Theimages are endless, and usually something to make you sigh as youwork hard at your own job and daydream about the lovely, fulfilledlife of a writer, let alone the money that must come in for such an“easy” job.

NOT!!

        Youget up early in order to get household things done as well as yardwork outside, or to get shopping done, or the other million-and-onethings EVERYBODY needs to do daily. Most writers also have regularjobs to go to every day. They have families and all the social doingsthat go with kids in school, husbands who want their attention, mealsto cook, sometimes diapers to change, or at the other end of thechild spectrum, teenagers to deal with. They have family challenges,personal problems, health problems. They try to keep in touch withfriends and close relatives, and most of the time, all these thingsare a real burden when trying to focus your brain on a fictitiousstory with fictitious characters who are as real to the author astheir own family. It is a huge matter of focusing amid constantmulti-tasking. 

       Writingis a mental, physical and emotional challenge, and you have to reallylove it to keep doing it while living your “real” life.

        Overthe years of facing everything above as well as several majorsurgeries and personal family problems that rise above the norm, Ihave written 76 novels – all very long, very emotional, verydetailed – all requiring hours and hours of research and planning –all full of real history. And most while living the busy lifementioned above. Many nights I stayed up writing until around 2 a.m.while everybody else slept, then was up at 5:30 a.m. to get everybodyoff to school and work (including my own full-time job) all overagain. For years I slept between 3 and 5 hours a night. 

        Icould go on for pages and pages about what it takes to write even onebig book. I have written 76 of them. And once-through doesn’t doit. You write the story, go back and re-write it because of changesyou know it needs, then go back and re-write it again because ofediting, then edit it again and make all the corrections, then sendit to an editor who sends it back full of errors and suggestions, soyou do more re-writing and make more corrections. You read it againand catch more errors. (You would be surprised at what the brain“sees” that isn’t there or is incorrect.)

        Awriter is so fixated on the story and the characters that all thoselittle boo-boos just fly right by your attention. After severalreadings and several re-writes, the book must be converted forAmazon’s print and Kindle requirements, and you have to read itAGAIN in that form to make sure nothing was left out or mixed up,make sure the spacing is right, and – again – catch errors. Yes,even at that point you will find tiny errors. People have asked me ifI read my books after they are published. Heavens no! I have alreadyread it 5-6 times by then! Maybe more!

        Andthen there are the physical problems from sitting far too long. I amnotorious for not getting up when I should. With my latest book,SHADOW TRAIL, I sat 12-18 hours for 3-4 days in a row trying to getthe final version ready sooner than later because I promised myreaders they would be able to get the book by a certain date. I satso long that my left leg swelled beyond the capacity of the skin tohold all that water and fluid was oozing out through the pores of mylower leg. I learned my lesson on this one and decided I MUST GET UPAND WALK AROUND AND STRETCH, ETC., much more often when writing! Nodue date is worth your health.

         Personalfamily problems also intervened. Believe me, trying to write withheavy personal emotions and worries going on is no picnic.

        So… easy? No, writing is not easy. You had better be born to writeand be very devoted to your stories and their characters. It had allbetter be very real for you, so real that you cry when the characterscry, and laugh when they laugh. They should be so real that youforget about all the rules of writing and all the “how-to’s”and you just write from the heart … and from the soul … notcaring about all the advice and suggestions for “How” to writeand what you can and cannot use or say.

        Lucrative?No. Most writers don’t make enough to live on, or they make anaverage income they would make at a regular job, making the writingsimply very nice “extra” income. Those who make it big and becomefamous and have movies made from their books are few and far between.

        ITIS HARDWORK!So I hope when you read someone’s book, you don’t read it with anattitude of finding out what is wrong with it so you can criticize iton Amazon. I hope you read it with an appreciation for how hard thatauthor worked to get that book out and available for you to read foryour personal entertainment. I hope you enjoy the story for what itis, and because the author wants you to enjoy it. An author can’tget enough “thank-you’s.” Your suggestions are always welcome,but you should never be mean about it. Everyone’s opinions and theway they “see” life is different, which is only food for morestories. If we were all the same, there would be no need for writingstories about “people” at all.

        Iworked very, very hard on SHADOW TRAIL – harder than I ever haveworked on any other book, and probably because of personal emotionalthings that were going on and physical problems I had that have neverhappened before. I am, after all, getting old (hate to admit it!) andhave been doing this for 45 years (published 40 years in May 2023).It has been a long, long road that would take another book to writeabout. 

        Sufficeit to say, I LOVE TO WRITE. I LOVE MY CHARACTERS. They are extremelyreal to me, and sometimes I feel like I might meet them when I leavethis world and go to the next. I believe some of them really existed.Jake Harkner, the main character in my Outlaw Hearts series, is avery complicated man due to an abusive childhood. I love thepsychological makeup of this man, and I understand him right to hissoul. I live with my characters. I talk with them. I love them and Ivisualize them as real people who really lived.

        Ihope you enjoy SHADOW TRAIL, book #6 in my Outlaw Hearts family saga.After all that hard work and all the changes I ended up going throughwith the story, the book has finally been published – August 12,2023, Amazon. And I am already working on my “next” story, titledIF I LOVED YOU.

Enjoy!!

 Order Shadow Trail on Amazon