A Very Rough Chapter One…
Writing this book during such an emotionally heavy time in my life has been interesting. It’s given me something fun to focus on, lightened the mood, and continued to encourage me to stay grounded in gratitude. It’s nearly impossible to walk around any place inside my home and not feel gratitude. The view from each window makes me smile.
As I sit at my writing desk, I can watch the birds move from tree to bush and hear them calling to one another. We have a particularly territorial cardinal and his lady friend who twitter around all day long. I’ve cultivated a small green thumb over the years and get to look out upon the herbs I’ve managed to keep alive and the flowers that grow in pots all along my back patio area.
Our yard was cultivated heavily by the previous owner of our home. She really had quite the eye for gardening and managed to create an oasis that I could never have dreamed up without the heavy help of ChatGPT and maybe a gardener. There are mature lemon, olive, pomelo, and palm trees growing, as well as azaleas and camellias.
I’m baking a lot of these wonderful sights into Magnolia Isle. Chapter One is an arrival.
I remember my arrival at this lovely place in South Georgia. I was very aware that up north (Pennsylvania is where I moved from), fall was quickly barreling toward winter. Here, the sun shone warmly not just upon the earth, but within the people I met along the way. The community we moved into walked differently, spoke differently, and essentially lived differently than anything I’d encountered before.
Businesses closed on Sundays. People waved to one another, or greeted passerby’s as they moved through the main streets. My initial north-east edge slowly gave way to an ease within. I didn’t have to keep my head on a swivel. People could drive the speed limit without laying on their horn or tailgating. People actually stopped holding a line of traffic up so others could pull out across traffic, or cross the street.
Before I even realized it was happening, I was “A Little Bit Yankee, and a Little Bit Ya’ll.” (I saw that one on a t-shirt once—so appropriate!)
I remember it being disconcerting. I remember feeling a little off kilter and yet, awed by how people seemed to genuinely care for one another here. It was so different from where I moved from, even though where I had lived was absolutely awesome. Just different.
Hannah’s arrival on Magnolia Isle has an unawareness about it. She’s observant, yes, but unaware of being fully present. Sort of like how many people do life these days.
We’re a busy race aren’t we?
Moving, hustling, racing, chasing. It’s quite counterintuitive to sit, slow, be still.
When I wrote my last book, Heal the Hustle, it was for that exact reason—I needed to relearn how to sit, slow, and be still.
In this book, Hannah does as well. So, too, do most of us. That’s why we seek out fiction books that invite us into real life where people manage to accomplish things but do so in a manner that isn’t part of the hustle culture.
That’s part of why Magnolia Isle exists. Much of what I’ve captured on the page so far is based on real-life situations, feelings, and encounters that I’ve had along the way (both before I moved south and after).
Our own lives are a journey with different adventures sprinkled in along the way—some wonderful, and some truly bumpy. Hannah’s will be no different. Many of my readers will find that they see themselves in some of my characters. Good! That’s exactly what I want. Relatable characters living in a real world, facing real-world day-to-day life. Not full escapism like a sci-fi/fantasy adventure (btw if you like that sort of thing check out this clean author fantasy book series!) but rather pieces of yourself that you’ve glimpsed over time that help you remember that showing yourself grace, and allowing yourself to feel good is still something to be grateful for.
