To celebrate #ThrowbackThursday on Twitter, I thought I'd glance back at my career in literary fiction. Yes, before I wrote about ghosts and all things paranormal, I was published in several literary magazines. I was actually establishing a small name for myself when, like it usually does, life got in the way.
Like so many people do, I let the day to day tasks of living distract me from my lifelong dream. Fast forward to 2010....I buried my father and my husband eighteen months apart. I was reeling with no idea of what to do with my life...So I started writing more stories featuring characters from my literary short stories and Ghost Country became the result.
Looking back, I remember being terrified about everything. What would happen to me and my daughter? What was I supposed to do with my life now?
At times, the fear would become so bad that I couldn't even breathe. I couldn't speak to anyone about it because it was all on me now....I was supposed to be the strong one....I had my daughter and my mother to take care of and I couldn't show any weakness. So to keep from screaming, I wrote....And wrote.....And wrote.
I think I would have just given up if it wasn't for working on those stories and as I did, I remembered the way I used to feel about writing and the sort of person that I used to be. Little by little the fear went away and I figured out how to make my life work.
Ghost Country will never be my most popular work, but through it, I paid homage to my Native American roots and got back to the person I used to be.
Like so many people do, I let the day to day tasks of living distract me from my lifelong dream. Fast forward to 2010....I buried my father and my husband eighteen months apart. I was reeling with no idea of what to do with my life...So I started writing more stories featuring characters from my literary short stories and Ghost Country became the result.
Looking back, I remember being terrified about everything. What would happen to me and my daughter? What was I supposed to do with my life now?
At times, the fear would become so bad that I couldn't even breathe. I couldn't speak to anyone about it because it was all on me now....I was supposed to be the strong one....I had my daughter and my mother to take care of and I couldn't show any weakness. So to keep from screaming, I wrote....And wrote.....And wrote.
I think I would have just given up if it wasn't for working on those stories and as I did, I remembered the way I used to feel about writing and the sort of person that I used to be. Little by little the fear went away and I figured out how to make my life work.
Ghost Country will never be my most popular work, but through it, I paid homage to my Native American roots and got back to the person I used to be.
Amazon Product Description:
Carrying echoes of Amy Tan and Rebecca Wells, Ghost Country takes the reader into the lives of three Cherokee women and the lives of their modern day daughters. Told in a series of vignettes that alternate from the era of the Civil Rights Movement, Woodstock, and the Vietnam War, to the present day. Each story carries the reader through a world where a birthday wish can make people disappear; where a child, after being told that she is nothing, can find her way back to the forgotten Cherokee traditions; and where a woman can give her daughter a treasured bit of advice thanks to a dead rock star.
Carrying echoes of Amy Tan and Rebecca Wells, Ghost Country takes the reader into the lives of three Cherokee women and the lives of their modern day daughters. Told in a series of vignettes that alternate from the era of the Civil Rights Movement, Woodstock, and the Vietnam War, to the present day. Each story carries the reader through a world where a birthday wish can make people disappear; where a child, after being told that she is nothing, can find her way back to the forgotten Cherokee traditions; and where a woman can give her daughter a treasured bit of advice thanks to a dead rock star.
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