Pulling Up Roots, Planting Seeds.

I think we can all agree that moving is one of life’s major stressors. Even a move across town can result in that something isn’t quite right feeling. Like you wake up the next morning and mutter, “Where the heck am I?” Now, imagine pulling up roots and moving hundreds of miles with a reluctant teenager and seriously pissed-off cat. However, what began as a nightmare for as author Elizabeth Sinclair eventually morphed into a brand new career. Elizabeth is the award winning, bestselling author of numerous romance novels and two acclaimed instructional books for writers. Her novels have been translated into seven languages and are sold in seventeen countries. She lives in St. Augustine, Florida, with her husband and two dogs. Elizabeth is the mother of three children and “brags constantly” about her grandchildren. Welcome back to Book Blather, Elizabeth.

The Move and the Dream

In 1988 my husband came to me with a plan.  He wanted to relocate from upstate New York to Florida.  I was NOT happy about the plan.  It would mean leaving two of our children behind (both married) and all our friends and family and moving 1,500 miles away. Was he crazy? Move 1,500 miles away from all that I’d grown up with, all that was familiar to me?  Unacceptable.

If my husband is nothing else, he is clever.  He brought me to Florida on a week-long vacation.  I fell in love with the state and made the mistake of telling my husband so.  Before I knew it, I was packing up a ten room house, selling furniture that would not fit in our new house (a single wide, two bedroom temporary home), giving a month’s notice at work and climbing into our car which was pulling a trailer loaded with our belongings as well as those stuffed in the back of our small station wagon.

Our black and white cat, Herbie, road on top of the stuff in the back of the car and screeched like a banshee with fear throughout much of the ride.  That is when he wasn’t throwing up on something.  It seemed he wasn’t any happier with the move than I was.

Our arrival at our new home was less than impressive. I spent the next couple of weeks cramming our belongings into what my husband promised was a temporary home, a five room, single wide mobile home. The third week we were there, my husband returned to NY to bring the last of our belongings to Florida.  While he was gone, my seventeen-year-old son and I were attacked by a severe case of loneliness unlike anything either of us had never experienced before.  We had no friends, no one but each other, and it got so bad that on one occasion we sat and cried together. Once my husband came back, that loneliness eased.

Then a miracle happened. My son found a girlfriend, and he immediately loved Florida.  For me, it took a bit longer.  I missed the mountains and the cooler temps. Back then, I was very shy, not at all the type that went next door and introduced myself to a stranger. I decided I needed to get out and get a job. Meet people and stop feeling sorry for myself.

I took a job teaching Creative Writing for the local school’s adult education classes. At last, I had friends and the loneliness subsided completely.  But my new venture served to do much more than get rid of my loneliness.  When I had talked to my husband about getting a job, he told me we didn’t need the money and that he’d followed his dream to Florida and now this was my time to follow my dream of writing a book.  So I did just that.

I joined Romance Writers of America and began writing.  Five years later I sold my first romance to Silhouette Intimate Moments, JENNY’S CASTLE. I have to wonder if I’d dug in my heels and not come to the Sunshine State if I would have seen my dream of writing realized.  I like to think so.

                             

I still miss the mountains, which may be one of the reasons I chose to write the Hawks Mountain series for Bell Bridge Books.  I could revisit the mountains via the printed page.

Currently, the third Hawks Mountain series book, FOREVER FALL, has just made it to the bookshelves and the e-book market.  Set in Carson, it takes the reader on a journey to prove to a teenager, with the help of a baby simulator, that being a mother at fifteen is not the best idea.  Single hero, Lucas Michaels, the school principal, and Amantha James, one of Carson’s single social workers, are picked by the Board of Education as stand-ins for the girl’s parents to conduct a secret experiment that will decide whether or not the baby simulators are effective and if they will be introduced into the school’s curriculum.  However, to do this, they must move in together with the teenager, which results in complications no one could have foretold and not just with the determined teenager.

Visit Elizabeth at: www.elizabethsinclair.com

You may purchase Elizabeth's books at the following links:
Hawks Mountain
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/hawks-mountain-elizabeth-sinclair/1100398882?ean=9781611940220
Summer Rose
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/summer-rose-elizabeth-elizabeth-sinclair/1108168045?ean=9781611941043  
Forever Fall
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/forever-fall-elizabeth-sinclair/1113115310?ean=9781611942033