As you know, my second novel, The Phone Call, will be released by Solstice Publishing next Tuesday, December 12th. That brings me such joy and pride, it is hard to adequately describe my emotions.

But, as I have also said before, the whole tenacity-in-writing thing was largely pushed not by me, but by our middle son, Sam. Sam always believed, he just believed that if I kept trying, The Phone Call would eventually get published. When I would let my writing drop for a while, he’d be the first to do a, “Mom, get going. It’s going to happen, I know it.” And he always added that when it did, we would all go out to dinner, and order whatever we wanted… He could visualize it long before I could, and his belief was much of what kept me going.

Sam died unexpectedly in October of 2013, at a point in my life when I had let the writing go for a while. For a long time after his death, the grief was so strong and debilitating that I couldn’t fathom trying to write again. Eventually, with the support of my amazing husband, children and their friends, I printed out The Phone Call and That One Small Omission, put them in binders, and went at them with my colored (not red) pens. Eventually, I started submitting them again, and joy of joys, publishing contracts arrived.

The Phone Call was the first book I completed, although it isn’t the first published. As I celebrate its release this coming week, it will be with the knowledge that Sam always knew it would happen.