The cover image is here! This whole publishing thing is beginning to finally feel real.

One of the fun parts of the whole process of moving toward publication was writing the “blurb” for The Phone Call:

Kat meets Alex during Christmas break, her senior year of college. After a romantic night at the opera, the attraction between them is palpable, but both know that the timing is not right. They exchange numbers and promise to stay in touch, but events out of their control leave them both waiting on a call that will never come. When fate seems to deal them a second chance, they must trust in each other to make their relationship work. A secret from Kat’s past threatens to destroy their newfound love. Is she strong enough to tell Alex the truth? Will he understand and accept it if she does?

Earlier this week, I commented that while I was busy doing some of the logistics for publishing, my “story brain” seemed to take a break. Normally, my characters run around my brain in a glorious parade of sights, sounds, colors, sensations and conversations. When they seemed to be on vacation for a couple days, it was a very odd and quiet time for me. Suddenly, they have come roaring back, along with the basic pieces of the sequel to Keeping Away.  Now, it’s a rush to see how quickly I can type!

As our trip to NYC wound down, and we were walking back to the bus station all in a bit of a bad mood after the hotel had no hot water this morning, we passed a 30-something year old man walking holding hands with both a woman and a little girl. He was wearing a gorgeous, large, sparkly tiara as he walked down 8th Avenue. That image made me laugh, but also reminded me of the absolute gold mine of images and bits of conversation for future writings. Why was he wearing a tiara? What was the back story? I have a feeling he will reappear later on in a story.

Yup, I admit it, I love to write romances. Yes, I’m also writing a memoir about love and loss and grief. But today, my day has just been about love. Pure, simple, uncomplicated, deeper than our bones love. We’ve been away on a little family vacation, to see a member of our non-blood family perform. One of the things we learned after the loss of our son is that some of our friends are more family to us than some blood relatives. Today, we were blessed to spend time with one of them. We saw a great performance, got completely soaked in the pouring rain, took a really long walk, and talked and talked and talked. It was a day dedicated to the power of unconditional love — to quote the band Twiddle, it was an example of “loving relentlessly,” and how lucky we are to have such relationships in our lives!

As I mentioned in the “about me” page, I have been writing a memoir about the loss of our middle son, Sam, and my journey in grief. For me, and for my husband, garlic has a huge role in our grief process, and through the garlic, we started to heal.

This is our son Sam, who died in 2013.

Sam loved farming. He worked for the last six months of his life on a near-by farm, and he was happier than we’d ever seen him. When he died in October of that year, we decorated the meeting house for his celebration of life with garlic and hot pepper plants and squash that he had helped grow.

The week following his death, we tried to just survive. Remembering to breathe, eat and keep hydrated was almost impossible. Finally, we realized we had the basket of garlic that he had helped grow left on the table. We decided to plant that garlic, to keep it going for Sam. We had tried to grow garlic before, with no success. But, with the deep-down sense that this was one way in which we could keep something that had mattered to Sam alive, we set out to learn how to grow garlic.

We separated the cloves, made wooden boxes, filled them with soil, made a guide for planting, planted them, covered them with soil, then mulched them. As we worked in the October sunshine that fall, we talked about Sam. We cried, we laughed, we talked to him, we talked to the cloves. Then, as much as we had such anger at a God that had allowed him to be taken from us, we prayed to the universe that the garlic would grow. Sam’s hands had touched that garlic — if it grew, we were somehow keeping his spirit alive.

All that winter we walked the garlic beds. When the garlic came up in the Spring, we celebrated.  Then we harvested it.

After we harvested it, we then kept half to plant again that fall. Each October, around the anniversary of Sam’s death, we plant garlic again from his garlic. We repeat the process of planting, talking to him, talking about him, and begging the universe for another crop of his garlic.

This spring, the garlic was the most beautiful and healthy we’d ever grown. You can just see the greens on the left of the fence.

And we celebrated — this would be the best harvest yet. Then, this past week, tragedy struck.

Our beautiful, proud, tall garlic was smashed flat. One of our alpacas, Marc, had gotten out of his pasture, marched through the fence, and rolled and rolled and rolled in the garlic. The pain, sadness, anger, heartbreak on seeing that garlic smashed flat is almost indescribable. It isn’t the garlic, it’s that this is Sam’s garlic, and we hadn’t been able to protect it, just as we hadn’t been able to protect Sam. I know, if you haven’t lived through the hell of losing a child, that may seem like a silly thing to say, but if you have lost one, you understand what I mean.

Today, I trimmed the garlic. With tears running down my cheeks, I cut the scapes, saving them for pesto. Then I righted the stalks I could, and begged the universe to still give us a good harvest so we can keep Sam’s garlic going.

So, for much of the process, I couldn’t find gratitude for much of anything. I was too hurt, angry and sad to be thankful. But, finally, as I cleaned the scapes, and the entire kitchen filled with their scent, I could again be thankful for the ups and downs of watching Sam’s plants grow.

Over the last few nights, as I have completed the necessary forms for the publisher, taken the dreaded author’s photo, talked about cover images, and worked on the all important acknowledgements and dedication, it’s beginning to feel real. Really, really exciting, but now becoming more internalized.

The funny thing is that as my mind has taken care of those details, I’ve had very little time to write otherwise, and for these couple days, my “story brain” seems to have taken a bit of a vacation. I’m sure once the dust settles a bit, those characters will return from whatever fictional beach they are on right now to push me back to writing their story.

I am thrilled to announce that I have signed a publishing contract with Solstice Publishing to publish The Phone Call! 

My new author Facebook page can be found at My FB Page — I hope you will check it out.

Finally, my author Twitter is at @KFAnnaBelleRose.