Following your passion

At first glance, you might think my passion is reading books for young girls. Or Elvis-related stuff..

You’d be partially right. I love reading well-written books for girls in upper elementary and middle school. I love all things Elvis. It all goes back to my childhood, when I was so absorbed in whatever book I was reading, my mom had to force me to put it away at the dinner table. My childhood when I listened to my older brother’s Elvis records, and he and his girlfriend/fiancée took me to see Elvis movies. Yes, I like those movies. Well, most of them.

But my true passion is writing. From the time I learned to read, I wanted to write my own stories. I started writing and illustrating them as young as seven years old. Stories like “Lucy the Elephant.” Bless her heart, she couldn’t do anything right at the circus. “The Tale of the Bloody Bluff Brothers,” a chilling western written by a ten-year-old living in Arizona and surrounded by western lore. Let’s not forget those sappy love stories I wrote as a teen-ager, stories that usually involved boyfriends dying in a car wreck or ones like “Lilly of the Valley,” the story of an old woman (Lila)who lost her love during the war and never married, so when she died at a ripe old age, she was still thinking of him.

Teen-agers are morbid..

“The Ghosts of Graceland” is the first complete book I ever wrote. And, thanks to Mantle Rock Publishing, it is the first published book I had. It’s the story of twelve-year-old twins, Mandi and Kassi, who have been sent from San Diego to Memphis to stay with a great-aunt they barely know while their mother and her new husband are on a honeymoon in Europe. While in Memphis, they are reunited with their father, encounter mysteries, and learn to cope with their mother’s remarriage. The book is about family relationships as much as anything else. Divorce, remarriage, separation.

Stuff Nancy Drew didn’t deal with. Kids today know things at a young age that they really shouldn’t have to know. Things like sex and drugs and violence and fear. Their innocence is being robbed by our culture.

I want to write for those kids. I want to write books that entertain them, books with happy endings, books that help them see they’re not the only ones struggling with difficult issues. Or if they’re not struggling with those issues, they can better understand those who are.

Advice for beginning authors is to write what you know. And, as we’ve already established, I know about Elvis. So I wrote what I knew. Graceland and Memphis.

Then I moved to the next one. I also know Nashville. I used to live near there, and it is one of my favorite cities. The logical place, then, was Music City for Book 2 of the series.

The mystery in this book surrounds a country music singer whose romantic interest in Mandi and Kassi’s father, hired to be her bodyguard, doesn’t sit well with Mandi. Mixed in with a  mysterious woman who appears outside their guest house late at night and an accident or two, Mandi has all she can handle as a future detective.

Book 3 is in the works, “Secrets of the Smokies.” Yes, I kind of like alliteration for these titles. Set outside of Pigeon Forge, the girls are on a guest ranch, and yes, there is a mystery to be solved. Maybe two. I’m not sure yet.

I have written two adult books, “Aimee” and a novella in “Smoky Mountain Brides.” I enjoy writing for adults, really I do. “Aimee” is in 1895 Arizona (I know Arizona, I lived there) and “Smoky Mountain Brides” is set in northern Mississippi and Tennessee.

Like I said, I write what I know.

But writing for young girls is my true passion. Maybe because I am still a young kid at heart. Maybe because I want to make the world a more innocent place for kids. Or maybe the teacher in me wants to educate as well as entertain. Whatever my reasons, I write because it is what I love.

I have other passions in life. My faith and my family are the top two. Because of my years in education, I am passionate about advocating for kids. My selfish passion, though, is my writing. Life is so much richer if we find that interest, that job, that hobby that brings us joy or lifts our spirits..

Best wishes to you as you pursue or discover your passion. I hope it brings you as much enrichment as mine does for me.