Remember as a kid wanting to run away?

We wanted to escape school, parents, chores etc.?

Well, of course we did! We all did! Our imaginations took us places we knew we thought we could never see until we were grown ups. Remember playing LAVA and leaping from sofa to chair so as not to fall in the volcano?

Remember playing dress up and going to the ball or slaying the dragon and saving the kingdom?

We didn’t know how lucky we were really. No tablets or computers or YouTube. We were lucky to have three television stations. We played outside until dusk. We had sword fights with sticks and rescued each other from wild animals lurking behind the backyard gate. We made pirate hats out of newspaper and forts out of blankets and chairs.

Then one day it happened…we learned to read and write. A whole new world opened up before us and our imaginations really took flight!

Books build imagination, provide escape and sometimes even help us deal with reality. Even fairy tales have lessons in them. One of my favorites is don’t listen to trolls! LOL

I remember wanting to run away and live on a pirate ship. I wanted to be a captain and have my own spyglass. I wanted to sail the seven seas and see sea turtles and sharks and dolphins swimming by my ship. I wanted one of those cool tricorn hats…a real one, and my very own sword!

Alas…no fairy tales about pirates back then that I knew of. 😦

Then I got older. I was an introvert who spent most of my after school time writing stories, drawing and reading. My mother used to joke and check in on me in the evening, asking me if I still lived in the house.

No. I really didn’t. I lived in my own little world. I had a powder room, my bedroom, the little back bedroom that was mine when I was very young that now housed my old desk, my book collection, my toy horse collection and my old Osmonds and Jackson 5 albums. I had my radio, my record player, my easel, my drawing pads, my paints and my TV, which I almost never turned on except to watch a few select shows.

I was still running away because…

I needed to start thinking about what I wanted to be when I grow up…like, for real…BUT…

…I still wanted to live that amazing dream…so I found myself completely in love with books and writing. Books about adventure and kings and queens. Books about fairy tales where I could “run away” for hours. I think I had every little golden book ever written and now, I’ve filled my granddaughters’ book shelf with them too.

Fast forward many years of work, marriage, children, experiences…not all good…and life. Then suddenly one day, life was quiet. No kids to chase, no mother to care for…just quiet.

A miraculous thing happened. I remembered I had an imagination. I started creating art again that didn’t involve helping one of my children with a school project or making a Halloween Costume.

Oddly enough, I was on a treadmill at Planet Fitness. I’d recently lost my mother to Alzheimer’s, my children were grown and I was now, practically an empty nester. My husband and I decided we needed to get moving and get in shape.

While on that treadmill, I kept hearing this little voice talking to me. He was telling me a story about his life. I listened…and listened…and listened. Then I heard it in my car. I heard it while I was at work. I heard it when I lay down to sleep at night. Whenever it was quiet, I heard him.

Finally, I bought a notebook, picked up a pen and started writing down what I realized was a synopsis for a book! About 4 months later…I had written the first draft of Fireflies.

Then, after publishing Fireflies and it’s sequel, Hope from the Ocean, I remembered that pirate girl inside of me and WOW! It was like I was awake for the first time in ages!

I started writing and I could…not…stop. I realized it didn’t matter how old I was or how big or that I wasn’t a child anymore. I still wanted to run away…and I remembered just how to do it! But I wasn’t writing a fairy tale…I was writing stories about the true nature of piracy. I was writing about murder and intrigue and the reality of piracy.

I’m a big girl now and I write about things grown ups want to read…but oh it’s still so much fun!

Reading and writing aren’t just to educate us. Reading and writing are like the ignition switch in your car that turns over the rotors in your mind and conjures images and emotions that can take you far away…and oh did I run!

Why am I sharing all of this with you, you might ask?

Because I was finally able to become that pirate. I became that wild, spirited, brave girl who ran away…only I did it in my novels, The Razor’s Adventures. And I brought some of my closest friends along with me…in character form of course. 🙂

Now, I want you to run away with me and join me on my wild and crazy journeys.

Feel the wind in your hair. Fall in love. Wield your sword and captain your ship. Meet characters who rush into your life like wild storms on a dark sea in the dead of night and end up being your best mates…or greet you sweetly only to plot behind your back!

Come on…run away with me…grab your pirate hat and sword…

Click the link and run off with this book series. It’s an adventure that is just waiting for you to come aboard.