BLOGGING ABOUT BLOGGING

     I remember when, many years ago, my former agent told me I should have a blog. I had no clue what she was talking about. I’d never even heard the word “blog,” let alone knowing what it meant. She tried to explain, and to this old dog it sounded intimidating, difficult, a stealer of writing time, and something I couldn’t begin to know how to set up, let alone keep it updated.
  
        Today I still wouldn’t know how to set up a blog site. If it wasn’t for my former publicity gal who originally set up blogging for me, I still wouldn’t even have a blog page. And I still don’t even know how to enter new blogs! My current publicity gal does that for me. I write the blog in Word and send it to her, and she posts the blog. How’s that for a “duh” situation?

        Then, of course, I have to come up with a new subject for each new blog, but after 36 years and 70 books I can usually think of something. I have blogged about nearly every subject one could bring up about writing, but I hope to continue finding new subjects and ideas for you. And now that I understand what this blogging thing is all about, I’m happy to have yet another outlet for talking to my faithful readers about my thoughts when it comes to writing and to my genre of western historical romance.

        American history is a vital subject that in my opinion is no longer properly and thoroughly covered in public schools, so I try to show and teach readers some of the things they might have never learned about this country’s rich, exciting and adventurous history in school. Yes, we have made huge mistakes. It’s human nature. And yes, we have also done a lot of things right. Learning our own history can teach so many lessons about what NOT to do wrong the next time. As we age, we realize that what we thought was so important at 20 becomes totally UNimportant at 50. And by 60 and 70 it’s too late to go back and change what we missed as being most important of all. There are no “do-overs” in life, so I tell my grandsons to please, please never do anything that their common sense tells them they could regret later in life.

        Seems I’m wandering here, and none of this has anything to do with writing, except in the case of a story that covers 20-40 years, and I’ve written many such stories. I really enjoy delving into a hero or heroine’s past and showing how they have grown from there. A good example is Jake Harkner in my Outlaw Hearts books, a man so pitifully broken in spirit and pride at a very young age that he never quite recovers. His childhood turned him into what he became as a man, an outlaw who on the inside is struggling to learn what love is all about and who forever feels unworthy of that love even when he finds it. I have often wondered what his eulogy would be like, and one thing I thought of was that Jake Harkner, though unaware, was one of God’s avenging angels, like Michael, appearing to be mean and bad, yet doing what God appointed him to do without even knowing it. Jake is so sure in his early years that God would never want anything to do with him, yet he is always finding ways to help someone. His technique is usually questionable, but he means well, and people love him in spite of himself. What a great epitaph for his tombstone – “Here lies Jake Harkner, an avenging angel.”

        Now I’ve gone from blogging - to history - to human nature. Isn’t that how it is with women? We can get on an elevator not even knowing the person next to us, and by the time we reach the top floor we know all about each other. I guess that’s what we do with blogs – spill out our lives to complete strangers in one elevator ride! I love to get to know my readers and to let them know where I’m coming from in my writing, so now I blog, a wonderful way to talk about these things with my fans. I am very grateful to all of you, and I truly appreciate it when some of you post comments to my blogs. It really helps me know how you feel about my subject(s), and if you don’t like what I say, that’s okay, too. I need to know that.

        Meantime, I hope ALL of you like my STORIES. That’s far more important than my own thoughts. I think you can tell from my books that I love a great love story of devotion and sacrifice, and I love American history. And just think if our pioneers could have had these methods of instant communication! Once, we wrote long, long letters. Now we blog.


 Coming 26 November 2019!

A DAY TO CELEBRATE AND REMEMBER OUR PIONEERS!

          
           It’s the Fourth of July, 2019, and I sometimes wonder how many people give thought to what the Fourth is really about. Yes, it’s the day we celebrate the Declaration of Independence, which originally was independence from rule under the thumb of the King of England. But many of us just think of it as a day, sometimes two days, off work – a day to go camping or boating, watch parades and fireworks, get sunburns and eat hot dogs. We forget what our ancestors suffered to reach the freedom too many people take for granted today.

          Our original settlers came here to get away from totalitarian rule, and they eventually built their own Nation, wrote their own laws, and planned their own form of government, which, above all, established individual freedoms one could never enjoy under a dictatorship.

          “Of the People, By the People, For the People.” Our government is supposed to represent all of that, and we therefore get to vote for those who will run the government with the PEOPLE in mind. Sometimes it seems things don’t always turn out that way, but for the most part, we are still the greatest, the richest, most free Nation in the world, where the PEOPLE run things, and where entrepreneurs who work hard can realize their dreams.

          Few people today think about what it took to build this Nation. They don’t think about the lives and fortunes that were sacrificed so they could live with today’s freedoms. For me, the Fourth of July brings to mind early settlers who risked their lives on ships that originally came here over a dangerous ocean, who risked their lives associating with America’s original natives, who risked their lives fighting a very powerful King’s rule, who risked their lives against the elements of weather, disease, wild animals, torrential rivers, unsurmountable mountains, blazing hot deserts, the lack of doctors and the conveniences we have today. 
 
          It brings to mind people who walked across this nation without the kind of shoes and clothing we have today, people who faced mosquitos and flash-flooded canyons, stampeding buffalo and warring Indians who didn’t care for our intrusion, grassland with sod so thick that the common plow could not turn it, prairie fires or dense wooded areas where it was next to impossible to create a roadway, mountains so high that wagons and horses and oxen had to be lowered by rope to the other side. Women left children buried behind them, graves never to be visited again. 
 
          I have no doubt that the average person today, including me, could never withstand the rugged sacrifices made by the early pilgrims and the emigrants who came after them and dared to search for their dreams farther and farther west. There were no fast cars, no highways, no 7-11’s, no doctors or dentists, no pain shots or pills, and often no water. There was no suntan lotion, no treatments for snakebite, no soft beds, no showers and baths, no cold beer at the end of a long, hot day.

           There was only determination, bravery and big dreams – dreams that were always just beyond the never-ending western horizon. There was big-sky country, magnificent mountains, endless prairie, and space to stretch your arms and imagination into land ownership that few people in other countries, other than the richest Lords and Princes, could enjoy, and for many years here in America, that land was free, as long as it was farmed and utilized.

          Today we can do what we want, speak what we want, realize our own dreams and travel any place in the country, completely free to do those things without the worry of some dictator throwing us in prison without a trial. Today we take all these things for granted, but our ancestors did not. We should remember them, honor them, thank them, and make sure we never fall back into a type of government that rules our lives to the point where we need to fight all over again for our individual freedoms.

          Enjoy 2019’s INDEPENDENCE DAY, and pray for the souls of those who made such a celebration possible.