She was short, plump, with blonded hair, a few spots telling her age, and laugh lines, her ready smile. Her eyes sparkled with every new idea and softened with love as she thought of her new granddaughter and expected grandson. Whenever she mentioned “her” Ron of 42 years marriage her voice warmed and her smile widened. On the surface she was a happy woman.

But underneath the loving-life persona lurked questions and doubt. Was there not more to life? She understood the lyric, “Is that all there is?” and continually looked for new fulfillment. She swam, walked, biked for a healthy heart. She read, read, and read some more for her mind. Ideas excited her, especially those which came unbidden as she thought about what she was reading. And then she expanded to writing.

Her first book was for her husband and two grown children, the self-published account of her childhood, growing up in a loving family of thirteen children on a farm in Oxford County. She inserted pictures, each one a song of her childhood. Her children were entranced.

Then she wrote a similar book of her love affair with her husband and their joy in raising their boy and girl. Again pictures prompted memories and she laughed and cried as she composed at the computer. Another popular self-published volume.

Her thirty-something son challenged her to write: “Mom, you’re sixty years old, in perfect health, with lots of writing skills. If you don’t write that novel now, when will you?” And so she started. And she wrote. She wrote of history, and love, of war and death, of babies and heartache. She wrote a novel of over 100,000 words.

Now she is stuck in a rewrite funk, trying to decide how best to bring this baby to its birth day. And she has put it aside for a few weeks while her life smooths out again and she regains the strength and, yes, the fortitude to persist.

And so I am here.

NOTE: The above is the bio I have written for my writing piece for our inaugural writers' group meeting tomorrow. Hope they like it.