The following is the link to an interview by the El Reno Tribune earlier this month.
https://www.elrenotribune.com/news/out-valley
The following is the link to an interview by the El Reno Tribune earlier this month.
https://www.elrenotribune.com/news/out-valley
I am excited to share with you the following interview conducted by Melanie B. Hyman with Tornado Alley Mystery Writers. You may use the link or query it through Apple, Spotify, or Google
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tornado-alley-mystery-writers/id1600729995?i=1000627958196
Hello my sweet friend,
Writing on book 4, Wind of Change, but it is happening slowly as it’s CHRISTMAS TIME and Advent has begun. I host several groups but do it all in one week and then I can kick back. I had one church group Monday night, roast, potatoes and Grandma Elsie’s green beans, bacon, onions and all. Tonight is El Reno Bunco, fixing quiche. Tomorrow morning is CADW’s Cabinet meeting. Then I’m squeezing in a massage before Thursday morning CWF and then finish up with OKC’s Bunco Thursday night and also my sisters birthday here. Friday is Luke Combs concert with my best friend, Eilene.
Last night, Kelsie FaceTimed me and had some one on one with the twins Three and a half months.
Hope you have a great Christmas!
Love and hugs,
💞💞💞
Hello, my Sweet Friend,
Just a quick update. Sweet Summer Rain is now available on Amazon Books. I'm getting good reviews so I would appreciate it if you would place your review after you have had time to read. Reviews can be written at the same location of book purchase.
Before I gave the final okay I read through and Glen came to me at the same places as when I was writing and I also, cried at the same places I had cried while writing.
Hope you enjoy and let me hear from you. Your encouragement keeps me going.
Love and hugs,
Carol
Book Three, "Sweet Summer Rain" is at the editors and I'm writing Book four in my Season’s series, Wind of Change.
I can guarantee you one thing, Connie and JJ get married but, I, as well as you, are anxious to know where life leads these three couples.
I,
also, would like to explain why, “Sweet Summer Rain” didn’t get published in
August of 2018.
I
finished “A Different Season” in August of 2016. And continued, as usual
writing on “Mist of the Moment” and it was done in August of 2017. I continued,
again, as usual on “Sweet Summer Rain.”
And
that’s when my life stopped. My son, and it brings me to tears to say my son,
Christopher Glen Nichols, was diagnosed with Calciphylaxis and given six months
to live. Chris was at deaths door for the continual six months. His wife,
Marilyn quit work to just be with him. He was in and out of the hospitals as
his body fought the disease.
If you know me, I write my life. I cannot seem to write something I haven’t lived. So, the following was “Sweet Summer Rain” during Chris’ fight to survive dated February 2018 but wasn't published.
SWEET SUMMER RAIN
CONSTANCE LOUISE SINCLAIR
Weary
and worn, I awake to the unthinkable.
How could this have happened, Lord? I rise and listlessly walk the usual
path, indeed the ordinary steps of life I repeat day after day. As I open the drapes and thank God for the
sunshine instead of the miserable twelve-degree temperature of the last few
weeks my heart screams out to God asking for understanding and for my friend as
she faces the first day empty, alone and depleted.
Connie’s
mind reverts to the happenings of prior days where her dear friend, Rosie, with
dreams unrealized, barren and lost, watched as the tiny coffin was lowered into
the ground. Connie shivers and recalls
as Rosie fell to her knees on the unyielding frozen earth removing her only son
from her forever.
I do bible studies every morning and one was on Rahab and the red cord of protection she hung out her window. I said, Lord I can do that, and I hung a red ribbon in my front window.
Then
I read about the woman with the blood issues and her healing after touching the
hem of Jesus’ garment. So, I placed a white ribbon with the red.
The
next was Jesus Calling and the gold cord of faith and hope. I placed the gold ribbon, and it curled around the red and white.
Chris
called and said, “Mom, I think I’m feeling a little better today.”
I
told him about the ribbons as he continued to not thrive, not improve but just
endure, just be. When he was sick, he would be in bed. When he wasn’t sick, he
would be up cooking, doing and just being alive for that moment.
On
September 3, 2021, Christopher Glen Nichols walked or as he said, strolled my
last granddaughter to marry down the aisle in Sedgwick, Kansas. We all
commented it was like a family reunion without going to a funeral. He felt
remarkable. Was lively and joking, as always. Lots of pictures. Thank you, Lord
for the pictures.
The
kids left for a two-week honeymoon and one week to the day on September 10,
2021, Chris passed of a heart attack. I don’t remember much about the funeral, but I do remember the heartache of watching my only son’s casket being lowered
into the cold dark earth.
On
a brighter note. Trey and Kelsie welcomed twins, August 23, 2022. A boy and a
girl. What blessings.
Back
to "Sweet Summer Rain". I had the small excerpt mentioned above and that book
over two thirds done when Chris seemed to be getting better. I stopped writing
on it and about three years later I started another "Sweet Summer Rain", and the child lives but in real life the child doesn’t.
I
knew I couldn’t be sad because of the blessing of my son being in my life,
sooooo I took partial book one and partial book two and shuffled them together.
I felt so good. So good because I could write what Chris did as a baby, like
when he was asleep, I could move his bed and sweep under and around him and he
never woke. These parts are my healing just as Book 1, "A Different Season", was
my healing through Glen’s passing. I can tell you that I loved Glen with my whole
body and soul but when it is your child it is a whole different pain. So, I
thank you my dear sweet readers for letting me write for you. Your
encouragement is beyond words, and I am anxious to continue the series with "Wind
of Change".
I have been debating how to get this out to my book readers, so just gonna blog it.
My husband, Glen, passed in 2014. I started journaling, then putting my feelings on social media. My friends said I was making them sad. So I stopped. Then I saw a small ad in the local paper asking a simple question, "Have you ever thought about writing?"
I looked at Patches, my Jack Russell terrier, and said, "I believe I might give it a try."
The first day I went to the group, Creative Quills, was May 10, 2016, and you are asking, how I know the date for certain. Well, I was scared to death. I hadn't even brought writing material, but the sweet lady who started the class, Andrea Foster, quickly handed me a college composition book, the pen I managed to fish out of my purse. Thank you, Lord, for small favors. We wrote to music and I came up with nothing. A big fat zero. Andrea still reminds me that everyone in the class thought I would not return, but I did and on May 24, 2016, I once again sat meekly, only listening, and then...
Eureka, Andrea passed a box full of names and everyone took one. I drew, Rosie Redmond. I started writing, as I felt Rosie was an old friend. Just by holding that small strip of paper I immediately knew that Rosie was a scrubwoman in a high-rise office building and she had a friend named Sadie. The beginning of my first book and book 1 of my 'Season's Series' "A Different Season" was born. It was non-stop writing, and a lot of sticky notes I used to capture my every thought before I forgot. (Now I use my phone.) Book one was finished on August 22, 2016. I know now, that was in record time.
Andrea, anxious to promote each person set up an interview with a newspaper that sent a reporter. When it was my time, I said I was through with my first book, A Different Season, thus named because I am in a different season than all my other friends. But to my astonishment, I kept talking and said my second book is, "Mist of the Moment", third, "Sweet Summer Rain" and fourth, "Wind of Change" Wow, everyone turned and looked at me. Where did that come from? Then the lady next to me leaned in and said, "Oh, a season's series, nice." Well, no it wasn't, but thank you, now it is."
Book two, "Mist of the Moment" flew by much like "A Different Season". Then came book three, "Sweet Summer Rain."
This is where I will leave you for now, because the most difficult part to relate is the next season of my life.