Tears of Remembrance…

As I ponder this day of remembrance, the tears prick my eyes. We still have so many men and women serving in war torn countries today. They’re still in harms way so that we can sit at our laptops and blog, tweet, or just do anything we want to. My heart goes out to the parents, spouses, and children here at home wondering where their loved one is at this very moment. Are they safe? Are they hurt? When will they come home?

I was at my son’s school one day this week and they were having a Veteran’s Day celebration. Pictures lined the walls of the lobby. Some were old and faded, others were current day. They were of military men and women. I walked slowly by each one, reading their information. I stopped at one that I was drawn to. It was of a young man that was killed about six months ago in Afghanistan. He was such a handsome young man, with a family and small children. I felt the tear that threatened to spill at the corner of my eyes. I feel it now as I write this post. My heart was so full of anger, sorrow, emptiness. I could hardly breath.

I turned to see my son coming up the hall and I took a startled breath. He will be of age in five years. Where will our world be then. Will he be called up to duty? The tears that threatened to spill burst forth. I hugged my son and thanked God that he was safe. Of course my son thought I’d lost it. He turned to the photo I was looking at and sighed. He felt the pain too.

So remember our men and women serving now for our freedom. Remember those that have died through all these years to keep our freedom in tact. Respect those that are home, but served their time. It’s because of them that we have what we do and we can go to Church on Sunday, we can go to the store without fear, we can walk up our sidewalks without fear and we can live when they may not…

So just remember…

The Petals of a Rose.

Have you ever looked at a rose? I mean really looked at it. A rose has always been a symbol of romance. I was pondering why and here is my take on it.

A rose is beautiful in any color or type. The smell is usually sweet and enduring. The petals each hold onto the other as romance should hold you together. As each petal gets to the center it grows closer and tighter. Just as romance. The closer you get to your lover, the tighter you get, the closer in tune with each other you are.

As with a rose, sometimes the edges get frazzled as does any romance, but the other petals endure. The petals are soft and velvety just as true romance feels. You get all soft inside and your mind turns to velvet. Roses do have thorns that prick you, but romance can also have thorns. Just when you think you are past romance, it comes up and pricks you, making you stand up and take notice. We all need that prick from time to time. No matter how well your relationship is, that prick is needed to remind you of the days of velvet romance.

Just with reading or writing romance you get the warm, velvety feeling inside. It inspires you and makes you want to have that in your own life.

So go out and look at a rose differently. Why do you think the old saying goes “Stop and smell the roses”? It just makes you feel better. Put a little romance in your life every day, not just on special occasions.

As always good writing and romance. May God bless you!

Laugh, it’s Friday!

Hello fellow bloggers. It’s Friday. Had you noticed? Did you forget? Well, I woke up and smiled. It’s Friday and the weekend officially starts in a couple of hours.

Have you laughed lately? I’m not talking about that snicker or pretend laugh when someone tells you a stupid joke. I’m talking about a outright, stomach clenching laugh. Well if you haven’t then try it. It helps you feel better. It clears the mind and makes way for positive thinking. Studies show that laughter helps people heal faster. I don’t know much about that, but I do know it helps you feel better.

As a children’s minister I laugh a lot. Children can just bring on laughter just being themselves. Sometimes I get to class on Wednesday or Sunday with a splitting headache and soon I’m feeling better. I contribute it to laughter.

Try to laugh today. Don’t take things so seriously. You only live once and you need to enjoy it. It also helps your writing and during November a lot of people are on a writing marathon. If you don’t have anything to laugh about, go to the internet and find a joke site or youtube video. See if you don’t feel better after you have that healthy side splitting laugh.

Well, as always, good writing, have a good laugh and May God always bless you!

For those in the north that are still having issues from Sandy, try to laugh. I know that you don’t have a lot to laugh about, but it couldn’t hurt to just laugh. It might give you some hope or extra energy. Not to mention it will warm your body against the cold. Praying for all of you!

Music that inspires me!

We all have different inspirations for our writing. I’ve written several posts about the inspirations for my writing from leaves to just people watching, even slimy slugs. Well, this post is about the music I use to keep my mind in the mood to write. I call this post the “Music that inspires me” for a reason. Here is my as I call it, “Writing inspiration playlist”.

1: Point of No Return from the Phantom of the Opera (Gerard Butler’s version)

2: I’ll Be There Where the Heart Is – Kim Carnes

3: Before the Dawn – Evanescence

4: Total Eclipse of the Heart – Bonnie Tyler

5: Right Here Waiting For You – Richard Marx

6: I Don’t Want This Night to End – Luke Bryan

7: I Cross My Heart – George Strait

8: Haunted – Evanescence

9: My Immortal – Evanescence

10: Open Arms – Journey

This is only 10 of the over 50 songs that rotate on my RealPlayer. I have several Evanescence songs, also Mariana’s Trench, Muse, Paramore and many others. They just inspire me.

Let me know what kind of music inspires you. Everyone has that song that just inspires them to write. What’s yours?

Hope you enjoyed this post. As always enjoy you writing and May God Bless you.

The journey of a writer.

Have you ever wondered why you became a writer? Maybe you had an idea one day that was interesting and you decided to expand on it. Maybe you experience something in life that you felt others would like to hear about. Maybe you just simply love to write.

I started writing when I was a teenager and we won’t discuss how long ago that was. My grandfather wanted me to be a journalist. It got me to thinking about all the stories that ran around in my head. Sometimes I would spend most of the day in my room making notes or filling a notebook with words that came so easily. I just filed those away and went on to the next adventure.

My assistant was cleaning my old desk one day and found those old manuscripts. Some of them were written in pencil and had faded, but you could still see the words. Some were typed on an old typewriter. It actually brought back memories of sitting at a typewriter with the bottle of whiteout beside me. My typing skills came later.

Being a writer means different things to different people. For me it is a stress reliever. I get so relaxed when I’m emptying my brain on the screen. Sometimes, like yesterday, the words just flow from my fingers. Sometimes I get frustrated that I can’t type as fast as the words come. Sometimes I get way ahead of my fingers and I marvel at the fact that my fingers remember the words. It gives me pleasure when I finish a manuscript and look at it.

I know that some people may not like my style of writing, but that’s ok with me. Through reviews I’ve found that some people do like my writing. I’m not in it to become rich because I’ve done my research and I know that’s a one in a million chance. At least I can dream about it though.

My writing experiences have been fun. Sometimes it’s just fun to go back and read what I wrote years ago. My latest novel was started several years ago and all that was written was the first chapter. I don’t even remember why I stopped, but I’m glad I finished it. It was found by my assistant on a 3-1/2″ floppy. That tells you how old it was.

So, if you love writing keep it up. If you love experiencing the agony of marketing keep doing it. If you love the challenge of watching your sales numbers and not going nuts keep it up.

As always, good writing and may God bless you!

First Press Release!

http://www.prlog.org/12014198.pdf

Well, it’s official. I have completed my first Press Release. It was scary at first. I was nervous about it. My first thought was ‘what if I leave something out’ or ‘What if I say the wrong thing’. It was published late yesterday afternoon and this morning I had 70 hits and 1000+ headline impressions.

The world of self publishing has been eye opening. It has been a wild ride and an exciting one too. This press release is for my newest novel “A Love Never Lost” which has done better than I had even hoped. So, if you have a moment go by and check it out. Would love to hear some comments.

Hopefully, God willing, my current work in progress “Rekindled Flames”, the second in the “Flames of Love” series will be out in the next week. It is second book after “Tender Flames” and this one is a holiday book, so it’s release comes just in time.

So smile today is Friday and the weekend is a few hours away. Still praying for our neighbors to the north.

As always, good writing and May God bless you!

Levels of Love…

As I write this I ponder the different levels of love I’ve had in my 43 years of life. I am by no means an expert. This is just my outtake on the subject, so take it as you may.

Here goes:

Baby Love: I feel like as a baby you feel love, not positive because I do not remember being a baby, but I do remember how my son was as a baby. He would brighten up when I would walk in the room, so I feel like he was feeling love for me. So…

Child’s love: As a child you have such a reserve for real love. You have not been challenged by the things of the real world so you can be open to love with your whole heart. Children love unconditionally, well most of the time.

First crush love: You know the love I am talking about. Usually you experience it in your early teens or earlier for some. It is that feeling when you look across the aisle in class and lock eyes with a cute boy. You instantly think you are in love and you will just die if he looks back. Yeah, you remember that don’t you. Ok, you can quit laughing now.

Idol love: Well as a teenager usually you develop huge love issues for movie stars, musicians or even someone older in your life. It is the kind of thing that causes you to post pictures all over your walls and spend your whole allowance on anything with their picture on it. Yeah, been there done that…

First young love: Well this is the one that usually hurts and makes you think you will never love again. You are usually dating by the time this one hits and you think that nobody else can ever take their place. Well, you have not quite got to the real love stage, so you soon learn there is more out there. (Was engaged for 4 years to my first young love. Boy am I glad that went away.)

First real love: This is the love that comes and your heart just is taken away. It no longer belongs to you. Sadly, sometimes this is the love that we mistake for some other feeling and we don’t act on it as our heart tells us to. This is usually the love that if you don’t keep, you end up keeping it with you forever in your dreams. If you don’t realize it is real and you let it go, you spend a lot of time later in life thinking about that lost love.

LOVE: Sometimes when we think we feel love we do things that are not in character for us. We may even marry someone thinking that it is love only to find out after the stars are out of our eyes that we were wrong. That is really sad, but it happens everyday. The divorce rate is prime example. A scary percentage of people are in marriages that started with misguided love.

Obsessive love: This is the sick kind of love where one person thinks that they can’t live without the other person who 9 out of ten times does not return their love. (I had a stalker that did that to me. I went out with him one time and Bam! he thought he was madly in love with me. He served 18 months for stalking me. I was only 17 and it was a scary time.)

Forever Love: This is the love we are strive for. It is the kind that when the person walks in the room, you almost swoon from the heart palpitations. Hopefully you all have felt this kind of love. Maybe it is with the person you are married to, hopefully. It is the kind of love that stops everything around you. When you lock eyes you know and it scares you sometimes the depths it can go. Now that is great love.

As I said before, this is just my take. There are so many more levels of love. It is endless. Hope you have Forever Love. It is always a great thing to have. Hopefully it is with your spouse or spouse to be, if you gave up on Forever Love and went in another direction, well try not to dwell on it too much, because it will drive you insane. Just my opinion.

As always, great writing and May God Bless!

Good Wednesday Morning!

It is a beautiful Georgia morning. The air has a slight crispness to it. As I sit here with the windows open, the cool breeze comes softly across me. I sip my coffee and have my laptop in my lap, just enjoying the morning. I can hear the birds chirping in the trees as if agreeing with me.

Of course I know that I need to get up and get ready for my day, but I just put it to the back of my mind. Life is so short and we run around all willy nilly not stopping to smell the roses or feel the breeze on our face. Why? If we miss life’s precious moments what have we accomplished?

I made a decision the first of the year to start stopping and smelling the roses. Sometimes it gets me behind on projects but I know the fact is I am getting older and missing out on many things. I have spent the last twenty odd years building my accounting practice and working constantly. I have missed out on so much that the sweet side of life has to offer. Well I have been doing more for myself.

One of the main things is publishing my books and writing in my spare time. It has been so refreshing and revealing to me. I did not realize how much I had missed. I actually feel better physically and mentally. It is as if a weight has been lifted from my shoulders.

Well, try it yourself. Just stop and take a deep, cleansing breath. See if you don’t feel a little better. As always good writing and May God Bless You!

Tax Season over tomorrow!!!

Well, another tax season is coming to a close. As I sit here in my office putting the finishing touches on yet another procrastinators return I wonder “why do I do this every year?” I guess because I love accounting. There is something about working with numbers and solving problems that just pulls me in. I do wish the IRS would get a handle on how they want to handle Accountants. They are constantly changing things and every year my tax books get thicker and thicker. It can get a little hectic around the office.

I guess that’s why I’m enjoying writing so much. I get to lose myself in another world for a little while every day. Well almost every day. Sometimes I can’t wait to get lost in another person’s life. I will be sitting at my desk figuring out plots and what will happen next. It’s so sad the life and mind (or lack of) of a writer. We are always churning out a story from everything we see. I can see someone on the street that is intriguing and BAM! a story comes to mind. I know, I have a problem, but if it publishes and sells books…

I hope everyone has a wonderful Sunday evening, or what’s left of it. Tomorrow it is back to school for my son. He has been out on Fall break. Man that clock is going to be terrible sounding at six in the morning. Oh well, life goes on. Good writing and My God Bless you tonight!

Horses & Cowboys! Oh My!

Well, I don’t normally blog on Saturday night, but since deer hunting season has hit, I am going to be spending a lot of time alone, so get used to hearing a lot from me. I’m fine being alone, it gives me time to write and do things around the house that usually get put to the wayside. So, I make good use of the time.

If you have read my books you will know that there is always horses and cowboys. If you can’t tell by now I love horses and what comes with horses, well cowboys of course. I had someone ask me this week why I always write about girls falling for cowboys. I always smile and say it’s hard not to fall in love with a cowboy.

I was driving up the road I live on this morning and one of my neighbors has horses in his back pasture. I was watching one of them, a gorgeous jet black one. It was walking so majestic and regal. I couldn’t help but smile. I have always loved horses and the power they have. They are such gentle animals and sometimes so misunderstood. In one of my books a character is in an accident and she loses her eyesight. Through therapy with a horse, she regains her sight. They can be so helpful with all sorts of disabilities. During the writing of that book (Moonbeam & Roses) I did a lot of research on the topic of using horses for different types of therapy. It was amazing what can be accomplished through these wondrous creatures.

As for cowboys, it has been a longtime dream of mine to own a ranch. Maybe one day I will own that ranch, but until then, I will live through my writing. I have known many true cowboys and they are a special breed of person. There is something about a Stetson and cowboy boots, not to mention the cowboy swagger that just makes me smile.