Welcome

My Story

I grew up in a town of 400 in rural Arkansas. As an Xennial, I'm both pessimistic about the world and absolutely not a digital native. As a child, if you go by my mother's recollections, I slept about three hours a day, and the rule about bedtime became, "You don't have to sleep, but you do have to stay in bed." So I learned to while away the nights making up stories. Stories and later writing have remained a huge part of my life.

I have an Associate of Applied Science in Electronics Engineering Technology and a Bachelor of Arts in Rehabilitation Science with emphasis in Social Work and Child Development. I've held a variety of jobs over the years, but I stay at home these days. I share my time with my family and our two Golden Retriever puppies, Red and Tiabeanie, our three year old dog, Rufus, and our two cats, Philo and Shelby.

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I dabble in gardening, by which I mean I buy plants every year and slowly torture them to death because 'green thumb' is not a gene my parents passed down to me. My not so secret vice is playing The Sims 4, which is a time sink I should give up, but probably won't. I like jigsaw puzzles, but rarely get to do them thanks to the cats, and I enjoy knitting hats on a round loom. I call it my 'knitting for dummies' cheat method.

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In person I am soft spoken and a bit shy. No one ever guesses that I would write a scene tormenting a character to their very limits, but that is something I explore frequently. The movie The Four Feathers, starring Heath Ledger, presented a character who resigned his military commission because he was afraid of facing battle. He received four chicken feathers from his friends who remained in the military, and he followed them of his own accord to the country they were fighting in. He put himself in immense danger following them and saving them. He was captured and put into a miserable, horrible prison. And throughout it all, he still professed that he was afraid and felt unworthy to return to his home and life until a moment near the end when a character far larger than him is about to kill him. He has an epiphany. A change comes over him, and he is no longer afraid. It was brilliantly acted. The world lost much when Heather Ledger died so very young. He saves himself and his friend and at last feels as if he can return home. The men who sent him the feathers have come to deeply regret their actions and learned that they feared the war just as much as he had, but had feared the condemnation more and perhaps that had made them more cowards than him.

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It wasn't a movie that made a big splash. Probably not many people remember it. And honestly, it's been years since I saw it, and I might have some of the plot wrong above, but that exploration of fear and what it meant for that character and that moment he changed... That fascinated me. It still fascinates me, and much of my writing is me exploring that moment with various characters.