If Haley's Song were made into a movie.

Last year, on my goal board I wrote… Haley’s Song will be a best selling novel and be made into movie.

I’ve taken the first step toward this goal. I wrote the book, and now it is being published by Vinspire Publishing and will be out for public consumption in December. So logically, the next step would be an epic romantic drama. A book being made into a movie is like hitting the lottery for an author. I have wishful thinking that my book could be a Lonesome Dove and The Notebook hybrid. Maybe the same producers would like to take mine on too (wink, wink).

This is my pretend casting for Haley’s Song.

The Leading Roles

The best part of the whole is dreaming of Hunky Hollywood actors. They are not hard to come by, but I have to say I have one in particular in mind to play the leading cowboy Tate.  Chris Hemsworth is the top pick of course. Drool factor of 10.

Haley might be a bit of a harder character to cast. She has to be a natural country beauty and musically talented. Recently, I watched all the seasons of Bomb Girls and I’m sort of leaning towards Jodi Balfour.

It only stands to reason that the person who plays Tate’s brother, Ben, should be Liam Hemsworth. Duh. I will have epic droves of girls stampeding into theaters to watch my film.

The overlapping love triangles in my book are set into motion by the appearance of Margret. Candace Accola from Vampire Diaries has been the natural pick from the beginning. Of course Margret has her own novel in the works. I dream big around here.

Next, Milt Sherwood, the patriarch of the family. This actor has to portray grit, wisdom, and a big heart for his family. Robert Duvall is the obvious pick. You can’t have a good western without him. Lonesome Dove is one of my favorite movies…

The Villans

A great story has opposition and here they are…

Ed Thompson? Val Kilmer. I think he could play the slimy part really well. I can just see that worn dusty top hat with the red feather sitting atop of his head, his worn overalls with grease spots and dust unlatched on one side, his classy ride a worn out mule.

Daddy- Liam Neeson. I really like Liam Neeson in the movie Taken. He plays a really strong character, but I think he could play a mean broken drunk as well, and be able to redeem himself in the end.

Next, Emma Jean. For her I pick Ali Liebert. We all know that particular girl from high school that was the “mean girl.” Bomb Girls has a great cast. Canadian television is holding out on us in the U.S. I think Ali could play Emma Jean perfectly.

The Ranch hands

Micheal Ealy as Louie. My French quarter hunk’s past and future is a book all of his own. I can’t wait to write Louie’s story. He is a pure gentleman that just might fall in love with a free spirited senorita. His strong quiet nature lends itself to a mysterious side. You never know what is brooding behind those eyes.

Wilmer Valderrama as Tate’s best friend, Jaun. Juan is a jokester. I couldn’t think of any other Hispanic actor to play the part because I think he could play the lighthearted Juan perfectly. The story takes place close enough to the border that Hispanic influence is a must to make the story believable, if not accurate to the setting.

Josh Duhamel as Clancy. I could totally see Josh in a pearl snap shirt and cowboy hat. He has the rugged good looks. He is married to Sarah in my book. Stephanie Meyer did a guest appearance in the Twilight movie…wait for it…I could do a guest appearance as Sarah! (Oh gee, twist my arm…) It would be fun to play the lucky girl who’s Josh Duhamel’s on screen wife. Clever casting I might add. I’m hoping it would qualify me the access to little time at a med spa and a make-up artist.

Tommy Lee Jones as Stucky. I think the guys will enjoy the film for the fact of Tommy Lee Jones playing the rough around the edges, ready for a shoot out at a moment’s notice, and heart of gold, Stucky.

Other Characters

Saginaw Grant to play Billy Bo’s character. Billy Bo is sort of quirky, mystical, and you never know if he is serious or joking because both look the same. Do you think he would mind playing an Apache medicine man?

A Timmy actor will be the hardest to find. Maybe I can get one of my boys to play him…

I don’t think the cows on the Double Circle Ranch would mind being extras. I don’t think they’d let fame go to their heads either. Since the Double Circle Ranch really exsists it is a no brainer where filming would take place. I just have to convince the hermits in my family that it would be a good idea.

At any rate, this book has the promises for a really great movie… at least in my head. Clean, action packed, romantic, historical, western, old music, compelling villains, and good looking actors…perfect combo for a hit.

Any movie producers ready for the project? I was ready yesterday.

The Big Reveal!

Here it is. The moment I've been waiting for. It's taken a year to get my clean romance to this point. Drum roll, please....

Eighteen year-old Haley is nearly burned alive in her own barn when she refuses to marry a slimy liquor store owner her father lost her to in a drunken poker game. Now she must flee her old life, including the cotton farm she loves. 

When she’s taken on as housekeeper by the owner of Eagle Creek Ranch and his handsome cowboy son Tate Sherwood, Haley must choose whether to let them and their seven kind ranch-hands instill love and trust inside her heart.

Ta Da! Can you tell I'm a little excited.

Coming December 2014 from Vinspire Publishing.

Writing is a journey. Caution: grammatical errors rampant. Comes with the territory.

Sometimes you find yourself wanting to be somebody new and be somewhere else than where you are. I found myself in this predicament when I was put on bed rest with my last baby. I was very large and grounded to the couch. I began to write about time travel as means to escape my boredom. Oh, it was an ugly baby…the manuscript, not my son (he’s quite cute). Since then I’ve learned being a writer has its ups and downs. I think it’s a natural part of the process of growing as a writer. My writing has grown leaps and bounds since I started with my first ugly baby manuscript DRIFT. My creative writer professor kindly suggested that I take a grammar and punctuation class because I’m horrible at it. Ouch. I’m strong with creativity and weak sauce with mechanics, but I’ll have to wait a year and a half before my schedule opens up enough to allow room for such a class. Yuck.

Even though Drift is that it hasn’t seen the light of day for a while, I’ve had a few flecks of brilliance for its revamp. The characters seem to whisper from the confines of my laptop to finish their story. The good thing about Drift is that it may have some major tweaking ahead but it did do something for me…

It opened a door into the writer’s world.

I went to an American Night Writer’s Association conference in February to pitch Drift. My pitch session was with Chris Shoebinger from Shadow Mountain Publishing. He seemed intrigued with the idea but asked that I take the time traveling piece out of it and turn it into a purely historical proper romance and send him the query letter and first few chapters. I left the pitch session shaking.

On one hand, I was excited he wanted to actually sample it. On the other hand, I knew I had a ton of work ahead of me.

Later that night, at the Red Lobster, I was sitting next to my fabulous author friend Jennifer Griffith (check out her books… they are fantastic. I aspire to have the sort of voice she has in her writing). She told me to write about what I know. I sat there and thought about it. I knew cotton and some ranching. The first basic outline of my book started to form there. I knew that night that I would start all over with a completely new manuscript. I started it in February and finished it to be submitted it to Shadow Mountain in April. I got as far as making it to the proper romance editor’s desk but they sent a very nice rejection letter stating that they had something like it already in the works and that I should defnintly shop it around. All that hard work they requested and manuscript was ultimately rejected because they had one similar to it in the works.

Darn it.

As bummed as I was, I knew I had something. It flowed out pretty easily for the first third of the book and it felt right. I put too much work into it to let it fail.

I began shopping around for publishers that accept clean romances. My spreadsheet listed all the publishers I sent my query letters to. I got one response back from a publisher going out of business. Others said they would take anywhere from three to six months to get back to me.

Oiy.

Then along came Vinspire Publishing and asked for the full manuscript. To tell you that I was pumped would be an understatement. I thought my manuscript would be lost in self-published la-la-land. Vinspire read it and recommended that I change and improve a few things before it could be recommended to the chief editor. Most of the time you get stuck inside the writing and it is hard to look objectively at your own writing and see what it lacks. I couldn’t see the flaws. I jumped on the chance make the manuscript stronger and got to work. About that same time Harlequin Heart Warming began looking into the manuscript too.

This whole time I’m going to school and applying for the nursing program for the spring semester. I told myself I really didn’t have an excuse to stay home and write for a living because I hadn’t been published yet. So I kept on trucking with my schoolwork.

December came and on a Thursday during Christmas break I got my contract offer from Vinspire. The next day I got my acceptance letter into the nursing program.

Oh, shoot.

I’ve got two really great things I worked hard for that I don’t want to bomb. I’m going to have to do both and be fantastic. No pressure or anything.

The good part is that school makes good research development for one of my other novels I started about a RN from a trailer park in Alabama and that moves to Beverly Hills. I can’t give you too much more information other than it has comedy, romance, ageing starlets, and mobsters running amuck in it’s pages.

And somewhere during summer break my Fountain of Youth romance will be polished enough to query to publishers. My intuition tells me this story if done right could be a huge deal for me. One of these manuscripts just has to be a best seller…

But for now I will stress about electrolytes, wounds, and catheter placement. I’ll probably loose some much-needed sleep because my three year old still gets up like a newborn some nights, and one the other two boys will probably find mischief and create either an injury or a mess. But that’s okay because for the briefest moment, I’ll wish I were somebody else and somewhere else and steal a few moments to write.

My Teen Dating Tell ALL... Totally Cringe Worthy.

I have the opportunity to watch my little sister date. Not in the weird I’m stalking your every move sense, but from her own words. I’m glad she shares a portion of her stories with me, and withholds the stuff that would make me lock her up every night. To tell you the truth, I’m a little jealous that she is experiencing this time in her life. I wish I could do it all over again sometimes.

Sometimes I’m glad I can’t.

I was given the opportunity to talk to the young women of our ward about being a “lady.” How to sit, were to put there hands, and how to dress. More importantly, I talked to them about how to treat young men and have the grace of a woman. Next book I write will be, The Playbook For Young Adult LDS Women. The things I wish I had done and the things I did right would be included too.

My little sister is confident, cute, and outgoing. I wasn’t. In some ways she’s years ahead of what I was. It took me a few years to grow into my pretty, and find out just whom I was. I couldn’t believe when my senior year in high school a guy showed me interest. Of course, I thought he was cute and fun. I kept thinking is this some joke? Did his jerky friends set him up to this? But he actually did liked me. He chased me. It felt good to be a girl. In all actuality, I probably wasn’t mature enough to have a boyfriend. He actually told me he loved me. My response was “thank you.” I couldn’t tell it to him back because I felt like I was too young to say it, and when I did say it I wanted to know for sure I meant it. I was caught a little off guard.

So, I will fast forward to the night I broke up with him. I had been acting pretty “witchy” to him because I felt… guilty. Ugh. I told him we couldn’t date anymore. Not really going into any reason why I wanted to break up with him and gave him the ‘take it or leave it’ attitude.

I was a brat.

The real reason was that I was afraid if we continued to be boyfriend and girlfriend he wouldn’t go on his mission. I didn’t want that huge black cloud hanging over my head. I didn’t want to be his reason for failure. The kinder more lady-like thing to do would’ve been to tell him the truth in a loving way.

I was immature.

We made amends before he went on his mission. He called me halfway through his mission. My mom listened in. It was her mom radar to know when to pick up the phone, I guess. Now this is the time to cringe. Although I was flattered he would call me, I didn’t know what to say. So my mom told me what to say. I had to break things off with him and tell him not to call me any more, or she would call his mission president. All I could eak out was to not call me anymore. Then I painfully hung up the phone. I wanted him to play by the rules. I also didn’t want him to get in trouble over me. When he came home from his mission he stopped by my house for a visit with his best friend. His friend was nice to me. I was nice to both of them. He on the other hand was indifferent to me, and it almost seemed like he was flirting with my sister. (She later told me that he had chatted with her online and said that she was prettier than I… Ouch.) I wanted to tell him right then and there I saved his rear, but couldn’t at the moment.

I felt awkward.

My second boyfriend was the big learning lesson... Trust Your Gut. He treated me like a queen. He was a return missionary. He loved his mom. I soaked up every moment with him. But there were things about him couldn’t shake. He would mysteriously disappear for three days at a time, he wouldn’t let go of his hatred for his father, and he would keep secrets from me. He had enough excess baggage to fill an U-hall. I wanted to fix him but I couldn’t. So I broke up with him before he put a ring on my finger.

Boy, am I glad I did. I found out it was a good thing I trusted my gut because a few months later he came out… and to top it off when he was missing he was spending time with another girl, and he actually asked her to have his baby. At least that is what she told me. I was so stupid!

Ack!

Feel free to laugh at my horrible dating flop. It took me a while before I could joke about it, “I was such a good girlfriend, that when I broke up with him, he turned gay. He couldn’t find another girl as awesome as me.”

I got wise.

I received a book from a good friend called The Rules To Capturing The Heart Of Mister Right. I had to pick and choose applicable rules but it worked. Jason came home from his mission and I told him right off the bat I wouldn’t call him...but in the nicest way possible. He would have to call me. Especially if he wanted to go out. I tried my best to be bright and happy, I still set goals for my future, and wasn’t over eager to get his attention. He said he liked me because I was virtuous, lovely, and of good report. He was a returned missionary so the compliment was very nice, but a little RM‘esk but still the same cute. Good thing we didn’t have texting and Facebook, or it would’ve been trickier trying to play by the rules. I see girls all the time trying to throw themselves all over boys. All I can do is roll my eyes. Boys like a chase. Let them pursue you. Just make sure of these few things I learned the hard way…

1. Treat them with kindness and respect.
2. Be honest and speak your truth with love.
3.  Learn to say, ”No.” Don’t worry about hurting his feelings if the situation arises.
4. Be confident.
5. Trust your gut. If something doesn’t smell right, RUN! Ask your friends to look for red flags you might be too blind to see. !He might be asking someone else to have his baby...awkward!)
6.  You can’t fix him or help him carry his baggage.
7.  Be a lady and stick to your values. Be virtuous, lovely, and of good report.
8.  Don’t throw yourself all over him. I.e. texting him all the time, Facebook stalking, and calling him.
9. Be the kind of person you would want to date. Remember sometimes the kind of people you attract is a reflection of you. (My dad taught me that. It was a painful lesson that involved him opening the scriptures.)
10.  Be open and outgoing.
11.  “Don’t put all your eggs in a basket.” Don’t change your goals and dreams for one "maybe" boyfriend.
12. Go to school and dream big. It’s attractive to be educated.
13. Be yourself
14. .Mind your manners. Boys don’t like girls who can burp and pass gas as good as any other guy.
15. .Act like a girl. Be feminine − but you can still play hard too. I'm always teasing my little sister to turn off her inner trucker.
16. Don’t seriously date until after you graduate from high school.

Looking back I should have been less self-conscious. I’m a pleaser by nature. Also, I should have done my best to not pine away for the next boyfriend. I wasted valuable time being boy crazy. There were a lot of awesome boys I could have dated but I wasted that time on one guy.

Take a deep breath.

 I should have relaxed and had as much fun as I could − while still being smart and achieving my goals.