Who Be Charlie B. reveals young Charlie's struggle as a black man from a white family in a small town. Set in the early 20th century, he endures prejudice and hatred and the love and support of a protective mother. Learning where his color came from and how he fits into his world is key for this young man.

I guess when the light comes in the window. I don't work outside the home anymore. I was a nurse or worked in the healthcare field for over twenty years. In that professions you live by the clock. I mean you really live by it. The clock tells you when to be to work, but then it tells you when to give someone medication or a treatment and you have to keep track of pulse, respiration and so forth. All of it is by the clock. When I had to go on disability, the watch went bye bye. I've slowed down a lot, and that's helped me find the time to slow my mind down and write. My best time of day is afternoon and evening. So, I get up because I wake up and it's the thing to do. I guess I'm pretty boring until about two o'clock.

I think the greatest joy of writing for me is the journey. I may start off with some form of outline, but it's taking the journey with my characters that makes it real to me. I've actually surprised myself with a line and ended up crying. How silly is that? Usually the character ends up where I originally intended, but the way they get there changes over and over again. Sometimes it's hard to separate myself from the journey to finish the book. (Smile) What keeps me going is knowing the next book is ready to go.

Oh my, I remember the first story I wrote for a high school English assignment. I wanted to take on a story to expose the bad effects of drugs. I also love to do research. The story came to mind because i had an experience at a basketball game. When my friend and I went to the restroom, there was a girl there higher than a kite and looked in danger of a seizure or something. She begged us not to call anyone. We could tell she still had her wits even if she was goofy as all hell. She was spooky like that.

Anyway, I wrote a story about a girl who flips out on drugs and with the research and my experience with the girl in the bathroom, I was told it was too believable and I worried the teacher that I may have been around a little more than anyone knew. That one disappeared, I don't know what i ever did with it. I thought it was kind of neat that it was believable to the point I had to defend myself that I'd never done any drugs.

I consider my writing process to be like a layer cake. First is the premise - recipe. Next is usually a focused free write, or experiment toward a story to see if it works. (First cake may just fall flat, or not.). Through the process I finally mix up a rough draft and that's the first layer. Through writing, revising, editing, and all, I come to the final layer which is the story. I have it read and reviewed a few times and edited again. Then when all is whipped up, the icing glues the layers of the cake together and puts a pretty cover on it.

That's kind of a corny way of putting it. However; what do you expect from a Midwestern farm girl. I could sound more educated, but I doubt I'd feel like I was having as much fun. So there is my layer cake process for writing.

I love to plan things I'd like to have done with the house. We used to work together remodeling just about every house we owned. We had a few. I can't do that now, but I can sure make plans. I may not get it but I like to dream it. It's a lot like writing in a way I guess. I like giving my opinions on topics, political and otherwise. I like to read and do some reviews. I do surveys and play a few video games. I do some exercising like walking around the house, but my lungs aren't so good. I also get ideas for stories doing all that stuff. It's all very sedentary, but my mind works a lot.

I read blogs and look for specific authors. My writer friends account for most of it. I do review some books. I do interviews for my blog at Wordsprings.blogspot.com and I read a lot of the books written by those authors. It's hard to keep up. I've read Jean Lukesh, Gina Barlean, J. R. MacClane, Robert Staniford, Robert Sheppard, Lew Hunter, some Sally Walker and more than I have room to list.. But, I've also been trying to get through a lot of the classics that I'm familiar with and some I haven't read before.

I also read books to help me improve my writing or my basic knowledge. Right now I'm expanding my editing skills, I hope. However, on the comical side, I bought a book to learn Latin thinking it would be a base to learn to speak a lot of other languages. I didn't get far. I think learning each language based in Latin would get me farther. I was confused before I got past the forward.

My fans mean everything to me. I want so much for my characters to give my readers an experience. I used to write song lyrics and it felt great to hear someone else sing them and get their meaning. Sometimes the story speaks to the reader in a different way than it did to me and that's another great advantage. We are all different. We all need a different message or something fulfilled. That doesn't mean we can't find it in the same material.

Smashwords offers more exposure in more stores and around the world. I enjoy the attitude of the Smashwords team in helping me to prepare my books for publication. Not every buyer has a Kindle. Not all readers have any electronic reader. For those readers it's good to have the option to purchase and download the book to their computer. I had one when I did a free promotion of The Search who needed my help because she didn't realize all the options available from Smashwords. It amazed her that she could download it directly to her computer. I've had happy customers through Snashwords and look forward to building a larger base.

Who Be Charlie B.? is the first in the Charlie Bueller series. He's met with some challenges and made some choices good and bad. He's a man now and it's time for him to take the next step in his growing progress. It's never going to be easy for him, but he always finds a way, and sometimes it finds him. So my next project will be the next book in the series. I haven't decided on a title so for now its Book 2 of the Charlie Bueller series.