I wouldn't be here without your help. Thank You!

During my journey to get my first novel finished, this is how I felt.

Well I finally finished Rescued from the Dark and sent it out to publishers last week. I feel confident in this version, thanks to many people. They say it takes a village to raise a child; well it took an army to get the concept of writing into my head. I will take a few lines to thank some of them. First off my two reading buddies at work, Teresa Dunn and Karen Sublett, if it wasn’t for them I would not have had the nerve to start. They suffered through many versions and helped clean up each one.  Cindy Gerard, she is an amazing author and took the time to give me advice and help along the way. My critique group, Roses colored glasses, critique partner Emma Leigh Reed, Savvy Authors and their amazing workshops, Writing group, Little Rocks RWA chapter DSRA, and Janice Seagraves who I have attached myself to because she always seems to have the answer I need. I truly suck at grammar and punctuation, ask anyone. I have to thank the almighty Queen of English, M.M Pollard. She was able to get the concept of verbs, sentence structure, and remove my fear of commas, not an easy thing to do. And my critique partner Victoria Valentine, she has helped me get through many rough spots and made an awesome banner and book cover for me. I hope I didn’t forget anyone. But I’m sure I did, there has been so many that answered questions and gave advise along the way.

Now I need to master time management. There are so many distractions during the day that can keep you from writing. The biggest for me is the day job, but I do like to eat so that has to stay.

I have managed to put together a schedule. First thing in the morning check my e-mail and answer what I can. Then go to work. Lunch, review blogs and write for 30 minutes, back to work. After work, chores, dinner and then write for a few hours. Check e-mail and facebook before bed. My goal is to write a blog twice a week and send a twitter message at least once a day. That should be a good start, now let’s just see if it actually works. Sure does look good on paper.  :}

Every writer knows that communication is the key and our best communication avenue is social media so I'm off to twitter, facebook and e-mail what I've accomplished today....this blog...lol

Here’s an excerpt from my second book in the Guardian’s of Hope Series, Last Chance to Run.

After two years of being held captive Patricia Daily found her chance to run and took it.

Tracy knew the warm wet liquid oozing down the side of her head was blood.  After jumping out the window, she hit the rocks and the damage to her head wasn’t her only injury.

      She leaned against the building to catch her breath.  The concrete blocks heated her skin and the wet grass, soaked her feet. She didn’t care, not today.  Tracy inched along the wall, listening for anything that would tell her she was being followed.

      Mac told her the truck would be along the tree line behind the main house. It would be brown and rusty, but it ran and that’s all that mattered now.

      She took a deep breath to calm her racing heart, as she stopped at the corner and peered around.  The truck was there, just as Mac had promised.  All Tracy needed to do was make it across the compound and past the main house. Mac’s diversion had all the guards heading towards the houses where the prisoners were kept.

      With only a few minutes to spare, it was now or never. Tracy took off in a dead run towards the truck and knew she was only seconds from freedom when the front door to the house opened.

      Tracy didn’t stop to find out who it was. She could hear them behind her. Loud explosions surrounded her as the bullets whizzed past her head. She knew to run in a zigzag pattern, she remembered the stories her dad told her explaining how that saved his life.  Now she depended on everything he taught her it to save hers. If they catch her again, they would kill her.  With Dex gone they had no use for her, the revenge was his, not theirs.

     She dove into the trees and looked around for something to use against them, and came up empty.  The compound was surrounded by the security fence with razor wire on top. It was no match for her; she’d already tried climbing it once.  This time had to work, she had to get away.  She moved further into the darkness when the impact threw her up against the tree. The heat raced through her followed  by the pain, it went thru her shoulder, she could tell.  It’s wasn’t the first time they’d shot her.  Tracy couldn’t move her right arm, still she crawled to get as close as possible to the truck. She was inches from seeing her Dad, being with Jake. She clawed at the dirt and moved closer when a hand snaked out of the shadows and wrapped around her face and covered her mouth. 

     No, they couldn’t catch her, she's too close, Mac wouldn’t make it.  Tracy struggled, she was not going back, she would die first. Tracy had fought for her freedom for two years now and this was her last chance to run