Tag: photo friday

Photo Friday, No. 684

Current Photo Friday theme: Winter


Back to the film photography archives. I didn’t take this shot, but it’s a favorite of mine. Possibly my mother took it in 1967. This was our house, also a favorite of mine. It was my first year in a new school when we moved back to Alabama from South Carolina, and a classmate spent the weekend with me. We didn’t expect to get snowed in, but it was a lot more fun with a friend my age!

This was also the model for Dr. Boone’s house in A Coventry Christmas. The original is long gone, but it’ll always be around in the novel.

Photo Friday, No. 683

Current Photo Friday theme: 2019 In Review (week 2)

In February, I thought I was crazy to revisit a novel whose characters have been with me since I was a young teenager and whose story I finished in the mid 1990s. Some people read it and liked it. Others didn’t like it that much. From time to time I’d dust it off and let someone new and trustworthy read it. I called that novel and the two follow-ups that continued the series my training novels.

After other works I wrote were published, I did a heavy revision of the first book on the advice of my agent and sent it to my editor. He couldn’t publish it. That was fine with me. I was unhappy with how I’d chopped it up. I tucked away the characters of not just that one, but all three novels in the series.

Other novels have arrived in my brain over the last few years, but writing takes time and energy of which I’ve been in short supply since 2013. You have to MAKE TIME to write, and I wasn’t motivated to do so.

Then strangely, unexpectedly, these old characters returned in late 2018. By early 2019, They nudged me awake when I slept. They broke into my daytime thoughts. They reminded me of all the ways I’ve changed over the decades and they, too, wanted to be re-invented, to be written by a more seasoned, wiser author.

“NO TIME,” I kept saying.

By April, I had 24 new pages. I refused to read the old manuscript, even though it sat on the table next to my desk. A true fresh start meant letting go. Trusting myself. Trusting them to help me find the way into their reborn selves.

By November, I had three readers and the nearly-400-page draft you see in this photo. Along the way, I realized two things. The first: I was not writing one but two books. It’s the only way I can tell their stories the way they need to be told. My agent was right about that, if not right about how to split it up. The second: It isn’t time wasted, because I went into this knowing it is highly unlikely to be traditionally published.

It will be edited now by my sternest editor: Timothy. When I’ve cleaned it up, it’ll have a little wait for me to write Part 2, then I’ll self-publish both for my friends or anyone who wants to have a go at them to read them. They are not contemporary romances. They are neither TJB novels nor the Coventry books. They are what they are supposed to be.

In the photo, you see my marked-up draft. The yellow journal where I jot down ideas or song lyrics and put photos that inspire me. Three yellow folders that contain the chapter summaries, the timeline (this first novel spans the 1950s to the late 1960s), and the concordance of character and place names that helps me keep it all straight. You also see something intangible: determination, persistence, a love for the craft of writing, and the encouragement of friends, family, other writers, and readers who have through the years told me not to give up and to trust my voice.

In review, 2019 has given me something I didn’t know I desperately needed.

Photo Friday, No. 680

Current Photo Friday theme: Family


I’ve shared this photo before. It was Christmas of 1983 and I was using my tripod and the timer on my Canon AE-1 to shoot family photos. This one is me trying to get into the picture and somehow falling into David while Debby turns her back to protect herself. Daddy, ever the good soldier, is following orders and smiling at that damn camera no matter what, while Mother is laughing at us and the dumb bow David has slapped on his forehead.

I wasn’t supposed to be there. Debby’s family and my parents were living in Kentucky at the time, and I’d gone up for Thanksgiving because I wouldn’t have enough time off at Christmas. Except then I was fired by the second-worst employer I ever worked for. I’d immediately started another job, but that business was closed for a couple of weeks, and David offered to drive us up for a family Christmas.

I will share more than I usually share on here because recent conversations make me understand these things can be important. I never know who’s reading. The man I was dating at that time was angry that I went to visit my family at Christmas, reminding me that we’d gone at Thanksgiving because I couldn’t go at Christmas. My holiday plans didn’t interfere with his at all (he didn’t go with me in December because of his own job and family), and it was eye-opening to me to realize he resented me for going and begrudged me time with my family.

There were other reasons why that relationship had to end. He was emotionally and physically abusive. I rarely speak of him even privately, much less publicly. It took me a while to have the courage to end it, and I’m relatively sure this was one of the final nails in the coffin.

When a person tries to poison your relationships with your friends and separates you from a family who loves you (and who you love), GET OUT. Don’t waste time. Don’t think it will get better. Don’t think it’s your fault.

When a person physically hurts you, GET OUT. Don’t waste time. Don’t think it will get better. Don’t think it’s your fault.

Lean on your support system. Find a safe space. Nothing about you, no action, no character trait, no flaw, no strength, deserves emotional and physical abuse.

This was the Christmas when the one I call my Muse died, and I was with my family and not alone when it happened. This Christmas was my father’s last healthy one, and I could never have known that. I will always be grateful that I went despite the pressure on me not to. I will always be grateful that my family, who had no idea what was going on in my relationship, were exactly the goofy, fun, clever, sometimes maddening bunch we could be. Their love and that bond sustained me then, and even though our parents are gone, everything my family has given me through the decades sustains me still.

If your birth family is not that support for you, find your people. Find your tribe. Your framily. Let them love you the way you deserve to be loved. Love yourself the way you would love others. Take care of yourself.

Use this resource if you need it: National Domestic Violence Hotline.