I’ll Have What She’s Having

A funny thing happened to me when I was on book tour. My first novel Garden of Lies had just been released. During my book tour I had lunch with an editor who was bemoaning the fact that an author of hers who’d also recently published her first novel had led an uneventful life, unlike me. “She’s happily married with three children, lives in the ‘burbs and has the perfect life!” she complained. I, on the other hand, had had multiple marriages and my life had been a roller coaster of ups and downs. I’d been a welfare mom. I’d been the victim of domestic abuse. I’d literally gone from rags to riches when I sold my first novel. Yet in the editor’s view, my tumultuous life was preferable to her author’s conventional one because I was a darling of the press and she wasn’t.

Oh, what I would have given for that other author’s conventional life! There was a time in my life when I would have given a small toe to have what she had. Instead, I remember being stressed out a lot of the time when I was a young mom of two, with good reason. There were times I had to scrimp and get creative in the kitchen to feed my kids. At my lowest point I stood in line for government food with my baby son on my hip. My first writings were done on a borrowed typewriter.

But if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that life takes with one hand and gives with the other. I’ve been both blessed and cursed in my life. Cursed when I was going through the hard times. Blessed to have emerged stronger for them, with an endless supply of grist for my mill. When I wrote Garden of Lies, my tale of babies switched at birth, I tapped my experiences of having been both well-off and poor. In the novels I’ve written since then I’ve covered such topics as divorce, single parenthood, the difficulties of being a stepmother, and being in an abusive relationship, to name a few.

All in all, I feel more blessed than cursed. I am who am because of where I’ve been. I am the sum of my experiences. Hopefully, I’ve gained some wisdom along the way which I can pass on to others behind me on the path who are struggling. I also have a wealth of experience to tap for whenever I need creative inspiration. I never need worry about nailing the aforementioned hard topics. Been there, done that, and I’ve got the T-shirt to show for it. That leaves me free to have fun researching the stuff I don’t’ know. In theory I know how to milk a rattlesnake for its venom, work a crime scene, and compete in an equestrian event. Just don’t ask me to do any of those things!

At the moment I’m researching the profession of a character who’s a tattoo artist. I don’t have any tattoos but by the time you read the book hopefully I’ll have convinced you I do and that I know what I’m talking about. By then, I might even have a (small, very small) tat for real. You never know.