“Be my life companion . . . . “

I admit it.  I’m a romantic dreamer.  In fact, that’s probably why I’m a writer. I can imagine all sorts of stories. I loved romantic dreaming when I was a teenager, and the title of this blog comes from a song popular then.  All I remember is how it started, “Be my life companion and you’ll never grow old.

(Never grow old? Young-uns today probably don’t realize yet that, whether we’re 26 or 76; inside, we’re still the same.)

My husband and I have been married for a good many years and have always enjoyed being companions. We love doing projects together. For a very long time that project was creating a homestead in the Arkansas Ozarks. We  bought our land ten years before we moved here full-time, and our first job was making a clearing in the forest to build a weekend cabin. We bought two chain saws and got to work. On weekends and during vacation time we cut down trees, large and small and cut out underbrush. I learned to use a come-along (helps guides trees in a proper fall) while my husband chewed through trunks with the big gasoline powered saw. Then it was my job to cut logs to firewood size. For that, I had a smaller electric saw.  We also bought a wood splitter and worked as a team when we operated that.

We built our cabin by ourselves for the most part.  Wonderful companionship, and we were both doing jobs that were really important. We were a team.  It was hard work, but I’ve never been happier.

After we moved here full time our work split.  First, John and friends went to work expanding the cabin into a larger home.  I was the gofer, but, otherwise, there was no part for me. Honestly?  I was unhappy most of the time. No more shared chores or companionship. John was even busy in the  evenings.  Supplies had to be planned and ordered, work schedules figured.  One good thing. I began writing during that time, and sold articles and essays about the Ozarks to magazines and newspapers.

After the house was finished, our life still split during week days, as is common to most couples.   John worked in town at various jobs, I did house cleaning for others as well as at home, and continued my non-fiction writing.  Retirement?  Though we were certainly at an age when some contemplate that, it wasn’t in the cards for us.  Besides . . . wouldn’t we be bored?

On weekends we worked outside most of the year. I had a huge vegetable garden, John took care of mowing. We both tended to necessary upkeep around our 23 acres. Time passed.

When my fiction writing career took off, our work split again. Outside chores were reduced to the nearest possible minimum, my vegetable garden was abandoned.  John, who had been “retired” from the bookkeeping job in town and replaced by a much younger female, now helped me with record keeping for my work as a writer.  We each spent days in our separate home offices.

Then, interest was shown in a quirky cookbook featuring recipes used by the definitely peculiar cooks, Carrie McCrite and Henry King, who star in my “Something to die for” mystery series.  John volunteered to prepare that cookbook.  Now, we’re back to companionable activity in a big way. We pour over recipes, compare, organize.

And we cook!  Every day one new item is tested.  We read recipes, discuss possible alterations,  grocery shop, come home to chop, mix, and cook. We’re a kitchen team, with John as chef and Radine as assistant.  Talk about companionship!  I recommend it.  You never know where your life will go!

So–this is a motivational discussion?

Talent is nice. Language skills are nice. But, for a writer, I think it’s MOTIVATION that’s indispensable.

I’d enjoyed writing since beginning school, had been editor of a college newspaper, and donated articles here and there,  but I didn’t get going, motivation-wise, until coming to Spring Hollow in the Arkansas Ozarks. That kicked me into writing for publication. I loved this place. Why couldn’t I share it with others who would never see it?

After John and I bought the land at Spring Hollow, ideas for sharing information, inspiration, and stories began bubbling inside me, then popping out on paper. (This was in pre-computer days, unless you’re talking about air-conditioned rooms full of huge beige boxes humming in the basement of the office building where I worked.)

What about you who are reading this? Each writer, each creator, has a somewhat similar story, I imagine. Don’t you know of something in your life that has given you motivation and said: “It’s time to ACT?”

Motivation is not a one-time thing. It has to have enough steam to keep you going through problems, discouragement, set-backs, and outright rejection, whether you’re writing a magazine article, writing a novel, or starting up a new business featuring your own ideas.

Simply said, Spring Hollow helped me learn what Sense of Place means, and I wanted to share that. The rural Ozarks area is beautiful of course. Sometimes I find it so beautiful I can’t take it all in. But, since our own area, even back at the beginning, was rapidly becoming suburban, I realized Spring Hollow as I knew it initially, was doomed. If I wanted to keep this forested landscape and all the varied species of animals and birds that lived here alive,  even in memory, I needed to preserve their stories on paper.

It became a writing challenge to find out if I could construct Spring Hollow in words, and share it with others that way. I believe writing what our senses tell us about a place is better than pictures or virtual reality, because we convey more than sight or sound. We open doors for the reader by allowing him or her to bring their own individual perceptions and experiences into what we share, making the sharing much richer.

The challenge was and is:  Can I be so accurate and honest that what a reader brings to my writing will enhance what I want to give life to in magazines, newspapers, or book pages?

Experience has now told me I have had some success in this. Whether I am writing truth about Spring Hollow (as recorded in my collected essays in DEAR EARTH: A Love Letter from Spring Hollow), or re-creating loved Arkansas areas accurately as a background for fiction (the TO DIE FOR mystery series featuring senior detectives Carrie McCrite and Henry King), people seem to enjoy visits here. Indeed, I hear reports of people coming to Arkansas at least partly because they want to experience in person what I have shared on paper, (or now, in e-books). From the beginning I learned that my experiences here translated happily into the lives of readers, not only in the United States and other English-speaking countries, but in Germany and China as well.

How do I feel about that?  Guess you could call it motivation satisfaction.

So–what motivates you?  Right! Carry on!