In just a couple of weeks, my husband and I are headed to what we hear is a beautiful section of the country, the Hudson River Valley. The reason for our trip is that my wonderful, dear-to-me play, Like Kissing Moonlight, was chosen to be part of the inaugural Hudson Valley Theatre Festival, alongside eleven other picks from playwrights around the country. Each play will get a staged reading, and then the company will pick one to be produced in their 2025 season.

My play is the very first show of the entire shebang, and I’m very honored. I can’t wait to see what the director and the actors make of my show, and how it fares as a staged reading. Honestly, every time I get to hear my words performed, I have to pinch myself. It’s a rare treat, and it’s even better with an audience. Perhaps it’s knowing I’ve touched someone, or that just for a moment someone didn’t feel so very alone. That we connected.

The themes in the play are pretty universal. Life, Death, Family, Crossroads, Choices, Love Conquers All. I think it’s safe to say we’ve all been impacted by one or all of those things once we reach—ahem—a certain age. It’s one of the best things about live theatre, to my mind. To be able to listen to characters who speak to our commonalities, who find the words which perhaps mitigate personal tragedies, the ones that are hard, the ones that we only dare whisper the words, “Oh, that’s happened to you too?” but when we can whisper them, the sharing evokes a relief that’s hard to find in our boxed in, social media-driven lives. There’s just something about sharing space with strangers and having a common experience that is transcendent.

I’ve been reading the biographies of the other playwrights in the festival as the New Deal Creative Arts Center puts them out. I’m in some pretty august company, gotta say. Most are award-winning playwrights and college professors, with many credits and plaudits to their names, like MANY. If I were slightly less confident of Like Kissing Moonlight, I’d be suffering from comparison-itis, big-time. I mean, I have a few whoo-hoo things in my bio as well, but it’s not littered with accolades like my fellow playwrights have in theirs. Indeed, I start out by saying my love of theatre began when I was a pixie on a toadstool when I was five, which is perhaps not the same as saying you are an acclaimed writer who’s been produced in multiple countries and has won dozens of awards and lists them in alphabetical order.

I think I’m the rube of the competition.

Here are the details if you’re in the area: https://newdealarts.org/hudson-valley-theatre-festival/ 

But I also know my play is a crowd-pleaser, has a lot to say, and definitely makes people laugh uproariously, and that it will be enjoyed. And, even better, when I’m there, I get to connect with several friends in the area I haven’t seen in far too long. It’s all a gift, and I honestly can’t wait.

Writing for stage and screen is a very different kind of writing than what I’ve been doing lately, which is merrily typing lots of words a day in both my Sweet, Small-town Romance series and in my six-book Post Apocalyptic book series. I’ve finished one of the PA’s. Grit, Book 6 of Nowhere To Turn publishes in a couple of weeks on May 10th. I destroyed a lot of things with earthquakes in that one. I’m already nearly done with book one of the next PA series, which involves fire (the irony is not lost on me, iykyk), and will publish starting in the late summer of this year. All of which is to say, I’ve been writing a lot of fiction, and have been neglecting this blog, if you hadn’t noticed. Apologies, I will do better in the future.

The pace I maintain in my writing practice (about 3500-4000 words a day, every day except on the days—about once a week—when despair grabs me by the nape of the neck and reduces me to muttering and whimpering in the corner eating ice cream and reading other people’s books instead of writing my own) is a little daunting at times, but that’s when I look to a writer whom I admire highly, not only for her books and imagination, and the really great way she handles dialogue, but her work ethic. The woman gets the words down on the page. I love that.

Nora Roberts is not only prolific in the Romance Genre, but also dashes off Police Procedurals set in the future under the pen name of J.D. Robb. She also found time to raise her sons and garden while churning all of those extremely readable words. Nora is still going. I read her books under both her pen names as soon as they come out, so thank goodness she writes even faster than I do and feeds my addiction at regular intervals.

I have one of her quotes on my wall next to my writing chair. It’s pretty to the point: “Stop mucking around and write!” Except her -ing word is saltier.

My plan is to be like Nora Roberts with this third-act writer/playwright gig I’ve been engaging with for the past three years and get at least sixty books written in the space of 10 years. I’ve written 15 books and 3 novellas so far, so am on goal pace. Let’s see if I can maintain it, while also maintaining good relationships with my (growing!) family, garden, bake, exercise, and send out newsletters, blog, and go on the occasional vacation with my swim friends and with my family. I accept all forms of, “You can do it,” you’d care to send my way.

Considering my goal and who I admire, it should be surprising to none of you that my husband and I will spend the night at Nora’s bed-and-breakfast in Boonsboro, MD* on our drive up to see my play performed in NY state. I’m also stopping at the bookstore across the street that her husband runs, Turn the Page**, and I’m getting myself a few autographed copies of her books. I want them on my shelf to stare at when the gremlins of despair want to eat me alive, to help me remember that there really are a few people out there who CANNOT WAIT for my next book, just as I cannot wait for hers, and to get on with it.

It feels good to know people like my books, just like it feels good when a group of strangers laughs out loud at a character line, or falls silent with shared memories of sadness, or relates to the plain old queerness families generate all on their own. I’m so grateful God gifted me with this particular talent, and I promise, I’ll do my very best to stop mucking about and write on a daily basis to honor it and you, my dear friends and readers. I’m so blessed to have you in my life.

*Inn Boonesboro website: innboonsboro.com

**Turn the Page website: ttpbooks.com

Here’s the lineup for the plays, some great ones here!