We sure can't do it alone.

Why would we even try?

I mean, granted, the late nights of writing? Those have to be done alone. Someone brings me treats every once in a while. Someone shows up to take me to dinner or bring me coffee. These are the perks of having people in your life whom you love and who love you in return. They also want to make sure I am still alive.

My main character was broken-hearted, and took off on a train on an adventure, just to see what's out there. Nothing would ever change for her if she'd stayed where she was. She took a chance. She was a smart girl, too, don't get me wrong. She didn't go off lounging in speakeasies all the way up and down the coast or anything.

It is a story about independence and community, about friends who become family, and about growing up.

Tonight, I am brave enough to check the amazon rank. Gratefulness overtakes me and I can barely breathe. I am one blessed lady. Something About Sophia is sitting at #63,000 of more than a million books. I don't have numbers on Nowhere, Everywhere yet.

If this all disappeared tomorrow, it would have been enough.

#nowhereeverywhere #northdakota #historicalfiction

Nowhere, Everywhere

And.

For four years, I thought this book would be entitled Nowhere "and" Everywhere: A Good Place to be From."

It turns out, that gets to be a little wordy in an elevator speech over sushi. Let's just ditch the colon and add a comma. After all, we all like the comma. We're hoping this book brings me a comma.

Comma, comma, comma, comma, comma, come heal me, yeah...

ANNND... I am furiously tap-tap-tapping away again, because, somehow, I can't stop. I have more thoughts than you'd think. It's not really just that. The true story is that I started a project fourteen and three-quarters years ago, and I should be able to finish it by my fifteenth brainaversary. I've had a lot of encouragement through the years. We've got a lot going on.

#historicalfiction #gertie #northdakota #somethingaboutsophia #sherememberstrilogy

Scrawling...

...like a madwoman.

I am writing as much as possible. For one publication or another. For the Independence Day newspaper, and the local magazine that comes out monthly. I write emails and envelopes at work. I write Facebook statuses and text messages. I've been trying to write grocery lists, to eat more fruits and vegetables, but let's face it, the Bountiful Baskets are available, and that's making our lives easier.

Right now, I'm writing emails to my Operations Manager because my second book isn't quite ready...

Oh, hey, guys? I'm starting a publishing company. Are y'all ready for this? I am registering...

Sunflower Press of North Dakota.

It will be beautiful. And I wanted you to know first. It's taking us a little time, because we're swamped, and we have jobs, but it's coming. The important thing is this: Gertie's story is coming. She is fifty years ahead of Sophia, and she will knock your socks off.

You won't have to wait long.

#nowhereeverywhere #northdakota #historicalfiction

Counting on it.

Quiet now, I can still hear the clinking of the seaglass,
Guitar strings winking in my face.
Oceans of blue, green and gold have passed,
My window as the road and the radio met my days.
Airwaves, airlines, and all of the rest...
I have been so blessed.
I have been so blessed. #outofmyhead

Board of Directors

Your Board of Directors. The list of individuals in your life whom you would call together in time of crisis or celebration, to make a decision or plan a party. Who are they? Who shows up on Moving Day and stands in your front yard, willing to send you off to places unknown, and will take you back into their arms and kitchen tables again, whenever you come home?

This week I was blessed to touch base with my Board of Directors, and now, as I breathe in the breezes of spring, and know the trees are budding and the ice will no longer be a fear factor, I am feeling immeasurably blessed. We have made it. We have survived. I feel like I've been sweating it out in a conference room surrounded by ten-foot snowbanks.

Another book is nearing completion, after several years of work and worry, my own cross-country move, and I believe in this character. I almost put her away this week, because I was at a sticking point. No, one of my directors said. She's a role model. She needs to be read. I like her, as a person.

Divinely Inspired

Man, I love going to church.

In addition to the obvious, for the feeding of my soul, I love that bad church coffee. I don't necessarily go to enjoy the flavor of the black liquid. No, it's the coffee hour that caffeinates my being.

Those old folks at church coffee know where it's at, I'm telling you right now. I have been more entertained at church coffee hour than at any movieplex in the nation. The retired officers' wives at the army post taught me everything I ever needed to remember, in case they ever matched me with bachelor brass, and these days, the hometown heroes entertain me with anecdotes that are on the edge of unbelievable.

This precious 83-year-old lady (and she was a lady, let me tell you) looked me square across the table tonight, at the last Wednesday supper before Lent, after making me laugh out loud in the Great Hall, and said, "you may use THAT in one of your stories."

Dotted Lines

The wind is howling, the ground is a treacherous ice rink, and the windchill below the donut would freeze eyeballs in only a few breaths, so it's only natural to be dreaming of summer vacation. 

When I was a kid, we would load up the Oldsmobile and cruise out to the mountains or Lake Superior for two weeks every bloomin' summer. That meant two solid weeks of my brother reaching across the backseat and pounding charley horses into my thigh. The reward was typically an ice cream cone. We're not talkin' soft serve in a drive-thru. Our destinations were always these really cool mountain tourist towns, that smelled of leather and horses, and there would be REAL ICE CREAM there. I vowed that when I grew up, I wanted to live in a tourist town like that. Horse neck is one of my favorite smells. Take a whiff. You'll sense what I mean.

Maybe, while I'm huddled up under three blankets and trying to finish the next book, I just really, irrationally, want ice cream. Perhaps I want to move to some Wild West town that smells of leather. I'm not too worried about the ice. After all, it always gets warmer. Eventually.