I tend to write in the winter months. If there’s snow, my sun porch offers a lovely view. It’s even better when the snow is falling. There is something about the peacefulness that lends itself to helping me clear my mind. I pretty much need a clear mind to be marginally productive. I’m not good with interruptions.

I always wondered how I would manage to write in the face of a major life event. I didn’t really want to learn the answer. It was more of a rhetorical question. I guess I didn’t make that clear.

On the Friday afternoon in January 2011 that ended my workweek and started my official writing vacation, I received a call from my sister as I was working on the first chapter of The Last Renegade. Our mother had fallen and broken her hip.

Everything just stopped. What is that expression? Man plans. God laughs. My scheduled week off suddenly began to look very different. Whatever I thought I would be doing for the next three months, I realized it was going to include doctors and decisions. Between trips to the hospital and surgery and rehabilitation and decline, I wrote like a maniac, mostly, I think now, to keep my mind off the inevitable not-so-happy ending that was waiting for my family and me. This was the fall my mother wasn’t going to come back from.

I must say this: She believed in me. She was my cheerleader. She bought me the electric typewriter that I used to hammer out my first manuscript. She gave me the money to pay a much better typist to put it into a professional format for submission. Sure, she hoped I’d write a children’s book. (Sorry about that, Mom.)

My mother died on March 18th. I finished writing The Last Renegade one week earlier. It might seem strange that the book is not dedicated to her. It just felt too painful. I needed time and distance to do that. I needed another book. I am grateful I had the opportunity to do that.