Paisley Kirkpatrick's Blog

Written by J. Morgan and Paisley Kirkpatrick

J.MORGAN
I've always been a character. Being introverted might be the explanation for it and the reason why I became a writer. It's easy to hide who you are behind a mask. I'm not saying I'm living a lie, but all of us keep a piece of ourselves back from public consumption. As a writer I found it helped to have these secret me's lurking under the surface. They gave me excellent fodder for the people populating the worlds within my books.
Since becoming a writer, I've had the opportunity to make the people in my lives part of my books. As I meet other authors and joined them to my extended family, I in some small way became part of their worlds by becoming characters in their books. Writing really is a closed ecosystem. Only other writers can understand the fragile balance it takes to co-exist inside two worlds, the real world and the one inside their heads. So we tend to cross pollinate our worlds with nods to each other through the characters we give birth to from these friendships.

Like I said, along the way I've played minor roles in the literary lives of my friends. Quite frankly, I was content with being a character actor. Then something happened to change my life as Gabby Hayes and suddenly, I found myself cast in the role of John Wayne, okay, Bob Hope in Son of Pale Face. The point is, I was the hero of this tale and thanks to the vision of my good friend Paisley Kirkpatrick I could actually see myself in that role. That's the magic of reading, your imagination comes to life. Paisley has a definite talent for that and in her new book, Stealing Her Heart, that talent does something truly awesome. It makes me the hero and I invite you to come along for the ride with me.

*****
BLURB
In Paradise Pines, real men didn't read romance much less write it. That is until Liam O'Toole comes to town. Unfortunately using a woman's identity to write under might get him hung. Because of a misunderstanding, a murder charge could put a rope around his neck for his own murder.

Margaret Hennessey's homemade biscuits have homesick miners flocking to her table. To her utter frustration a misguided thief is stealing her biscuits only to pay with a romantically written IOU. When the town cook dies, the townsfolk need her to take over the cafe kitchen.

An intrigue involving hidden gold and a band of renegade outlaws drives Liam to become the hero he's always written in his books. How else can he save not only his muse but the fiery redheaded biscuit maker who's not only his muse but the woman he just might call his happily ever after.

*****

PAISLEY KIRKPATRICK
My characters aren't just bits and pieces of my imagination. They are real people to me and I listen to how they want to be treated and live their lives in my stories through my muse. When they grow quiet, I know they aren't happy where my plotlines are going. Their silence tells me to stop the direction I'm taking them, and rethink their lives. In a way, it's exciting because I know they are paying attention.

I like to take people from my life and use them, or parts of their personalities, to create my stories. J. Morgan was so much fun to put into the role of Liam O'Toole. He's Irish. He's a romance writer. He can be a rogue at times. Yep, a lot of bits and pieces of this man worked perfectly into how I saw this character.

I hope that you'll step into the world I carved out for Liam O'Toole and Margaret Hennessey. It's the story from my heart. I loved bringing these characters and the people around them to life.

HEY y'all, my name is Charly. I'll be filling in this week for Jmo. He's kinda tied up with Christmas stuff this week and asked if I'd step in. All right! You want the truth. Jmo's hogtied in the woodshed cuz he got his wife a vacuum for Christmas. Seeing as how he ain't going to see daylight 'til the New Year, I figured I could stop in and plug the new book Paisley Kirkpatrick just had published about me.

I rode into Paradise Pines a year or so ago on the stagecoach I happened to be drivin'. I'm known as the best stagecoach in the area, maybe the state, but my boss, the gorgeous Scottish rancher Braden MacGregor, fired me...because I'm a woman! Can you believe a smart man like Braden ignores my reputation and fires me because he thinks I should have a job more suitable for a woman? My brain nearly explodes every time I think about his words the night he fired me. First he tells me how good I am at driving the coaches and then he says I can't drive a team because I don't have the strength of a man. It seems he can't overlook his antiquated ideas on women's place in this modern society. All right, I will admit Braden finding out I am a woman and not the young man he hired might have come as a shock, but maybe he should grow a few and let his bias go. I mean, I need my job back. I've sorta grown accustomed to eatin'.

I was born to drive the rigs. Paisley says so and she put it in print. Everyone knows what's in print is true. Just cuz I am female it don't mean I can't handle a six horse team pullin' a stage. I am determined to teach Braden McGregor women can do anything men can do, only better.

Oops, I hear loud banging coming from outback. Jmo is yelling for his favorite Christmas treat. I guess someone forgot to bring him his plate of fruitcake. I best get going and cut him a big slice. Nice jawing with ya.


Original post on J. Morgan's Giggles From The Darkside
jennmorgan69.wordpress.com

As authors we always seem to carry on conversations with out characters. Paisley not only talks to them, but apparently takes them on cruises with her! Before I give away too much, here's Paisley and Marinda floating on the seas of adventure and love.

Marinda grabbed the copy of Forever After off her bedside table and left her stateroom. The day was warm and perfect for the temporary freedom. She grabbed a wide hat and left for a few hours of sun.

"Good afternoon," a woman on deck said.

Marinda nodded and sat on a deck chair next to her. A shock rammed through to her toes. The woman was pictured on the back of her novel. "Um, excuse me, but are you Paisley Kirkpatrick, the author who wrote Forever After?"

The woman stopped writing in her tablet and smiled. "Yes, I am. Have we met?"

Marinda covered her mouth and giggled. "We haven't exactly met, but we do know each other quite well. I'm Marinda."

"Marinda? I am sorry, but the only Marinda I know is a character in a book I wrote."

"Yes, I know. I am that Marinda. Marinda Benjamin."

"No, you're nothing like the Marinda I wrote about."

Marinda ripped off her hat, letting her long blond hair cascade down her back.

The author gasped. "You are Marinda! How did you escape from the pages?"

"You should know. You are my creator and a great storyteller."

Paisley reached out and ran her finger along Marinda's cheek. "You're part of my imagination, aren't you?" She pulled back and stared. "Pardon me, but I've never met one of my characters in person before."

"It's all right. I feel a bit strange about being free of the Kindle. I'm not sure exactly what an ebook is, but it does get crowded in there. I hope you don't mind, but while I'm free I have a few questions."

"Of course. I guess after all the royalty checks I've cashed, I owe you at least that much."

"How do you know what to do with us? I mean, your ideas have to come from somewhere?"

Paisley snickered. "Yes, well I'm not quite sure where the main plot ideas come from, but once an idea forms, I draw on my past experiences and put them in story form. I use you and the other characters to tell my stories."

"I don't mean to hurt your feelings, but some of those ideas come from me. You must realize the voices you hear aren't some frivolous words created by your so-called muse. I give you very good ideas, but you don't always follow them."

Paisley sat up. "Now, wait just a minute..."

Marinda was on a roll now. She wiggled her finger back and forth in front of Paisley's face. "And, I'd like to know where Ethan came from. What a stuffed shirt. Do you realize it took over half the book for him to relax?"

She leaned closer to Paisley. "Which one of us do you like the best? Huh? My sister Amalie or me?"

"Are you done?"

Marinda pulled back. "I'm sorry. I usually give you the silent treatment when you ignore me, but now that we're face to face, I guess I got carried away."

"Yes, well, I apologize, too. I am used to rejection, but I never expected it from you, Marinda. You are the sweet sister, not the one with the mouth. I left that job to Amalie."

"Why did she get all the good lines?"

Paisley chuckled. "It's nothing against you, Marinda. You can blame my great grandmother. She wasn't nice to me when I was a child and I found my revenge in Night Angel." She shook her head. "You have to admit though, your story had more words than hers and you did find your forever-after kind of hero."

"Yes, and here he comes looking for me." Marinda stood. As she left to meet her man, she turned and left with a word of advice. "The next time you have silence in your head, pick something besides The Phantom of the Opera to get us to talk. Butler is a hunk, but he's not Bubba."

By Paisley Kirkpatrick

Cancer? No one on either side of our family has ever had cancer of any kind, never as far back as we know. What then caused this devastating disease to attack so ruthlessly, so unexpectedly, so cruelly? We learned that the answer was quite simple -- cells mutated. Simple, but simple did not make it any easier for us to accept.

Metastatic melanoma, two words I wish I'd not been introduced to. It took two years, after a mistaken diagnosis, for this disease to take our daughter Kellie's life. We held her memorial on her thirty-second birthday in a beautiful outdoor chapel by the ocean. She'd picked the place and asked us to remember her life there. Kellie was an extraordinarily brave young woman who gave the fight of her life at USC Kenneth Norris Cancer Hospital in Southern California. Because her illness was already in stage four, she was entered in the research program where they experimented with such a strong dose of chemo that it was delivered in a locked box. It just wasn't done early enough.

To start from the beginning, Kellie went to her gynecologist because she felt a lump when she sat on something hard. Unfortunately, for reasons unknown to us, her doctor didn't take time to pay attention to what she was explaining and sent her home after telling her to soak in a warm bath. It was nothing to worry about. Nothing killed her two years later.

Shortly after the unfortunate original diagnosis, she moved from Sacramento to Long Beach, California, and once she got a job with medical insurance, she had the lump checked out again. This time, she was told it was melanoma and it had attached to her female organs. It had never shown up on her outer skin. He did major surgery and gave her hope that she would survive. To make sure, he got her into the experimental program at one of the country's leading melanoma cancer research hospitals. She had the head surgeon/scientist as her doctor at USC Kenneth Norris.

I practically moved into her studio apartment for the eight months that she underwent some of the most grueling chemo and radiator treatments possible at the time. The cancer spread first to her liver and then cells showed up in her brain. Bless her heart, the child who fainted all her life when she saw blood, forced herself to live through weekly transfusions without complaint. Her bravery at facing all the tests, new blood, chemo treatments, and fear of dying never wavered. I can truly say that she is the bravest person I have ever known, and forever my hero.

The best advice I ever received came from another mother whose child had fought against cancer for over two years, but luckily for all of us who know him, he survived. She told me that I am the only part of her life that Kellie could control. I should let her decide if she wanted me there helping her or not, if and when, and I should involve her in all plans made on her benefit. I believe following the advice is what got us through all those months with little conflict between us. At the time my father was in a skilled care facility and I did have to fly home and check on him every couple of weeks. When he passed away four months before Kellie, our foundation started to crack. The stress I was under got tougher. If my emotions fell apart, I knew I would take my husband and our younger daughter who was 21 at the time, down with me. I was the rock that held the family together.

The stress took its toll on me. Three years after Kellie died, I needed a hysterectomy. I was diagnosed with uterine cancer. I knew I had a bleeding problem, but I was so drained of emotion and strength I didn't have anything left to fight the symptoms. Between my diagnosis and our daughter's death I had a nervous break on a callback for a mammogram. I scared the daylights out of all the nurses and staff in the imagery office. I couldn't stop crying, even had a hard time giving them my name. By the time I left the place I had no feelings, no sense of smell, and no taste. All I wanted to do was cry and I had an hour's drive home ahead of me. I knew if I called my daughter I would scare her and if she didn't hear from me, she be scared. I waited until I got halfway home and stopped to eat something to see if food would help. Scared the waitress at Carl's Jr. when I burst into tears as she set a burger in front of me.

After this experience, I was once again facing cancer three years later, but this time it was my own. Even though the doctor assured me it was slow moving and I'd probably be fine, I didn't believe him. I lucked out with the head doctor at UC Davis Medical Center as my doctor and when he took the uterus out, all the cancer came with it. Two days later I was walking the halls of the hospital and ready to get out of the place. The doctor told me I was one of the lucky ones. It's been eight years now that I've been cancer free and I definitely look at life differently. I enjoy my friends, I've achieved my dream of being a published author, and I've had some remarkable people enter my life. I did lose my heart on a trip to Scotland, but I have every intention of going back and looking for it one of these days.

I suppose what we should learn from this negative/positive encounter with cancer is you should get a diagnosis right away if you think something is not right with your body, and if you don't think the doctor is paying attention to what you are saying, get a second diagnosis, a third diagnosis, until you are certain what you are dealing with. Kellie's doctor should have listened and taken her seriously. My doctor had me in for a D&C within three hours of meeting me and had my surgery scheduled to be performed within two months. He listened, and I survived.

Since Kellie died on July 13, 2002, I have made and given away 44 quilts in her memory. Most of them have been baby quilts, but some wedding, memory, and author book cover quilts. I know that as I make these gifts, I fill them with love and will never charge for my labor as it would change the reason for making them. I know that most of the children who've been given a baby quilt still wrap up in them and they seem to last well. It has lightened my heart to do this.

DON'T BE ORDINARY

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an Hour

William Blake (1757-1827) (English poet, painter and engraver) is one of the earliest and greatest figures of Romanticism. He emphasized individual, imaginative, visionary and emotional creativity. He privileged imagination over reason in the creation of both his poetry and images, asserting that ideal forms should be constructed not from observations of nature but from inner visions. He declared in one poem, “I must create a system or be enslaved by another man’s.”

When I was a teenager my father gave me the talk. Not the one on sex, the one on being an individual. I remember his words like he spoke them yesterday and I am sure I might have dared to roll my eyes like my daughters did when I gave them the same speech. “If your friends jumped off the roof, would follow them? Be an individual, be unique and do what you think is best for you.” I’m not sure he didn’t regret these words at some time in his life because I took them literally and have never followed the crowd.

What I get from Blake’s thoughts is that you should create what’s important to you. It doesn’t matter if it’s writing a story, picking up a paint brush, taking photos, creating quilts, putting together culinary delights, etc. Creativity is the key. Learn who you are. Do something that makes you unique. Don’t mindlessly follow the crowd. After you are gone, it will be your legacy - an inheritance for your children and friends.

I grew up in a home where artistic talent was everywhere. My mother was not only an award-winning oil painter, but taught herself to play the organ and also sewed and did needle work. My daughter Kellie inherited her painting talent. Having their artwork proves Blake’s theory. They are no longer with us, but their essence is. I take great comfort in that.

When I make a personalized quilt each one grows from my own creativity. I can’t explain the joy I receive in making them and then hearing the squeal, feel the hug, or see the happy tears when they are received. Two of my Paradise Pines Series stories are published with three or maybe four more to come. Now that I have books published, I have a second contribution to romanticism. I love that word now that I know what it means. I’m searching for more ways to use it now.

Sometimes you're Annie Oakley and always hit the mark, but most of the time you're that crazy prospector that nobody really understands what he's saying. Writing is a hit and miss business -- a spent cartridge at times; a fiery blast of awesome at others. What we can never forget is that quitting is never acceptable.

Think about the miners who left their families and traveled across this country in search of the elusive gold. It was hard, back-breaking work day after day without any conveniences. It took perseverance and a dream to find the nugget or vein of gold. It's a waste of time if your dream is mediocre...go for the big one, the one you think is out of your reach. When you catch it, the reward is beyond your wildest imagination.

Twenty-three years ago I dreamed my dream. I never gave up because it wasn't something I could do. I wanted to write a book. I had to write a book. Every day as I traveled down the mountain to work, my story ran through my head like a movie. When it was complete, I sat for ten hours and wrote it from beginning to end. I finally had my story, now I had to learn the proper way to present it.

I had no idea what kind of journey I'd travel. How many detours and dead ends I'd run into. I also had no idea how stubborn I am. I always knew my Mother was stubborn. You know -- that good old Scottish dig-in kind of stubbornness. Over the years I perfected it to a science. I would not give up no matter how many judges gut-punched me in contests or how many rejections filled my wastebasket. I had a dream and it would never come true if I quit.

Looking back over the years I can honestly say the journey was the best part of getting published. We had some devastating years and roadblocks. I almost lost my way, but my friends held out their hands and led me back. I changed my target - my goal if you wish. I focused on writing the best story I could write and turned the negative into the positive. Writing became fun again. I wrote a second story, a third, and then a fourth. Now I am writing my fifth. Ideas and words come a lot easier with experience under my belt.

I found inspiration in my great, great grandfather's handwritten journal written while he traveled from Missouri to California in 1849 on a wagon train. The makin' of this great country came from great, strong pioneers. They lent their strength to its beginning. If we pay attention and look around, we can learn from what they left us. We are a strong and proud people. Their pioneer spirit never ceases to amaze me and I love expressing a small part of it in my stories.

It's time for me to say ''Head 'em up. Move 'em out!" But before I head dem doggies on out, let me leave you with a bit on my second book in the Paradise Pines Series, the Marriage Bargain to chaw on.