When
you read this, I will be recovering from my niece’s wedding. Recovering, you
say? Not what you think. It will be from an overdose of relatives. I’m from a
large family. My dad was the oldest of seven. I have twenty-one cousins, I think.
No idea how many if I include their children and spouses. And I’m the oldest of
seven. Add in spouses, children and grandchildren. . . well, my math skills aren’t that good. I’m a
writer not a mathematician. Needless to say, with such a large extended family
the only times we all get together is funerals and weddings. Too many of the
former lately and not enough weddings. I love my family dearly but all of them,
at the same time? Overdose.
Back
to my niece whose wedding we celebrated yesterday. She is such a sweetheart. A
hard-working career woman who deserves the happiness she’s found in her new
husband. Not only did they work together to prepare her house for sale, he’s
her “assistant” in her sideline business, making pies. They must love each
other very much if they can work together and not be tempted to kill each
other. (I learned the hard way that Hubs and I can’t wallpaper together.)
No
matter how many weddings Hubs and I attend, I’m always reminded of our wedding
and the vows we made that day over forty years ago. I remember being so full of
wonder, happiness, and optimism for our future. Like most people who’ve lived
together for many years, we’ve had our good times and difficult ones. We made
it through the difficult times because of that hopeful optimism that things
would get better. I wanted to tell my niece to be prepared—that all wouldn’t be
sunshine and roses. But who wants a Debbie Downer (Diane Downer?) on such a
happy occasion? Besides, she’ll figure it out just like the rest of us.
 |
| Diane Burton |
OMG,
I just plunged into this post like you know who I am. Talk about doing things backwards.
As one of the newbies, I am honored to join the fabulous authors on this blog.
Many of them told you they wrote their first story as children. I didn’t. I was
in high school when my BFF and I wrote fan fiction (though we didn’t know
that’s what it was) where we wrote ourselves into made-up plots for our
favorite TV shows. Of course, we were the heroines for whom the stars fell. I'm such a romantic. Fast
forward many, many years, I began writing as a career. Published authors
offered this advice: don’t quit your day job. Boy, were they ever right!
Other
advice was write what you know. So what do I write? Space adventures. When Star Wars first came out, I discovered
how much fun sci-fi could be. Then came the original Star Trek movies. More fun. My favorite? The Voyage Home. Now I’m amazed and thrilled with J.J. Abrams’ rework
of the franchise. So I take the best elements—action, humor, romance—of the
movies I love (can’t forget Serenity),
the camaraderie of the characters in TV shows like Firefly, Castle, and NCIS, add in the ideas and characters in
my head, some research, throw all of that into a blender and, voila, out come my books. Don’t
I wish it was that easy! LOL
Like
my wedding, I went into writing full of hope and optimism. Like my marriage, my
writing career takes lots of work and perseverance. What keeps me writing? I
love it.
Congratulations,
Christine and Ross, and all brides and grooms. May you always remember the
happiness of your special day.
