Sporadic at best. I do my best writing late afternoons and into the night in an on-and-off pattern. I have to cook supper, eat supper, and clean up the kitchen. I have a couple of favorite t.v. shows. So, in the early evening, the writing anything is on and off. After 10 p.m. the scenario changes and I morph into the professional writer person, dressed in p.j.s with a soda and a midnight snack of cold fruit to munch as I write. When I'm working on a specific manuscript, I am focused and determined to achieve at least a few pages each night. The rough draft is the most difficult, getting those ideas out of my head onto paper. It may take a long time with lots of scribbled notes in between any substantial writing on a computer file.

Seems characters just pop into my head and develop their stories as time goes along. Example: 'Pigeon in a Snare' evolved in the late '80s. Lisa improved over numerous rewritings over the next twenty-some years. Lisa had an assistant named Jani... 'Roses for the Sparrow' is Jani's story. Jani had a friend named Susie. 'Plight of the Wren' is Susie's story. Susie has a Sister-in-law named Stephanie. 'Robin Unaware' is Stephanie's Story. All four women have a deep, abiding love for Sylvia Pentherst. 'Wise Bold Eagle' is Sylvia's story. I am working on the sixth and final addition to this 'Birds in Peril Series' titled 'Bluebird of Happiness' I know who the mystery bluebird is (I just completed the rough draft)but I'm not telling just yet.

I endured a strange writer's block for several years after experiencing a life-threatening, life-changing health problem and a long recovery afterward. I could rewrite things I'd written years ago. I could edit and write short articles. But, I could not center my mind around any new lengthy pieces. Such as the fifth book in the 'Birds in Peril Series'. During my months of desperation I rewrote and published a manuscript I'd originally written in the 1980's. 'Shattered Image' was published in Dec. 2021. My first published book in five years! But it was a 'rewrite'. As I recovered from my illness, I was determined to complete the Birds series and finally, last year, I published 'Wise Bold Eagle', #5. I am presently working on #6 'Bluebird of Happiness' but it has been slow going. I'm not able to write for the long hours I used to. I'm much slower in everything that I do and I still have periods where my mind is blank and writing anything is just not possible. So what does writer's block mean to me? Torture. Impossible, unexplained, blank mind torture.

I was making up stories before I could write them down. In school, I excelled in subjects I could write about. I've kept a journal for years and a calendar that records our day-to-day activities. For me, writing is part of breathing. If I cease to write, I will also cease to breathe.

Ten Books have been published. I've written a few more than that and a couple of those will never be published. 'Dino, Godzilla and the Pigs', my autobiography was published in 1993 by SoHo Press. It is my only non-fiction book-length publication, although I wrote non-fiction articles for many years. I have published five additions to the 'Birds in Peril Series' and plan to publish the sixth and final story later this year. "Shattered Image', an off-the-cuff story of its own, was published in 2021. My favorite, 'Sweet Pea', evolved over many years and more rewrites than I can remember. The story is of a woman's growing up in the 1960s thru 1990. It's told as a memory years later when this woman finds reason to reassess her life and how she came to be where she is. 'Sweet Pea' depicts the years I grew up and raised my sons so it involves a lot of nostalgia concerning the era and how life was during the Viet Nam War, hippies, hot pants into the 1980s Farm Crisis. 'Sweet Pea' was originally published as a trilogy in the fall of 2017. I later republished it in paperback under one cover titled 'Sweet Pea Trilogy'.

I'm a country girl who has lived her life within five miles of the Missouri River. I grew up in a world of small family farms in a tight-knit community where everyone knew everyone. My husband grew up in the same kind of world. That's largely why he chose farming as his life career. I chose him and accepted his life would be mine. That's why I worked with him (while also raising our sons and trying to get published as a reliable author)all those many years. But our lives have changed--farming has changed dramatically since we were teenagers. The family farm is becoming a past memory while corporate farms try to move in. My grandfather supported a family with three children on fifty-five acres of ground. My dad farmed that land while also maintaining his own construction business. Today, my husband and I farm that land, but it isn't large enough to even begin to support just the two of us for a few months. Sad reality. I'd like to preserve some of those nostalgic family farm days in my writing. So all of my books incorporate some sort of family farm setting.

Silence. I write when I am alone and the only sounds I hear are the clicking of the computer keys. No radio, t.v. or music is on. The only sounds I focus on are the voices in my head.