Happy New Year! Wishing you and yours a year of adventure and joy!

Logging into my website today, I was forced to sit through the inevitable and frustrating lag time of it opening, a lag time that used to be considered "instant", but now is the mark of a seven-year-old computer.  So I sat there, staring at my business head shot on the header, and I noticed for the first time that I have my father's smile.  Same smile.  A little uneven, hinting at a secret, and was once again reminded that nothing is new. Even my smile was passed down, altered a bit, but not mine to claim as original.

We are our choices, but we start from something we have no control over; the raw material that is place, financial means, parental care.  

I have my father's smile.  It's a good smile.  It was his father's, and now it's also mine.  But no one would mistake me for my father.

The same goes with writing.  It is the product of my reading history, the rejection letters I received, my tastes and aversions.  My perseverance. Nothing is new, but my writing is my version of what has come before me, what I want to recreate.

I dedicated my new novel, The Seduction of Lucy to my parents, Wayne and Betty Flood, because they've supported my dreams and loved me even when I was difficult to love.  

Happy New Year Mom and Dad.