PEACE THROUGH TOUCH, TASTE, SIGHT, SMELL AND HEARING

       It is Saturday, September 13^th as I write this. Those of you who watch the news are aware of the senseless murders that took place all this week. In this world of constant bickering, noise and hurry, fear and distrust, we need a way to find peace in our hearts and souls. I could talk religion here, but faith is something different to each individual. I just hope all of you DO have some kind of faith in a higher power, a Being to whom you can turn in prayer in these times of grief and worry. Lately I find myself wondering if I am safe anymore, even in this very small town where I live. I never dreamed that in this wonderful country where our ancestors fought for law and order that I would be afraid to walk into my favorite little restaurant because someone might walk in and shoot everybody for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

       It is time to find ways in addition to God and prayer to find peace in our hearts and souls. I find that peace through the five God-given senses most of us enjoy. Even those who cannot hear can enjoy life through their remaining senses. It’s the same if you cannot see. Each sense can be magnified and trained to make up for the one a person might have lost. The point is, we all have favorite pictures, food, music, touchable items or a certain scent that makes us sigh and think of things that make us happy and bring us peace.

       Who doesn’t love the feel of a dog’s thick fur, a cat’s vibrating purring, even the cluck of a chicken or the crow of a rooster? Close your eyes and picture a meadow where chickens strut, cows moo softly, the sound carried in a gentle wind. Once in a while a horse whinnies, birds chirp and fly about. Maybe a little yellow bird perches atop a fence pole. Wildflowers bloom in a rainbow of colors. Numerous shades of green abound from grass to tall trees, and in autumn, a few colors of red and orange mix with the green to create so much color you can hardly take it all in. The sky is a deep blue with white, puffy clouds that sometimes shade a brilliant sun. At times the soft breeze brings the small of a distant campfire or someone grilling a steak. Imagine all of this in the country, where there is no sound of traffic. You have left your phone and computer somewhere in the house and you don’t care. Your car sits silent because today you are going to stay home, sit outside, and just let all your senses bring you peace. Maybe you have a cup of coffee with you, along with a muffin or a cookie, either one still warm. You bite into that muffin or cookie and relish the taste of sugar and berries or chocolate chips, then sip your hot coffee, maybe black, maybe with cream.

       Perhaps your preferred sights, sounds and smells are mountains (oh, I love the Rockies!), or a small pond, a lake, the ocean with its rhythmic pattern of in-coming waves. And, of course, we can’t leave out our favorite music. I call it mood music. Music can bring immediate calm to the soul, and we all have our favorites.

Whatever your favorites are as far as using all your senses, I hope you are able to close your eyes and take yourself into that scene, that place, that taste or smell, hear that music, and … more than all of that … bathe in a memory that makes you sigh with happiness. Memories are a part of all the senses that can bring us peace. Fight the bad ones. Concentrate on the good ones.

       Personally, one of my favorite ways to find peace is to listen to Christmas music and picture an old-fashioned Christmas with the smell of a turkey and pies in the oven, children laughing amid their new presents, the Christmas tree glowing with decorations. Grandma is in the kitchen mashing potatoes the old-fashioned way rather than with an electric mixer, or maybe she is making home-made gravy from the turkey drippings. Maybe YOU are that grandma. Everyone sits down to a big table and eats off of real china. No one has a phone with them. The TV is off. And Christmas music from a speaker in the kitchen or a distant room accompanies all the talk and movement. I see snow falling, people who are actually dressed nice and are friendly no matter what the religion or beliefs of their loved ones or even strangers they meet. I see smiles, grace, love … and peace.

       Another release I enjoy (and feel blessed to have the gift) is my writing. I can leave my world and walk into someone else’s. I can leave my house and walk in the mountains or ride a horse through a grassy valley. I have the power to create whatever characters I want to create. For a while I can leave my troubles and today’s news and craziness and go back in history and write stories that help readers understand and appreciate what it took to settle this wonderful country called the United States of America.

       I hope all of you will turn to your senses and memories when in distress. I hope all of you appreciate the freedoms we have here in America. I hope all of you have a faith to sustain you. I hope all of you realize that there are times when we need to put down the cell phone and turn off the TV and take some “my time” in whatever fashion you need to use to find peace in your hearts and souls. And be sure to share that peace with friends, loved ones, and especially with your children. Today our children are hit from all sides with every belief imaginable, with hate speech and neglect, and worst of all, they are listening to chatter and rhetoric on TV, the internet and their cell phones. Please, please find a way to limit your child’s time on today’s methods of breaking into your children’s minds. Please, please teach them that the higher power they should turn to is NOT AI. AI is fake. AI bots is NOT REAL and is NOT THEIR FRIEND! AI has its good uses, but befriending your child is not one of them! Children need love, advice and hugs from REAL PEOPLE.

       I could go on and on about all the things that are thrown at us in today’s world. Instead, I hope you find ways to escape from it all by taking the time to use your own senses. And I can’t end this blog without one of the best escapes of all … READING A GOOD BOOK that takes you into a world of history and romance, a good book that is truthful and about real life and love, a book that always leaves you feeling good at the end.

 

 

THE WESTERN ERA

 

       I spent most of today Sunday watching movies about Louis L’Amour’s Sacket brothers. A lot of you remember those stories, I’m sure. The best part is that most of those movies starred Tom Selleck, Sam Elliot and Ben Johnson, as did a lot of other westerns. What’s a western without those three? Tom and Sam were such natural “old west” characters.

       I miss the days of good western movies. Today, Hollywood is too removed from reality to know how to make a true western anymore, and not teaching history in school the way it should be taught has stolen children’s minds of the excitement and admiration for how this country grew. There are no westerns on TV anymore, no real heroes, no conception of the bravery and fortitude of our early pioneers.

       I wonder how many of you remember the TV mini-series called CENTENNIAL. That series took western settlement from the early days of the fur trappers and mountain men through the land rushes and pioneers, the Indian wars and struggles, the building of the railroads and the sad killing off of millions of buffalo, the gold discoveries and the growth of big cities like San Francisco, the struggles with outlaws and finally the establishment of law and order in a wild, sometimes cruel land that was sometimes savage and brutal itself. Who else but James Michener could write such great history? The series was based on his book, which is set in Colorado, as is my own series, SAVAGE DESTINY. Michener wrote those “big, fat books” I always loved to read, including one about Hawaii.

       CENTENNIAL inspired my desire to write a big story about the settling of the West. I love using the gradual settlement of a certain area as the background for my books. I try hard to use only truth when it comes to events and places, with only the characters being fictitious. In today’s modern world it is really hard to get your mind and spirit into yesteryear. A writer needs to study hard, to be alone and use every facet of the imagination to be able to place himself or herself into those “old days” of no conveniences, no A/C, no refrigeration, no running water and toilets, no electricity in remote places, no fancy furniture or comfy mattresses, no convenience stores for a quick quart of milk and ready-made butter, no showers and fancy soaps, and worst of all, no ready-to-buy medicine for colds and flu and pain. Yes, the “good old days” were more peaceful and probably better for teaching young ones how to work hard and earn their way, but when it comes to medicine, they were not such “good old days” at all.

       I am sort of rambling here, but watching a movie based on a Louis L’Amour book refreshes my memory of how and why I started writing westerns and history itself. My books are not always westerns. I have covered pre-Revolution years through post-Revolution years, the Civil War, the War of 1812, the Mexican war, the building of the Transcontinental Railroad and other historical novels, but my first love and the bulk of my writing involves my favorite subject of all – the Old West, cowboys, Native Americans, pioneers, outlaws and lawmen.

       It's too bad that today’s TV and movie-makers seem to have abandoned that theme, but what goes around usually comes around, so I always hold out hope that such subject matter will rise again in the minds and hearts of movie-makers and the viewers. I think one of the best movies that depicts the gradual demise of the true “cowboy” is MONTE WALSH, starring Tom Selleck. I always cry at the end of that movie. And the best movie about the end of the old “live by the gun” lawmen and shootists is the movie THE SHOOTIST, starring John Wayne. Not only is that movie a great depiction of the end of an era, but it was John Wayne’s last movie before he died. How perfect and fitting is that? My God, what a career that man had.

       Maybe it’s just my age that makes me nostalgic about those old westerns, and maybe the general public will continue to lose its interest as younger people move in to take over, but there is always hope that “The Wild West” will rise again in the minds and hearts of movie makers and movie viewers. We need more Kevin Costners, one of the few modern men who seems to understand how to make a good western, like OPEN RANGE. It’s one of my favorites. And then, of course, there is DANCES WITH WOLVES. Even YELLOWSTONE is, in its own way, a western. So much of the dialogue in that series is so true and heartfelt when they talk about what is happening to Montana. How absolutely fitting it was that the Yellowstone Ranch ended up being gifted back to the Native Americans. That says a lot.

       Well, so much for my nostalgia. It hurts my heart to realize that most young people have little appreciation for how this country was settled and the bravery it took to do it. But that’s not their fault. It’s the fault of our teaching system that leaves out so much of our important history. I hope you will do what you can in your local school system to bring real history back to our classrooms.

INSOMNIA

       It’s one of those nights. I’m sure you have all experienced it. You are so sleepy. You go to bed. Two hours later your eyes pop wide open and every “to-do” item begins marching through your brain, along with old memories, and all the “what if’s,” and the worries over children/grandchildren, or maybe a sibling or parent that is having problems.

       I should sleep because I have so much to do tomorrow. But you can’t sleep because you can’t stop thinking about all the things you need to do tomorrow (or perhaps “today” because the wee morning is already here.

       How can I stop this? How can I shut off my brain?

       Well, usually it can’t be done. TV gets so boring … all those old shows you have watched for 50 years and know all the lines to … all those tedious shopping networks … all those advertising programs, vacuum cleaners, magic spot removers, leg exercisers, massage mats, hoses that crinkle back into a fist-size ball … you know what I mean. Late-night/overnight TV is incredibly tedious and repetitious.

       My biggest problem with sleeping through the night is thinking about all the stories I still want to write, as well all my characters from all my books. They are so alive to me, and I can’t help hoping they will live on long after I am gone. It’s a nice feeling to know I will leave something behind for others to enjoy, and that a part of me will still be with my readers and with future readers I will never meet.

       I guess I’m getting too sentimental here. That, too, seems to move in with force in the middle of the night. Seems like every memory and emotion becomes exaggerated and magnified when you are lying awake and staring at the ceiling.

       I refuse to take sleeping aids. They can be habit forming and I usually feel crummy in the morning. I figure if I can’t sleep, I will get up and do something … write. That is why I am writing this blog. I didn’t plan it at all. When I blog, it is usually spontaneous, and usually at 2:00 am or some such ungodly hour. I never have slept in. Ever. If I sleep past 7 am I feel guilty for being so lazy. Even when I am wide awake at this ridiculous hour, if and when I fall asleep, I still don’t sleep past 7. But 99% of the time I am awake again at 4:00 am and I get up and get things ready for the day, like laying out some clothes, putting away dishes from the dishwasher, making coffee, packing a little food and notebooks for my part-time job at Whirlpool, things like that. Sometimes I pack my laptop because I write everywhere, including at work when things get slow.

       That brings back memories of writing itself. That’s how I used to write when my boys were little and I had a full-time job. I did what I call “sneak writing” at work and I wrote through my lunch hours. I wrote early mornings. I wrote after supper and into the night after the family went to bed. I almost never watched TV because it took away from my writing. I wrote in the corner of the living room in our then-tiny house while the boys wrestled and goofed off 3 feet away and the TV blared 5 feet away. I learned how to block things out. I got lost in my stories and ignored everything else. I will never know how I did it or when I slept, other than knowing I never got more than 4-5 hours of sleep at night.

       My only problem now is that it’s a lot harder for me to sit for hours and hours at the computer, and it’s harder to multi-task like that. It takes me longer to finish a book now, and that’s one of the things I lie awake at night thinking about. I think I should just get up and write, but I’m a bit worn out … kind of like a brick layer or someone on an assembly line or a waitress who has spent years on her feet. The body just gets tired. And for a writer, even the brain gets tired.

       Thank goodness, I still have lots of energy … but not the energy I had “back in the day.” That doesn’t mean I’m not writing, because I am, and I intend to keep doing so for however many years I have left on this earth. I just don’t turn out a book every 4-6 months like I used to. So, please hang in there with me because I still love writing and love my characters and love all of you readers for sticking with me and supporting my writing.

       Meantime, here I am wide awake. I am printing out the first 4 chapters to IF I LOVED YOU, which I have edited over and over. After all the books I have written, somehow I have been doubting myself and feel like I just can’t get this story right. But, as I have done before, I decided I had better just keep going. The stories usually always work out, and by the time I finish, I already know how to handle the beginning. But I will save an explanation for how I come up with my stories for another blog.

       I hope you are enjoying the summer!

 

 

Motherhood

       Something recently happened to a close friend of the family that made me give more thought than usual to motherhood. Our children likely take it for granted that mom will always be there for them. I felt that way myself through most of my life. But in the case of my friend, her daughter-in-law gave birth to a beautiful baby girl just a week ago and all was fine … they thought. 6 days later the mommy died … totally unexpected. It was a huge shock to the family. The ordeal of a difficult birth did more damage than anyone realized, and her organs suddenly shut down, leaving her husband with a son almost 4 years old, another son only 2, and now a brand new baby girl to care for. Mommy was a fabulous mom who did all kinds of activities with her youngsters, was all set up to home school them, and in so many ways went beyond the norm to be a good mother … and now she’s gone. The baby girl will never know what a wonderful person her mommy was.

         Have you ever watched a Killdeer running back and forth and squawking her head off almost constantly if you get anywhere near her eggs? Killdeers lay their eggs in rocks or gravel, and they can be very annoying as they give out an endless piercing cry to protect their eggs or the babies that come out of them. Robins can be annoying, too, if they build a nest on your front porch. The mother will fly in and out, swooping very close to your head if you are sitting on the porch. She is trying to warn you to back off. And, of course, we have always heard never to get too close to the babies of any wild animals. The mother might attack, especially mother bears. All they are doing is protecting their young, just like human mothers do.

        I know Mother’s Day is over, but every day should be Mother’s Day. Mothers do so much to love, care for and protect their children physically, emotionally, and sometimes financially. Often, when a child reaches 12 – 18 years in age, mom continues to push for too many hugs because there is nothing she loves more than hugs from her babies, but then the child becomes more proud and independent and no longer wants those hugs. He or she hides their head when riding with mom to school or a ballgame. They don’t want to be seen with a parent, especially a clinging mom. Heaven forbid mom should lean in for a kiss on the cheek in front of others. That’s when Mom realizes it’s time to let go.

        But we never let go, do we? It’s impossible. That child could now be 50 years old, but to mom he is her “child.” It helps when we have grandchildren and great-grandchildren to dote on, but the soul connection of mother and child is very strong. And eventually, the child who didn’t want hugs in front of their friends comes back around and begins to appreciate mom all over again. The sad part is, we appreciate our mothers more than ever once they are gone. I wish I could have a second chance with my mom, to tell her all the things I should have told her when she was here with me, a chance to give her all the extra hugs I should have given her then.

        With this recent loss of a baby’s mommy, it hit me how lucky I am to have known my own mom all my life. There is a little baby girl out there now who will never have a true “mommy,” and two little boys who will be wondering why mommy will never come home again. I can’t imagine what that would feel like.

        So, treasure mother and thank God that you were blessed with her presence and her love for most of your life.

        Happy Mother’s Day to all of you each and every day … not just one day a year.

 

My Mom, Ardella Williams Reris, at 91.

 

WHY IS ROMANCE SO POPULAR?

        No matter how you look at it, the average woman wants a “real” man … a man who truly loves her to the point of adoration … a man who is a good provider … who understands what a woman needs and wants … a protector … a man who is strong for her but would never use that strength to abuse her.

        At the same time, we like to read about strong, brave women who match those strong men … women who appreciate their lover and protector. Even though they are brave in their own right, women in romances realize that they need and want a man by their side, and they love him in all the right ways. And I find it so much fun to write about a woman who has that strong man wrapped around her little finger … AND HE DOESN’T EVEN KNOW IT!

        I am smiling as I write this. Jake and Randy in my Outlaw series, and Zeke and Abbie from Savage Destiny are my favorite couples. They perfectly fit the kind of men and women I mentioned above. Most of the couples I write about also fit that description, but I guess because the man and woman in the two series above spend so many years together and go through so much together, they have become my favorites.

        To me, romance isn’t always about hopping into bed and having hot sex, although that is also enjoyable reading. But there is sex that is the result of true love, and gratuitous sex that is the result of lust, not love. I prefer writing the true love sex … the kind that brings a couple together in a deep, abiding need to please each other … the kind of love that encompasses all emotions and is many times more fulfilling.

         I received what I felt was a great compliment not long ago from a reader. She praised my love scenes, telling me they were the best she’d ever read. That really warmed my heart because romance writers do often wrestle with just how far to go in their sex scenes. They are not always as easy to write as readers might think. I have never liked reading lustful love scenes that are gratuitous and written only to throw some hot sex into a story. Nor do I care for sexual encounters between strangers just because they want to feel good and have dirty sex. My number one goal is to write a good love story about a couple whose love for each other helps them face the challenges and conflict that is bound to come between two people who spend years together.

        Sex should be very emotional. It should come from a desire to give pleasure to the partner because they adore each other, and to receive pleasure in return. Sex should be the result of sharing bodies right down to the core, both mentally and physically … to share pleasure that lasts long after the actual sexual encounter.

        We all know that a lot of men don’t understand what women really want, and it’s not even always the sexual act itself. Sometimes we just want to be adored, to be held close, to be respected and protected. I always try to write heroes who do understand that. Sometimes they don’t at the beginning of my story, but they end up falling so deeply in love that the understanding just comes naturally.

        Sometimes the hero has to be taught what true love is all about. That would be Jake, who never understood the meaning of love until Miranda walked into his life. And sometimes the hero has to be taught that a woman can cure his loneliness. That would be Zeke. And both men, along with many of my other heroes, have to be taught that they become stronger and braver, and they can control their anger and live with a tragic past when they have a woman by their side who understands them and can help them reason with their lawless urges. Nearly all men have those urges and need to learn to control them. Having a woman and children to provide for and protect helps them make the right decisions.

 

        Jake, of course, and Zeke, too, are unique in their desire to avenge wrongs against those they care about. Still, the very loved ones who drive that need are the same people who help them see the wrong of it. Men like the strong, brave, capable men who live in a lawless land are not easy to reason with, so I try to write heroines who can stand right up to such men and fearlessly demand that they control their wild side.

        Still, my heroines can usually do a pretty good job of taking care of themselves and their families on their own if they have to. They are brave and capable. No fainting flowers in my stories. But down deep inside, they love a man who makes them feel safe, a man who they know would stand in front of a train if it meant saving their life or the lives of their children. When I continue Jake and Randy’s story in my next Outlaw book, I am thinking of calling the book SAFE IN HIS ARMS. Isn’t that a wonderful feeling? Randy mentions that several times throughout the OUTLAW HEARTS series. “I feel safe in your arms” – or – “Nothing can hurt me when I am here in your arms.”

        Reading about heroic men and women, and reading about true love has to be the number one reason romance is so popular. Don’t you think? I have always told men that if they really want to know what women want, READ A ROMANCE!

 

 

PS -- the reissue of my 1989 book THIS TIME FOREVER is now available in trade paperback and ebook versions!  Read it for the first time or revisit an old friend:  https://amzn.to/4aWnsY9

Happy 2025!

 

        Well, dear readers, we have reached a new year. 2025 is a year I never dreamed in my youth that I would ever see. I also never dreamed I would be 80 years old! That seems so impossible at 18 or 20, when your whole life is in front of you. I could write a book about all my mistakes, all my successes, all my regrets and all the things I celebrate, all my bad decisions and all the good ones I made, all my sorrows and all my joy, all the places I’ve been to, and all the places I would still like to go.

       I could preach to young people about what you learn over the years that is truly important in life, and what has no value at all; the importance of using money wisely and not trying to impress others with it; the true value and true meaning of love, and how to let love get you through the rough times; and oh my, you see plenty of those rough times over 80 years of living. I would tell them good health is more important than anything else in life, and that everything they put in their mouths or breathe in or do to their bodies can affect that health, not always right away but years and years later.

       Most young people think they will live forever. They think it doesn’t matter if they eat or drink or smoke something wrong because they believe they will always recover and/or heal … that months or years later it will all go away. I would tell them that it doesn’t, and that the worst thing in the world that can happen to them is to live with regrets in old age and have to think about the “what if’s” … “What if I had never used drugs?” “What if I never drank or smoked?” “What if I hadn’t thought it was so important to get a tan?” “What if I had paid attention to eating better?” “What if I had saved all the money I spent on frivolous things that have no importance?”

       I’m not saying I have done any of those things. I feel pretty good about my own life, but I see so many mistakes young people make today. Yes, or course I have a few regrets and “what if’s,” but I guess it takes getting older to become wiser, and the old adage is that we have to let young people make their own mistakes. That’s how they learn what is important. But when it is young people you love whom you see making those mistakes, it’s so hurtful and worrisome.

       I suppose thinking this way is common when we get older. I remember when I was in my teens that older people thought rock ‘n roll was going to destroy our youth and they would all end up slovenly criminals. I remember when girls had to always wear dresses and nylons to school. Pants and jeans were considered sloppy and embarrassing clothing never to be worn in public. (Gosh, now I practically live in jeans!) Makeup was frowned upon, and shaking the wrong body parts when dancing would destroy a girl’s reputation. I guess Elvis Presley changed all that, didn’t he?

        I see and hear myself thinking and saying things my grandmother and mother used to say to me. What goes around, comes around. It’s just that we learn so much over the years that we know what can truly hurt and what we can be happy about. And we love our children and grandchildren so much that we do everything we can to protect, defend and teach them, hoping they won’t live to regret anything they have done, hoping they won’t get hurt and won’t know sorrow or bad health or poverty or heartbreak. But try as we might, that’s impossible. They are going to do what they are going to do, and we can’t stop it. We can only sit and watch, and pray they make good decisions based on actually listening to grandma and grandpa’s advice.

       I am so grateful to still be healthy, and overall, I am happy with how life has turned out for me. I am especially grateful to God for my gift of writing and for all the 75(+) books I have had published over these many years. I have been published for 42 years and actually writing books for about 46 years, not counting the poems and articles I wrote over many years before I tried books. I am grateful for all my readers who have kept me going, grateful my brain and fingers still work just fine so I can write a few more books, and I am so grateful that so many of my stories have been reissued and are still selling after all these years. I am grateful that, through my books, my name will go on for quite a while after I leave this earth, and yes, crazy me still believes I will meet some of my characters in the hereafter because they are so real to me that I feel as though their spirits are what inspire me to write their stories, as though they whisper them to me.

       And so comes a new year, and another God-given chance to change what we feel needs to be changed, to spend time with our loved ones, to go forward, leaving regrets behind and using lessons learned to enjoy whatever years still lie ahead. I wish there was a way to meet every single one of my readers. I am so grateful for all of you, and so I say with true sincerity …

       HAPPY NEW YEAR 2025 TO EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU!!!!!

        AND HAPPY NEW YEAR 2025 TO YOUR SPOUSES, YOUR CHILDREN, GRANDCHILDREN, THE REST OF YOUR FAMILY AND ALL YOUR FRIENDS!!!!! TREASURE THEM ALL, AND TREASURE THE YEARS GOD HAS BLESSED YOU WITH.