scent of Lilacs, Orchard of Hope, and Summer of Joy on the way out to readers. I was feeling as though maybe I had found my niche even after thinking that I might not be able to write for the inspirational market. Those books proved I could.

Not long before Scent of Lilacs was released, my editor was passing through Kentucky on the way to a meeting and wanted to come by my house. I’m not sure she realized that I lived out in the country. It doesn’t seem too far out to me, but I do live on a little lane (gravel at the time) off of a windy country road. She said she could find me. And she did after a few wrong turns. You can imagine how nervous I was. I had never been face to face with an editor. But Lonnie was great. I didn’t say anything too stupid as best I can remember. We chatted a little while and then she said she had to be on to her scheduled meeting in Tennessee, a few more hours of driving.

As she stood at the door with us saying our goodbyes, she mentioned that she loved the history of the Shakers and wished she had time to visit the restored Shaker village not far from where I live. I threw out in a casual way that I had once written a novel about the Shakers. You remember that novel I wrote after my first two books were published that had found a home on my rejection shelf after my agent sent it to numerous editors who said it was too religious, too whatever.  Lonnie said she’d like to read it if I’d send it to her. I hadn’t expected that, but an editor says she’d like to read one of your stories, you are ready for her to read one of your stories.

After she left, I hunted up that manuscript and gave it a look. I had written it years before I came into the electronic age. So, all I had was a box of typed pages. If you’ve ever taken a writing class or even had to write papers in an English class, you may have heard the advice to put whatever you wrote aside for a few days or a week and then when you pick it back up to do edits, you’ll have fresh eyes to find ways to improve your writing. Well, you put a manuscript away for twenty years and then pick it back up, you can find plenty of things to improve.

First I realized I had gotten a little too deep into the history of the War of 1812 that is part of that Shaker story. I had found the history so fascinating that I guess I was sure readers would too. I also had done a lot of writing practice in those years and had improved my writing skills. So, it was time for major editing. I had to type the story into the computer, since I had left the typewriter behind and moved into the word processing world by then.  I was in between my second and third Hollyhill books when I took time to rework the Shaker story.

In between that time I had written the life testimony of a friend, Jerry Shepherd, who spent time in prison. With the help of many people along his path, he turned his life around, got released from prison, and began sharing his story in hopes that he could keep other young men from making the mistakes with alcohol and other drugs that he had. Angels at the Crossroads is a powerful redemptive story and the only nonfiction book I’ve written.  My agent tried to find a publisher for the story, but memoirs are hard to place if the person isn’t well known. Eventually we self-published the story that is still available from me or Jerry and online at Amazon.

But back to my editor’s visit and her interest in my Shaker story. I jumped in and did major edits before I sent it off to her. She liked the story but had reservations about my character who had visions. Visions were common in Shaker history, but she said their readers didn’t like visions and could I take them out of the story. I said I could write a different story, but the visions were too central to this story to be able to do that. If you’ve read the story,  you’ll understand. We eventually came to a compromise solution and Revell decided to publish The Outsider.

I had finished my third Hollyhill book, Summer of Joy, and it was scheduled for release. Once you’ve written three books about the same characters, with a few new characters each book, set in the same place, you keep hearing their voices in your head. Now I needed to shove them aside and come up with a new idea.

I had picked the Hollyhill idea partly or maybe mostly because the setting was my small town and I remembered how things were in the Sixties. I decided to move farther back in time to my mom’s young days of growing up during the Great Depression. My mom had three sisters and when they got together they loved nothing more than talking about their growing up years. Often they would laugh and laugh as they shared their memories. I decided to pick some of the odd characters they talked about and then base my main characters on mom and her sisters, and a little on the circumstances of their family. My grandfather was a blacksmith. I made the father in the Rosey Corner stories a blacksmith. My grandfather was shipped out to France to fight in WW I. The father in the story served in France. My grandfather had a drinking problem when he came home from the war. The father in my book had a drinking problem. My mother, the second child, was the one who always took care of everyone else. Kate in the story, also the second daughter, had that same can-do attitude.

It took me a while to separate my characters from Mom and her sisters. I wanted to use some of their characteristics, but the story was fiction. Their memories whispered through the story’s background, but it wasn’t their lives. It was my Merritt sisters’ lives. I titled the book, Angel Sister, due to the little girl deserted on the church steps who hoped for an angel to take care of her. Eventually I packed up the story and sent it off to my agent who liked the story and sent it off to my editor.  I loved the story and had high hopes for it. Weeks went by. Then a couple of months with no news. You can’t imagine how hard it is to wait for news about a book that’s being read, you think, by an editor.

The phone rings. It is Lonnie. I’m absolutely sure she’s calling about Angel Sister.  I was absolutely wrong. While I was writing this new story, my Shaker book The Outsider, had been released. At that time, and still today, books about the Amish were very popular. My book wasn’t about the Amish, but the Amish wear bonnets. The woman on the cover of my book wore a bonnet. That caught the eyes of the Amish book readers who gave my story a try. My Shaker book was selling so well in the early weeks of its release that Lonnie was calling to ask me to write more Shaker books. I told her I had written one book about Shakers but had no plans to write another. She said I should make new plans. I asked her about Angel Sister. She hadn’t had time to read it yet, she said. All my nervous worry had been for nothing. Eventually she convinced me that I could write more Shaker stories and that I could write two of them in one year. I had never written a book that fast. But never say never. Sometimes you don’t know what you can do until you try. And so I began down a Shaker story road.

I know I said I was ready to wrap up this Writing Journey, but I keep thinking of new things to share. Maybe one more??  Or two. Or just tell me if you’ve had enough.

The Winners are:

My book giveaway ended on Saturday. My two winners who get their pick of one of my books are Judi T and Janice W. I’ve sent both of them emails and Judi has already responded. She said the Rosey Corner books were favorites of hers and she picked Small Town Girl. I look forward to hearing from Janice soon.

But because I’m still hoping you’ll keep reading these Writing Journey posts for another week, I’m adding on a chance for someone else to win one of my books. If you are already entered, you still have those entries in this new giveaway. If you haven’t already entered, you can get an entry by commenting on this post, and if you have, you can get another entry with a comment. Deadline for entries will be September 6, 2025 at midnight EST. And you do have to at least 18 years old to enter.

Have you ever said never about something and then had to change your mind and give a different answer?

 

Write what you know.

The above advice is attributed to Mark Twain. At least he may have been the first person to actually write it down when someone asked him how to become a writer. It could be that someone once told him the same thing when he was a young writer. He followed that advice and wrote about the river that he loved and based some of his characters on people he knew. Of course, he used his imagination to add to those real-life experiences and came up with fictional stories.

At any rate, when I was bouncing along on that rocky road and writing and not finding any editors or publishers who loved my writing enough to put my stories in a book, I went back to that basic advice.

But what did I know? I knew country living because I was a farm girl. I knew small towns because I did my shopping in one. I knew small country churches because I was a member of one of them. I knew the 1960s because I lived through them.

With all that in mind, I had a starting point. My setting was going to be based on my own little hometown and my country church. I borrowed a little from the background of our preacher back then who had a daily job along with preaching. His first wife had left him and that made it difficult for him to find a preaching position in the Sixties because he was divorced. I often do a “what if” page when I’m trying to come up with an idea for a new book. My first “what if” question for this story was “What if I have a young girl, daughter of a preacher, whose mother deserted her when she was five?”

Everything else followed after that. Wes, the grandfather/uncle type in the story, was one of those surprise characters who just showed up. Well, he actually fell out of a spaceship from Jupiter as he was passing over Hollyhill and ended up working for Jocie’s father.  At least, that’s what he’s always told Jocie. Then I added an Aunt Love who tried to keep Jocie in line by quoting Scripture at her. I started the story by letting Jocie want a dog more than anything. When I was a girl, I wanted a dog more than anything. That made a good launching place for my story and worked out to be a great way to introduce other characters through the problems the dog caused.

The story has a scene where lilacs are important. At least the scent of lilacs do. When I got all the words down, that was the title I decided on. The Smell of Lilacs. Later, I realized scent not smell had a much better sound and the title became Scent of Lilacs. While I wrote the story, I added it to my prayers. I kept thinking about that old spiritual “It’s me, it’s me, it’s me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayers. Not my sister, not my brother, but me, O Lord.” Those words might not be exactly right, but that’s how I remembered them as I prayed for my story. It was me as a writer, me as a storyteller, my story that I was throwing upward toward heaven in need of prayer.

While I hadn’t written the story necessarily for the inspirational market, it did have a preacher as a character. It did have all those Bible verses Aunt Love quoted for Jocie. It did have a church and a congregation. It did have Bible stories. It did have Jocie continually trying to get Wes to come to church. At any rate, when my agent got it, she wasn’t exactly sure what to do with the story. She liked it, but she didn’t think she personally knew any editors that were looking for a story like mine.

So, she did what I might have done and went searching for an editor of a Christian publishing house and picked Revell Books, almost by random. Or maybe not so random. Maybe those prayers I had offered so fervently had something to do with it since she sent it off to Lonnie Hull DuPont whose favorite flower just happened to be lilacs. She just happened to be sitting with her mother who was ill. She just happened to love my story. First trip out for that story just happened to find the perfect place for it.

I’d like to say here that the book became a bestseller, but no. Perhaps a modest seller for an author new to the inspirational fiction world. Whatever, I was happy to hold that book in my  hand, still with the title I had given it, The Scent of Lilacs. (Later The was dropped from the title.) I was happy to sign contracts. I was happy to have the go ahead to write two more Hollyhill books. I was happy when people told me they had read and loved my story.

I liked writing about Jocie and her family and friends. It was fun writing from 13-year-old and then 14-year-old Jocie’s viewpoint, but I also wrote from her father’s viewpoint and from Aunt Love’s. In the follow-up books I added some other viewpoint characters – Wes, Jocie’s sister Tabitha, Leigh , Zella, Cassidy, Myra, and maybe others I’m not remembering. I do love getting inside my characters’ heads and letting them live the story through my fingers on the keyboard.

The Lord had abundantly answered my prayers for that story, and later after it went out of print and I had published more stories, the publishers agreed to re-issue the books with new covers. Another major blessing made possible by my wonderful editor going to bat for me. The book cover with the bicycle was the first cover. The new covers had Jocie featured on them instead of her bike.

I had written about a setting I knew. I had written about a time I knew. But the story was fiction as those characters came to life and lived in my head for a couple of years while I wrote the Heart of Hollyhill books. After Scent of Lilacs, I wrote Orchard of Hope and Summer of Joy. 

“Writers who are intimately familiar with their subject produce more knowing, confident and, as a result, stronger results.” ~Ben Yagoda

You’ll never guess what happens next. Well, maybe you will or maybe you won’t have to because I’ll tell you in my next post.

This is your last chance to enter this book giveaway. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment here on this post. If you’ve been reading my other Writing Journey posts and left comments on them, leaving another comment here gets you another entry, giving you an extra chance to win. I’ll pick two winners who will have their choice of one of my autographed books. Deadline to enter is midnight EST August 23, 2025. I’ll contact the winners, picked by random drawing, by email. To enter, you must be 18 or older.

Have you read my Hollyhill books? If so, who was one of your favorite characters and why? Or if you haven’t read these stories, would you like to?