Promises are meant to be kept and I am doing that. After much rewriting, reviewing, editing, and editing again (and again) the long-awaited book is on Amazon. “Disappearance in Plain Country” is a mystery that unravels the search for a small Amish child taken by strangers at a quilt auction. This is the first in my series of Beatrice Chandler Mystery Series. Beatrice gets caught up in the simple life of the Amish when she attends the auction in south central Missouri. The child disappears and Beatrice is relentless in her search for Abe Stotzfus. She  is on the trail of the kidnappers into the Midwestern states and beyond.

In the meantime, the kidnappers have problems of their own. Their lives are consumed with eluding the law while trying to hold their relationship together. It is a difficult path but worse than that, Abe, age three, is baffled as to what is happening. Most of all, he wonders why his parents aren’t coming to get him.

“The small boy sat up straight in the middle of the backseat. He had only ridden in a taxi once when he sat between his parents on the long ride from Ohio to his cousins’ house in Missouri. His mamm sang songs and played games with him to make the journey go faster. Things never seen before in his young life popped up from nowhere when he knelt at the shiny window and looked out. . . when the man jerked him to behind the row of quilts, he looked back at his parents. His hat fell off his head and he tried to reach for it. Everyone, even his parents, paid close attention to someone yelling to all the people about the quilts. The man who pulled him away didn’t bother picking up Abe’s straw hat but he let him cling to his wooden horse clutched tightly in his small hand.”

(amazon)

As I sit at my keyboard I am so tempted to take a second day away from writing and four walls to get out and revel in the wonderfully refreshing fall-like air. After rains and much humidity, it is a welcome feeling of another rejuvenation. Nature does that to me. Rejuvenates.

The fact that my surroundings become a huge part of me is not surprising. I love to watch the deep green leaves on trees show me just a hint of lighter shades and a few pale yellows. This tells me that a spectacular array of hues are getting ready to burst forward in a month or so. Sometimes our autumn only brings yellows in the leaves and they drop from the trees early as a result of a hot and dry summer weather conditions. Fall blends into winter with no fanfare. This summer brought unusual rains at the right times and so I know I can look forward to quite an array of reds, oranges and yellows, even a few purples.

It’s the same with my writing. Sometimes my mind is dull and no ideas or imagination is evident. It is times like this that I think I have been fooling myself into thinking I am a writer. Then suddenly rain comes down on me. My mind gets in sync with a variety of colorful story plots and I am in a position to choose a new theme, or finish what I’m in the middle of with a sure-fire narrative that keeps the reader reading. By the end of it, they want more.

Those who write and think they have done all they can do with their talent should think twice. We have never done all we can do when it comes to putting words down that culminate in great satisfaction for the reader. Take advantage of the season of pale ideas that hit now and then. Let ideas lay dormant until they suddenly, of their own accord, burst forward. This will only end up a very good story we didn’t even know was in the recesses of our imaginations.

“Disappearance in Plain Country” September 15, 2014 (will be on Amazon.)