There’s a word for a writer who never gives up… published. And there’s a word for a published writer who never gives up… successful. That writer can be you. See you on the road. ~ Joe Knorath
I have been submitting to agents and working hard on my books I will not give up 🙂
About 15 years ago I lived in a small town in Idaho, in a nice home which happened to have a real fireplace. My boys were all still home and the youngest was only 2… we were all asleep one night when I heard something scurrying around then it sounded like the scurrying thing flew! I was very uncomfortable with having a scurrying thing in my home especially a flying scurrying thing!! I quickly got up and turned on the lights so I could discover what this thing was but couldn’t see anything at all. I looked all throughout the house and couldn’t find it so I went back to bed thinking maybe I had one of those dreams that seem way too real. Well when the lights had been off for a few minutes and I was starting to settle down a bit I heard it again! Then I felt a puff of wind as it flew by!! So I got up and headed to the light switch all the while keeping low and close to the floor so whatever it was wouldn’t fly into me! Lights on again and again I couldn’t see anything!!!! I knew for sure it was real now and so I was determined to find it whatever it was. My oldest son came out shouting that something was in his room and I wondered how it got in there when it was in my room??? Okay so you have probably guessed it was bats. Yes there were several bats that had entered my home through the chimney and were flying around inside. So armed with a broom we called the police, they laughed but they came… actually several came. They had great sport rounding up the bats and taking them out of the house J after they left I did a thorough search of the house just to make sure and needless to say I didn’t sleep well for a few nights after that.
Yes I did board up the fireplace! I kind of thought they were babies that had probably been born and raised in my chimney… well that was my theory.
Summers get hot in the south! When I was young my two brothers and I used to spend a lot of time outside, we lived on a farm that was surrounded by large pastures. There was a stream or creek that ran through the pastures and under the road which traveled over the stream via a very large metal tube or culvert. It was in this culvert that my brothers and I spent many happy days playing in the water. We had been told not to go into the culvert but it was cooler in there and the water pooled up a little deeper inside it. So we played there…
One of my brothers was older and one younger, the older one is only technically older or that’s what I say because ten months isn’t really that much older. My younger brother was really younger because he was two years younger so that counts.
One day when we were playing in our favorite water hole we were seeing who could keep their head under water longest and it was my turn when my little brother started hitting me. I grumpily came up out of the water to hear him shouting “Snakes!!”
Very very large black water moccasins were coming for us. My older brother ran to the side of the culvert and up out to the water. I grabbed my younger brother by the hand and ran as fast as I could dragging him along with me out of the culvert and up the bank of the stream. The snakes were chasing us but once we were on land we were able to out run them and get away. Our older brother caught up with us about half way home and accused us of leaving him behind but I explained we had to run and were going for help. I don’t know if he believed me or not but it was the truth if we had stayed there I was sure the snakes would have bitten us.
Grandmother’s Stories
My grandmother used to love to sit and tell me stories from when she was young here are a few…
All of her childhood was spent on the farm except for a short time spent with her grandparents when her mother died. She was around three when that happened; her mother died giving birth to her younger sister who died as well. Her grandparents kept her until her father got remarried and came for her. Her father told her he had found her a new mother, she didn’t like that at first but soon came to love the new mother not the same but to love her anyways.
On the farm; they grew all their own food including cows, chickens, and hogs for meat, their main income was from growing cotton to sell. I remember her telling me that the only thing they ever had to buy was coffee and sugar or maybe fabric to make clothes; they made everything else even soap and candles. It was a hard life but it was the only life they knew.