Category Archives: good byes

How I Wrote A Western Rose

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Some years ago, I finally pursued my dream to write a novel. Thanks to a friend who inspired me to enter a western fictional writing contest, I began a journey as demanding as a college degree. I wrote of Adelaide, a young Missouri woman who goes west, to see if she can teach. That was the catalyst, but not enough to drive the story. I exited this for a better plot.

Thus begins the journey of all writers. You start with the idea, then you throw it back on the potter’s wheel and reshape it. Many times. If it goes dry, you start with new clay.

This was unlike anything I’d experienced. As a Christian, I began to pay the Lord more honor and attention, seeking His counsel. I connected with people I never otherwise would have known. A wise writing contest judge advised me to take writing classes at Pima College since I was clueless how to stay in the correct Point of View! Embarrassing, but you have to start where you are. I stuplified myself be writing sixteen new chapters, based on those first recommendations of the writing contest judges.

Then I remembered their best advice and registered for a second level writing class, just in time. To my horror, I discovered the crux of the course was evaluating each other’s stories, so I would have to share mine! And accept their criticism and give them mine. I almost backpaddled. When it was my turn to receive input, I felt almost sick. However, the professor had set boundaries, to be honest but kind with our comments. And my colleagues were mostly merciful and marvelously insightful. It really is true that another set of eyes sees things you cannot. Letting others read your work is risky and painful. Without surgery, the injurious parts of a story get imbedded and ruins everything. Sometimes, compliments come–these are a soothing ointment. It’s also true that you become a better critic of your own work if you can critique others. I remember the night I felt outspoken enough to suggest to another student’s bar scene brawl that is was a bit too buffoonery and cliché how the protagonist knocked everyone out, and rode off into the sunset. My critique held some positive points, but was a long stream of fast words. When I finished, everyone burst out laughing, including the writer. Humor had won the day! And I wasn’t even trying to be funny!

I got the idea to read my story to my mother whose eyesight was failing. All along the way, I watched her face responding to all the ups and downs with Adelaide. Mom gave minor suggestions. She fell in love with the story. I will always have that memory of her face, how her lips would pucker, eyes twinkling as she raised her hand to her chin and held it there. We almost reached the last chapter! But on May 31, she took a fall, bled internally, got sepsis and died in the space of four days.

I went into shock. My writing evaporated; the faucet broke. I knew grief took awhile, but when I was still depressed three months later, I got help. I joined a Grief Share class at my church. This was so wonderful, I took a baby step.

I forced myself to take another writing class, knowing Mom would want me to finish my story.. Though it was mechanical, I somehow managed to write the chapter about Adelaide being in the morgue at St. Mary’s Hospital and how this affected her. The class thought it was tantalizingly gross and shocking and loved it. I was so surprised!

Three months later, and nearly nine months to the day of my mom’s death, the sky opened and I was able to write again, like a flowing river. Not unlike a baby, new life! Another friend recommended I hire the service of a professional publisher, and through Wheatmark of Tucson, I purchased the services of a successful New York editor. Putting her advice into action gave my story polish and refinery.

All this was worth the patience of Job, though it cost as much as a degree. A Western Rose was born and she lives today on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. I love my story. I love Adelaide Morgan and her family. Come meet them. I hope you find your go-to wish in the story.

Adelaide grows up in Independence, Missouri, not far from the boyhood home of Harry Truman with whom her brother plays. Blessed with parents who did not embrace every Victorian value, she learns banking from her father and is hired as a teller/secretary in 1889 at Stifel Bank. She finds bank work intriguing and is skillful but has to face a constituency of clients who scoff at women in any profession besides teaching. Determined to overcome societal rebuff, she must have courage or be defeated. Things improve until one day, she overhears her manager and assistant. Hiding in the back room, she listens further, and suspects they are embezzling the bank. If she stays silent, she’ll be accused. If she reports it, she’ll still be accused but probably vindicated. The men are arrested and the courts scenes are harrowing.

Dampened by scandal, Adelaide does something otherworldly. Hearing of the University of Arizona opening in 1891 to women, she goes west. To protect her identity in case the ruinous manager were to later search for her, she takes another name and chooses another profession. To help her asthmatic father, she considers some kind of medicine.

It was my delight to write a work of historic fiction. It was made public on Amazon and Barnes and Noble in February of 2020. Days after that, the pandemic virus arrived and spread widely through our land. Who could have known such a phenomenal horror could have greeted us in March that year?

Currently, I hope to possibly speak at libraries, and book clubs, to reach a wider audience with my story.

I’m now writing a sequel, likely to be titled A Summer Tanager. Adelaide and her fiancé Oliver continue to do life together, including their wedding in June 1893. Their adopted girls, from different races, encounter the consternation of many, forcing a consideration of how people are treated. Oliver is from Georgia, an entirely additional world. Because Addie has lost her maternal grandparents, she wants to meet his grandfather, Knoble Oliver Mason. But first, she must decide on her university work. The University of Arizona doesn’t offer upper-level classes in medicine. Will she attend The Women’s College in Philadelphia and if she does, where will she work next?

Things to Remember

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I will remember the cold of 2017 on several planes. And actually, having returned from a cold snap in Tennessee, the onset of a new year still feels cold.

Without the presence of some beloved family members and some dear friends, life can feel like the blast of a cold wooden floor under your not-yet-awake morning feet.

The joy of working on an adorable Vintage investment home turns cold when your clay sewer system and basement leaks, forcing the relinquishment of big funds for repairs.

And being rejected by a promising publisher can chill your bones, as well. When I was told in a two liner email that my historical novel did not line up with their company’s plans for the coming year, it seemed as though they’d taken a needle to my lungs and deflated them.. I did not even tell my husband about it for months.

But one must not sit on their hands.

To wit, it so happened that two sweet ladies at church asked me to read my story to them, as often as we could meet. We are more than halfway through. All the while, I see flaws and oversights, character development needs and basic errors that couldn’t otherwise be detected, without an out loud read with an audience. They have fun speaking up, suggesting tweaks and turns, which I as the author weigh in the balance. Without realizing it, I am learning how to be a presenting author, learning how to defend my story with confidence.

Perhaps the cold will turn to warmth this next year. Revision is never foolish.

I must go on. In fact, I take hope in the words of Kathleen Kelly, the protagonist from the movie You’ve Got mail. She answers her second co-star Greg Kinnear (one of my favorite actors , as they break up, that no, she does not have a boyfriend, but there remains the hope and promise of one. Stars are in her eyes.

Unpublished writers, be pro-active and keep the stars in your eyes.

 

Another Kind of Goodbye

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As long as ten years ago, I would sometimes drive by a beautiful building, or a well cared for small house, and wonder who owned it, and how they obtained it. It wasn’t an envy, more like an admiration kind of thing.  But I did wish and ponder if I would ever be able to own a second piece of property, as an investment.  I had a conversation with the Lord about it— asked Him what he thought of such a notion, would it be all right with Him?  Then I went about life, and didn’t think too much more about it.

The Lord remembered me.

My parents were blessed with the ability to leave my siblings and myself a good inheritance. Though the summer God plucked my Mother was a forlorn one, it opened up an avenue for me, heretofore untraveled.

I was happy for Mom’s new eternal residence, but my spirit felt dampened. Curiously at the end of a few weeks, I felt a heart tug, to go back to Grand Rapids, my birthplace. It was a yearning, a longing.  I knew things were not as they were sixty years hence, but I still wanted to go. To see my childhood house again, and to walk down Garland street, find my playmates’ houses was compelling. I could find two of my grandparents’ homes, and see the South Methodist church and my old elementary school. Best of all, perhaps I could find our cottage on the lake, a thirty minute drive from the city. A cousin did some hunting, and through her efforts, found the area of the cottage on Big Lake. Astoundingly, it had become listed for sale/Open House, two days after my mother’s death.

I did not take this as a sign, nevertheless thought it remarkable, and by summer’s end, made plans to fly “home” to answer what felt like a call on my heart.  Having grown up in Grand Rapids with summers at this cottage, it was a powerful thing to do.  My joy abounded.

Recently, I read Psalm 87 and at verse 6, was caught in its wonder. “The Lord records as He registers the peoples, ‘This one was born there.’”  Following the script, it said ‘Selah.’  This means stop or pause and think about it, something my mother taught me.

I flew to Grand Rapids that August, with my husband. It was exclusive and thrilling to re- visit our 1950’s dollhouse cottage, put myself inside its walls, climb its steps, touch the knotty pine kitchen cabinets my father had made, go down to the lake and sit on the dock, (albeit a different one)and find the old fish house, with some of its foundation blocks still in place.  As I stared at them close up, a Daddy Long Legs came up over the top edge of its wall, as if my own father sent it, to acknowledge he knew I was there. He was the one who taught me not to be afraid of spiders, and I still remember how he did so, letting a Daddy Long Legs crawl over his hand.  Emotion washed over me.

Long story shortened, God did not have the cottage in mind for us to purchase.  It was too pricey, and too remote—on a dead end road, not safe to be there on my own. My husband said a lake property didn’t interest him, and he would only come twice a year. Other things soured the option. There was no internet service, no city water, no sewer service, it had a propane tank, and the nearest town was ten minutes away. I realized I wasn’t a wilderness kind of gal. I wanted to live in a small town, where there was a sheriff.  Because God drew these parameters for me, I could let go of the cottage.

We looked at other houses.  The nearest fun town was Allegan, so we took that road. After months of searching, and a major rejection on an offer, by December, a perfect little house near the historic downtown opened up for us.  It was ideally suited to our needs in every way. And it was for a price that if in Tucson, would sell for three times as much! Amazing.

A 1933 home requires a lot of tender, loving care and grueling work.  We enjoy it three times a year, to partake of three seasons: spring, summer and fall.  We are making improvements that are safety driven, function driven, and beauty driven.  We have found a loving church family nearby, so what more can we ask for?

Now the hard part is leaving our home in Arizona to come here, and leaving Michigan to go back. I hate good byes. It was hard enough to say goodbye to Mother, and I can’t say I did it well.  I leave both Arizona and Michigan reticently, when it becomes time to depart.

Recently, it became that time again, to return to Arizona, and the blues set in. I was bothering myself about it, for days. I didn’t know how to help myself past this.

God remembered me, again.

I was babysitting/playing cards with the pastor’s kiddos, when it was near time for me to say goodbye.  I told them, “After this game, I need to leave.”  (Giving cues is helpful to small children.)

The second oldest boy’s face lit up and he said,“Oh boy!”

Talk about laugh out loud!  His mother heard, and corrected his manners. She explained she told him he could play a video game after I left.  No wonder he was thrilled.  Ha!

Immediately, I realized God had given me a gift.

If the Lord calls us from one place to another, we can receive it with some component of joy, if not in full measure.  Sorrow has its place, and is appropriate in its timing.  But at some point, sorrow needs to take a back seat—it cannot be so big that it rules us.

God has things to give us, sometimes elsewhere or without the person or things we want to cling to.  He has things to show us, because He loves us so much.

So, I’m flying back to Arizona tomorrow.  Oh boy!

 

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