S.K. Nicholls's Blog, page 55
March 3, 2014
Read an ebook week begins today: discounts!
Another FREE book and a really awesome new book for $2.00, “Yesterday Road” by Kevin Brennan
Originally posted on What The Hell:
Well, read mine, certainly!
Starting today, you can get Our Children Are Not Our Children for free (and Yesterday Road for $2 through the annual Smashwords ebook promotion. Click here for my Smashwords page, where you can then select either or both books.
Filed under: Uncategorized
March 2, 2014
Sunday Synopsis
You all probably know by now that I have a really hard time keeping up with goals, I just roll them over. Such is life.
This past week:
The pool chemicals still are not balanced. (But the water is too cold yet to really worry about that.)
The weeds are almost knee high AGAIN!
It was raining the first few days of the week, so no paperback books got delivered, (that’s my excuse, anyway).
The laundry got done, and the kitchen gets cleaned every day, the bathrooms got cleaned, but the furniture needs vacuuming, and the floors still need to be vacuumed and mopped. (The joys of owning shedding animals.)
I took my first chapter of my WIP to my writers’ group. Funny thing happened. I had gotten nervous and cut out some back story feeling it was too much telling and not enough showing. Guess what they said was missing? Back story. Go figure. I am about five chapters into this and keep rewriting chapter one. This may take a while. Still, I am having fun.
Those who follow me on Twitter know that my tweets have slowed down some. A few a day, instead of twenty or thirty. (You’re welcome.) I do think it is doing some good. I had a goal of three hundred books for the month of February with the 99 cent ENT promo for a day. I moved 151 in 2 days during that promo on the 15th and 16th, and had started with 19 sold before the promo at $3.99. (170) When the two days of the promo were over, the book remained at 99 cents pending all the other non-Amazon platforms getting the price reset, as Amazon won’t change the price back until everyone else does, and that took forever. The biggest problem was Sony dragging their feet, which got accomplished Feb 28th. I opened a Twitter account on the 18th and kept moving books at 99 cents through the 28th to reach 298 for the month. That’s 128 more books in ten days. So I was very happy, and, though I did not quite reach my 300 goal, I came pretty darn close.
Then some magic happened today. After seeing no sales at all yesterday, and feeling like the party was definitely over now that the price is reset to $3.99 (which is what happened in December the day after the promo I had at that time), I sold two books today! Um wha! Whoever you were. It is the toughest thing in the world when KDP rolls over to the next month and you are sitting there with a big fat zero until someone invests in you. Gives you the opportunity to share your story. That first number every month is like fairy dust sprinkled on a biscuit turning it into a cupcake with rainbow frosting.
Since my royalty on those 99 cent books is 35 cents per book, I am not making any big purchases, but with the other 19 sales at $3.99 I did break $100.00 for the month of February, and we are still sharing the story.
Also, this past week, Red Clay and Roses was reviewed by the lovely Rosie Amber, which you can see here. And she posted a very nice interview here, which I really enjoyed because she asked me some seriously meaningful questions about the book that really got me thinking. There is also a new five star review on Amazon, which you can see here.
Finally, I got to go to the beach. I spend too much time in the house, so a bright sunshiny day at a sleepy little seaside village was perfect. See:
The Breakers restaurant, at the beach entrance.
New Smyrna Beach
Beach goers having fun!
High surf in the Atlantic (Sailboats in the distance).
Roach Coach on the Beach
Feathered rats…I mean gulls.
Gulls
and more gulls.
Garden Shop. Another day in paradise.
Pretty flowers high and low.
Shell shop.
Painted murals along Flagler Avenue.
One of my favorite views is from inside the beach bar.
This Week: (For those of you who tolerated the slide show.)
More tweets.
Get books delivered.
More writing.
I am not promising to clean the house again.
Goodreads Giveaway is over tomorrow: 3/03/2014
Two autographed copies of Red Clay and Roses and two Amazon $10.00 gift cards up for grabs.
Goodreads Book Giveaway
Red Clay and Roses
by S.K. Nicholls
Giveaway ends March 03, 2014.
See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.
Filed under: Sunday Synopsis Tagged: February book sales and promo results, interview, mundane yard and house chores, New Smyrna Beach, Rosie Amber, two reviews
Author Interview: Andra Watkins
Great interview with lovely blogger and author Andra Watkins
Originally posted on 1WriteWay:
Welcome to an interview with Andra Watkins, author of the forthcoming
To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis
from
Word Hermit Press
.
To Live Forever
Filed under: Uncategorized
Author Interview: Andra Watkins
Great interview with lovely blogger and author Andra Watkins
Originally posted on 1WriteWay:
Welcome to an interview with Andra Watkins, author of the forthcoming
To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis
from
Word Hermit Press
.
To Live Forever
Filed under: Uncategorized
March 1, 2014
Genre Writing: My Questions and Answers
Charles Yallowitz at Legends of Windemere made a great post today concerning genre writing and asks some interesting popular questions. I took up his challenge to explore these questions with this post and encourage you to do the same. Pay Charles a visit and get the list of questions.
1. What made you choose the genre that you write in? If not working within a genre, why did you go that route?
I don’t think with my first book that I chose a genre, the genre chose me. I was simply writing a story and where it fit was not a concern.
2. What do you think are the strengths and weaknesses of working within a genre?
Strengths: Practice makes perfect. Writing, writing, and writing in the same scope is bound to help an author hone their craft. Having a specific genre aids marketing for sure…you know exactly where your work fits and have a pretty good idea where to find your audience and who they are.
Weaknesses: Creativity. Genre reading and writing can become mundane and too predictable. I read a crossover of many genres and can’t understand how some readers can stay so genre dedicated, for example to romance, or historical fiction, or reading only crime novels/thrillers. I like expanding my knowledge base and testing my comprehension. It is part of the perpetual student in me.
3. Do you think genres crossover a lot more often than we realize?
Traditionally, no. Most recently, say in the past five years, yes. I think breaking away from traditional publishing control has helped that. Some don’t think it is a good thing, but I feel it is fantastic for broadening horizons, thinking outside the box, creative expression…that sort of thing.
4. Would you try another genre or are you locked into your area as a specialist? Do you believe this hurts you as an author?
As a reader, yes! I love exploring other genre. As a writer, I tried, and though some readers thought I was successful, I did not feel it. It was uncomfortable to my linear stream of consciousness writing style and required more plotting and outlining than I like to do. I don’t think it hurts you as an author to try other styles of genre writing, if anything, it contributes to developing other talent.
5. Would you write within a genre that you don’t like, but is currently popular in order to get your foot in the door of the business?
Again, I tried. My work is literary and historical. The crime novel was/is an adventure. I would like to go back to it at some point and see if I can accomplish it. My husband loved it but, to me, it seemed shallow and superficial. I like my work to have a deeper moral or historical value.
I write for fun and making a profit is not my goal. My focus has been on presenting evidences, stimulating thinking and introspection through fiction and letting the reader make up their own mind about issues presented. More informative than entertaining in that these are real life situations not reality escapes…yet, they are presented in a creatively imagined world with creatively developed characters.
Filed under: Writing Process/WIPs Tagged: answers, genre, motivation for writing, questions, trends, writing trends
February 28, 2014
Writers and Readers Thoughts Appreciated with Name Dilemma
I have a work in progress, a possible name dilemma, and would appreciate your thoughts on the matter.
There are two sisters and I am going with two POVs, alternating chapters, or at least giving a fleuron space between changes. It is working out well except for some name confusion.
As a tribute to my mother and my aunt, I wanted to keep the names Claudette and Carol, even though this is fiction.
The story is about two young women, sisters, in the late fifties-early sixties who have manic-depression. Their personalities are vastly different.
Carol, whose name means “Song of Joy” is happy as a lark outwardly, an extrovert, but suffers depressive episodes that she is very good at hiding. She enters a room, opens a window and smells autumn in scents of cider and cinnamon. She is somewhat weak and fragile.
Claudette, the feminine form of Claude, means “Lame”, and she is sad and introverted. She is also a take charge sort of pragmatic person. She is strong and comes across as stoic, unemotional and more stable, yet she is the sister who gets sent to an asylum after a manic (and sexual) episode which results in a serious argument with her mother. She enters the same room and notices the dust on the furniture, the paint curling on the plaster walls.
Herein lays the dilemma. They both share the last name of Barber. They share the same initials, C.B. They are the Barber sisters. Phonetically, Carol and Claudette are close. I would like to keep the names, both as tribute and because they are time period appropriate names for the era.
I have been reading articles about names and have seen where authors and readers have trouble with this.
A couple of times, I have slipped up in my going to another point of view, name-wise, and I am concerned that readers might do that. Have trouble keeping them separated in their mind, because they are sisters with phonetically similar names. Particularly, going back and forth between POVs. I don’t want for this to be difficult for readers.
I don’t think it is bad as say, Richard Ray and Robert Ray, because the initials of first and last names are different. They are not C.C. and C.C. That will also change when they marry.
So, are their names something I need to rethink, or will these work?
P.S. If I have failed to offer someone a proper thank you or response on Twitter, please forgive me. I have not quite figured out the etiquette and actions on that platform. Thank you to all followers who continue to tolerate me while I learn.
Filed under: Uncategorized, Writing Process/WIPs Tagged: confusion, manic depression,
4 Hours Left to Enter the February Raffle!
Many great prizes! Check this out!
Originally posted on Legends of Windemere:
Cover Art by Jason Pedersen
As of this posting there is only 4 hours left for the February Raffle! Enter now and win one of 39 prizes!
Click on the Cover Art to go to the Raffle!
Filed under: Uncategorized
February 27, 2014
Let’s Go Backwards and Criminalize Abortion, Again! My Story: Part Two
My disclaimer:
I know that self-disclosure can be a dangerous thing. With all that is going on in Texas, South Dakota, and other communities across the country, I feel a need to go there with a couple of personal stories. First and foremost, it is not my intent to debate right or wrong. Second, all I can really do is tell you how it was in my life. Third, pray that you don’t have to make the sorts of difficult decisions I have had to make. Finally, wish you the best possible outcome if you have faced or are facing similar circumstances, or know someone in such a situation.
Continuation from Yesterday’s Post:
It was 1978; I was not yet 18 years old, with a son not yet two years, an abusive, estranged husband in Germany, and an abortion two weeks behind me. I had spent the last two weeks sitting in the living room floor with my son in my arms, crying, and listening to Linda Ronstadt albums, over and over. Linda Ronstadt gave way to Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks and slowly I began to feel less sorry for myself.
I still had my job as a nursing assistant at the local hospital, but I had spent most of my money on the abortion. I knew that I could not stay in my apartment, but I had no idea where I could go. My grandparents, a hundred miles away, were clueless to all that was going on with me. I did not feel that I should trouble them.
One night, at the hospital, I met a man, D.H., who was at the hospital because a female friend of his, A.L., had overdosed. On what, I don’t know, probably Quaaludes and Tequila, since that was the passing fancy. The drug culture was not new to me as my husband and his friends were in the thick of it before he joined the Army. It was just not something I personally imbibed, except for an occasional smoke or a very rare snort of a line…which did absolutely nothing for me. It was certainly not something I wanted my son exposed to. Yet, this man made me an offer I could not refuse.
D.H. was of Polk County Pot Plane fame. (I won’t go into the details of that, you can look it up on the web, a “B” movie was made about it [the movie is a joke, not at all how things really happened]). He had led the group who unloaded the plane and had a 75 acre pot farm hidden away in the North Georgia Mountains. D.H. was a Grizzly Adams type of guy, with long, blonde, bushy hair and beard. He ran a commune in the midst of this pot farm where about forty young men and women made their home. They were mostly runaways, remnant draft dodgers, or people over eighteen who had been kicked out of their homes. Four or five of the young women had infants or toddlers. He invited me to relocate there and bring my son. All I had to do was help with the children, gardening, harvesting food and meal preparation. Being a farm girl in my youth, I thought this would work out well. My son would have playmates and I would be living the farm life again, which I had so dearly loved in my childhood.
Meanwhile, back at the apartment, I had a new neighbor, a Greek Adonis, N.K., whose friends and family owned and operated the local pizza parlor. Knowing I would be moving to this farm in the wilderness, I also knew I would have to give up my job at the hospital. I had no transportation, and while a few of the men had vehicles, I could not depend on them for a regular ride to my work. This guy, N.K., promised me a job as a waitress, paid in cash every Friday, plus keeping my tips daily. Most significantly, he would pick me up and drive me to work every day. I would only be working evenings from 4pm until 10 pm Thurs. and Sun. and 4pm to 2am Fri and Sat. I had promise of cash and a ride. I also had built in babysitters for my son.
I acclimated to life on the farm/commune quite well. I would get up and bake biscuits every morning served with grits, eggs, ham and sausage. We had goats, pigs, a couple of cows, and chickens. The vegetable garden was plentiful. We made jellies and jams from wild berries. The kids all stayed together with their toys in a huge playpen we had constructed outside and two smaller ones inside. The women, with flowers in hair, running around in tie-dyed maxi dresses, blue jeans and sandals, attended to each other’s children as needed. We were rainbow colors dancing rings around the sun.
Evenings, all would gather on a huge Asian rug in the living room in a circle on the floor, pass around the pipe, and talk about the day’s events or what was planned for the next day, listening to Marshall Tucker, CSN&Y, Pink Floyd, Bob Seger or whatever tunes we happened across. Fluorescent posters papered the walls of the old farm house, lit by black lights and strobes. We had a pet raccoon, named Rocky, and two flying squirrels that would join us. Though not ideal, I did feel safe. I did not; however, feel that I or my son had any sort of future there.
My new found friend, N.K., would come inside the house with us on those weekend nights that he drove me home from work. He was exotic, tall, dark and handsome, speaking with a thick Greek accent. I was all of 5’ 4 1/2”, 100 pounds soaking wet, had long blonde hair that I sat on, and bright green eyes. I must have seemed exotic to him. My commune friends were suspicious (and perhaps a bit jealous). N.K. drove a black on black, brand new Trans Am. One night, a couple of guys from the commune were busted in the parking lot of the pizza parlor and my friends were sure N.K. had something to do with it, but I doubted it. Needless to say, I was not trusted anymore.
N.K. vehemently denied any involvement, and I believed him. After all, he informed me that he was planning to move to NYC with his partner to open a Greek restaurant in Jamaica Bay. He offered me to join them. I didn’t know, at the time, that he was deeply entrenched with the Greek mafia. That is something I learned a thousand miles from my home and a month later. All I knew at the time is that I was promised a job in the new restaurant. N.K. also assured me that he had connections in NY that could get me a modeling job. With some hope for a future, I left my son in the care of his grandparents, and struck out for NYC.
Friend is a dangerous word in some circles. I won’t go into the details here, but I will say that his plans for me did NOT include a modeling job. At seventeen, I was merely a charm on his arm to various functions and parties in wait of my 18th birthday, which would be November 15th. N.K., and his friends, who were brothers, S.N. and L.N., and their wives, were busy setting up the new restaurant.
N.K. had secured an apartment in what was once an old bank. It was two stories. The upper rooms were stocked with evening gowns, cocktail dresses, shoes, accessories and makeup. There was only one door in or out of the large apartment. N.K. bolted it locked when he left for the restaurant every day. There was a vault in the old building that once housed a safe. The safe was no longer there, but the space had been converted into a well secured closet. The closet housed guns and drugs. My job was to guard these, call N.K. if anything suspicious occurred, and to escort the entourage of beautiful women who came and went to the upper rooms all day and all night to change clothes. These women had keys, and I didn’t. Where they went every evening, I did not ask.
One day about noon, I was sitting in the living room reading a book when I heard scratching at the front door. At first, I thought it was one of the girls who had forgotten her key. Now, it was November and already cold and windy, but there were no tree branches near that door. Then, the scratching again. I was dead bolted inside this apartment with no way out, … or so I thought. Then I heard “Ayuda! Ayuda!” There was a Peurto Rican village on one side of our Greek village and a Mexican village on the other. These were the first words I learned in Spanish, long before I learned to count.
I tried to peer out the barred window, but I could see nothing. Again, I heard, “Ayudame! Ayudame!” louder, pleading, crying. A knock at the door, timid at first, and then forceful.
I put my book down and, on a whim, tried the door. It opened, and into my arms fell a young girl. She had long black hair and large brown eyes. Her eyes were screaming with fear, yet glazed and reddened from crying. Her face was pale and dry, no tears. Unable to hold her, we both went to the ground. Her head lay in my lap. Her lips were blue. She was larger than me, but could have been my age, a young woman, not more than twenty years. She could have been younger. Her blue jeans were wet and black, soaked with blood. A pool of blood at her feet, and a trail behind her to the sidewalk and beyond. Her breath was in gasps. Her pulse was fast and thready. I had to let her go to call for help. Amazingly, people were passing on the sidewalk, and no one bothered to help at all. They glanced in our direction as if to say, “Looks bad, but not my problem,” as they stepped around the bright red sidewalk mess.
I left her there in the doorway. I made a call to the operator and asked for an ambulance. My fear, though not as great as hers, was that the police would come and find the closet. A fleeting, selfish thought. N.K. and I would go to jail. It was not something I could dwell on long. This girl was dying. Already, she slipped out of consciousness, eyes closed. I knelt beside her and held her in my arms, brushing her hair from her face with my face, and begging her to hold on. Her skin was cold against mine. I felt her spirit leave her body. I knew she was not going to make it. She was barely breathing when the medics arrived, along with the police.
They carted her off on a stretcher and into an ambulance. She was somebody’s child, somebody’s sister, she was somebody; perhaps, a mother, like me. The questions from the authorities came like rapid gunfire. Was she alone? Did I see which way she came from? Did she say her name? Had I seen her before? Did I know her? Did she get out of a vehicle? How long had she been there? Did she say anything else at all? They repeated the same questions a dozen times and all I could say was what little I knew. They took photographs. They walked all around the building. Then they left. No one asked to come inside.
I cleaned up the blood all the way to the sidewalk, and followed the trail, as the police had, to the parking lot behind the building, where it disappeared. I called N.K. on the phone and told him what had happened. He was furious with me that I had opened the door, and more so with himself for having left it unlocked. “She could have died on our doorstep!” I exclaimed.
The next day, N.K. made sure to dead bolt the door. About 10:00 am a couple came to the door, a man and a woman. They identified themselves as detectives from some task force. I could not open the door to let them in, so I spoke to them through the door. They asked me the same questions I had been asked the previous day. They told me the girl had died. She died at 5:00 pm, alone in a hospital, another statistic. Yes, it is always 5:00 somewhere. She was a Jane Doe. She had suffered a traumatic botched abortion. They believed by her pimp, or some John. Who knows? It could have been a “friend” trying to help her out of a bad situation. These were common deaths back then, not even noted in the news. She was known in the neighborhood as a street girl, Maria, like so many other Marias. No last name. Maria Doe. Just another whore. Who knows why? Somebody’s child. Perhaps, somebody’s mother.
God only knows why that door wasn’t bolted on this particular day. God only knows what life He saved Maria from, what life Maria saved me from. Or why?
Why did I find that ledger in 1992 stuck between two torn down walls?
This is from where comes some of the passion to tell the story in Red Clay and Roses.
This was 1978, just four years after Roe versus Wade, two years before I started nursing school.
The title of yesterday’s and today’s post is sarcastic. Of course, I can’t possibly imagine criminalizing abortion again. It would not stop the practice. It would only create more criminals, cause more pain and suffering.
I can’t condone abortion used indiscriminately and irresponsibly as contraception. I can support a potential parent’s right to decide and choose if they are ready to be responsible and committed to raising a child. For the child’s sake, if for no other reason.
If you want to know the rest of the story, you will have to wait until I get around to writing the memoir, autobiography, or roman à clef.
Teaser: I spent the latter part of my eighteenth birthday night naked in Central Park, near Fifth Avenue, close to the zoo, hiding behind a trash can and my hair until rescued by a soul man with a huge afro named George, and his woman, Ernestine, in a big, shiny, black Cadillac who took me to K-Mart to buy clothes. I made it back home to LaGrange, Georgia, by way of the Cayman Islands. It’s a long story.
Filed under: Short Stories, Social Progress Tagged: abortion, adoption, eighteen, foster care, love, my story, Part Two, progress, the rest of the story, youth
February 26, 2014
Should You Self-Publish?
As always, an informative and valuable post by author supporter and publishing guru, Chris McMullen.
Originally posted on chrismcmullen:
For most authors, the decision of whether to self-publish or search for a traditional publisher is a tough one. I wrestled with this decision (it fought like a crocodile) in the years leading up to 2008. Even after self-publishing multiple books in 2008 (I had one completely written and the material for several others already well-prepared), I continued to wrestle the crocodile for another seven months. Then sales of two of my books erupted and later the next summer I launched a series that became popular enough that I no longer questioned my decision.
That’s what you hope for, when you’re wondering which route to take. You’re hoping that a day will come when you no longer look back over your shoulder, wondering about the other road (that road you didn’t take is such a clichéd road, it really isn’t worth any anguish).
Filed under: Uncategorized
Let’s Go Backwards and Criminalize Abortion, Again! My Story: Part One
I know that self-disclosure can be a dangerous thing. With all that is going on in Texas, South Dakota, and other communities across the country, I feel a need to go there with a couple of personal stories. First and foremost, it is not my intent to debate right or wrong. Second, all I can really do is tell you how it was in my life. Third, pray that you don’t have to make the sorts of difficult decisions I have had to make. Finally, wish you the best possible outcome if you have faced or are facing similar circumstances, or know someone in such a situation.
It was 1975, and I was living in an orphanage, the Ethel Harpst Home, in the North Georgia Mountains. I had been in foster care for several years after a few years with an abusive step-parent on the heels of my mother’s death. I don’t believe, at that time, I knew what love was anymore. I felt love as a child and had loving grandparents, but there had been enormous fear and loneliness. At fifteen, I wanted to know love. I wanted to feel loved.
I met a guy at school. He was popular and his family was prominent. He jumped through hoops at the Harpst Home to be able to date me, meeting with the house parents and the home’s administrator. He wrote letters and his parents wrote letters. I felt immensely desirable. First, house dates for months, then away dates.
Then, on about the third away date, I was date raped…but he “loved” me, and I was just “confused”. Sex was supposed to be fun. It didn’t matter that my faith had indicated to me that I should remain a virgin until marriage. I had been violated, but he “loved” me. He bought me flowers, candy and jewelry. He called me twice a day. We had mutual friends and they were all having sex. It was the sexual revolution. Birth control pills had come out in 1960, so by 1975 everybody was on them, but me. To take birth control pills would mean admitting that I was having sex, and I could not do that. By March of 1976, I was pregnant. The Baptist Church I had been attending closed its doors to me. After all, what a horrible influence I would be to the other young women.
“Free love” was trendy, and casual sex, once forbidden, was becoming commonplace. Roe versus Wade had decriminalized abortion in 1974, and birth control was relatively easy; however, neither was readily accessible. I did have a Social Worker, Shelia Turner, who spoke to me about options. My boyfriend could be arrested for statutory rape. I could have an abortion, and not leave Harpst Home or disrupt my life in any way. I could go to an unwed mother’s house in Atlanta, give the baby up for adoption and return to the Harpst Home to complete my education. I had a $17,000.00 scholarship to Wesleyan and my teachers were encouraging a career in journalism. The option to have the baby and keep it was not suggested, but it was the option I chose.
My boyfriend was excited to become a father and eagerly offered to marry me. We were wed in the United Methodist Church. I stayed in school, and graduated early in advanced classes. At sixteen, December 20, 1976, I gave birth to a healthy bicentennial baby boy. My nineteen year old husband worked at a meat processing plant and he decided to join the Army as his father had been career military.
He completed his Basic Training and MOS in South Carolina. His first duty call was to Stuttgart, Germany. We could not go, my son and I, because he had not been in the service for two years. Before he left, he beat me severely to let me know that he could kill me if I was unfaithful to him while he was gone. I put him on a plane July 11th, 1978. There were tears in our eyes, and at seventeen years old, I took my eighteen month old son home to Cedartown, to our apartment which had a $300.00/month rent, $100.00/month power bill, and no groceries.
I discovered the rent had not been paid for the two months my husband had been home, nor had the power bill. I pawned my wedding band and engagement ring to pay the bills and buy food. A week later, I discovered I was pregnant despite being on birth control pills. I could not believe it. I also received a letter from my husband telling me simply, “I am tired of being married, so go back to South Georgia, Love Bryan. P.S. Take care of my son.” My son’s family refused me any assistance. His mother advised me to, “Woman up, like a military wife should!”
I had no car. There was no public transportation in that small town. I worked two jobs while my neighbor babysat raised my son. I worked as a clerk at the drug store from 1:00 pm until 9:00 pm, had two hours to walk home, eat, change clothes, and walk to my second job as a nursing assistant at the local hospital from 11:00 pm until 7:00 am. Had two hours to walk home, eat, change clothes and be back at the drug store to work from 9:00 am until 1:00 pm…every other day. I had from 2:00 pm until 10:00 pm every other day to be a parent and to sleep. I was earning $2.33 an hour. The clerk job was on a rotating shift and the nursing assistant job was straight nights. I was trying. The bills weren’t getting paid, and we barely had groceries.
The Church, you ask? Turned away.
After a month of these work hours, I went to the health department for assistance and was put on the W.I.C. program. I went to the Department of Family and Children’s service for welfare, but they could not help me because my husband was military. They sent me to the Red Cross.
The Red Cross could not get me food assistance, but they arranged for me to fly to Germany to speak with my husband’s Commanding Officer and tell my husband of my second pregnancy. I left Ft. McClellan, Alabama in a cargo plane alone. My son was with his grandparents.
Once in Stuttgart, I went to the guest house and then to see my husband’s C.O. He told me that Bryan had problems with drugs and alcohol, disobedience, and was heading for a dishonorable discharge if he did not straighten up. He told me that he was supposed to be living on post, but he had been staying off post. He gave me an address.
I took a cab to the address and had it wait, because I did not know what to expect. There was a store with an apartment above where I was to find my husband. I walked up the steps on the side of the building. Once at the top on the landing, I peered through the screen door to see my husband in bed with a woman who could have been my twin. It was a small apartment and the sofa was opened into a bed in the living room. They were sleeping in each other’s arms and appeared to be quite comfortable. I did not wake them. I went back down the stairs, got back into the cab, and went back to see the C.O. I told him what I saw, and that I was pregnant and needed some assistance. He assured me the he would get an allotment check cut out of my husband’s pay. I got back on a cargo plane and came home.
The allotment was $100.00 per month. I quit my job at the drug store. I filed for divorce, and went to the Hillcrest Clinic in Atlanta and had an abortion on August 25, 1978. I could not manage to feed one child alone. I was hopeless and helpless. It was how I chose to help myself and my son. It was my only hope. The divorce took two years. I remarried. My hat is off to women who have been able to raise kids alone. At age fifty-three, I have three grown children, two grandchildren, and retired early from a thirty year career in nursing.
I have no regrets.
You may be wondering why I decided to tell this story. I had an interview published yesterday that made me think about what motivated me to write Red Clay and Roses. Where did the passion come from to tell the stories of Althea, Bonnie Jean, and Sybil? A story that tells of three women with unplanned pregnancies before Roe versus Wade, and before birth control. The secrets they kept. The choices they made. Their consequences. The good doctor and how he illegally served his community. Swamp Witch Wilma and how she did the same. 1954. Do we need to go back there?
Tomorrow I will tell you the rest of the story. Yes, there is more. Tomorrow a young girl dies in my arms.
Filed under: Short Stories, Social Progress Tagged: abortion, adoption, foster care, love, my story, Part One, progress
