I’m Back !!

It should not be news to anyone that I am a first generation Italian American. My dad, a naturalized citizen was my I-tie John Wayne, my real life paesano cowboy. He loved American sports, loved our country, and most of all loved Westerns and cowboys.

Buy it at amazon.com

Oddly, decades after he passed through my life, my son spent summers on a ranch camp in Brandywine, Pennsylvania.

It was there he met the man who saved him from being a hoodlum. The ranch where my city boy discovered horses and rodeos and learned the ethics of the old West. The ranch where he learned to love a bow-legged, crusty old cowboy named Billy Graham.

Gene Autry the quintessential cowboy was a hero to my dad and the three of us … and later … me and my ever-rebellious son. Yes, Laura Drake … I identified more with Travis and JB Denny than Bella and Russ. 

Hot stuff those cowboys!

They believe in a work ethic that many think is gone and forgotten. It’s not gone, and certainly never forgotten. It’s still kicking hard and strong. You just need to know where to look.

My self-imposed deadline to return to my “real” work was the first week of November.

Real work? Yes, that’s when I put butt in chair and remember what all this is about.

Sun streams in from all windows. The weather is getting cooler, dryer and the days grow shorter. On October 28^th I came to a dead-end and looked longingly at the door of my new office.

Construction goes on around me … a beautiful screened patio, the car port, and a utility shed as large as the storage unit I used to rent, will be dropped on the cement foundation by Home Depot some time in the next two weeks.

Yes, I’m back in the saddle again and loving it.

 

The end is near and I’m having a good time!

Billy introduced my son to Gene Autry and later my son introduced me to REM.

I love the relationship between music and writing so much, I look through my music library to find the right message to attach to some of my posts.

Can’t use random photos and graphics? Try using book or magazine covers and music videos.

Time magazine link.

For me … the end of the world as I knew it … came when I made this magical move into my own lovely cottage in semi-tropical heaven.

The end of my first mystery has been written, the edits are almost finished, and I will soon begin the query of it all and go forth into agent-publishing never-land.

The reason I am having such a good time with the end is simple. It means I can get back to my women’s fiction book.

It means I can begin the second in the mystery series.

It means I can sit here until my butt freezes over and write all I want and that, dear friends, is having a darn good time.

If all else were taken care of, how would you spend all your time?

Ever wonder what might have happened if you decided not to show up for compulsory work one day and did the work you “wanted” instead?

fOIS In the City