How I Stumbled into Writing...

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People often ask me if I always wanted to be an author. The truth is that while I’ve been an avid reader since kindergarten, I can’t say I always wanted to be a writer. Unless, of course, you count the MONKEES fan fiction I wrote when I was in 5^th grade! (Be honest. Wasn't that little Davy Jones just the cutest thing!) 

So instead of writing all my life, I’ve been—hold on!—a professional opera singer, a teacher, a choir director, a homeschooling mom, a Realtor, a banker and now finally a published author. Fairly late in life (read: after our kids were grown) I had the freedom to explore what the storytelling voices in my head were trying to say. I’ve loved learning the writer’s craft, but it’s an ocean of stuff. I feel like I’m still just dipping my toes in the shallow end.

2    To be honest, I started writing The Coldwater Warm Hearts Club because I was homesick. We were living in Boston at the time and, while New England is a fascinating part of the country, I really missed the Midwest, and especially the Ozarks (a lovely bit of Americana and one of the prettiest places you could wish to call home).  So I wrote about a heroine coming back to fictional Coldwater Cove. 

      But unlike me, she wasn’t happy about returning to flyover country. She was there because she’d been disgraced and had nowhere else to go.  Then, the writing voices in my head encouraged me to pair her with a wounded warrior, a tough guy who hasn’t let the fact that he’s missing part of his leg change who he is at his core.

I wanted to write the kind of books I love to read--ones where a reader can expect a few laughs, a few tears, and a guaranteed happy ending every time.

My  own life experiences definitely pop up in my writing. I couldn’t make up some of the silly things that happen in my books! I’m not saying my dad is exactly like George Evans (my heroine’s father) but he does have a running war with the squirrels in his yard, and likes to pinch a penny till it squeals.

I love exploring characters who’ve lived on the edge and have something deep to share about the human spirit. That’s why I really enjoyed writing Jake Tyler, the hero in The Coldwater WarmHearts Club. In addition to having lost a leg from just below the knee, Jake’s dealing with PTSD, like many of our returning vets. He does his best to hide the moments when his time in Helmand province intrudes into his life in Coldwater Cove, but sometimes, he finds himself back in the land of the Khyber Pass. 

Check out this exclusive excerpt to see what I mean. Here's the set up:

Jake takes Lacy on what he hopes will be a romantic boat ride on Lake Jewel. Unfortunately, the rowboat sinks and they’re forced to swim. As he nears the shore, Jake tries to stand, but his prosthetic leg gets stuck in the sandy bottom and he has to take it off. Then to make matters worse, his PTSD rears its ugly head at the worst possible time…

***

Jake side-stroked toward shore. It was slow going. A pair of jays scolded overhead, their cries unnaturally loud. To his hyper-vigilant ears, it sounded like a warning. Like the high-pitched ululations of Afghani women . . .

He focused on the flat rock outcropping at the water’s edge where Lacy had already climbed out. Flecks of mica glinted in the sunlight. It was almost as if the rock was shining a searchlight on him, the better to illuminate his humiliation. He didn’t want Lacy to see him like this. He couldn’t let anyone see him. He wouldn’t—   

“Get down, Tyler,” his commanding officer whispered fiercely. He yanked Jake down so roughly, he landed hard on his knees and then went flat on his belly.

He and the lieutenant had trekked for three klicks, forded the Helmand River in the dark, and now were humping it up a desolate hill. The plan for this recon mission was to use the night-vision gear in their packs to get a look at activity in the village over the ridge. Taliban fighters were suspected of hiding within the civilian population there, but Jake’s CO needed accurate intel before sending in the whole unit to flush out the bad guys.

“There’s a sniper out there,” his CO said.

There was no moon, but Jake had never seen a night sky so filled with stars. They stretched in brittle pinpricks from one horizon to the other.

“A sniper can’t hit what he can’t see,” Jake whispered back.

“This one can. If you break over that ridge standing up, you make a void in the stars behind you. It’s a bullet magnet. That’s how Stensrud bought it last month.”

So Jake crawled. Slowly. Upward. Taking care not to make a void. Not to expose his position by breaking over the ridge. Not to be seen.

Once he reached the top, he rolled onto his back, clutching his weapon in one hand. He couldn’t turn loose of it or he might not find it again. It was so dark. Even the stars had gone dim. He—

“Jake?”

Someone else was there. Someone who was patting his cheeks. Whoever they were, they were sitting up beside him. Breaking over the ridge.

“No! There’s a sniper. Get down,” Jake said as loudly as he dared.

In the last firefight his unit had been in, his buddy Henderson had been right by his side when he took a bullet. Jake couldn’t bear to watch the light go out of another pair of eyes. Not if he could help it.

Even though he couldn’t see this new jarhead clearly, Jake grabbed him and yanked him down hard beside him before the enemy sniper could pick him off.

“Jake!”

He blinked slowly and found himself lying flat on his back on the rock outcropping at the lake’s edge. Chest heaving, he gazed up at the canopy of a forest near to bursting into full leaf.

He wasn’t downrange in Afghanistan. It wasn’t night and that darn sure wasn’t another jarhead he’d manhandled into a position of supposed safety on the rock beside him.

“Lacy,” he whispered.   

Jake realized that instead of his weapon, he held his prosthetic leg in his left hand. He’d had a flashback. Zoned out for a bit.

In front of her.

His belly spiraled downward. He’d rather she had walked in and caught him naked in a frigid shower. Cold water does a favor to no man, but it would have been preferable to this.

She’d caught his soul naked. She’d seen him at his most vulnerable. His weakness had broken over the ridge. 

***
So what do you think? Want to know more about Jake Tyler? 

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