Best Laid Plans

When I retired from my career as a Safety Professional, my plan was to write books.  I'm executing that plan, albeit differently than I had pictured.

Over the last few years of my career, I had started writing my stories in my head.  I had a notebook where I wrote down names, and places and ideas.

My plan was to start in the past, and work my way to the present, following a set of families.  When I was about 100 pages into my first book, Sowing Freedom, Reaping Joy, I had a stroke.  It was a small stroke, and I have had a complete recovery.

In the immediate aftermath, and while I was doing my rehabilitation, I found I couldn't write my historical books.  My short term memory was terrible, and being historically accurate is important to me.  So I would look something up, and then forget, and look it up, and forget.  It was very frustrating.

But writing was and is important to me.  To feel like myself, I needed to write.  So I decided to start writing a present day novel.  I fell in love with my characters.  I wanted to spend more time with them.  I realized their stories would span multiple books, just with what is already in my head.

The first two books published ended up being set in modern day.  Then I finished my historical.  Then I wrote a modern day that incorporated quite a bit from the historical.  Than another modern day.  Then another novella, a Christmas story.

Now, I am finally working on another historical, while also working on another modern day book.  And I have no idea how many books it will take to get from the time that Sowing Freedom, Reaping Joy is set until the time Count Your Blessings is set.

But it really doesn't matter.  The stories are inside me, waiting to be shared.  I'll just keep sharing them until I run out.  Or time runs out on me.  Because being a writer is who I am.