It took a while for me to get serious about writing, and I wasn’t sure I had more than one story to tell. Yet, here we are, with four novels under my belt and a fifth work-in-progress.

The novel Sweetbriar: A Love Triangle Romance is a story that rattled around inside my head for 25 years. I knew that I wanted to write a story about love and love lost, misplaced expectations, and redemption. Sweetbriar was the vehicle for that. I started writing it early every morning, and eventually, the characters took on lives of their own. And the rest is, well, history!

I never thought I’d write contemporary romance, but my next two novels are just that. Starting Over, A Second Chance Romance (Book 1), and Second Time Around, A Second Chance Romance ( Book 2) are set in the small towns of Seaside and Astoria on the North Oregon Coast.

I like to write first thing in the morning, usually around 5 a.m. Some days are productive and promising, while on other days I feel like I’m scraping the bottom of the tidepool to pull some words out. Regardless, I find early morning my most productive time. I start with about 10 minutes of free-flow writing using a writing prompt. 

In fact, that is how I started writing, Starting Over: A Second Chance Romance.

The novel I just mentioned is a good example. One morning, I woke up from the tail end of a dream and used that as a writing prompt to get the writing juices flowing. I had imagined a man and woman sitting on a bench near a swimming pool. I wrote for 10 minutes by the clock and then put the piece away.

A few months later, I was reviewing a stack of miscellaneous snippets when I came across the swimming pool piece. The piece ended in the middle of a sentence, and my first thought was, “What happens next?” Then it dawned on me that I had to write the story to find out! Go to page 84 of Starting Over: A Second Chance Romance, and you’ll find the scene.

Not originally. In fact, I thought I would move on to another historical romance. But after the success of Starting Over: A Second Chance Romance, readers wanted to read more about the secondary characters, Mandy Kearney and Nate Peters. I had intended them to have important supporting roles but never envisioned they’d have their own tales to tell.

I went back and re-read Starting Over: A Second Chance Romance. Lo and behold, there was enough material for me to expand Mandy and Nate’s stories. So, I wrote Second Time Around: A Second Chance Romance. I’m thrilled with how that novel turned out.

I’m glad people picked up on that! Authenticity is crucial in all my writing, and I don’t want to write something that might not hold up to experts’ or even professionals’ views. I didn’t need extensive research into these fields because I’ve previously held similar roles.

Since I was 12 years old, I’ve sewn clothes and studied fashion. It was one of my younger dreams, and all the work I put into that came in handy when writing Starting Over: A Second Chance Romance.

As far as finance goes, before retiring, I owned my own firm, TMB Financial. We specialized in investments and insurance, so familiarity with the terms, topics, and everyday office culture helped me craft Britney Thompson’s new career once moving to Seaside, Oregon.

I spent many years in offices, so much of the atmosphere and inner workings of corporate culture came naturally. That being said, I wanted to make sure I had all the minor details down.

I knew the County Clerk at Clatsop County in Oregon and asked if she could recommend two lateral positions that would work for my novel. She graciously introduced me to the department managers in Budget and Finance, and Assessment and Taxation. They kindly shared with me enough information to fill in all of the details of the inside workings. I dedicated that novel to the three of them.

After my husband passed away, I sold nearly everything I owned, bought a 29′ fifth-wheel RV, and hit the road with my Golden Retriever, Maizie. We’ve circumnavigated the USA together and continue to travel most of the time.