Now, it is difficult for me to imagine my life not as a writer. I know I published my first book on Amazon on July 12, 2013. That means tomorrow will be eight months since the first book went live. I self-published before then, and by self-publish, I mean WE did the printing and the binding and the CD pressing for electronic copies. It was grueling and quite a huge amount of work for very little return. I tentatively put An Insider’s Guide to the General Hospital Weekend up on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing to be available on Kindle and them thought, “Hmmm, I wonder if…” and not long afterward, the three other books I had already written, Leaving Kentucky in the Broad Daylight, Energy Magic, and CUSP went up. Those were the pre-existing books and as of today, I now have twenty-one books published in eight months and a couple of months later, expanded into print books as well. I am grateful that writing is now my full time job. As a journalist for ABC daytime drama from 1999 until 2012, I always wrote in high volume, but books have always been my calling.

I am excited to announce that three new books have been released within the past month.

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Someone recently asked me what pieces of advice I would give to a person who is considering becoming a writer.  My first thought was that you do not become a writer, you either are one or you aren’t and inside, you know the answer to that already.

I put together this list of considerations that I think would help a person who is just starting out:

1) Have at least one lie or one truth or one song inside you. If you have a lie, write fiction. If you have a truth, write non-fiction. If you have a song, write poetry.

2) Have a good word processing program and an internet connection.

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So when last we left our intrepid heroine, she had just learned that her family was about to re-grow by two and that her son and grandson were moving in.  Now, we also know she speaks about herself in third person, which is entirely unsettling. Josh and Aiden moved in last Saturday and all is going well for the most part. Aiden started school right on schedule and Josh has been applying for jobs and cleaning the hell out of my house. Nathan very graciously cleared out his own room for them to stay in without him being asked. What little he had (he is a minimalist) is now in the motor home and most nights, he sleeps inside because it has been down into the 30-40s at night. He crashes on the couch.

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I can finally talk about the life changes that I referenced to my Facebook readers. I apologize to those dear folks for my necessary vagueness about what is going on.  As they know, I am usually very forthright about my life, but in this case, there were details that had to play out before I could go public, such as telling my younger sons about changes happening in our family. I am still struggling with these changes myself, but I have faith that they are leading in a good direction.  As of last night, key people have been informed and the plan is more solid. Due to challenges my third son, Joshua, is facing, which are his own story to tell and not mine, Eric and I will be caring for our grandson, Aiden, for an undetermined amount of time. He is nine and in the fourth grade. We both love our grandson very  much.  He is clever, fun, loving, insightful, and above all, adaptable.  My challenges in this have very little to do with Aiden or how much I adore him.  They are purely selfish and that has been my struggle. Joshua has had custody of Aiden, his only biological child, for a little over two years now and they are very, very close.

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Also called “Thank the Goddess for Cameras!”

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I love my body, my body loves me, I am a Goddess, blah, blah, blah.  I usually feel quite good about myself and as a result, I usually feel quite good period.  Period is the issue, however.  I always had normal periods my entire life – freakishly so, in fact.  I could set my clock by the prediction that I would start at 10:00 AM every twenty-eight days.  Because I had six children and breastfed five, years would often go by when I did not menstruate, which was glorious.  When I was younger, I had hellish cramps, but as I worked out some of the unpleasantness in my life, the cramps went away, rarely to return. It has been around fifteen years now since I had any significant cramps.

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Dorothy:  Well, now which way do we go?
Scarecrow: Pardon me. That was is a very nice way.
Dorothy:  Who said that?……Don’t be silly, Toto. Scarecrows don’t talk.
Scarecrow:  It’s pleasant down that way, too.
Dorothy:  That’s funny. Wasn’t he pointing the other way?
Scarecrow:  Of course, people do go both ways!
Dorothy:  Why – you did say something. didn’t you? Are you doing that on purpose, or can’t you make up your mind?
Scarecrow:  That’s the trouble. I can’t make up my mind. I haven’t got a brain, only straw.

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Our book CUSP is available on Amazon Kindle at no charge for three days!  Click here to get it!

Early yesterday evening, I was in my own version of Mecca (WalMart) and from around three aisles over, I could hear a kid just going for it.  There was all kinds of screaming and ranting and threatening and of course, it got louder the closer I got to it because it was not actually moving and I was.  As I rounded the corner – and you know how long it can take to get through three aisles of groceries in a store – I saw a mom who was probably in her mid-late twenties standing by a cart.  In the back of the cart sat a kid of around five or so and that child, whose gender I did not notice because the other one commanded so much attention – played quietly and looked unaffected.  The kid who was in the kid seat of the cart was probably three or so and was still in full Klaxon mode.  

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The artwork for this blog entry is graciously provided by JayBird-stock on Deviant Art.

Given the subject matter of this blog post, it would be more appropriate to show a snake shedding its skin, but snakes give me the heebie jeebies for no reasonable reason, so instead, I chose this beautiful photographic representation of the goddess Diana shooting an arrow into the wind.  How often are the changes we make like shooting an arrow into the wind, not knowing how external factors (the wind, the lay of the land, the movement of living bodies around it) might affect our efforts or how our efforts might affect others?

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