I always wanted to write a book. I know, everyone says that. It's probably a pretty universally held desire. Somewhere hidden in the secret recesses of our cerebral cortex, many of us believe a manuscript waits to be discovered. I don't remember ever thinking otherwise. I loved to read and write from my earliest memories. At 16 when my first love broke up with me, I barricaded myself in my room for a few days writing a girl-loses-boy-and-never-recovers romance filled with pathos and tears in the style of my then-favorite author Grace Livingston Hill Lutz. After about four chapters, I'd had enough wallowing and returned to my life.

For my children, I wrote a little book about my parents' dalmatian, Charlie---a wonderful creature who couldn't break his bad habit of chasing cars. Sadly, that was the end of him. I completed that book and even illustrated it with my own childish drawings. My girls loved it so much I turned it in as a project for a children's literature class I was taking. No one in college was as impressed. From that experience, I deduced that perhaps my writing acumen did not include children's literature.

When I located my biological mother at age 31, I narrated the entire wondrous odyssey in a story called Prodigal Daughter. My sweet daughter had it bound and preserved as a piece of family lore, but when I read it now, I realize it lacks--well, quite a bit, and is far from publish-worthy. 

While caring for my aging parents, the notion of writing a book repeatedly swam in and out of my consciousness. I variously considered penning a non-fiction how-to filled with insights on caring for aging parents'; a children's chapter book featuring the adventures of my border collie and my cat learning valuable life-lessons while cavorting with my father's dog; a mystery featuring an amateur sleuth bar-tender who eavesdrops on patrons; and various intriguing real-life crime stories, which I kept stuffed in files. Periodically I would share these ideas with my father-in-law, more for something safe to talk about than for any other reason. As an avid reader and supremely talented poet, he could sustain this type of conversation for hours. In the beginning, conversations with him actually kept me writing. 

My parents passed away and my husband moved me to his dream house on fourteen wooded acres in Grass Valley California. It was a magical place with a Grandma Moses view out my kitchen windows. Most of the time I loved it there. On the downside, however, it was more than half a state away from my children, grandchildren and friends, my husband hated it, and then, menopause set in. I cried a lot. Sometimes I got so down, I thought there would never be an "up" again.

That was my state of mind in the middle of our second summer in our dream house---2005. I had already redecorated the kitchen and landscaped the yard. I was miserable and badly in need of another diversion. One day I stood in my beautiful office and stared out the window praying, but my heart felt certain that God was never going to hear me again. I sat at my computer and started typing. I did not know what I was writing, but words started to flow out. After the first paragraph, I knew it was a mystery. I looked out the window again and saw a house on the hill below us whose occupants I had never seen in our two years of residence.  I made up a story about why I had never seen them. It was marvelous therapy, and kept my mind  well occupied, but I never knew where it was going. I wrote all my whiny complaining misery into that story. Sometimes, the main character (who oddly enough happened to be just like me) would impulsively do something she shouldn't.  Horrified, I'd delete that scene and say, "She can't break into someone's house." Or whatever she had done. But she'd insist. "I have to. How am I going to find what I need to find." So I'd rewrite the scene. I really got into the story. I'd discuss it with my in-laws whenever we visited. They were always encouraging. My mother-in-law asked me to write her in the story. Her name, Zora Jane, seemed perfect for the protagonist's best friend and mentor. Throughout the initial writing phase, my real life intruded in many other ways. For example, my husband burned a pile of oak leaves and garden debris in a blaze that lasted for days. Watching the fire, I knew that had to go in the story. 

At the same time I was writing, I was participating in our church prayer ministry. Several times, I asked them to pray with me about the direction this writing would take. What audience was I writing for? How much Gospel should I write into the story? What was the next step? Gradually I became aware that God is already part of every story and He had to be part of this one too. 

One day after I'd completed the first draft---called "Cornerstone House" in those days---I mentioned to my friend at Bible study that I had written a book but didn't know what to do with it. She suggested taking it to the Mount Hermon Christian Writers conference. That proved to be one of the best pieces of advice I ever received.