The highway gets long. The miles get longer. The hours longer still. But there is a destination in sight. A place we need to go, a place we need to be, so we push on. We reach a point where I stay awake to help my husband stay awake. We focus on making it to the next small town along the last stretch of interstate before we turn onto Highway 24 headed up into the mountains. A turn that used(..)

The most startling thing about Lemesa proved to be the angel who checked us into our motel late on Halloween afternoon. A true angel, a young Hispanic girl with a chin-length bob black as a raven’s wing, equally dark eyes made darker by heavy eyeliner, full sparkly silk gown with long wide sleeves, small gossamer wings, a halo and strappy silver four-inch spiked high heels. A beautiful sm(..)

What happens when a writer wakes in the middle of the night and cannot go back to sleep? Plot the next scene in the current novel. Write song lyrics, things like “Rats in the attic, cockroaches on the floor… Make a cup of Chai tea and eat soda crackers. Read a friend’s novel (in this case Mara Purl’s Closer Than You Think, www.havenbooks.com), catch up on emails, light(..)

My computer email program will warn me that the use of that “s” word is inappropriate and may offend the average reader. It will suggest that I might want to tone down the content of my email before sending it. When these “mood warning” messages appear it makes me smile and I click on “send anyway!” The other day, while writing to a woman friend, I typed som(..)

So I admit this character flaw. I hate cockroaches. Almost as much as I hate rats and used to hate mice. I have an entire chapter in my memoir When I Came West (due out next year from the University of Oklahoma Press) devoted to my struggle to deal with vermin. I aptly call that chapter “Of Mice and Madness.” Now that I’ve moved to Texas I find myself dealing with several ot(..)

October 26, 2008  On the Road to San Antonio

Last week at home in Llano felt like a whirlwind! Our new publisher, Susan Stoltz of Rockin’ SR  and the new web master, Deborah Kunzie (www.garlicdzign.com) arrived from Montana and Florida respectively to spend several days with us. They kept us on our toes with photo shoots, short videos for pod casts, discussing book(..)

Just Wondering About - Owning A Vehicle Most kids can’t wait to get their first set of wheels. Not me. I wanted nothing to do with driving or owning a car. Chock that up to fear. Who knows where the fear came from or why I had so much resistance to joining the ranks of those who lived life at an accelerated rate? Perhaps I inherited my mother’s phobia for driv(..)