My mom, my writing, and I

My mom has been super supportive of my writing from infancy.  She was a writing teacher for YEARS, and did everything she could to develop my love for the written word.  She encouraged me to read whatever I wanted, whether it was age appropriate or not.  I'm not even sure 'age appropriate' was in the vernacular when I was growing up.  She bought me journals to express myself, told me my crappy poetry was awesome, and treasured my early writing attempts as if they were gold nuggets.

So when I told her I wanted to try writing novels, she was very enthusiastic.  When I finished my first one, of course I asked her to read it and give me feedback.  And she had lots of feedback.  From comma mistakes to the ever-ubiquitous 'too much sex'.  But she was proud that I'd written it.

And her pride has been there ever since.  As only a mother can have pride in her child, she's supported me in EVERY aspect of my writing journey, even the ones she doesn't understand, because let's face it.  This industry is insane.  Every aspect of it was an extreme learning experience for me, and I'm not an eighty-year-old handicapped retired teacher who's addicted to CSI and the cooking network.

But she's my mom.  And we're close.  Every year, I take her and my aunt on what I call the Cemetery Run, where we travel through the bowels of southwest Arkansas and visit her parents' graves.  Sometimes we visit their grandparents.  It's fun.  We visit cousins, we drink whiskey, and they talk.

And I listen to their stories.

My mom and my aunt tell stories about growing up in rural Arkansas and Texas, dirt poor, absentee father, partying mom, and tons of brothers and sisters.  They tell stories they heard growing up, about their parents and grandparents and all the shenanigans.

After listening to years of stories, and my mom desperately wanting me to write something different, I decided to try historical romance.  I can't explain the desire to write this specific genre, except I enjoy reading it, and it might make my mom happy, so why not?

Whether or not she enjoys it as much as I hope she will, there is still sex in it, because I guess I'm a big perv at heart and I like stories with sex.  But there's not MUCH, and I'm hoping my mama can just skip that page.  I'll even mark it for her, so she doesn't have to accidentally read about folds and members and such.

So, what I'm getting around to saying is this.  I like this story.  I didn't necessarily write it for readers, and I have several more that I intend to write, and I will like them.  I have no idea how to market and sell them, since most of my readers are contemporary, and don't get into western historical stuff, but that's okay.  These are my books.  I wrote them for me.

And my mama, even if there is still too much sex.

Because it is rare that a romance author has the support of her family in her journey, and I'm ridiculously happy about the pride my mom has shown in me.


If you want to give Loving the Enemy a shot, here's the preorder link.  It will go live in about five days.  http://amzn.to/2hWc9pT