About six years ago on a lazy, lemonade Wednesday, not too hot, but plenty of sun I plopped myself into a comfortable chair and perched a MacBook Pro across my knees. A warm soothing breeze rushed around me as my children played in the front yard and zipped in and out gulping glasses of cold lemonade to soothe their flushed little faces.
Fear, anxiety and excitement tickled my spine and quaked my fingers. Staring for minutes at a blank word document willing myself the nerve to just type something–anything almost made me stop before I started. Type something! Even if it was just a character’s name. Type. Delete. Type. Delete. The noontime sun shifted significantly in the sky by the time I completed the following words:
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“Hurry! We’ve to reach the inn before sundown or we’re sleeping in the stables.”
“Ha, we have no intentions of sleeping tonight sir, makes no difference to me.”
“Speak for your self, I am beat.”
“Good luck! Burns, the way you smell, no one would take you on for all the gold in the region.”
“Shut your mouth, or I’ll shut if for you, Piper.”
“Really, I might just take you up on that.” Piper threatened, his weathered face, pulled taut over his prominent cheekbones as he narrowed his eyes at Burns.
“Enough! I’ve had to listen to you all,” a heavy sigh teaming with forced patience rushed past the man’s lips, “just, let’s finish this in peace, ‘kay?” Jax had had enough, he wanted one thing: a soft bed, as long as it was in solitude. He adjusted his hat scratching the sweat soaked dark hair stuck to his head in a ring. He found Burns loathsome, the man was unbearable, but soon he would be rid of him—all of them.
They rode in the stillness of the dense woods; the only sound to be heard was the crunching of earth beneath their horses’ hooves. No birds sang, no locusts buzzed and the air was eerily calm.
“Whoa,” Jax whispered as he held up his left hand, bringing his dark bay horse to a stop. He held this pose for a brief moment, and then turned to the others. “Stay here. I see something up ahead.” With a hint of orneriness Jax added, “It very well may be an ambush, preying on us good Samaritans. Be watchful.” Martin grinned and shook his head as Green, uneasy, began to interject for a better plan. Jax cut his idea short when he gave a little smirk and finished telling the men if there are more than five Jumpers visible, they will need to get out fast.
Peering through brush and trees Jax searched for the reason his instincts were set ablaze, but nothing presented itself. Something was awry. The stillness, no nature sounds—something had recently happened here or was about to. Even still, every inch of his body ached for nothing more than the sweet softness of a warm bed; his mind longed to drift into a mindless sleep.
After noon tomorrow his debts would be paid and he could walk free. He thought about the little patch of land on the hillside and the way the wildflowers bobbed in the afternoon breeze. He could almost smell the dank, earthy fragrance of the old wooden cottage. Reality shook him back to the here and now when he saw a lifeless foot protruding from the hem of tattered undergarments.
Jax froze and then turned to the men signaling them to stay put. It very well could be a trap; it wasn’t unheard of in the border territories. He once again scanned the fauna for anything out of place and saw nothing, besides the foot. Stepping forward, his boot caught a twig causing it to snap in the silence and he immediately ducked assuming an attack would soon follow. He decided staying low was a good option and scurried awkwardly under his long legs until he reached the grime-covered foot. He said a small prayer life still existed in the foot’s owner.
My husband came home and I realized I had completely forgotten about supper. “I did something today.” I knew it wasn’t a “great something,” but it was almost as exciting as the moment I discovered I would be a mom. Giddiness welled up inside of me dampered by embarrassment and fear of not being good enough.
“What was that?”
“I don’t want to tell you.”
A squirrely look curved his lips and furrowed his brow. “Why is that?”
“Okay! I started writing . . . a book.” Again the look occupied his features. “I just started writing, okay it took me forever to actually make myself do just type the first words. It took forever to just put everything into place, but it felt so good.”
“That is awesome. It is a good feeling.”
For the rest of the night, he made supper, and the next four days I continued typing only stopping when another idea relentlessly begged to be tapped out on the computer screen. I was a terrible, inattentive mother for four days. However, something awoke in me that day that has yet to be silenced and I have learned to be a better mother while I write.
I have always been a story teller, the relayer of wild, elaborate and embellished dreams that enraptured my younger cousins. “Then what? Tell us more.” I wove them into the dreams recreating scenarios that were both funny and daring, but always exciting.
I thrived on writing stories, often terrible, gross horror stories as a junior high student. Parodies of required reading. Ridiculous new lyrics to popular songs, shortened silly blurbs that made friends laugh. Sing-Songy poetry was easy and earned an invitation to the Young Writer’s Conference in 8th grade. So what happened to this girl?
I let what I thought others expected of me control my life for a time, but life has a way of forcing you back where you belong if you let it. I let it.
And she is back, I have been reborn as Kate Oleander.
For the past six years stories have flowed out of me until I was exhilarated, exhausted and a little of both. In the spare moments I can find when no one in my home needs me more or papers do not need to be graded and lesson plans written–I write, I read, I write, I rewrite and start allover.
A part of me was truly asleep, she has had a long rest and doesn’t ever want to stop. She can’t stop she has too many tales to share. The characters will never be silenced!
Welcome to Kate Oleander Books 