This week’s Five Minute Friday prompt is Beloved. I married my college sweetheart, Kirby Branham, 24 & 1/2 years ago. Although marriage has not always been easy, it has been worth it.

I love him now more than ever!

This week’s prompt is bare which means without covering or clothing, or open to view, unconcealed. One of the hardest things for me in pursuing my career as a young adult techno-thriller novelist has been to open up myself to the public. I used to be a painfully, private person. I would go to great extremes to “not” be noticed. Many times, I was mistaken for being a snob or stuck up when I was just trying to protect myself (from what I am not sure.) .

There are still days when I sit down at the computer and have to talk myself into communicating with the public. I pray it will get easier someday. I think about a saying my husband had our kids memorize: “That which we persist in doing gets easier, not because the nature of the thing has changed, but because or power to do has increased.” I pray my nature to share is increasing. May you have the courage to face your fears and persevere to success!

Today’s prompt word for the blog hop on 5 Minute Friday is fear. So here goes my five minutes! Since I write techno-thriller novels, fear is an essential element for my professional career. Daily, as I work with characters and the “fantasy” situations that I place them in, I have to be in touch with their fears because without fear there would be no suspense.  I hate horror films and books myself, so there is a fine line between getting the adrenaline rushing and being so scared you want to pee your pants. Fear also is important in character development.  Triumphing over your fears is an important theme in my writing.  In order to do that, you first have to get in touch with your fear, spend some time with it, and then choose what your relationship with it will be.

Here’s an example from a perspective that got cut in the revision of my young adult techno-thriller novel, DiSemblance:

A bored 911 operator sat down at her sterile workstation and scanned the quote of the day:

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage. – Anais Nin

She touched her bruised side and trembled. Her boyfriend had hit her that morning. Her headset clicked. She straightened and pushed the button. “Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”

“Gunman…casket,” a frantic voice spit out between short breaths.

“Okay, calm down,” she said. “Are you in danger?”

The voice quivered, “He’s…out…there.”

I just found this really fun blog hop called Five Minute Friday at  Home Grown Families. Since writing is my thing, I thought I would give it a try. I normally write fiction so real-life honesty can be a bit scary.

Here goes my 5 minutes….or less…

When I was reading Melissa’s post and I saw her picture with her baby, my heart was touched. Then when I read, “Another year has gone by, and again I find myself wondering where the time went. I feel like I really cherish each moment with them, but when I look back over the year it seems like it all went by soo fast.” The tears started to roll down my cheeks. My oldest two kids are in college now. They were just home for Christmas and we had an amazing time together. The picture in this post was taken at the Anchorage Airport when my daughter was leaving to go back to college

1 year old Sierra & I in Russia

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…I remember sitting in a motel room in Chicago last November while I was on tour. It was late afternoon and I was preparing to speak in front of 800 kids at a high school the next day. I admit I was a little scared.( I have taken a huge step into a new world that no longer involves diapers, running kids everyday back and forth to activities and doing mounds of dishes.) As I sat by myself working on my laptop in a motel room far away from my children, my daughter sent me a very short, but profound email. All it said was she was thinking about me and came across this YouTube video by Carrie Underwood.entitled, Don’t Forget to Remember Me  I hadn’t heard the song so I stopped what I was doing and viewed it. The tears started flowing and I just wanted to take her in my arms and tell her there was no way I could ever forget her. She is engraved in my soul. Memories of her at every stage of her life will always live inside of me. It was then, at that moment, that I realized that no matter where I go or what I do. The job description may have changed, but motherhood will always be with me and for that I will always be eternally grateful. I want to salute all of the mothers out there who give their time daily doing the menial chores that bring no acknowledgement or reward except through the loving eyes and gentle hearts of the little ones they serve. I testify its all worth it! I devoted 22+ years of my life to raising 6 children and there are days when I am still heavily in the trenches and I would not change any of it for the world!  Enough honesty….I am starting to sound like a sap…..I am sure my five minutes a way…up!!!!!!!