What could provide better preparation for a writer?
I’m an old broad who’s had a plethora of life-experiences and a variety of careers. I was born in an old farmhouse south of Fresno in the San Joaquin Valley. I was a teenage bride, had my three kids early, and was a ’50s-era “just a housewife.” My first day of college was my youngest child’s first day at Kindergarten – yet I came this close to a Ph.D. (I quit to take a year-long trip around the world. I regret not finishing the PhD, but not taking the trip.) I soaked up other cultures while traveling the world and living abroad. I’ve been single, married, and divorced . . . a couple of times. I’m a proud mother and grandmother. (They’ve all turned out to be wonderful people.) And I have a terrific “significant other” who was worth waiting for. (I was 66, he was 67, on our first outing.) It’s never too late.
My careers include a long stint as stay-at-home wife and mother; office worker at a large corporation; re-entry student (at 34) – earned a BA; teacher (K-12), Teaching Credentials; administrative assistant; re-entry student again (at 45), MA in Psychology; reading specialist; travel consultant; student again – PhD program in Psychology; psychotherapist and clinical hypnotherapist (including past life regression therapy); seminar leader; publisher and editor; newspaper columnist; real estate investor/landlord; college instructor; TV producer and host; disaster relief worker; world traveler, and writer.
It’s not that I couldn’t keep a job – I’ve seldom had one. I’ve mostly been self-employed, and always managed to do two or three diverse jobs concurrently, with a half-dozen more on the drawing board. I’ve often been asked, “Is there anything you can’t do?” I answer, “I don’t know. I haven’t tried everything yet.”
All of that laid the groundwork for writing. I’ve lived a long time (88 and counting), experienced life fully, am endlessly curious . . . and I know a lot of stuff.
I’ve always been a writer (small w). As a kid I wrote stories, poems (one of which landed me in big trouble), letters, and plays (which were performed on our front porch). Now I’m a Writer (capital W). I write books. And I teach others how to write books. (I also publish books.) I don’t worry about sticking to one genre. I write whatever interests me. When someone asks, “What’s your genre?” I answer, “I’m a writer, not a genre.”
My Middle Grade (3rd, 4th, 5th Grades) book is based on my own 5th Grade experience – MISS ROGERS STINKS. It’s historical fiction, but Miss Rogers was a real person, as was the main character, Tina (my alter- ego). The setting was 1946, just after WWII, in a Central Valley (CA) town. It tells about the incident that was the only time I ever got in trouble at school. And it was a doozy.
It also tells a lot about life in the 1940s.
I wrote a nonfiction book: YOUR LIFE OUGHTA BE A BOOK; Write the stories of your life. I was teaching classes at various venues – Senior Centers, churches, conferences, our community college – on memoir writing. I wrote and self-published it for my textbook. It has since been redone and published as YOUR LEGACY; The stories of your life. Inspiring and encouraging people to write their life stories became my mission. Many, many hundreds of people have used this book to get their stories written, and in some cases, published. They – and their families – are grateful they had this book.
THAT’S LIFE; Many mini-memoirs is my own memoirs, Volume I. To say I’ve had an interesting life is putting it mildly. I wrote these stories along with my students as they wrote their assignments, and later published it to serve as inspiration to others. Volume II is about to be published.
My next book was fiction: TIARA searches for her lost identity — a YA (Young Adult) novel – also inspired by a true story. (It’s not autobiographical.) Tiara learns, at 16, when her parents die in a car crash, that she was adopted. She wonders, “If I’m not who I thought I was, who am I?”
With no one to turn to, she and her sister become foster kids, in separate foster homes. She finds her strength through adversity.
Another fiction: THE GENUINE ARTICLE. It’s “Chick Lit” – Adventure/Romance. 100% fiction. Initially, it was just for fun, just something to do. But 25 years later, I got serious about it and took it the last mile. Ashleigh, the main character travels all over, gets into several kinds of trouble, falls in and out of love, and learns some good (difficult) life lessons.
DESIGNS OF DESTINY is a contemporary novel of love and romance, with a difference. It has paranormal aspects, plus twists and turns and surprises, with a ghost who scares the holy b’Jesus out of its two main characters—Thadd and Cheryl.
Nonfiction: YOUR ETHICAL WILL & TESTAMENT is a workbook for you to tell your loved one what you’d really like them to know. Click on book cover to learn more.
Nonfiction: THE GRANDPARENTS YOU NEVER KNEW is a book I was compelled to write. I published it, but it’s not for sale. It’s just for my sons and nephews and their offspring. My parents, Art and Pat Petersen, both died far too young, long before their grandchildren came along. So my and my sister’s kids had no memories of them and didn’t know much about them. I wrote what I remembered, which, in my father’s case, wasn’t much—he died when I was five. I knew more about my mom, who died when I was 16, but there is so much I didn’t/don’t know. I wrote what I could so their grandchildren, etc., would have something to “remember” them by.
Now, in 2023, I’m getting ready to launch a historical novel—Angel or Wild Woman—about Nellie Cashman. Nellie was a real person, an Irish immigrant, who lived in the 19th century. Although famous at the time, she’s unknown to most of us in the 21st-Century. I wrote this book to change that. She was such a vibrant character, and a trailblazer, that she needs to live on. The book is written in three parts—originally written as a trilogy—Part 1, voyages from the east coast to San Francisco via Panama, during which she meets people heading to California’s gold fields and gets her first taste of “gold fever”; Part 2, her struggle to get there herself, then her introduction to prospecting and entrepreneurship; Part 3, upon learning of her fellow miners’ desperate plight, snowbound in Canada, sets out to save them at great expense and risk, and becomes a living legend. The screenplay of Part 3, from which the title derives, is being shopped to Hollywood. Nellie lived another 49 years, during which the legend of Nellie Cashman continues. My novel ends when she’s 30, at which time she accomplished her most heroic feat.
So, you see, I’m not a genre. I’m all over the map, which is pretty much how I’ve lived my life. I do what interests me when it interests me. I obey laws, but rules were made to be broken, right? I’ve been told I’m eccentric . . . and worse. Well, creative people, by definition, are eccentric, aren’t they?
When I retired from teaching at Truckee Meadows Community College, my Creative Writing class refused to let me quit. We formed a writers group that has been going for 17 years. We’ve become one another’s teachers, support group, and best friends. They inspire me to keep going. They tell me it’s mutual.