Round Robin Blog Fest September 2020

Happy Fall to you all,

Summer in Southern Ontario was hot and sunny with breaks of cold and rainy. For now though, we've settled into cooler fall weather and waiting for the leaves to change color and collapse in exhaustion from this crazy year we've had so far!

September's question for all the Round Robin Blog Fest authors is:  Most novels have an easily understood point to make to the reader, do your stories ever have more subtle or intuitive themes?

My first thought went straight to this oldie but goodie meme that we've all heard before:

Sometimes a blue curtain is just a blue curtain.

A brown dog is just a brown dog.

Most of the time, I write my novels without a planned message or underlying theme.

BUT most of the time there actually is an underlying message in novels whether they are planned or sometimes subconscious to the writer then they create the first draft. These remind people to hold their families close, that friends are important, or to take care of themselves.  Even a lot of sci-fi and fantasy novels carry messages about the establishment and justice or the hazards with having fire-breathing dragons.

Women who are down but not out and find their way out of bad situations. That seems to be my ongoing theme for most of my series. Like Gilda in my Gilda Wright Mysteries, they may face dark days but they will always come out fighting, or at least crime solving. While I don't focus on things like blue curtains, I show the ways the women rebuild and empower themselves whether it be through martial arts, running a business, or in Lucy Stephen's case in The Mystery Lady, becoming a mystery writer.

Gilda Wright started off as a "weak" person who becomes stronger with each mystery and each karate class she kicks her way through. Even when she has her down moments, she fights back and never gives up. Her whole reason for getting involved with karate was to empower herself when her boyfriend (Jason Thayer) cheated on her. Now that she's more confident and a stronger person, he's been trying to win her back while she is also getting to know Kane Garrick and dealing with secrets her boyfriend Mick Williams is hiding.

Laken Miller, in All that Sparkles, book one of my Glitter Bay series, is a former model who became ill and had to start her life over. Like Gilda, she seeks to rebuild her life from the ground up after a nasty divorce and a bout with cancer. She is lucky to have fame and money to use to her advantage, but many things she's had to deal with don't require money. Like dealing with her free-spirited sister.

Audra Clemmings in Drop Dead Cowboy has already raised her kids, built her business, but things keep popping up to knock her back down.

So where did this drive to write about resilient women come from? I was raised by them!

My mom rebuilt her life after separation from my dad.

My amazing grandma who passed Sept 1, 2020, lost her husband over 30 years ago and took driver's training with me in her late 50s! 

With such great role models, what else would I write about?

My Grandma's first car!

Off we go to find out what themes other authors use in their novels....

Skye Taylor 

Connie Vines 
Judith Copek 
Diane Bator 
Fiona McGier 
Dr. Bob Rich 
Anne Stenhouse  
Victoria Chatham 
Helena Fairfax 
Rhobin L Courtright 

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's Day!

To celebrate my grandma's 90th birthday this fall, one of my wonderful cousins decided to open up a Facebook page where family members could share photos and memories that we may not have all had access to before. What a gift! The one thing this page has done is bring us all together. My dad's siblings are all in Western Canada, but the rest of us are scattered all over.

At last count, my grandparents have:

17 children

44 grandchildren

56 great grandchildren

7 great-grandchildren

If my grandpa could see this bunch now! Unfortunately, we lost him to a heart attack when I was just a kid. My dad broke the news to us the next morning by telling us "you have no more Grandpa Rondeau." That's the way serious matters were treated in my house. Nonchalance.

My grandpa Roland Rondeau during basic training in 1944.

One of my favorite memories of my grandpa was hopping in the back of his big red pick up to go to the dump. My grandma always cringed but grandpa would always come back with all of us kids - and usually some sort of treasure he found. One of my aunts even found an entire set of beautiful dishes she'd dreamed about the night before!

My cousins and I were always Grandpa's girl or Grandpa's boy. No favorites. He loved us all to pieces and whisker rubs were the price you paid for a huge bear hug!

He was a lumberjack who built and ran his own sawmills with his sons. While I didn't get to spend time at his sawmills, I certainly spent a lot of time shoveling sawdust and piling lumber once my dad had his own sawmill!

Me and my dad. about 1970.

 My dad and I were close while I was growing up. He'd work away from home all week and come home on weekends. I was devastated when he'd leave, but a happy camper once he'd come home on a Friday night! Once my brother was born, my mom looked after both of us alone all week in a tiny cabin in the woods. No phone, no electricity, no neighbors for about a mile. I don't know how she did it without going completely around the bend some days. We got into all sorts of mischief!

Especially with forest all around us, a rambling old "haunted" house across the yard, and a swamp not far behind the trees.

My dad longed to be his own boss and eventually built a steel sawmill that he set up on the property. As we grew older, we became big enough to help. The best memories I have of life at the sawmill was when I'd wander off to pick berries for a snack and when we'd roast marshmallows the days Dad burned the slabs (the parts of the tree he couldn't harvest for lumber).

The absolute worst memory was the day I stepped on a wasp nest. I can still feel the burn from over 50 stings while I sat in the cab of the pick up truck and dabbed them with water.

I've become resilient thanks to my role models.

My childhood was filled with love and I learned to live simply.

My grandma still repeats the same mantra today as she did back then:  "It is what it is."

Today is a special gift. The present. It is what it is.

You can choose to complain or you can make it better.

Your choice.

Another step in the Happiness Project - Hitting the Highway

Okay, decluttering has gone by the wayside. Christmas is upon us and I always find it even more difficult to keep the clutter down at this time of the year. Decorations, a six foot tree and gifts filling all the spaces I'm trying to empty out, do little to help.

Step back and take a deep breath. What can I focus on instead? Join me while I take a wild leap...

I got my driver's license when I was 16. Across the aisle from me in the classroom was my 64 year old grandma. I kid you not. Holy inspiration! If my grandma could go back to school at 64 and learn to drive, what was there to stop me? Over the years, I drove less as I went through University and when I married and we were down to 1 vehicle. Then it became a necessity for me to drive 3 kids to school, doctor appointments and play dates.
Even so, I was afraid to drive.
Afraid of the big city. (We lived in Edmonton at the time, which is nothing compared to Toronto!)
Afraid of getting lost.
Afraid one of the kids would start to throw up in the back and I'd be stuck hurtling down the highway smelling like...
But I digress.

Moving across the country to unknown terrain did little to build my confidence. Until recently. Sure, I've done trips with my kids before, but always with friends  I've met since we moved here and with hubby. This past year, with my oldest at University and facing the unknown, I've become braver. Driving in downtown Barrie to pick up my son at the bus terminal. Taking the kids on vacation and driving all over the Ontario countryside. Braving driving into another city to get some paperwork done - and having to go back again in 2 weeks. And this time, I know exactly where I'm going!

Confidence plays a huge role in my not wanting to venture far from home alone.
I found as I drove down the open highway (definitely NOT during rush hour, thank you!) that I was happy.
Happy I'd made the trek on my own.
Happy that I can rely on my own resources to find my way, get the job done and get home without incidence.
Happy that I'm seriously thinking about wandering farther the next time I go out.
Happy that when I get anxious about the trip ahead, I can think about my grandma who took a leap of faith in her sixties and learned to drive so she could hit the open highway on her own without having to rely on others.
Funny how something we all take for granted, can give us so much happiness without us ever even realizing...

Join me Saturday for the next instalment of the Round Robin Blog!!