When I was in sixth grade, my grandmother made a gorgeous yellow dress for me to wear at our school’s Easter program. Then I learned that I was to be excluded from the Easter program because…I can’t sing. When the song leader saw the tears of disappointment weaving down my cheeks he said, “You come to the program. You wear that dress your grandmother made. You stand up on the stage with your class. You open and close your mouth. But don’t let any sound come out.”
So I wore my lovely yellow Easter dress and stood proudly on the stage opening and closing my mouth—doing my best not to let any noise escape. Years later in college, our drama professor’s wife, who held a doctorate in music, told me, “Stephanie, everyone can sing. I have never met anyone who can’t sing. I’ll work with you for one hour a day for the next week. You might not be good enough to get the lead in one of the musicals, but you can at least be in the chorus.”
On the first day, Mrs. Estes worked with me for thirty minutes. She stopped. She looked as confused as a blind dog in a sausage factory. “Stephanie,” she finally said, “I don’t know what’s wrong with you, but I can’t help you. You really can’t sing.”
And I still can’t sing. It’s one of the many splendid failures in my life. Splendid, because I am about to publish book number 41. If I had been able to sing—the count would never have reached even one. I would have been pouring myself into singing and performing the way I pour myself into writing. I would like to believe that God has allowed me to use the life experiences—joys, sorrows, disappointments, achievements—and weird, unusual things like getting tossed to the ground and bitten by a lion—to write books that entertain folks who my life would never have touched if I had lived my dream of singing.
“All things work together for good to those who love the Lord.” Romans 8:28.
My father was an atheist. His code of life? If it was good for him, it was right. If it didn’t benefit him, it was wrong. Because money was tight, he ignored the State of Georgia’s traffic laws. He did not have our vehicles safety checked. Like our family, they were so dysfunctional they would not have passed.
One day when I was selling magazines to raise money for our senior class, I stopped at a house along a minor road. A man with an unbuttoned shirt and boxer shorts answered the door, an attractive blonde woman some ten years younger hanging on his arm. He curtly informed me that he did not want magazines and he didn’t appreciate his Saturday being interrupted by a panhandler. I made a few more stops along that road before turning onto the main highway. Oops! There was a Georgia State Trooper roadblock about a mile ahead.
There was only one dirt road between me and the roadblock, so—I took it. A highway patrol car left the roadblock and drove to the entry of the dirt road. The trooper sat in his car watching me. Attempting to hide the fact that I was quivering like pudding, I parked the car, got out, walked boldly to the door of the house and knocked. The man in the boxer shorts, still adorned with the blonde on his arm stared at me in disbelief before he bellowed, “You were just at my front door. Get out of here and don’t ever come back.”
I chanced a look back to the end of what I now realized was a long driveway—not a road. Yup. Highway patrol car still there. I gulped. “Do you mind if I go around the side of your house?”
“I don’t care how you go—just get!”
So I drove up a bank, across rocks, through a flowerbed and around to the front of the house to the main road and drove home watching the rearview mirror all the way.
Had I stopped at the roadblock, perhaps the old Cadillac I was driving would have been off the road before the frame broke in four places and the car fell down on the tires in downtown LaGrange when I was on my way to college.
Had our vehicles passed Georgia’s safety inspection, perhaps the brakes on the VW Beetle I drove after the death of the Caddie would not have failed at a traffic light causing me to jump the sidewalk and drive uphill into someone’s yard to keep from having an accident.
Then there was the tie rod end that broke at highway speed on the truck that replaced the Beetle. I wasn’t a Christian at the time and didn’t know that Jesus had saved my life, but the driver in the oncoming car did. He stopped and said, “Girl, someone up there really loves you. You could have been killed.”
Then there was the car that replaced the truck. It lost one front wheel—the entire wheel—at highway speed when I was taking my grandmother home from shopping. Flames shot up into the air over the roof of the car as it careened down the road on a metal rim. Poor Grandmother, who must have been in her seventies at the time, had to walk home with me—two miles on a dark road along a narrow shoulder.
There is usually a good reason for the roadblocks in our lives. It pays to stop.
Roadblocks direct relationships, too. After my husband’s cancer death, I fell in love with a man 10 years younger than me. We enjoyed being together so much that he hired me to travel around Texas with him selling merchandise. He proofread my second book. I went to his church. He went to my church. I met his family. They loved me. I loved them. When his dad—who was in his eighties—died, he would receive more than one million dollars. We discussed marriage. I told him I had to marry him—he was one of the few men I knew who didn’t say, “ain’t.” We sat down and disclosed everything about our pasts that might prove a roadblock. I told him about the childhood sexual abuse I had endured from my father and explained that as a writer—I might need to go public. That bothered him, but it wasn’t a roadblock. He still wanted to marry me. Then he admitted that he smoked pot regularly. I was shocked. He had never used it around me. That roadblock stopped me. While we were together, I had completed two books which were not yet published.
After we parted at the roadblock and I met my husband Alan and moved to Scotland, the first two books were published. I have now written 35 more and re-written the first two so I could self-publish them. That would never have happened on the road in Texas with the man who—however briefly—flung stars into my night sky and painted sunrises and sunsets in vivid colors. Quite a few of the books including the soon-to-be-published “Grey For Murder” are set in Scotland.
There is usually a good reason for the roadblocks in our lives. It pays to stop.
“For this is God, our God forever and forever, He will be our guide even to death.” Psalm 48:14.
I truly enjoyed reading an autobiographical book written by a Texas friend of many years and many seasons, “Struggling Against the Wind: Living With NF1,” written by educator Dan Zavorka. Dan’s diligent work with students and his dedication to teaching has resulted in Bandera decathlon team winning clear up to the state level against much larger high schools year after year.
The journey that Dan, wife Sheila, and daughters Sara, Gina, and Dana have shared is amazing, heartwarming—and at times—scary and heartbreaking. Shelia, Gina, and Dana all battle the genetic condition neurofibromatosis. They not only fight a private medical battle against NF, but reach out to teach others about it and spread awareness.
Additionally, “Struggling Against the Wind” is inspirational. Dan discovered and fell in love with one word early in his life: providence. Dan’s recounting of his family’s life experiences illustrate Divine Providence and the rewards of putting God first.
Dan is not the first author in the family. Daughter Gina has written a children’s book, “Andy’s Moustache.” Sara illustrated it.
Dan grew up on a farm in Wyoming and can look into a cow’s face and identify its breed. Using humor, Dan illustrates the problem with standardized tests for all students. When the word “taxi” hit him on a test, Dan had no idea what it was. He and his dad—who survived getting struck by lightning and later falling from three stories—knew about tractors and cattle, but city taxis were alien to them.
I related to that. I remember a visit to an upscale Dallas, Texas Restaurant many years ago. Like Dan, I was a country girl. When I went to use the restroom, I couldn’t get the toilet to flush. Embarrassed to leave the toilet without flushing it, I finally opened the door to the stall anyway. The toilet flushed and my long skirt, which was still trailing over the seat, got soaked.
Next the sink. I tried to get soap on my hands to wash them, but no soap came out. I pushed, prodded, shook, and tried desperately to get soap. Zip. Zilch. None. But when my hands came off the soap container and slipped under it as I was looking for the water—soap poured out and covered the countertop. Next was the water. Zip, Zilch. None. Then, when I bent down to look more closely at the facet (I had to have water—my hands were coated with soap), water poured out and wet my forehead. I jumped back from the streaming water and heard a “rumph, rumph, rumph” noise beside me. In horror, I found paper towels pouring out of the automatic dispenser and filling up my purse. By the time I got back to the table with my boss…I was a nervous wreck.
Country folks like Dan and I might get “caught out” in different situations, but the God we serve is never caught by surprise. “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard.” Psalm 19:1-3.
Sometimes God’s gifts involve having the right people in the right places at the right times.
I just released my 37th Christian cozy mystery-romance. It would have been impossible for me to write had I not been in the right place at the right time. Bandera, Texas, “Cowboy Capital of the World,” is home of my heart. I set my newest book, “Paid for Murder” at a Texas Hill Country Dude Ranch. The location is fiction, but the flood event at the start of the book is real, based on the historic Medina River Floods of 1978, and 2002. Even though Bandera is home, I have left it several times over the years—most recently now. I am currently living in Scotland. However, God took me back home for the floods that shaped the opening chapters of “Paid for Murder.”
Approximately 15 years ago while I was working at a Bandera newspaper I was sent to interview a Scottish minister who had exchanged pulpits with a Pipe Creek pastor. I rebelled against leaving the newspaper office to do the interview. We were on deadline and I needed to write up my notes from a city council meeting, a county commissioners’ meeting, and a school board meeting. I did not welcome another story to write for that week’s edition. However, the person assigned to interview the Scottish pastor didn’t show up at work that day. The minister was leaving to go back to Scotland. It was the last chance to get a picture of him and interview him. So stomping, spitting, and feeling sorry for my overworked self—I went. The pastor was Alan T McKean, my husband.
I am reminded of the book of Esther in the Bible. Esther was a poor Jewish girl who was in the right place at the right time to become queen. When a jealous rival of her uncle’s planned to kill not only Esther’s uncle, but also the Jewish people, her uncle asked Esther to intercede. He said to her, “Who knows whether you have come into the kingdom for such a time as this?”
There was a law that anyone approaching the king when he had not called for them would be killed. The king had not called for Esther. She said to her uncle, “I will go to the king which is against the law; and if I perish, I perish.”
So Esther bravely went before the king and he not only accepted her, he accepted her people and turned the evil maneuvering of the enemy against himself so that he fell into the trap he had set for Esther’s uncle and the Jewish people.
God gives gifts. Each day of life is a gift from God. He daily loads us with benefits. Sometimes, it is just being in the right place at the right time.
“To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven.” Ecclesiastes 3:1
One of the places we lived when I was a child was an old antebellum house in Georgia that survived Sherman’s march to the sea. A former carriage road ran in front of the graceful (but falling down) house which was serviced by an outhouse just off the carriage road. The house had no bathroom, no running water. A log cabin off to one side of the house and surrounded by a sea of yellow daffodils in the spring was the first slave cabin in our county. The house had history galore…but no comfort.
The highway ran behind the house instead of in front of it. Every school morning we had a long trek down the red clay driveway to the bus stop. Because the field surrounding the house was by default our front yard, one of my jobs was to mow it with a push mower. Mowing the actual front yard that adjoined the carriage road was a relatively quick and easy job except for twice—once when a swarm of bees took objection to the mower and once when I moved some debris out of the way and unknowingly disturbed a wasp nest. Mowing the three-acre back yard/front yard, however, was pretty much an all-day job.
No one else in the family—parents, grandmother, six younger siblings—wanted to mow. They rather questioned my sanity for enjoying the arduous task. That’s because they didn’t know my secret.
My secret was that even though I pushed the mower through grass and weeds, picking up rocks that were in the path, and avoiding harmless snakes and baby rabbits—I wasn’t just mowing the yard. I was building stories. With every forward thrust of the mower characters emerged and conversations evolved. Every time I tugged the mower to life with the pull rope and started through the enormous field—new stories, new conversations, new book plots materialized from the green expanse in front of me.
I don’t remember if I ever came in from mowing and wrote down any of the stories. I rather doubt it. I was probably too hot, too tired, too sweaty—and with no running water in the house and no bathroom—I couldn’t jump into the shower and wash off the sweat. With a household of ten and no privacy, baths were sponge baths in a basin and timing them right for the sake of modesty was challenging. Nonetheless, I loved to mow. I still do.
Any physical task that requires more brawn than brain is an ideal opportunity to people my head with characters, conversations, and story plots. It’s not work, it’s not a chore—it’s an exercise in imagination building.
The Bible says, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do with all your might,” Ecclesiastes 9:10.
Work presents an opportunity for imagination building.
To borrow the title of a song from the 1968 musical with John Davidson and Lesley Ann Warren, ‘Bout Time. Bout time unborn children qualified for their Second Amendment Right under the Constitution of the United States of America – the right to Life.
Some folks believe they are perfect. Perhaps they are, but probably not. Perfection is a stress-inducing condition from which I can cheerfully proclaim I do not suffer.
I can’t imagine the burden of needing to always be right—or to have other people think that you are—or of never making a mistake (or thinking you never do). Some of the most miserable folks I know are perfectionists. Stress is a killer. It starts on the face by killing the smile and turning it upside down.
Some of my mistakes have been notable: spending an extra $100 from my bank account because I read the teller’s receipt wrong and thought the money was there (so did the bank—so the Lord saved me on that one); turning our wedding cake into body shield armor by cooking an artificial sweetener for the frosting instead of powdered sugar; showing up at the wrong place at the wrong time because I always get lost—the list is long. Most recently, it was the first of the two books I wrote while I was stuck in the hospital with an infection in a hip replacement. I decided that the title “Utopia House Murder” had more punch than my first choice, “Murder at Utopia House.” I sent the change to the cover illustrator, but not to my editor. Oops! The book came out on Amazon as “Murder at Utopia House,” but the cover was “Utopia House Murder.” Fortunately, most mistakes can be rectified and the title now matches in both places. Whew!
Utopia House Murder is—like most of the other books I have written—a Christian cozy mystery-romance-suspense, but at the same time—it is unlike any of the other books I have written. Sadly, I can’t differentiate between the two here because that would be impossible without dropping a spoiler. And for a writer—spoilers are unforgiveable mistakes.
We, as humans, make mistakes. “As for God, His way is perfect; the word of the LORD is proven; He is a shield to all who trust in Him.” Psalm 18:30.
Writers are strange creatures. They find inspiration in strange places.
Friend One: “That was a terrible thing that happened to him.”
Friend Two: “What an ironic way to die.”
Writer: “I can use that in a book.”
Not wanting it to sound like I’m exercising false humility, because it’s true—God writes my books. I’m the typist.
Inspiration is like gold. Sometimes it’s lovely and unexpected—a nugget resting on top of desert soil. Sometimes it’s hidden in gravel and discovered after traveling down the riffles in a wet or dry washer—alternatively known as the hardships of life. Sometimes it’s the streak of bright shining metal in a quartz rock—obvious, but needing to be ferreted out.
Nearly all my books are Christian cozy mystery-romances. The idea for “Body in a Tree Murder” sprang from the memory of a Texas Hill Country motorcycle accident I covered for the local newspaper. “Unsigned Card Murder” came from an incident in church where a person refused to sign a birthday card and left me wondering why. The opening paragraph for “Body from the Sky Murder” hit me when I sliced open a bell pepper and found a perfectly formed baby sitting inside. “Balloon Body Murder” fell into place after I read a newspaper article about the new Texas law that allows hunters to shoot feral hogs from balloons, and “Thawed to Death” from a news item about a body found in a freezer.
Inspiration for my newest book, “Signed to Death,” developed after I watched an antiques program on TV and had the random thought, “You could hide a body in one of those old signs.”
“Look out!” Maj yelled as the huge orange gulf gasoline sign with blue letters lumbered toward me down the slopped driveway. The warning came too late. The metal frame hit me. My feet came off the ground. I fell. So did the dead guy inside the sign.
Regardless of the initial source of inspiration for my books, the ultimate author is God. “For God is not the author of confusion but of peace.”
There is one thing in my books for which I take complete and total credit for—mistakes.
Writers of both sexes understand giving birth. It’s exhausting. Writers give birth every time they release a new book, or new words for any media. It’s a moment of extreme pain—wondering if they got it right, if it will grab readers, if they will get good reviews, if readers will like it. It’s a moment of great joy. Holding a book inside is—to quote Jeremiah in the Bible—like fire burning in your bones. It has to get out before the flames can be quenched.
“Body in a Tree Murder” is number 31, or 34 for me—depending on how one counts. I don’t usually count the first three. They were written under a different last name and so long ago that I’m not sure they are still available. I certainly never get any money for them!
My atheist father wrote four anti-God books before his publisher was killed in a car wreck and my father quit writing. When I first started writing my goal was to write at least one more than he did to counterbalance any derogatory or lasting effects his books had wielded. However, writing is so much more than that to me. It is simply something that I cannot not do. I am only alive when I am writing and giving birth. No matter how much it hurts.
Vacations are good for many reasons including expanding experiences. Writers are often advised to write about what they know. Research is great, but there are still things one will probably not learn through research alone.
Had I not moved to Scotland, I would never have known that it stays light up until 11 p.m. in the summer. I would never have known that it is cool to cold even in the “summer” and that it rains almost every day—especially in the marine climate where we live. I would not have known that when something is sickening it scunners people; when something is shaky it is shoogly; wet, grey, and rainy days are dreich; imagining things is havering; juice is any kind of drink besides coffee and tea – meaning all sodas; that tea is not only tea to drink but also the evening meal; that when someone is sick they look peelie-wallie, and that paddocks are frogs.
We just got back from a vacation, an enjoyable bus tour to “the borders” between Scotland and England. My favorite part of the vacation was the evening meal that I did not have to cook. We visited interesting places including Abbotsford, the castle-like home of author Sir Walter Scott who is famous for his literary works, his compassion and appreciation of people from all stations in life—an oddity during his lifespan from 1771 to 1832, and his quotes: “Is death the last sleep? No, it is the last and final awakening.” “The misery of keeping a dog is his dying so soon.” “Love rules the court, the camp, the grave, and men below, and the saints above, for love is heaven and heaven is love.”
Some of the tour was a bit like hard work; rising early for breakfast and boarding the bus, uncomfortable adventures like getting stuck in bathrooms, and—for someone like me who hates shopping—getting dropped off in cities and left to wander up and down the streets looking at things that I have no interest in purchasing. On a hip that needs replacing.
Getting home and back to the computer was more than a joy to me. It was a vacation-vacation. Reconnecting with family and friends to share their needs for prayer and to celebrate their achievements, getting back to work on the book I started before we left, and spending time with our precious Savannah again and taking her on walks. As Sir Walter Scott said, the tragedy of dog ownership is that we outlive them and that makes every day with them—every walk with them—priceless.
Writing is hard work. But God works too. “Praise the LORD! His work is honorable and glorious, and His righteousness endures forever. He has made His wonderful works to be remembered.” Psalm 111: 1-4.
You don’t need to leave your house to have a vacation if you love your life and your work.
Stephanie Parker McKean 