As most of my friends know I have written my first Novel. The title is,
The Secret of Moonshine. It is the first book in the Moonshine Series. I am absolutely in love with this story.

My dream is to be published now that the first book is complete and edited.

I have been a story teller my entire life. Some of you may remember back in the day when the living room would be full of teens and I would be telling scary stories. My Little Brown Man story was the most popular scaring the toughest of the tough!

A year ago I decided to Chase the Wild Goose so to speak, and follow my heart. I walked away from my job and wrote the story lodged in my heart.
The entire process has been an education. I have learned so much about the world of the writer. I have made some huge mistakes and accidentally done some things right!

Last February I attended a writers conference. I ventured there alone and a bit intimidated. I attended several classes and a couple of read and critiques. It was at that conference I met an editor who edited my story and encouraged me more than he could ever know. He told me he believed in my book. I was thrilled! The truth be known I was terrified when I handed my manuscript over to him. I was so afraid he would send it back and say "Start all over!" But he didn't! He told me to "Get my promotional wheels turning"....so that is what I am doing. I am promoting with this blog. It will be a start so I ask you to share this link with all your friends. I will blog and share updates on the process. I will also put excerpts of the book up from time to time and share some of the cryptic secrets of the series.
Enjoy a selection from chapter eleven.....

The garden gate swung open. There was not enough light for her to see who entered. Maybe it was Bethany and Lillian. She hoped. Girl talk would be therapeutic right now.
The footsteps grew closer. The approaching figure stepped into the moonlight. Bronwyn’s heart leaped a bit.
Travis.
He approached the pond and sat next to Bronwyn. She was glad he did. Despite the fact she was trying to convince herself she wasn’t interested in him, she longed to be near him. Besides, she intended to interrogate him. She knew that, at the least he was keenly aware of who lurked in the woods. He knew the first day she had questioned him, yet he had avoided the subject, blaming it on kids or curious teenagers.
“What’s going on around here? Who are the cloaked men stalking us from the woods? I know you know. I saw you talking with one of them in the garden yesterday.”
Travis looked out over the pond.
“There are secrets and mysteries that are not to be revealed to everyone.”
Anger rose within Bronwyn. “That’s unfair.”
“How is that?”
“I’m obviously being stalked. Am I not allowed to know why?”
“In time.”
His words frightened her. “What do you mean by that?”
“Exactly what I said. You will know in time.”
Bronwyn’s agitation continued to rise. “Maybe I won’t wait for your time. What if I march right into the inn and tell everyone and make a call to the local police?”
“Won’t do you any good.”
“Are you threatening me?”
“No.” Travis hurled a small stone across the water. “I am protecting you.”
His words stunned her into silence.
Travis returned to face her. “How’s the re write going?”
Bronwyn would not allow herself to be deceived. There was more to these hooded creatures than Travis wanted her to know…something strangely unusual at work in these mountains. She sensed it from the moment of her arrival three nights ago. If Travis was protecting her, that must mean she was in danger. If the cloaked figures meant her harm, then why was he having a private conversation with one of them?
She looked at Travis. He was reading her thoughts.
“In time,” he said quietly. “How is the re-writing going?”
Bronwyn stared at him, her emotions waging a war inside. She feared the man that sat before her in many ways, yet her heart ached for him. She longed to be near him, yet another part of her desired to run far away from him. There was no escaping the fact that she was unwillingly drawn to him.
She sighed.
“It’s not going. I’ve been staring at a blank computer screen all day, and have produced nothing. I don’t know; maybe I’m done with writing.”
“Do you think that you’re wasting your time writing these scripts, and putting off the story that is buried deep within you? I think you’re burying it deeper by all the clutter you allow in your life.”
“Yes”, Bronwyn answered quickly. “I know that for certain. But, these stories, no matter how trite and sappy, pay the bills.”
“Then you might as well be writing for the National Enquirer.” Stinging words.
Bronwyn desired to snap off a sarcastic, defensive rebuttal, but she had no words. Travis took advantage of her silence.
“You’re only making a living for yourself, instead of living the life you were born to live.”
The heat sensation began rising within her once again, cued by his words. Her heart beat faster. She reached deep into the water in an attempt to cool her arms. She nervously splashed more water over the top of her legs, and then repeated the action by splashing her neck and chest.
Travis pressed on. “You’re attempting to write a love story, yet love is such a vast subject, and one with intense emotion. Science can’t even explain love, and you’re trying to write about that emotion between two people, yet you have never really loved anyone on this earth except yourself.”
“What!” Shock. Outrage. “How can you say that? You don’t know me. I have loved. I loved Ryan deeply.”
“You never really loved Ryan.” He sounded certain.
Bronwyn lifted her feet from the water. Intrigued, she turned her body to face Travis. She looked directly into his dark eyes. “Okay…explain yourself.”
Travis stared back, once again his eyes penetrating her soul.
“Can you take it?”
“Take what?”
“The truth.”
“Why wouldn’t I be able to take the truth?”
“Because truth always sets you free. And some people find it fearful to be totally free. For some reason, they seem to find comfort in the chains that bind them.”
Bronwyn’s eyes flashed as she leaned forward, her body closer to Travis than she intended.
“I’m not afraid of anything”
Travis suppressed another smile that pulled at the corner of his lips.
“You’re a storyteller. You invent characters. You create them in your imagination exactly how you wish them to be. Correct?”
Bronwyn nodded.
“You did the same with Ryan. You loved a man who did not exist anywhere but in your ideals. You loved a person that wasn’t actually Ryan.”
“Not true. I knew him very well. We lived together. You get to know someone very well that way.”
“Then he suddenly changed and turned into someone you didn’t know anymore. Right?”
“Yes, in a way he did.” She couldn’t argue with that.
“He didn’t change. You were finally forced to see Ryan for who he really was. The true Ryan. Not your ideal created version of him.”
Bronwyn contemplated Travis’ comment. His words seemed so obvious. Bronwyn didn’t want to think that she had actually fallen for a self-absorbed, ego-driven shallow person. She was smarter than that. Now she wondered if Ryan had ever loved her. Obviously he had not.
Sadness gripped her. “I guess Ryan never really loved me. His true love was obviously fame and recognition.”
“If all that had been offered to Ryan had been offered to you, would you have taken it?”
Bronwyn thought a minute before she answered.
“Six months ago, I am sure I would have. I’d been crazy not to. But I’d have taken Ryan right along with me.”
“What if Ryan had asked you to turn it all down?”
“I never asked Ryan to turn it all down.”
“That’s not what I asked you.”
Her voice rose, all her suppressed anger for Ryan resurfacing. “It would have been very selfish of him.”
“Would you have turned it all down for him?”
“No” She nearly shouted it. “No, I wouldn’t have turned any of it down for him. I would have seen him for the self-serving, egotistical, person that he was.”
Bronwyn’s voice trailed off as she realized her last statement…Seen Ryan for who he was…
Travis was right. She had invented Ryan to be the man she wanted him to be, the man for whom she longed, never seeing him for who he really was.
She looked at Travis, realization shinning in her eyes. He leaned forward and said softly,
“If I say, I love you Bronwyn. Do I mean I love you in the same way as I love these mountains, or the smell of the earth after a good rain, or the way I love music? Do I love you because the way you look ignites a passion inside of me? Is my love for you only contingent on the way it affects me? How it makes me feel? If so, then I only truly love myself. And I only love and want you for how it affects me.”
Travis moved very close to Bronwyn, his eyes reaching deep into her soul.
“Or do I love you, Bronwyn? Do I love the person who looks at me from those emerald green eyes? Do I love you despite the times you are angry and bitter and unlovely? Do I continue to love you although you freely gave your heart to another? Can I send you away knowing I will never experience you, but you, will experience all you’ve ever dreamed of? I can if my love is for you and not myself.”
Bronwyn was silent, completely entranced in Travis’s words. The heat weakened her body. She wanted to cry, sob tears of regret, wasted time, loneliness. Tears of emptiness. Everything within her wanted to lean against Travis’ chest. She wanted him to wrap his arms around her and hold her under the moonlight. If only he would make the first move. If only he would offer.
They sat in silence for a few moments. Despite her inner urgings, Bronwyn turned her body away from Travis and back to the water.
“True love is sacrifice,” Travis said.
“Have you sacrificed a lot for Mavis?”
“Love never keeps count.”
“Has she done the same for you?”
“Love never keeps count,” he repeated.
An unseen tear escaped Bronwyn’s eye and splashed into the pond. She quickly stroked the waters not wanting Travis to notice. The moonlight reflected off the rippling surface.
“I couldn’t imagine a more perfect place.”