When Something Changes by Liz Flaherty

Book 1 of the Second Chances series. Picture by Chris McGuire.

Last night, long after I'm usually done for the day, I typed "The End" on the last page of the second book in the Second Chances series for Magnolia Blossom Publishing. While I know I will go back into that last chapter and rip it apart and put it back together with different seams, there is still a certain kind of peace in having finished the book. It's also bittersweet, leaving those people I've spent more time with in the past six months than my own family members. I am reminded of when my kids first left for college, when I was so excited for them and yet I still cried all the way home from drop-off day. 

However, just like after we dropped those kids off, I'm pretty drained. The main characters of the next book--Dinah and Zach--have been bothering me all morning, but not really telling me their story. All I really know is that something's going to change, because that's where the story always starts. 

How many times do you wake up with that surety? Whether it's with dread or anticipation, you know something's going to change. I took a picture of the sun rising this week, and it (the sun, not my picture) was beautiful. Right at this moment, it's rising again, red and promising, but not like it was the other day. 

Every day is a new story. Every day has changes in it. In my best Suzy Sunshine voice, I urge you to embrace the changes. In my lived-a-long-time voice, I admit I know that's not always possible, but that same voice reminds me (and you) that there are always silver linings. Sometimes, it's the looking for them that's hard. And sometimes, they are the beginnings of a great new story. 

So, there's Dinah and Zach. They're in their 30s, younger than I usually write, and they like music I don't know or like. I need help with that, if you have any advice. One of them has a dog. Maybe both of them. He inherited the old B & B on the lake in Fallen Soldier, Pennsylvania and he doesn't want it. But she does. Hmmm... What do you think?

Have a great week. Pray for peace. Be nice to somebody. 

The Woman in the Mirror by Liz Flaherty

From 2018...

Do you ever feel as if you lost yourself somewhere along the way? If you've had a bad time or an extraordinarily good one, do you ever look in the mirror and wonder exactly who's looking back at you? Because you've changed, and you're not sure what to do with the person who's there.

I'm feeling thoughty here--can you tell? I'm always, always whining about how much I hate change, yet when I look back--over bad times and extraordinarily good ones, it's an ongoing cycle, isn't it? It's what keeps life new and interesting. And, yeah, sometimes awful.

But if it weren't for change, and my kicking-and-screaming caving to it, I would:

• Never have changed jobs and I'd have been stuck with working one I hated.
• Never have married the man I did because he wasn't the first person I loved.
• I'd never have had a third child.
• I'd have given up the first time a publisher said Nope.
• Or maybe the second.
• For sure by the twenty-third.
• I'd have kept my hair short.
• And let it go gray.
• I'd still be writing longhand on lined paper and thinking I wasn't good enough.
• For anything,

So, no, I don't always know the woman in the mirror, or, for that matter, the man I'm married to. I don't always like either of us. There are days when I do feel like I've lost the person I was. Because I have. Because every re-invention in every time of life is change, it's often hard, and it's always necessary. I think maybe I like it.

Have a good week and a happy Valentine's Day 💟. Smile at the person in the mirror. Be nice to somebody.

***

Photograph by Chris McGuire

I had a new book come out this week, which is happy-time for me, always. A Year of Firsts isn't available in print yet, but the ebook is on Amazon. I hope you like it.

Widow Syd Cavanaugh is beginning a “year of firsts” with the road trip she’d promised her husband she’d take after his death. An unplanned detour lands her in Fallen Soldier, Pennsylvania, where she meets the interesting and intelligent editor of the local paper.

Television journalist Clay McAlister’s life took an unexpected turn when a heart attack forced him to give up his hectic lifestyle. He’s still learning how to live in a small town when meeting a pretty traveler in the local coffee shop suddenly makes it all much more interesting.

While neither of them is interested in a romantic relationship, their serious case of being “in like” seems to push them that way. However, Clay’s heart condition doesn’t harbinger a very secure future, and Syd’s already lost one man she loved to a devastating illness—she isn’t about to lose another. Where can this relationship possibly go?