“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?