I haven’t really talked about my life and upbringing too much,
but I think I need to touch on it as I approach the release of my next book.
Ooh, that sounds kinda ominous. Let me try again.

My father was the lay speaker in our church when I was
growing up and he headed up the local chapter of the Yoke Fellowship Prison
Ministry. I joke that I grew up one step away from being a PK. When I was in college,
there was a large group of born-again Christians who, God bless them, always
wanted to know when you came to God. I didn’t remember a time in my life when
God wasn’t a part of it. Sure, I remembered when I accepted Christ as my savior
in my neighbor’s basement following a Good News Club meeting and when I
dedicated my life to God after watching a movie about the rapture at church,
but that didn’t seem to be what they wanted. I felt lacking, like their faith
was greater than mine because they had gone through a period of time without
it. I allowed a seed of doubt, not in God but in myself, to be planted. I faced
my first spiritual crisis at 19.

I felt the need
to share this because in my upcoming book, Mrs. Collins’ Lover, I am placing my heroine in a similar position. Writing this
book has been an emotional roller-coaster for me and has dredged up a lot of
memories. That first attempt upon my faith was not the last, but each struggle
has lifted me to a higher level of faith. As I began this project, there were
several songs that I heard each Sunday which encouraged me along the way. I
wanted to share a video from service this morning as another song was added to
my list, but my website didn’t like my video quality, or size, or something.
Instead, here is the link to the original version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3B1oWrN4Tg

In the upcoming weeks, I will be sharing bits and pieces
about the story and our heroine’s journey along with more songs which have inspired
me through this process. If you have any questions or comments, I welcome them
and will try to respond within a day or two. Any delays are because I am trying
very hard to finish this so I can move on to other projects. As some of you may
know, I blog monthly at AustenAuthors.net and my January post was about my ambitious
goals of publishing four books in the next two years as well as searching for
an agent for another project. In order to reach these goals, I must stay
focused and just keep writing!

Talk to you again soon!!