My Problems as a Writer

I’ll admit to having two.  The first I could have corrected if I didn’t get bored easily.  Like successful authors—unlike me—I should have written the same book over and over and over again, with minor variations.  I understand that people like to know what they’re getting when they pick up a book by a author they love.  But it was just something I couldn’t force myself to do.

An example of my mind set:  I joined a watercolor group at a senior center and thought, this is going to be fun.  They specified that I had to know watercolors because there were no instructors.  Well, watercolors were my thing, along with collage, so no problem.  Except—it was the same thing week after week.  Still lives.  Teacups in winter, gardens in summer.  I lasted three sessions and then thought—no!

My second problem is from a sales point of view, dealing with an agent and editors.  Not one of them saw the real me.  I think to them I was just a dreary suburban housewife who was dabbling.  How then could I write spy novels, murder mysteries, tales of adventure?  I was never a suburban housewife.  Ask my husband and children, especially around mealtime.

My spy novels are out of date now, but what’s never out of date is family sagas because, let’s face it, we all have sagas with our families.  We celebrate.  We endure.  We delve into the mysteries of our connections, which, whether we like it or not, are forever.

I’ve written two family sagas.  Flowers of the Desert was mined from my husband’s experience moving from Baghdad to Tel Aviv, the hardships his family endured in both places, and how they strove to survive and prosper.

Okay, yeah, I was almost sued by one of the alleged protagonists.  However, let me assure the expectant reader that I’m not that kind of woman.  The work is fiction.  And the suit threat fell apart anyway because he must have figured, if he sued me, then people would assume he was the character.  So he sued my husband instead, over stamps he had given my husband when my husband was twelve.  As I say, families must be endured.  Survival is the game we play.

I still love that book, despite having an editor who had no clue about human relations in Israel at that time.  Well, she had no clue about a lot of things, and the experience was not something I would want anyone to go through.

My next family saga is my most popular book, A Mother’s Secret.  Yes, I know, it’s a twenty-hankie book, and even I cried when I wrote it.  During World War II, a mother has to leave her child in another woman’s care.  When the mother returns, the child and the woman have disappeared.  Both women establish new families in new lands with new loves.  But there is that child between them that weaves the story together.  To write that novel was a gift.

Both novels are available with some of my other books on Amazon.  Yes, I’m plugging them, not so much for the money, but an author writes to be read.  And if you like family sagas, check out Scarsdale Scandal here or on Kindle.