Here’s my story …

Writing is a different experience for everyone. Some write because they can’t not write. That’s me. I can’t not write — as evidenced by all these blogs.  Life weaves around writers like the warp and weft of a loom. It takes us up and down, across and sideways. We travel this journey through life and capture how our soul feels about these events.

Events that some folks shrug off, writers see as germs for stories that boil between our ears and make our hearts beat.

Writing is like breathing. Writers can not not write.

My first novel came to life in 1984 when we lived in Jacksonville, Fl. It is about a little Indian girl named White Feather.

Native American culture became part of my life when my aunt on my daddy’s side married a full-blooded Choctaw. My cousins were mixed blood and I remember thinking as a child how exciting that must have been. All of my cousins were beautiful people. Although their weren’t ten of them I always called them my 10 little Indian cousins, like a childhood nursery rhyme. Oh how I wish I had spent more time with them. Unfortunately life moved us apart and I’ve lost contact with them.

Back to Tulsa. Tulsa sparked a whole new interest, that of getting a graduate degree. Wayyyy back when I earned my bachelors I had planned on getting a master’s. But by the time I had walked across the stage, had the degree in my hand, I had changed my mind. I had had enough of school and of being broke.

A degree in Interior Design (ID) afforded a relative good living for me and my son (from my mistake marriage). I worked in different sectors of the profession: worked for any number of ID offices (most were struggling small businesses typical to the profession), worked for an apartment developer and traveled across the south designing model apartments, became self-employed and worked as a model builder in Ft. Lauderdale, worked as a store planner for Sears in Atlanta, lived and taught ID in Switzerland (skied and traveled throughout Europe), worked in traveling sales with a carpet manufacturer and traveled across 101 counties in Texas (with this job I saw no prospects of getting married or of even having a relationship because I was on the road all the time). After three years, I had had enough traveling. Moved to Ft. Lauderdale and married my best friend, whom I had known for seven years. (Smartest decision I ever made.)

With my husband’s help, I finally earned that long ago abandoned master’s degree. Actually I earned two: A M.A. in Journalism gave me the tools I needed to carry forward whereas my M.H.R. in Organizational Development taught me how to learn anything I set my mind to. The intensity of getting two back-to-back masters changed my thinking and approach to life — forever. I will forever be indebted to the instructors at the University of Oklahoma who gave me a chance and helped me over the humps; and to my beloved husband who has supported my endeavors wholehearted.

No, my book about White Feather isn’t finished … yet; but (there it is again — that but) I still have every page plus two or three more story lines waiting in the wings. But (good grief, again) I write between caring for the farmhouse, our critters, making goat milk soaps and lotions, and working in our new garden. Developing a garden is fun except for when it’s in the 90s here in North Carolina. The humidity is worse here than in south Florida; it’s not as hot as it was in Texas; but (once again) it’s still hot.

I’ll write when I can, which I plan on being often.

This is my story in 636 words. Now, tell me you’s in 636 words or less.