If At First You Don't Succeed . . . .

So, my last blog up and disappeared one day with no way to find it again or mine the depths of wisdom I'd posted there. I say that tongue in cheek, of course. I decided that blogging is very therapeutic and it would be well worth the time it took to start a new one. Thankfully, I don't think Blogspot is going anywhere anytime soon. I probably should have come here to begin with. Oh well, thus is life.

I'm a casual writer, much more focused on expressing my voice than on the particulars of the english language, at least in the blogging atmosphere. What you see is what you get here. Some people might take offense at that, and if so, please feel free to vent about it in the comments trail, I don't mind. We're all different, all free to express ourselves in different ways. That's what makes life so interesting, in my opinion.

A little about me - I was born in California, lived in Washington, Oklahoma, Utah, and spent eighteen months as a missionary in Connecticut, Vermont, New York, and Rhode Island. I'm back in small town Utah now, and loving the beauty of the Rocky mountains, though not so much loving all the rocks in my yard. Have you ever tried putting a sprinkler system in ground that produces rocks the size of dinosaur eggs? I wouldn't suggest it. Hire it done. Let the professionals break their tools and backs. Believe me, it's worth the money.

I'm the mother of two very active boys, age 9 and (almost) 8, whom I adore and want to throttle on a regular basis. They've got a lot of challenges from their past that make life a little different for them. We adopted them when they were 3 and 4 after having them for a year in foster care. We also had their baby brother for 7 months, which was wonderful and heartbreaking both. We were able to experience every stage of babyhood, from the sleepless nights with an infant who couldn't even turn over, to a toddler just learning to walk on his own. It was very fulfilling to the mothering part of me, since I'd not been able to give birth, though about broke my heart when his birth father took him away. It was where he needed to be, I felt that very strongly, though it wasn't what I wanted. I needed to have my full attention on my boys, tin-man and Birdy. I'll talk more about them at a later time. They will take up a big chunk of space on this blog over time, I'm sure. I love them dearly, but wow, they're a lot of work! When we were in training for foster parenting the teacher told us that most of these abused kids were just like other kids, they just lived their lives in hi-definition, surround sound stero. Everything's bigger, brighter, and louder. Boy, was she ever right!

I've written two books, both fantasy, and am in the process of shopping them out right now. The Sapphire Flute will be in the mail (as requested) within the next week or two, though it seems I've been saying that forever. The Misadventures of a Teenage Wizard is going to an agent I admire as soon as the other gets in the mail. We'll see what she thinks of it. If it works, awesome, but if not, I'll just continue to send them out and keep writing. Some days I wonder why I still do this, why I torture myself with rejections and work that doesn't pay in spendable rewards, but then remember, I can't help it: I'm a writer. It's not just what I am, it's WHO I am. I'll do it until the day I die, published or not, though I can't help but feel that if I try long and hard enough it will happen. It feels right.

So, that's me in a nutshell. I plan to use this blog better than I did my other. Having it be so casual takes the pressure off to write something profound. I can be myself here and I can't think of anything I'd rather be.

Quote of the Day: "A professional writer is an amateur who didn't quit." - Richard Bach, author of Jonathan Livingston Seagull