Writing about Wilma . . .

Wilma Withdrawal

is definitely happening!

After completing any major project, there’s some kind of letdown I’m thinking...

It happened after completing my first book, The Orangewoods—Seasons in the Country Artfully Lived, which was published three months into the pandemic.

An extremely soft landing into a shutdown world.

It happened with my second, After Goya—A Mature-ish Fairytale. With this one, the letdown lingers with me regretting at times that I hadn’t written it in first person.

I will tell much of that story again from my viewpoint, along with the story’s magic and inspiration that continues to this day.

My third book, WILMA, is due to be published any day now. Details coming soon.

But for now . . .Wilma Withdrawal is definitely happening!

The withdrawal began after a two-year period of weekly, sometimes bi-weekly “in sessions” with one of the most vital, vibrant, and venerated humans to ever enter my life, who would turn one-hundred years old this November.

Wilma, an accomplished artist, and I stumbled into our project—her remembering, me prodding; her omitting, me inserting; her telling, me retelling; her living it, my polishing her wildly and worldly epic.

I knew Wilma casually and socially for many years before our serendipitous venture into writing her life story. She asked. I agreed. Simple as that.

Simple to start, but more and more complex and rewarding with each written word. Especially, her colorful and often bawdy off-the-cuff quips which always shocked, no matter how often I heard one come from her regal presence.

Regal she was. But scruffy and bold and hilarious.

Hilarious as she recounted love affairs, before, between, after and during her five marriages. Stepchildren, stock deals, real estate deals, collecting seashells, and sex.

No wonder, my life was full and challenging and so dang entertaining as she and I worked together in perfect harmony to tell her story and to get it told before she turned one-hundred.

Tell the story and plan the gala for the larger-than-life centenarian.

How it all turned out is now on the printed page.

Like her raucously unpredictable life, Wilma’s story ends unpredictably. I couldn’t make this up.

I am unable to predict what’s in store for me now.

My writing life has withered. Non-existent, in fact. I am uninspired in the same way I was after completing my first books.

But this is graver...

I am suffering from Wilma Withdrawal.

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COMING SOON!