It was an iffy start to any trip–first sat on the runway in Greensboro for over an hour due to electrical problems, and after it was repaired had to go back to the gate to finish the paperwork (really!), so arrived in Atlanta about 18 minutes before the connection was supposed to take off. Ran to the gate to find that flight was also delayed due to weather in Dallas, so they hadn’t started boarding. And despite Scary News, everyone was patient, cordial and helpful. A stranger on the plane looked up what gate I needed to run to in Atlanta and let me know I might make it since it was delayed as well.

Should mention the hotel, not the best I’ve stayed in but not the worse. A known chain and the people were very nice. The free breakfast was one of the best I’ve ever had. But there was that mouse in our room . . . They moved us immediately to a much larger room, but the bathroom was half the size and there was no shower curtain. I’m sure the person at the desk was so unnerved by the mouse (I know I was) that he forgot to report the shower curtain. Hope we didn’t make too much of a mess.

But the good stuff was excellent. Had beautiful yellow roses for Texas waiting for me. Got to see La Daughter and her partner and their new apartment. It was so nice!  Much better than mine at their age and the neighborhood was charming – walkable to pubs and stores and still a neighborhood feeling. (Bette, recognize the table? And the mirror is hanging on the wall to the side.) A little name dropping here, but we got to meet and visit with James Hime, Edgar Award Finalist and author of Where Armadillos Go To Die among others, and his lovely wife. They are the parents of La Daughter’s partner so even more in common with them than I would have guessed. 

Dallas has some incredible restaurants and I feel like I tried them all. I’m not the kind of person who thinks to take a picture of their meal (and wouldn’t have embarrassed La Daughter in front of his parents in any case) so I have no pics of the meals, but trust me they were incredible. Had grilled scallops over corn risoto at Season 52, garlic shrimp at Javier’s, and then Sushi Zushi as a few examples.

I’d never been to Dallas before but the one place I wanted to see was Dealey Plaza. I was 10 when the world turned upside down there. We walked it and saw the book depository that even though I’d never seen personally, was so familiar to me. I was very surprised by the emotion the site brought up. I would have thought that was long in the past but it was more present for me that I could have guessed.  

Have a lot of traveling ahead of me this fall with RWA Nationals, Moonlight and Magnolia’s conference, a beach trip with the grandson and this was a great start. Even got in some writing (yes!), so it was a great kick-off to summer.

All in all have to give the visit a 9.7+. It was wonderful seeing where La Daughter lives and of course getting to meet such wonderful people. We’ll be back.

Please welcome Natasha, a brand new author from Rebel Ink! You’re welcome to ask her questions and connect through the comments!

• You are going to be new to many of my readers. Tell us about yourself.

When I’m not writing, I love sharing in experiences with my family and friends, hosting get-togethers or traveling with them, and going to events. In my quiet time, I always love reading a good book, conducting genealogy research, trying new recipes, playing guitar, gaming, browsing Pinterest, and listening to music. I love singing in the car, and you’ll find me listening to my favorite artist – Sir Paul McCartney!

• Tell us about the book that’s just come out. 

Elaina Ellis would do anything to protect her family – even if it means keeping secrets from them.

Elaina has always been a dutiful daughter. When her father suddenly dies in the summer of 1905, she begrudgingly leaves the safety of her life in Philadelphia to return to her hometown. Once there, Elaina encounters the very man responsible for her leaving her home to begin with, as well as a newcomer she distrusts—a man who seems determined to stand in the way of her future.

When the newcomer turns out to be yet another man in town Elaina feels she must answer to, she’s all too glad to leave him, and everyone else in her small, narrow-minded town, and return to Philadelphia, where she feels she belongs. Convinced that no man should dictate the course of her life, she expects to find solace from her grief and pain in the big city, but is sorely disappointed when everything starts to fall apart.

Will the secrets she harbors be her undoing? Will she ever truly find a place she can call home?

• What started your love of writing?

Honestly, fiction writing started as a means of entertaining myself during an extended trip overseas with my family when I was 8 years old. With nothing else to do, I would dream up alternate endings to my favorite television shows. So many times, I would think about what the characters were up against, and how they could have done things differently, and create new storylines accordingly. I did love books at an early age, and if anything, I’d considered myself a poet or a lyricist back then. I was 12 when I began aspiring to become a writer by profession, which was also actually when I first got the inspiration for The Ellises!

• Do you write in more than one genre – tell us a little about each one and the book you’re working on in each.

Fiction as a whole of interest to me; however, the older I get the more important I find inspirational fiction to be, which is why A Place to Call Home is just that, and I could think of no better way than to have it be my debut novel. Writing historical fiction is also a first for me, but it is something I enjoy as a reader and as a genealogy fanatic. I do have other storylines from contemporary inspirational fiction, and Christian Chick Lit in mind as well.

• Have you attended any writing conference or classes. Tell us about some that and some that have been especially helpful.

I haven’t, but plan to in the future! When I was a senior in high school, I enrolled in a freelance writing certification program on the side, which is how I got my career off the ground and landed two completely different writing gigs that have helped shape what I do most – I wrote (non-fiction) website content and had my first article published in a Christian magazine.

• Are you a member of any writing groups?

No, but I plan to be!

• How attached do you get to your characters? Do you know what happens after the book ends?

I see elements of my characters in myself or others in my life, so I frequently am thinking of how my characters would think or act to a given situation I experience, which leads to thinking up new ideas. I have to get into “character mode” and when I do, I envision myself as each of the characters in some way. Usually I know what happens after the book ends, but it sometimes can take a little while for me to envision it. When I do, it’s the lead-in for the next storyline.

• Describe your perfect writing day.

The perfect writing day to me is when I can be in a scenic setting overlooking woods or water, where I have uninterrupted time to write as soon as I wake up and have the most energy to be creative. Having free access to food and drink as the mood strikes is essential, because writing sure makes me hungry and thirsty!

• Could you tell us the one question you wish people would ask about your writing and don’t forget the answer.

Where do your inspirations come from?

NATASHA L. POLAK (nee Kohlhoff) writes and copy-edits non-fiction articles as well as Inspirational fiction, Inspirational Historical fiction and Christian Chick Lit novels, and is the founder of The Barbie Girls Project.

Her earliest writings were poems that appeared in school publications and local newspapers. Since then, she has successfully written and edited for a variety of websites, newsletters, and in-print magazines for over 20 years.

In addition to her debut fiction novel, The Ellises Book 1:A Place to Call Home, she has also authored the e-book “10 Toxic Ingredients That Should Never Touch Your Face” for Trevida.com in 2016, self-published a devotional “Love, God” in 2009, and was a contributing writer with “The Wise Guides: The Fan Navigator to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway” in 2008.

Originally from Boston, MA, Natasha spent her childhood in Manchester, NH, but has resided in Indianapolis, IN since her teens. She is married to her high school sweetheart and they have one daughter and a cat whom they refer to as their second child.

Contact her at Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, and Instagram

I know you’ve seen these ladies before – it was Roommate week for catching up. These are the strong women that helped raise me and have been there for me for more than forty years. College roommates, we’ve stayed together, raised our families together and still love each other. It’s kinda nice. 

The week was low key, just visiting and reconnecting in person rather than electronically. Since I’m now settled in my new place most of the activities were here and surrounding eating, but it’s a treat. We did go see Wonder Woman and we all loved it – strong women are what we’re about and a woman director finally got a super hero movie right! There was some shopping but not as much as you’d think. We’d planned to sit by the pool one day but it turned cold, so we stayed in and watched other movies, like Wild Oats and shared grandkid pictures. As college kids that activity never occurred to us.

We toasted our daughters at dinner last night – all have turned into strong women as well, with different adventures than ours, but strengthening as well and all have turned into lovely young women we can admire and learn from ourselves. The good thing is, they also know each other and are in touch – maybe not as much as we are, but they know they’re out there if needed and are family as well.

Okay, back to editing and writing, but with renewed strength and grounding and maybe even a little inspiration. Thanks, girls . . .

Talk about a great weekend. I held my first write-in here at the new condo. Hubby was out of town so it was just us writers, writing. Had some super writers here, you probably heard of some of them – Nancy Lee Badger, Laura Browning, Leslie Ray, and me. Others you will hear of soon.  (Don’t ask what we were laughing about in this pic – it’s rated higher than this blog)

Having never done this before, it was loose but fun. I think next time I’ll plan sprints for the writing. We did get into discussions several times, which might have kept the word count down, but were definitely educational. Some of us are hybrid writers (traditionally published as well as self-published), others were traditionally published only. That led to more than one conversation about the merits of each.

Some of us are planning to go to Nationals this year in Orlando, and discussed previous conferences. Leslie had been to RT and we queried her about that – when it gets close again, I’d like to try it. All of us are in HCRW (Heart of Carolina Romance Writers) so we talked about the chapter and possible future programs as well.

That’s not to say we didn’t write (or edit) all day. I personally wrote 800+ words and I saw a lot of finger movements over the keyboards in the other seats as well.

I am going to do this again – it was inspiring, helpful and just plain fun having such creativity going on in my home. Not to mention I cleaned house for it, so Hubby is going to be all for it as often as possible.

Nancy spent the night to have time to tutor me in some marketing (and we watched a couple of movies I’d never have watched without her – going to call it research – Fifty Shades and Fifty Shades Darker). Hey, like I said, Hubby was out of town! So sue me….