Saturday Secrets: But.... What If You Can?

Sometimes pictures lie.

Take this one for example:

I posted it on FB about a week ago. I look so happy in it, and why wouldn't I be? There is my book. Right on the shelf next to all those wonderful authors that I've been reading for years. I was happy in the picture, and I look really healthy with that nice pink glow on my cheeks.

But, sometimes pictures lie.

The fact is, I felt like crap when my son snapped the photo. The glow? Lupus rash.

I've had two really bad weeks.

I spent about ten of the past fourteen days mentally saying, "I can't do this, God. I can't."

I'd lie in bed watching the early morning light crawling across the bedroom ceiling, and I'd just want to cry, because I couldn't do it.

I couldn't:

Get out of bed.
Get dressed.
Engage with my family.
Walk.
Talk.
Move.
Write.
Drive this kid here and that kid there and get those kids ready for this weird and time-consuming transition into adulthood.
Home school.
Answer emails.

Repeat it all the next day.

I couldn't, and I knew it, and I'd lie there and just watch the day dawning and feel the time ticking away.

Then that voice, the one that always tells me the truth, would say, "You can't do it, but you will."

So, I'd sit and then stand and then go about my day, the words chanting quietly in the back of mind, "I can't. I can't. I can't. I can't." That other voice saying, "But, you will."

And, now, here I am. It is Saturday, and it is my youngest son's eighteenth birthday. I shopped for his gifts and baked his double-layer red velvet cake. I got up early this morning and hugged him hard and told him how much I loved him.

And, I realized that I'm through the worst of my lupus flare,and I feel a little better. Maybe, just maybe, I can do today.

I'm not telling you this because I want you to feel sorry for me. I have a great life that I live with joy. Some weeks are just harder than others.

I'm not writing it so you can say, "Wow! She has this chronic illness and she still manages to do x,y,z." Trust me, there are a whole lot of people going through worse and doing more.

I'm laying it all out for you because maybe you're lying in your bed staring at the ceiling. Maybe you're watching dust motes dancing in the air, counting your heartbeats and thinking, "I can't."

Maybe, you're sitting in your car, waiting for the next kid to come out of the next activity, and you're saying, "God, I can't. I can't do this."

Maybe you're driving to work or running the track or sitting in a chair with everything you built crumbling around you, all the things you hoped for and worked for and longed for slipping through your fingers, and maybe you're saying, "I can't do this. I can't."

And, maybe you want to quit, because your body hurts, and your hands don't work, and your brain is mush and your relationships are difficult and it just all suddenly seems so very hard.

And you just can't.

But, what if you can?

What if you do?

What if you write the story of your life on the pages of your pain and disappointment and struggles? What if you reach the end of your time here on earth and, instead of a pretty little book of wonderful things, you have a giant tome filled with the  insurmountable odds that you have overcome? What if there is heartbreak and fear and failure and struggle written into every line?

Will your story be less beautiful?

Or will it be more so?

So, today....

Today, you can't. But, you will, because you are you - powerful and strong and capable even in your weakest most vulnerable moments.

If you doubt that, let me be the voice of truth, the one that will whisper in your ear as you drag yourself up and get on with it - You can't, but you will. You will.

Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am. Philippians 4:13

Saturday Secrets: Keep Going

If you're going through hell, keep going. 

~Winston Churchill

With book 39 on the shelves and books 40, 41, 42, 43 and 44 written, I am tired. Lupus sucks, but book 45 will not write itself.

Saturday secret number 1. Keep going. Even if it's just a step. Because moving forward is better than staying in the same place, and writing one page is better than writing none.

Early morning routine. Read, write, swallow pills. Repeat.

Words of wisdom that I chant to myself : No one can do this except you (so get your head off the desk and get on with it). 

A Pilates instructor once told me that motion is lotion. Stay in one position for too long and we freeze-up and limit our ability to move. So...I'm looking very rough on this fine Saturday morning, but I'm moving. 

That's what you do when you've got a chronic illness, a great family, a good career and a sovereign God. You just keep moving.  Blessings for the day, my friends! May you find your motivation and your joy and your will to keep on going through whatever mucky mess you might find yourself in! 

Time Flies, So I May as Well Be Writing (Lupus Life)

So.....

Today is release day for Sweet Haven.

This is book number 39 for me.

That's a lot of books. It's also a lot of words and sentences and paragraphs. One of my kids calculated that I have written 2.6 million words during my twelve-year writing career. It's a good estimate, but I figure I've far exceeded it. All those words that I've written and deleted, the books I started and then scrapped, the journal entries that will never see the light of day, the blog post and unpublished books and secret beginnings of secret stories that may or may not ever be finished, they add up to a lot more words and sentences and paragraphs.

You might wonder if book number 39 is as special to me as book number 1. Maybe you wonder if I will get the same thrill from seeing Sweet Haven on the shelves as I did when this one was released:

Trust me when I say that it is and that I will.

Sweet Haven is not just book number 39. It is proof of the fact that I am still alive and kicking. It is evidence that the thing that could have stolen my career has not. Lupus is no joke, friends. It steals a lot of things - energy, joy, creativity. If we let it, it will steal so much more.

It is a silent disease, but it is loud for the person who is living with it.

Pass me on the street, and you will never know that I am ill.

Truth? This year, I finally reached a healthy weight. My friends and family tell me how wonderful I look. I guess I can understand why. In our culture, weight is indicative of health, and lupus has graciously helped me lose a lot of it.  You can see the progression here. The first picture is summer 2014 when I was just beginning to suspect something was very wrong. The next picture is this past summer. I'd lost 35 pounds by then, and I knew I had lupus. The last picture is from my birthday in December. At that point, I'd lost 45. I've lost a little more since then.

For the record, I am not trying to lose weight. I am losing weight because it is difficult for me to enjoy food. Which is really not fun, but maybe I'll share more about that another time. Today is not for mourning what isn't. Today, is about celebrations, so I'll simply say that all the medicine in the world can't completely mask the symptoms of lupus. Today, my fingers ache and my feet have pins and needles. My stomach hurts from the medicine I take to keep my immune system from attacking healthy tissue, but I woke to hear rain pattering on the window and a bird singing a joyful song. It was 6 a.m, and my body was stiff and my back ached, and I thought I could lie in bed forever and still not feel like I'd rested.

But, you are alive, a voice whispered, so get up and live.

And, so I did.

I opened up a manuscript that I am working on, and I started writing, because I am alive and time is flying by, so I may as well be writing and loving and living and celebrating.

Today, is release day for my 39th book, and I can still hear the rain dripping from the eaves and feel my heart thumping in my chest and my fingers throbbing as they tap the keyboard.  I can still hear all the words from all the stories that I have yet to write, scratching like fingers on a chalkboard in my brain, demanding my attention.

Time is flying, and we all have to choose what we will do with it.

Today, I choose to love and be loved, to write and to read, to bake some bread and make some whoopie pies with my girls, because the rain is still falling and the day is calling, and I may as well live it joyfully.

The whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders;

    where morning dawns, where evening fades,

    you call forth songs of joy.

Psalm 65:8

The Ordinary Miracle (Byron's Peanut-buttery Fudge)

The world is a series of miracles. But we're so used to them, we call them ordinary things. Hans Christian Andersen

The fact that I’m shoulder deep in the third book in my HOME SWEET HOME series has made me think about fudge, chocolate and candy more than I ever have in my life.

I’m not keen on chocolate or candy, by the way. I don’t like fudge. I knew just about nothing about making any of those things when I began writing SWEET HAVEN. I still don’t know why I decided to write a series about a family that owns a chocolate shop. Except that, maybe, I just wanted to write about family and heritage and tradition. Whatever the case, I love the little town of Benevolence, Washington, and all the disparate people who live there. I love the Lamont family, and the three sisters who are desperate to find what they don’t even realize they’ve lost.

As is always the case, art imitates life.

In the process of learning about chocolate and tasting fudge and creating recipes, I found a lot of things I didn’t realize that I’d lost.

Which is the funny (or not) thing about life.

You can be traveling along, doing your thing, thinking that you’ve got everything you started the journey with. Then, all of the sudden, you hit a roadblock and realize that somewhere along the way you dropped your climbing gear or your shovel or your life vest or some other very important tool that you’re going to need to A) scale the mountain that’s in your way B) Dig under the concrete wall that’s blocking your path C) Forge the raging river that’s swallowed the road D) somehow someway provide what is necessary to get past the thing that is keeping you from moving forward.

Let’s say…just for the sake of conversation…you happen to hit the roadblock, and you look at this thing that has stopped you cold, and you start thinking, “It’s going to take superhuman effort to move that thing. It looks too tall and too steep and too wide, and I’m just this puny little person who’s been plunked down on this path and told to walk it, and suddenly God has just dumped this GIANT thing in front of me, and I will never ever ever get past it.”

So you decide that what you lack is strength, that that’s what you’ve dropped somewhere along way. If only you can find it, you'll surely be able to overcome the obstacle. 

Off you go, searching and hunting and trying to find what you’ve lost.

Again, for the sake of conversation alone, let’s just say that you begin to panic, because no matter how hard you look, no matter how desperately you hunt, you can’t find it. Your strength? It is well and truly gone. 

At this point, you may begin to despair. You may also decide that somehow someway, you’ve made a terrible error, that you’re actually not even on the right path, because this one is just too difficult. And, maybe you’ll be peeking behind trees and searching ravines, and calling out for the strength you lost, and you’ll suddenly realize that strength isn’t really what you need. Because there…like a pretty little penny glinting in the sunlight, like a shiny drop of dew on the velvety pedal of a rose, like a beautiful chocolate bonbon…

There…

Just sitting on the side of the road where you dropped it, you’ll see the tattered remnant of the faith you didn’t even realize you were missing.  You will recognize it immediately, of course. You will look at it and you will wonder, “How is it that I didn’t know that I dropped this? How is it that I ever thought that all I was missing was strength?”

Because, suddenly, you will know the truth.

That mountain? It is bigger than your ability to climb it.

That river? Your stamina is no match for it.

That concrete wall? It will never be dug beneath, climbed over, plowed through.

Not by you.

It simply is not possible – even with all the strength you’ve misplaced, all the power you seemed to have dropped along the way. Even if you could gather all those things up, it still would not ever be enough.

And, maybe, as you look at that crumbled tattered bit of your faith, you’ll have this moment of absolute clarity, and you will finally understand - the heaviness of the task before you? It isn’t yours to carry. It is being carried for you.

So, you will march your butt back to the thing that’s standing in your way, and you will do the only thing you can. You will wait in its shadow, knowing that it will be moved. 

Trust me when I say it can happen.

Trust me when I say that it did happen.

The little ordinary miracle of faith.

We take it for granted, don’t we?

We forget how important it is to keep believing and trusting and hoping.

We get bogged down by the darkness and the despair and the pain and the heartache, and we start looking to ourselves for solace and rest.

Only, we will never be enough.

Not on our own.

And, maybe that is the real reason I wrote the HOME SWEET HOME series, because I needed to be reminded that the impossible is made possible by faith.  That mountains can be moved.  Rivers will be forged. Cement walls will fall. 

And a bunch of ordinary ingredients will make something extraordinary. If we let them. 

Byron's Peanut-Buttery Fudge

2 cups white sugar

2 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup peanut butter

1/4 cup chopped peanuts

Combine sugar, butter, milk and cream in  sauce pan. Cook over low heat until mixture reaches soft-ball stage. Remove from heat. Stir in peanut butter and chopped peanuts. Pour into a pan and cool. Cut into squares and share with someone you love. 

Full disclosure - My father is eating homemade bread. Not fudge. We did share the fudge, though. We just don't have a picture of anyone eating it!

The Things That Go Bump in the Night

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.

~ Ambrose Redmoon

I've never been brave. Not ever. When I was young, my older sister always led the way into new and alarming situations, because I was too chicken to go in alone.

First day of kindergarten? I cried.

First day of new Sunday school classes? I cried.

First day on the bus? I cried.

Horror movies, roller coasters, midnight walks in pitch black forest? Nope. Not for me.

Public speaking? Writing conferences with lots of new people? Traveling alone? Driving in cities? No. Thanks, anyway.

Of course, as I've gotten older, I've learned to pretend. Tell yourself you can do it enough times, and eventually you might believe it, right?

So, I've told myself I can handle things. I don't need my older sister to hold my hand or my family to flank me as I move from one new adventure to the next.  Nice as having people around is, there are times in life when we have to face the monsters without anyone standing beside us. It's good to be prepared. Or, at least, tell ourselves we're prepared.

Recently, I've seen a lot on Facebook about anxiety and the fact the the Bible admonishes us not to be afraid. Apparently we are told that 365 times. One for every day of the year.

I haven't fact-checked that, but I've read the Bible enough to know that "Do not fear" and variations on that appear a lot.

No matter how often I remind myself of this, I still sometimes find myself afraid.

Not of the things that go bump in the night, not of the monsters lurking under the bed, the villains hiding in the closet, the inevitable moment of death, or the long stretched out pain of living with chronic illness.

No. I'm afraid of other things.

I'm afraid of disappointing the people I care about. I'm afraid of missing opportunities. I'm afraid of never saying the words that will make someone realize how valued he is.Sometimes, I lie in bed at night, and I worry that I'm missing the boat. That I'll wake up one morning and realize that my life has passed and I haven't accomplished what I should have.

Mostly, I'm afraid that I'll miss God's calling on my life, that I'll blink my eyes and it will all be over,and I won't even remember where I've been or why, because I didn't care enough, love enough, serve enough.

My  husband once told me that I feel things more deeply than other people. I don't think that's true. I just see a lot of beauty  in the world, and I don't want to miss any of it. The old house standing abandoned on the hill, the mean elderly man who lives on the corner of the street, the harshest winters and the hottest summers, the prettiest landscape and the loneliest vistas, they are fantastic stories waiting to be told, and I wish I had the words and the heart and the ability to tell them all. In those stories, I find the truth about my own life, and I don't ever want to forget it. I don't want to ever stop feeling the little tug on my heart, the little pull on my soul, the constant subtle reminders that this world is not about me, that it swirls and whirls all on its own, without me guiding it.

Shocking, I know.

But, true.

God is in control, and I am certain enough about that to keep stepping out in faith, to keep moving forward even when I'm not sure exactly where I'm going.

Because, really, courage isn't about being brave, it is about believing that The One we trust in is much much more powerful than the things we fear.

I'm not one for making new year's resolutions. Mostly because I'm not much for keeping them.

This, year, though, I do have a goal - to just keep moving forward in faith, to accept that I am not the one in control, and to allow myself to believe that even now - in the midst of all the hard stuff- He has me exactly where He wants me to be.

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to be posting some yummy chocolate recipes on this blog. My girls and I have been working hard to create some family recipes. It seemed like a fun thing to do since SWEET HAVEN will be released in March.

If you have any good candy recipes, feel free to share them! We're game to try new things, and we're having a blast working in the kitchen together!

Even when our efforts are less than stellar!

Godspeed, my friends. May you look to Him as you travel the path He has put you on.

3 Sisters Write

I know. It's been a while. I've been working and schooling and living. I've also been watching two of my sisters pursue their writing dreams. This year has been a stellar year for the family as both of those sisters received contracts to write for Love Inspired Suspense.

Sara K. Parker's first book releases in January 2015.

Mary Ellen Porter's first book will release in May 2015.

I have a couple of books coming out right before and right after theirs.

Crazy, right?

Three sisters all published and all writing for the same line?

Who would have thought it?

Me. I thought it. I knew it could happen.

We've been encouraging each other for years, and I'm thrilled to see them achieve their dreams.

If you're interested in knowing more about the three sisters who write, you can visit us here -

3 Sisters Write

We're also on Twitter - @3SistersWrite.

Why I Didn't Toss My Laptop Out the Window

 



Sometimes when I am really tired and on deadline and have a sink full of dishes and a pile of laundry that is nearly to the ceiling (okay. It's only to my knees, but still...), I want to toss my laptop and whatever manuscript happens to be driving me batty into the nearest trashcan or out the nearest window (which, at the moment, is a tempting two foot away). Generally, right around that point where the laptop is heading for the window and I am heading for the nearest vacation location (or loony bin), God sends me a little boost to keep me going. The other day, at one of my lowest points of the year (I'm sure there will be more seeing as how it is only the very end of February), I received this:

 

Dear Mrs. McCoy,

I was astonished of your book Cold Case Murder Without A Trace. Personaly I think you should win a Gold medal for it.
My favorite line was when you said your bluntness is charming. When you write me back I hope you can tell me some more names of your Books because your book that I've read is the best one yet and I really don't like to read but you have inspired me to read more.

Sincerly,

Dion Henden


It made me smile. It actually made me laugh. No one has ever told me I should win a gold medal for a book. I smiled. I laughed. I remembered exactly why it was that I didn't want to toss my laptop out the window and abandon my latest project forever. I wrote the student and mailed a copy of my newest release, and then I got back to work.

So, Dion, wherever you are, thank you for saving my laptop from death by two-story fall into a snowy yard and inspiring me to work through another mucky middle of the manuscript!

I personally think you should win a gold medal for your effort!

So, My Sister Got THE CALL (or, so you want to get published)

If you're an aspiring writer, you know exactly what that means.

She got THE CALL. The one that brought her from unpublished novelist to published novelist.

The phone rang. She looked at the caller ID. There it was, bold as you will - Harlequin.

Seconds later, she had an offer she couldn't refuse.

Well, she could have, but it would have been a little strange seeing as how she'd actually spent time writing a manuscript that fit the Love Inspired Suspense line.

Now, to be clear, Sara was already published in the non-fiction arena. This isn't her first sale, but it is her first BOOK sale.

She is now officially writing for Harlequin, and, to make things even more fun, she's writing for the same line I write for.

I'm over the moon with excitement for her, and I'm already planning the book signings we'll do together, the research trips we'll go on. Who knows? Maybe one day we'll even work on a continuity together!

I'm getting all twiterpatted just thinking about it!!

How is it that we both ended up in the same house in the same line?

Well, it's like this. Love Inspired Suspense needs authors. Really. Seriously. The editors are  looking for authors. They are going above and beyond the call of duty to find authors. To do this, they are running fast track events that give writers a quick way to get their work in front of the editors' eyes.

I heard about these fast track events and encouraged a friend to submit. When another one came along, I called my sister Sara Parker (remember that name and look for her book next year) and told her she should do it. She already had a couple of manuscripts under her belt, and this was another opportunity. Why not take it? She listened to me (because who wouldn't?) and just as quick as that, she got an editor's attention. It wasn't long before she got THE CALL.

Why am I telling you this?

Well, first, I am proud of my sister.

Second, if you're an inspirational writer and want to try your hand at romantic suspense, Harlequin is a great company to work for. Manuscript are 55-60K and the books go out in book club (read that as instant sales!). They're also on store shelves all over the country.

Interested?

Check this  out. You can read the rules, chat with editors about what they're looking for, ask just about any question you want.

What could be cooler?

Not much.

So, really, check it out! This might be the golden opportunity you've been waiting for.

Just Keep Going (or what I'm learning from my daughter's ballet journey)

So, I have five kids. Three boys. Two girls.

Four of them study ballet.

And, when I say study...I mean study. My oldest son and daughter spend countless hours trying to perfect technique, line, form. My youngest daughter and son are in it more for the fun, but they work hard too. My middle son...he reads science books and writes middle grades fiction.

Now, you may be wondering how I  am so.....blessed as to have four children who all enjoy classical ballet.

It all started with this one.

She has always been busy. Really busy. The kind of person who, if left to her own devices, will quickly attempt to take control of everyone and everything in her path. She is a leader. No doubt about that, and I admire her for it. She is strong, feisty, kind and helpful.

But, she is busy and I am not.

I like to think things through, plod along at my own pace. Which is not to say I don't move forward, but simply that I don't move forward at my Sassy-girl's break-neck speed.

When she was two, Sassy said she wanted to dance ballet.

But, she was busy, and I just couldn't imagine my busy girl enjoying something as slow as ballet.

When she was three, I signed her up for gymnastics. Along with being busy and eager, she was also very flexible, so she moved quickly from recreational gymnastics to pre-team. She liked it and she was good at it, but while other little girls in the gym threw double back handsprings and begged for second and third and fourth turns on the equipment, Sassy would dance to the music playing over the intercom.

When we  moved from the east coast to the Inland Northwest, Sassy was seven. She was still asking to dance. I gave her a choice - gymnastics or ballet.

She chose ballet.

I signed her up for a ballet class at a classical ballet school. No competition stuff. No shaking her butt or shimmying into tiny little mid-drift baring outfits. Just ballet. Walk into class, hair scraped into a tight bun, body encased in a leotard and pink convertible tights. Nothing exciting or busy about that. Just stand at the barre and do the same thing over and over again.

I figured she'd quit at the end of the year. I thought she'd take a couple of classes and beg to go back to the gym.

By the third or  fourth week, I was called into the office and told that Sassy would be moving up to the next level of ballet. Even more serious, this level contained girls a couple of years older than Sassy who had all been dancing for several years.

So, up she went. To the next level.

She was rather a mess.

Sure, her teacher said she had talent, but she was always slightly off...a little ahead, a little behind. She was too energetic. Too excited. Too everything.  I got called into the office several times to discuss this....problem. Finally, I told Sassy that if she wanted to play, I'd take her to the playground. If she wanted to dance, she'd better settle herself down and get to it.

And, I thought she'd quit.

But, she just kept going.

We are five and a half years and three more kids into this ballet thing.

This week, Sassy has some time off, but her brothers have rehearsal, so she heads into the dance studio with them and spends an hour running through her Fairy dance for Midsummer Night's Dream. Then, she works on the ever elusive arabesque en pointe, and I shoot picture after picture which she soundly rejects has horrible.

Except for this one.  Which she said was okay but not great.

And this one...which we both think is cute.

A friend saw the pictures and said Sassy was a natural.

Sassy laughed, because she knows something she didn't know when she was two and asked to be a ballet dancer. She knows that there is nothing natural about what she does. Every day, she spends a couple of hours turning out at the hips, standing on the tips of her toes, moving her body into positions that most people can't achieve. While she does have a natural sense of movement and certain spark that goes a long way in conveying theme and story, she does not have the flexi-feet that her some of her friends possess. Rather than a long delicate figure, she has a long strong build. Just look at the muscles in her shoulders and legs. Those aren't from lifting weight. They are from dancing.

Talent is great, but it takes a lot more than that to be a ballet dancer.

Especially when female dancers with talent and facility are a dime a dozen.

This is the year when my daughter has realized that there are a lot of very talented very beautiful girls out there, and I really thought it might be the year when she decided to give in and give up. Ballet, after all, is hard work.  Being a dedicated dancer means giving up time with friends. It means missing out on birthday parties and sleep overs. It means saying no when you really want to say yes. It means giving up a lot.

To be blunt, it also means being passed over for parts because your legs aren't as thin as someone elses or because your feet aren't as bendy. It means that when you are twelve and look like you are sixteen, you need to try to dance like you are sixteen or people will think you aren't trying.

Sassy has learned all of this, but she still keeps pushing.

In the face of everything, she still has a deep passion for dance. She loves it the way I love words. To her it is music and expression. It is feeling and emotion.

It is work she loves.

Even when she's tired and discouraged and wondering where it's all going to lead.

She still keeps going.

Joyfully even!

 

Which is why when I am tired, when the next book seems impossible to write, when the words won't flow and the ideas are all locked up inside, I think about what Sassy said to me this past summer. She'd had a tough day. A friend had been told wonderful things about her future as a dancer and Sassy had simply been told what she needed to work on. She cried. Which is something she almost never does.

I said, "Sassy, do you want to stop? Is it even worth it?"

She looked at me like I was crazy and said, "Of course it is."

"So, what do you want to do?" I asked.

"Mom," she said in all her twelve-year-old wisdom. "I'm just going to keep going the way I am. I'm going to keep working hard and I'm going to keep trying. Someday that's going to bring me to the place I'm supposed to be. And wherever that is, I'm going to be much happier there than I will be if I quit and end up nowhere."

Yeah.

She's a busy one, that girl.

But, she's a smart one, too, and I'm learning a lot from watching this journey she's on.

My Child is Not a Thing

She is also not (in no particular order) -

A piece of art.

An exotic creature.

A different species of human being.

A circus freak.

My child is a young girl with white hair and gorgeous blue eyes. She is clever, bright, hard working and sweet. She loves everyone she meets, but she loves me and her older sister the most.

For the most part, Ms. Cheeky is exactly like her peers. Being slightly biased, I would say she is a bit smarter than the average girl her age. A bit quicker. A bit kinder. A bit more accepting.

The last comes, I think, from years when she was not accepted. Years when she looked so different from her peers that all she could ever be was an outsider looking in.

 

Here in the States, that is not the case. Her white hair is very white, but most people assume she is a platinum blond. Her hair is deeply admired by teenagers and young adults who often stop and ask me how I managed to get it so white. As if I would bleach my 11-year-old's hair!

It is true that Cheeky's vision stinks. Corrected, it is 20/200. She has no depth perception. Somehow, she manages to dance, to knit, to read, to run, to play. Just like any other child, she enjoys being with her friends. Most of them don't realize how bad her eyes are. Most adults don't either. I don't usually bother mentioning it unless I know Cheeky is going to be playing outside. My daughter does not, after all, need pity. She just needs to be allowed to be herself.

We were at the dance studio a few weeks ago. The mother of one of the new students was sitting next to me. She asked which girl was mine, and I pointed Cheeky out. She commented on her beautiful hair and then mentioned casually that Cheeky holds books very close to her face when she reads. She asked if I'd thought about getting her vision rechecked, because it seemed her glasses weren't working.

I explained that my daughter was born with poor vision, that it couldn't be corrected to anything close to perfect.

"Tsks, tsk, tsk," the woman said. "Poor baby."

"Why," I asked, "is she a poor baby?"

"Well, because, she can't see well."

"But she can sing well, dance well, knit well. She is an A student reading above grade level even though she only learned English four years ago. She has friends and a family that loves her. There is nothing poor about that."

The woman looked at me for a moment and nodded solemnly.

I'm not sure she agreed with my assessment of things, and I'm not sure I care.

The fact is, there is nothing to be pitied about my daughter. She is amazing. Maybe she won't ever drive a car, but she won't be sitting on her butt feeling sorry for herself, either. She has everything she needs to be a happy successful human being.

 

 

Which brings me to back to the beginning.

 

 

A couple of weeks ago, a friend found this while she was researching contact lenses for her daughter (who was also born with albinism).

 



Yes. It is. My daughter. In oils. The painting is on display in an art show. If you think I'm pulling your leg, go here and take a look.

I've known for a while that the photo this oil painting was painted from had been taken from my blog and posted all over the Internet. If you do a google search of Asian Albinism, you'll usually see it in the photos. That's why I went private on my family blog. I got sick of the sickos who think my daughter is a thing.

Seriously, people. She's a child. Not a piece of art. If you want to paint her, ask. If you want to post her photo all over the Internet for every creepy troll to see, don't.

Because if she were your daughter, your sister, your niece, your friend you wouldn't.

At least, I hope you wouldn't.

But, maybe this world is a crazier place than I think it is!

The Girl With Red Marker on Her Face

Sunday, I went to church. Migraine and all.

I don't go to a big fancy church. I go to a small church. Most of its members are in the over-fifty range. They are salt-of-the-earth types, and they know how to get things done.

They also know how to cook.

Which is great, because Southern Baptist churches are notorious for feeding the flock. :0)

We have at least one potluck a month, and when I can attend, I do. Not just for the food (all of it made with real butter and real cream and real veggies and real meat and.... Well, you get the point!). I go because I love the people. They have maintained a community mindset that is sometimes missing from my peers. They think of the group before they think of themselves. They are always ready with kind words, hot tea, meals. There is never a sense that their time is more important than someone elses. Nor do they look at any task as menial.

I think if we could shrink the wonderful group down to bee-size, they'd fit quite well into a hive. Bustling and buzzing and working for the good of all.

But, that wasn't what I came here to write about.

I came to write about the girl with red marker on her face.

She was in church Sunday.

She's been there before.  A foster child who is sometimes in respite care with one of the older members of our church family, the girl has some challenges. She is probably my Sassy's age. She can barely write her name, though. She has a speech impediment and moves awkwardly. She has no social boundaries. No sense of other people's space. She is a little rough, a little rowdy. She moves a lot. From one seat to the next to the next.

She loves my Cheeky girl. But, who doesn't? Cheeky is the most accepting and loving child I have ever known. So,  the girl sits by Cheeky when she is not wandering the sanctuary.

Sunday, I saw her from afar and thought she had terrible burns on her face. My  stomach knotted up and my insides went icy cold. As I drew closer, I realized what I thought were burns were actually scribbles. Red scribbles. All over her face.

ALL.

OVER.

Her nose was bright red with it. Her cheeks were smeared. It looked like she'd taken a sharpie and scribbled everywhere. I heard one of the kids ask why she had marker on her face. Her response didn't make much sense. Something about trying to be a character from TV.

That was the last I heard about the marker.

This girl? She sat next to an older couple for a while. They talked to her before church began. When she  moved to sit next to Cheeky, no one stared. She talked to someone who was sitting beside her, and I didn't even see the elderly woman blink at the red stuff spread all over the child's cheeks.

About halfway through the service, the kids went up to the front. The pastor always spends a couple minutes every week talking just to them. The girl with the red marker on her face plodded up to the front in shoes that were two sizes too large and about twenty years too old. They flopped off her feet, the use-to-be-shiny black leather scuffed and dull. Her socks were striped and her dress was checked. Like the shoes, it was several sizes too big.

The pastor gave his mini sermon, and the girl with the red marker on her face listened. When she was asked what she was thankful for, she said her family, and I wondered what family meant to her. Her bio family? Her foster family? Her respite family?

Here she was, this girl with the red marker on her face, with her too-big shoes, too-old clothes and her awkward ways. Here she was with red sharpie scribbled all over her face. Here she was with nothing that any of my kids have. Somehow, in the midst of all the things that were stacked against her, she was thankful.

She sat down next to Cheeky again, and she took one of the visitor cards. She scribbled on it for a few minutes but must have finally realized what it was. She leaned over Cheeky and grabbed my arm.

"I want a visit from the pastor," she said. "But that's already scribbled out on the card."

I looked at the card. She'd written her name in shaky letters at the top and written her respite care parent's name in the middle.

"See?" she said, jabbing at a typed line that should have read I would like to visit with the pastor. . "It's already scribbled out."

Sure enough. It had been. Scribbled so dark with black ink, the words could barely be seen.

I looked at the scribbles on the card and the scribbles on her face, and I wanted so badly to fix everything that was broken.

"Don't worry," I told her even though the pastor was preaching and people all around could probably hear every word we were saying. "I'll fix it for you."

I took her pen and wrote in big letters across the top - I want a visit from the pastor.

I handed it back to her, and she smiled and thanked me and tucked the note in the pocket of her dress.

I hope she gave it to the pastor.

And, I hope she gets a visit from him.

Because, I can't stop thinking about the girl with the red marker on her face. I can't stop wondering if there was something more that I could have done for her. Because, it seems that writing I want a visit from the pastor isn't nearly enough. Not when it comes to little girls with red marker on their faces and thanksgiving in their hearts.  Not when it comes to any child.

It's Sunday Morning

It's Sunday Morning.

A little after seven.

I've been up for a couple of hours with a raging migraine, so I've had a chance to watch the sun creep over the distant mountains.

This is my favorite time of day and my favorite moment of the week. Even when I don't have a migraine, I'm up early on Sunday morning. Earlier than The Man and the kids. Earlier than the birds, even.

On Sunday morning, I get to sit in silence. I don't have to work or, even, think about work. Sometimes I do, of course. But, mostly I just try to listen. There is something in the silence that can't be found anywhere else. Not in the chaos of my daily life. Not in the busy-ness of my evenings. Not on walks with friends or dinners out. Silence is where I hear my own prayers and where I hear God's answers.

Not in an audible voice. Just in a simple nudging. A sense of purpose. A feeling that I am not alone in the quiet. There is a thickness in solitude, as if the air itself is energized.

It is difficult to explain, but maybe I don't need to. Maybe you have felt it, too.

This morning, I sat in the quiet with my horrible migraine, and I thought about me and God and the great world around me. I thought about my friends and my family, about the sun slowly rising and the cold air seeping through the window pane. I thought, too, about a reader who questioned what was hidden in my heart. She'd read The House on Main Street and was offended by the colorful language (to quote another reader). She posted a review and said something along the lines of, "What happened to Shirlee McCoy to make her turn to this? Or maybe this is what she's been hiding all along?"

She's changed it since the original posting, but I had the pleasure of reading it.

So, I was thinking about me and the darkness hidden away in my soul.

Foul language is not one of the things I hide away. I am, as the reviewer said, very articulate, and I can think of much more effective ways to express myself.

But, I do have things hidden away - insecurities, struggles, days when I just want to throw in the towel, crawl into bed and cover my head with the blankets.

But, then, I figure the vast majority of human beings are the same.

They are the people I am writing.

So, I am sitting in the quiet, and I am thinking of my neighbors and my friends and my family. I am thinking of my church and the people I love. I am thinking about how some are sweet and kind and loving, and how some are virulent and crass. I am thinking that in Apple Valley, Washington, people are exactly like that - a microcosm of the world in general, a little peek into every village, town, city, metropolis on earth.

 The House on Main Street in an editor's pick in the Christmas edition of FIRST for Women Magazine.

And, I think it is because the town is exactly the kind of town all of us would like to live in. At least  for a little while. The people who live there are the kind of people most of us have in our lives. Good people. Crass people. Funny people. Grumpy people. Christians. Non-Christians. People who want what we all want - love and acceptance and the chance to find the one place that is and always will be home. Yeah. It's a cleaner version of the real world. No sex. No clothes ripped off. Nothing graphic or explicit. It is "a cup of hot cocoa" kind of book.

And in the quiet, with my migraine, I'm thinking that's fine.

This One's for You, Nana

This is Willetta Ruth Pothier AKA Nana.

 

 

Nana married young, just a few months shy of completing her nursing education. She'd met and fallen in love with a dashing older man. He'd been married before and had two children. I'm sure it was quite scandalous.

 

 

When I was a kid, Nana lived in Massachusetts and my family lived in Maryland. We'd visit once or twice a year. She always seemed rather high brow and exotic to me, her old house in a Boston suburb so much cooler and more interesting then the cookie cutter 1970s house I shared with my parents and four siblings.

 

Even the story of her long absent father showing up on her doorstep enthralled me. Granddad had gone off to the Merchant Marines after his wife died. He'd left his two daughters with their grandmother. According to the stories, he reappeared in Nana's life many years later, and she took him in. He lived with Nana until he died.

 

 

When we'd visit, he'd either be sitting in an old leather recliner or on a bench under the grape arbor. He kept butterscotch candies in his pocket and offered them to us. He also chewed tobacco. Because of him, I know the exact function of a spittoon and can describe what it sounds like when a gob of tobacco lands in one.

 

I will spare you that, though.

 

Nana had secrets.

 

For as long as I can remember, I knew that.

 

Her husband died when her oldest son was sixteen. My father, the youngest of five, was eight and has no memories of his dad. There were pictures of William Pothier in Nana's photo albums. She'd let us look through the pictures, but she never said a word about the husband she'd lost.  

 

It didn't matter. I had a huge imagination, and I filled in the details that she wouldn't provide. In my mind, she and William had a love so deep and strong that Nana had barely survived losing him. I never put a word down on paper, but I created my first romance based on Willetta and William.

 

Years later, I found out the truth. William hadn't been a very nice man. He was harsh and probably abusive. I would say that Nana was more relieved than heartbroken when he died, but I'll never know the truth, because she would never say. She kept her thoughts to herself and raised her kids without piling her baggage onto them.

 

She was a great lady, my Nana.

 

She was also a writer.

 

Years before I was born, she sold a story to a magazine. I don't know what the story was or if anyone has a copy of it. I didn't even know she could write until I submitted STILL WATERS to Harlequin. My father, being the proud papa he is, told his family that I'd queried a publishing house and gotten a request for my book. Nana was thrilled. She'd already had a few mini strokes and her memory wasn't as good as it had once been, but she remembered my submission and asked every week if I had sold the book yet.

 

When I finally did, Nana was thrilled. She couldn't wait to get her hands on a copy.

 

As the years went by and her memory got worse and her health failed, Nana never ever forgot that I was a published author. Near the end, when her children could no longer care for her at home, she stayed in a nursing home. She brought copies of my books with her and told all the nurses that her granddaughter had written them. I've heard rumors that she even slept with them sometimes.

 

Six years ago, Nana passed away. The morning of her death, my husband found a beautiful mourning dove in our yard. It didn't fly away when he bent to pick it up. He carried it into the house and put it in a box. My kids and I spent the day with the dove. It didn't seem sick, but it never flew out of the box. It didn't struggle when I picked it up, either. It had the softest feathers and the most beautiful eyes. If my Nana had been a bird, she would have been one just like that.

 

That evening, my husband carried the box outside and the dove flew away.

 

You can say it means nothing, and you will probably be right, but there was something magical about that day, something altogether unexplainable about that beautiful mourning dove.

 

When I wrote The House on Main Street, I spent a lot of time thinking about family, about love, about the things that bind us together and the things that pull us apart. I thought of Nana and her husband and her old house and the porcelain pig that sat at the top of her stairs. I thought about her secrets and her dreams and the way that she loved her children...unconditionally and without reserve.

 

I thought about how we can be so caught up in the daily grind, so steeped in the ordinary that we miss the extraordinary.  

 

And the extraordinary really is all around us.

 

We just have to slow down long enough to see it.

 

Nana never said as much, but I'm pretty sure she knew it.

 

I wasn't asked to write a dedication for The House on Main Street, but if I had been, it would have read - This one is for you, Nana, because you have proven that an ordinary life can be an extraordinarily magical thing and because you understand the power of family and of love.  

 

 

 

 



Gertrude...or...those sweet and salty characters

Well, here I am, a few days into August and nearly finished with my first Love Inspired HEART book.

Just a little rundown of the series -

Welcome to HEART (hostage extraction and rescue team), where lives are redeemed, families are restored and true love always prevails.

Hostage Extraction and Rescue Team was founded in 2008 by brothers Jackson and Chance Miller, both former Navy SEALs who’s older sister was taken hostage while on a missionary trip to Cambodia. She was never found. That loss drives the team’s mission - to rescue men, women and children from precarious situations and bring them safely home to their families. In the five years since its inception, HEART has earned a reputation for freeing hostages and rescuing people others have given up on. The members of the team are mostly ex-military or law enforcement personnel who have lost loved ones and who want to make sure that other families don’t suffer the pain they’ve experienced.

I'm not sure when the first book will be out. Probably in the spring or summer of 2014.

Whatever the case, the first book has been fun to write.

And, good news! I included a sweet and salty character. I'm not sure how he found his way into the book, but suddenly...there he was...all tough and cantankerous and quirky. 

As I was writing a scene with this guy kind of stealing the show (so to speak), I thought about Gertrude.  She's a prominent character in THE HOUSE ON MAIN STREET. Seventy-something and not afraid to shout it to the world. She's in a constant feud with her neighbor and has a penchant for dusty faded Santa hats. Blunt, a little rude and too willing to open her mouth when she should keep it shut, she has more than her share of character flaws.

But, man, does she love her family and you couldn't ask for a better friend.

If she sounds like someone I might know (0r, even, someone you might), it's probably because she is. I had the pleasure and blessing of knowing three of my great-grand parents. Grammy Goo is the one who just fills my memories.

And, no. That is not a mistake. Grammy Goo.

Her real name...or at least what we were supposed to call her...was Grammy Goodwin.

AKA, Gertrude Goodwin. My mother's grandmother.

She was salty and sweet. She smoked like a chimney, drank like a fish, swore like a sailor and loved her family like there was no tomorrow. She played the organ...by ear. Never took a lesson in her life, but still somehow played at church on Sunday morning (Yes...I do, indeed, mean that she did all the aforementioned things).

Perhaps she is the reason why there are so many older characters in my books, and why so  many of them are quirky and sharp, witty and, sometimes, just a little wild.

I loved Grammy Goo. For all her faults and foibles, because she always let me know that she loved and cared about me.

In the long and short run, when all is said and done and our lives are played out, it is the love we had (or didn't) that will linger in the hearts of those who knew us. And, perhaps, if we are very fortunate, we will be immortalized in someones book or song or dance or painting, or...better yet...in the oral histories passed down through generations of our families.

And, really, aside from the drinking, smoking and cussing like a sailor...I think the best kind of older person to be is one just exactly like my wonderful, witty and wild Grammy Goo!