The Path Towards the Light

The Path Towards the Light

My dog died today. 

It was not by God’s choice, but my own which sorrows me deeply. After seeing her deteriorate as the cancer takes her breath, it is the only kind thing I can do.

 Yes, there are specialists, and more tests and more drugs. And I went that path for a while, until that path looked dark and gloomy as well.

But Hannah does not deserve darkness. She deserves joy and light, so I tearfully make my decision to do what is best for her, which is the hardest path for me.

Rest in Peace Hannah my sweet girl. Rest in peace.

Interview Author Cindy Smith

Today I’m interviewing our local gal, Cindy Smith. 

Not sure how to introduce her because she does everything!

She is an author, a singer, a song writer, an artist and much, much, more!

Welcome Cindy, tell us a about your books, The Time in Contention Trilogy:

 I was fascinated with Contention City from the first time I heard it mentioned in (the original) "3:10 to Yuma" movie back in the 1960's.  I knew then that one day I would write a book about Contention. I began writing a few years back and sent what I had to my gun coach, T. B. Burton. He read it, answered me back that I had told the story one sided. And since he was a man, he wrote what a man would have seen and felt standing on the sidewalk (from the first chapter) in the book.  I immediately thought, this is what I want! A book telling both sides of the story from the prospective of a (fictional) man and woman.  Overall, I did about 2 years of research on the history and T.B. and I filled it in with fictional characters to tell the events leading up to the gunfight at the OK Coral.  We wanted to give life to Doc Holiday, Wyatt Earp and the women you rarely hear about. The Earp wives and Big Nose Kate have an important role in TIME IN CONTENTION.  It's written with the backdrop of a romance novel (for all the female readers!) but with all the action and gunfighting drama of a western (for all the males!).  The books are available on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com, both as paperbacks and e-books. They can also be purchased locally or via our websites. 

Now tell us about your music, what inspired you to start singing?

I started singing late in life! I saw someone playing a mandolin in church a few years ago and said to myself.... I want one! I found a great music teacher, Gerry Hall. I would not be singing today if it was not for him. He literally 'made me sing' while I learned to play guitar and mandolin. From then on, he encouraged me. Once I started singing.... I never looked back! 

Congratulations on winning the GCGMA 2011 Songwriter of the year award. What is your favorite song you have written?

Thank you!  It's hard for me to choose my favorite song that I've written. I'd probably say that my favorite was the one I had just finished most recently. It's the one you're excited about writing music for, arranging where all the instruments will go, or going into the studio to record it.  I just finished a western song called "The Bar Maid and the Dealer". So, right now, it's probably my favorite song. But this will change as soon as I write something else! 

What do you like doing the best?

Writing in general. Whether it be books, stories, lyrics or music. I remember back in grade school and high school, my favorite subject was literature. I worked for a Houston, Texas area newspaper for 2 years and wrote a quarter page column every week. I met entertainers, politicians, local celebrities, sports heros and loved talking and writing about them all. But of course, there are times when you would ask me this same questions and I may answer I like doing "art" best.  I love oil painting and drawing charcoal portraits.  I am very honored to have had two pieces of my artwork displayed (for special events) in the Booth Western Art Museum! I have a theory, if you love to write, you probably love art as well. 

What or who inspires you?

Many of the songs I have written were inspired by "Time In Contention". I grew up listening to all kinds of music from Dean Martin to Ernest Tubb, from Burt Bacharach to The Louvin Brothers. But I loved Marty Robbins! There was just something about him dressed in his black cowboy clothes playing that western music that never left me. I think most of my songs sound like a female version of Marty Robbins songs. I am inspired by everyday occurrences, something I might hear my friends or family say, or something I see on a billboard sign. Inspiration can come from anywhere! And one song, Lynn, was inspired by your novel, "RUN INTO THE WIND".  I was honored that you asked me to write a song (by the same title). After reading the book, I wrote what I thought your character, Sabrina, would say if she wrote the song herself. I have received many compliments on the song, with some saying it is their favorite! 

What are you currently working on?

I always have a song in the back of my mind! I will soon be recording "The Bar Maid and the Dealer" and "Bring Back Hopalong".  "Bring Back Hopalong" is a song I wrote to sing at the Hopalong Cassidy festival in May this year. I have always been a fan of western stars, such as Roy Rogers, Dale Evans and Hopalong Cassidy. TV heros that taught values and morals to kids have long passed away, but fans continue to attend festivals each year in their honor. I am privileged to attend a few of these festivals each year and sing about their heros.  I also have a children's book I want to write. It will be about my grandson, Gabe and his ghost friend Herman and their adventures in the haunted club house. I will do all the artwork of Herman and Gabe dressed as cowboys and pirates and anything else his imagination will come up with! 

Any upcoming Events you would like to share with us?

Yes. March 10th, I will be at the Bartow County Library doing a book event. I will be at the World Congress Center (in Atlanta) on March 17th and 18th during the Atlanta Auto Show. There is Wild West section and I will be singing and doing a book signing as well.  You will also meet my good friend "Fuzzy Q. Jones", side kick to western heros. Robert Brooks portrays "Fuzzy" and he's always a "hoot' to be around! T.B. Burton will be there, besides being my co-writer for "Time In Contention" he is also the 2005 World Champion Fast Draw. Then the following weekend, March 24, I will be at the Jim R Miller Park (Cobb) Fairgrounds in Marietta for the 2nd Annual Wild West Festival. This promises to be a wagon load of family fun with shoot-outs, cowboy music, kids coral, roping demonstrations and so much more! All my cowboy and cowgirl friends will be there with something special to offer in entertainment. 

How can we contact you?

You can email me at: txredmollie@mac.com  

You can also visit my websites for more information and listen to my music. 

Music on Amazon

CindySmithWesternMusic.com

Reverbnation-Cindy Smith Music

Sweethearts Of The West: Savvy Sayin’s Two

Sweethearts Of The West: Savvy Sayin’s Two: By Anna Kathryn Lanier No matter how often I remind myself that my blog date is coming up, it seems I am always writing my blog the night (...

Tracing the Past

Tracing the Past

One of my resolutions for the year was to do new things. So when I spotted the DAR (Daughters of American Revolution) event on Patch.com I made plans to attend.

I have always been fascinated by the Revolutionary War. The birth of our nation, when men and women accomplished what no one believed they could. It inspired to me to write "A Christmas Crossing" and I'm currently working on a follow-up book.

So I as I stepped into this room full of history, I couldn’t help but be in awe. These strong women bound down with pens, paper and notebooks have traced their ancestry to the Revolutionary War and beyond.  

I’ve never really thought about my ancestors before. It’s hard to focus on people you’ve never met. The only stories I remember my Grandmother telling me when I was a child were ghost stories. One of the scariest was of “Timtodd” a red eyed Troll who lived in the ditch by the road. Needless to say, in our romps over the yard we avoided the street at any cost. 

I am greeted warmly as the meeting starts, the pledge is recited, prayers are said and “America the Beautiful” is sung. Every meeting they have a Guest speaker, the one today happened to be related to George Washington.

She speaks eloquently as she tells us about privateers plundering enemy ships during war time. I was offered assistance in looking up my ancestors and I took them up on it. These women have a wealth of knowledge about genealogy and are more than glad to share.

 If you are interested in tracing your past contact them, they would love to have you! For more information about DAR or SAR (Sons of the American Revolution) contact them at:

www.dar.org

www.sar.org

Is there Good in Evil? Interview with Athanasios creator of Mad Gods

  

Blog talk radio interview

Note: I was going to call this post "Good Versus Evil" but talking with Athanasios changed my mind. Life is not as simple as that. There is good and evil in everyone; it's a constant battle which roars on in Mad Gods.

Athanasios, welcome to my humble abode! 

As you may (or may not) know, I am a visual person. I love art, design, and your book covers. What do you try to capture in your covers and how long does it take for you to create them? 

It varies with each cover and who I'm making it for.  They can take between a few minutes to a few hours and sometimes days. I'm not necessarily consciously working on it but I'm thinking on it.  I'm a firm believer that no matter how hard you try to do something if it's not coming it won't unless you leave it alone to let your own subconscious, luck, providence or whatever you want to call it, help.  I try to capture what the author intends to portray, sometimes it's enticing a reader to look further than the cover others it's being literal with what the story contained therein conveys. I know in my own covers I first tried to be literal and then saw they weren't doing much for sales so I just switched to being enticing and moody and it's worked better.

Your books give a new twist to darkness. Reminds me a bit of Pandora’s box. Lots of bad stuff going on but there is still hope.Tell us about them.

The darkness I'm taking from your question is evil? It's great that you brought up Pandora's box, the myth I mean, not some bad 1980s Ron Jeremy or Vanessa Del Rio porn. I've researched, not for the writing but because it's interested me, religion and why we must look outside ourselves for justification of our motivations and life's trials. In that research I discovered many other people's works, notable and varied intellects from Thomas Aquinas, Joseph Campbell to Bill Hicks and many of them have a pliant view of darkness. I've come to agree with this view that there isn't any total darkness there's always degrees. Not the trite shades of grays that many use to describe despicable behavior but the darkness or evil within everyone they must accept in themselves. I try to portray EVERYBODY in Predatory Ethics from Mad Gods to Commitment and the forthcoming In Whom To Trust as multidimensional. I want to have GOOD, SYMPATHETIC and BELIEVABLE reasons for what they all do. I think I've even given Satan a reason for becoming the embodiment of evil and a bitter, rejected, fallen angel. Yet I also scuff up and bloody most of the good guys too. Most are portrayed as stiff and humorless to the point of being without compassion or empathy for anybody or anything save their view of good and evil.

Adam, the main character is the Antichrist: introduced through a codex about his past lives. It describes his unwillingness to enslave the world and fulfill the destiny. Satan, his biblical father, still wants to go through with Revelation and Kosta, his adopted father, wants to give him the freedom to chose. Kosta could've just killed him as an infant, or raise him in ignorance of who he really was but wanted to Adam to know everything and make the choice with nothing hidden. He saw what he was doing as the real Revelation and also chose to let Adam see what a life filled with simple pleasures and pursuits could be. 

What inspires you to write?  

I want to see where I'll take the story, something I don't know myself until I start to write. Do you want to call that inspiration, then so be it. I do have an idea of the direction but I don't reach it until I start on it's path. Sounds like artsy-fartsy bullshit I know, but it's true in its sincerity.  I'll go further down the artsy-fartsy, metaphysical, starry-eyed, hippie, tree-hugging road: I liken it to an old pagan belief of paradise, the Elysian Fields where you went and did whatever you enjoyed when you lived. They didn't believe paradise as the modern Christians do, there was no specific direction that everyone shared and  nobody was any different, like walking around clouds and doing ABSOLUTELY nothing.  My inspiration is the Elysian Fields, where I stand without knowing where I'll go but just walking in my feet & imagination go wherever they will.  Then sometimes I go and have a great meal or drink and feel content.

I know you have been writing over ten years. With age comes wisdom. What do you know now that you wish you knew then?  

I wish I knew about indie publishing then. It's been around since that time so I wish I was one of the pioneers. That means I wouldn't still be looking with dread at the fact that it's Sunday tomorrow and then the next day I'd have to wake up extra early to write, before going to work. At least I've got a job that pays the bills, so I'm lucky enough in that respect. 

Do you sleep with the lights on?

No, I haven't slept with the lights on since I was 10 and saw the Omen. 

Boxers or briefs? (This is a romance blog!)

Neither!  if you know what I mean! Unless the mother-in-law is sleeping over, then I've got to resort to briefs.

Where do we find your books?

MAD GODS

AMAZON                 http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004QOA768

SMASHWORDS    https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/48579 ISBN:9781610612562

COMMITMENT

AMAZON                http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006098CSC/

SMASHWORDS   https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/99372

Interview with Sabrina from Run into the Wind

Wanted to share a great interview with you from WoMen's Literary Cafe

It features one of my Characters, Sabrina. I may be a bit biased but I think they did a great job!

Welcome to Author's Spotlight

Character Interviews

by Stacy Eaton

Today we have Sabrina Lovett with us from Run into the Wind written by Lynn Hubbard. 

So let's please welcome Sabrina and grab that cup of java, sit back, relax and enjoy the interview.

Welcome Sabrina, we are very glad you could make it today.  Can you tell us about the book you star in?

Run into the Wind is about my life. It starts out on the worst day ever.

How so?

It was the day my family was murdered and my home was burned to the ground. My life was turned upside down in an instant. I persevered though, I planned to rebuild.  

How horrible! I am so glad you had the strength to move on.

However, my fancy pants brother decides to finally come home and dictate my life! Nevertheless, I showed him.

How did you do that?

I decided to choose my own fate, when he put me on the train headed for Boston, I jumped right off and headed west.

Lol.. I guess you did show him!

Of course maybe that wasn't my brightest idea, I mean hiding out and dressing as a boy is kinda odd. But that's how I met Brock.

Oh... tell us about Brock!

Now Brock is the kinda man who will make your toes curl! You know what I mean.

Of course I know what you mean! Who doesn't!

Now, it was kinda awkward with him thinking I was a boy and all. I guess I should have told him earlier but I am a bit stubborn.

Well anyway, my secret got out!

How did he find out??

I had to rescue Brock from some train robbers and nearly got myself killed. When Brock found out I was a girl he clenched his teeth so tight I thought his jaw was gonna lock shut forever. 

So what happened?

Well, me and Brock made up. (Blush!) Now, I'm really confused. I've been doing just fine on my own, I'm not sure if I want to give anyone that much power. On the other hand, maybe I need to rethink my life, maybe I do need someone. Maybe he needs me too.

Maybe... only you can answer that though.

My life is very complicated.

How so?

I have murderers to hunt down, my brother is chasing me, rescue missions. I don't know if I ever could go back to my old life. A life where everything was good and all I had to worry about was my mother trying to get me to wear a dress with ruffles. It still hurts to think about them being gone, but it hurts a bit less when Brock is around.

There are a lot of complicated things in your life Sabrina. I know that between you and your creator you probably found good ways to deal with all of that.  Let me ask you this...

We all want to be different, so what is the one thing you wish your creator had done differentely with you?

I wish she had given me red hair like my mama's. My sister Lydia got red hair, even my BROTHER got red hair. Did I? Nope, dull brown. I did get my green eyes though, guess I should be happy with that.

Your hair is beautiful. It goes wonderfully with your green eyes!

If you could have added something to the story, and your creator would have let you, what would that have been?

I wish I could have shoved Sally's smirking face into the water trough! Her flirting shamelessly with Brock like that. Makes me madder then a wet hen.

lol... amazing how the jealousy monster works isn't it!

What do you love best about yourself? What do you like least?

I have gumption! I stand up for who and what I believe in no matter what. I guess I can be over zealous sometimes. My father always said 'Not even the fatest horse can catch a word spoken in anger'.

Oh, I like that!  I will have to remember that and use it!

What part of the book was the hardest for you and your creator to work through?

When I lost Star.

Who is Star?

Star was a horse I looked after. When the barn caught fire, she got trapped. I tried my hardest to save her but Brock came in and drug me out. Made me mad as hell, I didn't need saving. Now Star was gone along with my job.

I'm sorry. I know how much losing and animal can hurt.

Sabrina is there a sequel for this book?

Yes, Brock's happy go lucky brohter had to have his spot in the sunlight. So Chase the Moon was named after him. CTM just came out and continues the story.  There are some good times and some bad, but that's what life is all about. If we didn't have hard times the good ones wouldn't seem so sweet.

That is very true.

Do you have anything else that you would like to talk about?

I would like to thank Cindy Smith for writing a song about me and Brock. She is amazingly talented and captured all the emotions I was feeling! You can listen to it at Lynn's Website www.lynnhubbard.com, tell her Sabrina sent you!

Oh wow, (Sorry guys... I made her wait so I could listen to the song real quick!) That is an awesome song - and I have to tell you, I loved the fact that you had that translated into sign language.  How wonderful!

Sabrina - it has been an honor to have you here today on WoMen's Literary Cafe!  We are so glad you came! I know the readers really want to know more about your book, and I'll fill them in on where they can find out more.  Thank you so much for coming!

Sabrina was an absolute pleasure to have on our blog today. To find out more about Run Into the Wind, please check out the following links.

Places to Purchase:

Amazon

www.amazon.com/Wind--Sizzling-Historical-Romance-ebook/dp/B0038KXAG0/ref=sr_1_1

Barnes & Noble

www.barnesandnoble.com/w/run-into-the-wind-lynn-hubbard/1020728717

Ways to find out more:

Lynn Hubbard's Blog:

authorlynnhubbard.blogspot.com/

Lynn Hubbard's Website:

www.lynnhubbard.com

Facebook Page:

www.facebook.com/lynnhubbardbooks

Goodreads:

www.goodreads.com/lynnhubbard

Twitter:

@Lynnhubbardbook