Dear Mr. President

I am the widow of a US Veteran, the single mother of a disabled child, and a critically acclaimed--ahem--starving romance writer.  I live on a very limited income, and many months we barely make ends meet.

However, I beg you, please do not extend our tax break if it means the wealthiest Americans will also get theirs.  Please, let us pay our fair share so they will pay theirs, too.  America needs the money.  We need the money to keep schools open, to pay teachers, to provide food and shelter and health care to those who have none.  We need to take care of our Veterans who have given their all for our country.

Please...do not give us a tax break.  Not if it means the Buffets and Trumps of this world also get one.  Make them pay their fair share.


Thank you, Mr. President.


Sincerely,
Deb Stover

Mother, Grandmother, and...
MSgt David Allen Stover's widow

Thanksgiving, Snow, Etc.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and made some lasting memories.  You never know when you may need them.  I pull mine out every year and go through a mental slide show of holidays past.

We woke this morning to about six inches of fresh snow.  Very pretty.  The Palmer Lake Star has been lit for the Season, too, so it's beginning to look a lot like...  ;-)  Of course, the most beautiful photo I've ever seen of our Star is this one, taken last winter on a bitterly cold full moon night after Christmas by my gentleman friend, Martin Yaslowitz.

I took these snow pics before the sun had fully risen, and they're a little fuzzy--not enough coffee--but not too bad for phone pictures from an amateur.  :)  I'm a writer--not a photographer. 

Speaking of which, I am in the process of preparing some of my back list titles for Kindle.  Check my website for details.  A Willing Spirit will be first.

Happy reading, all!

The F Word

My name is Deb Stover and I'm a genre slut--technically, a sub-genre slut.  My published novels, short stories, and novellas all fall under the romance and/or women's fiction umbrella.  However, from there they pretty much run the gamut.

Time travel, historical, paranormal (ghosts, reincarnation, angels, curses, witches, devils, fairies), fantasy, contemporary, suspense/mystery, western, sexy and not-so-sexy, humorous and serious, scary and not-so-scary, and...so forth. 

Yep, I'm a serious sub-genre slut....

My brilliant literary agent advised me a decade ago that I should focus.  I cringed.  The "f" word?  F-f-f-f-focus?  Only write one kind of book?  Seriously?

Yes, seriously.  In order to build my readership, I should f-f-f-f-focus on one sub-genre for several books and stop being so, er, promiscuous with my muse.

This is like the desert island question.  If you were stranded on a desert island with only one book to read, what would it be?  Voracious readers consider this a special level of hell.  One book?  Yikes!  What a nightmare...

So, just as I decided to try f-f-f-f-focusing on contemporary paranormal romance for a while, my personal life went into the tank.  My husband's cancer came out of remission and became terminal, my health took a horrible turn, and I spent approximately six years pretty much unable to work.  I finally finished The Gift, which is a paranormal contemporary romantic suspense psychic empath ghost story (big grin), and realized, after losing my beloved husband, that I did not want to f-f-f-f-f-f-focus on this type of book.

Life is too short, and writing is too hard, not to follow our muse.  Yes, I absolutely agree with my brilliant agent's F-word advice.  She's wise far beyond her years.  However, I realize now I need to f-f-f-f-f-focus on the books of my heart.

I need to practice what I preach.  I often tell beginning writers not to write what they don't enjoy reading.  I ask them what type of book first made them sit down at the keyboard and type that first manuscript.  So I asked myself those same questions.

I've just completed a proposal I warned my brilliant literary agent is "classic Deb Stover."  Bless her, she said, "That sounds wonderful."

Let's hope she still feels that way when she reads it.  :)

Writing is hard work--really hard work.  Before we publish, we do it for love, and because our Muse demands we breathe life into the characters who haunt us day and night.  There's no money, no royalties, no deadlines.  It's all for the passion and pleasure of storytelling.  And, if we get lucky, we get both.

I got lucky back in 1995 when my first book was published.  I have to say that almost every one of my published novels have been books of my heart.

I'm ready to get lucky again.

Happy writing and reading!

Love,
Deb

Peace...

Warning: Some may call this political, but--maybe--it's a little common sense, too.

Like many other Americans, I am weary of the arguments about religion and government. This nation was founded by people fleeing persecution, seeking religious freedom, and our Constitution was written to ensure all the freedom to worship--or not--as they see fit. We are not a "Christian Nation," as so many want to say. We are a free people--free to choose our own paths without fear of persecution or ridicule.

Thomas Jefferson wrote: "Believing that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their Legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State" (Letter to the Danbury Baptists, 1802).

I think, most of all, we are tired of the hate, the ridicule, the talking heads fanning the flames of the craziest of the zealots from both sides. What happened to civil discourse? What happened to reason and compassion? What happened to simple human courtesy?

What happened to the Constitution of the United States of America, which grants us the freedom to choose how, if, where, and how we worship...?

Live and let live. Let's get on with the business of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Let's feed our hungry, heal our sick, house our homeless, and try to work together to make this a better world than it is today.

Peace to all, and happy reading.

~Deb, who now returns us to our regularly scheduled program

Silver and Gold

I had an experience today that reminded me how important memories and childhood friendships can be. It also reminded me of a song from Girl Scouts--Brownies, I think.

"Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other's gold."

We can never have too many friends, and--as my late husband always said--life is way too short to carry a grudge.

Happy reading, all. Love, Deb

"I got a Happy Meal and Mommy got a baby!"

Today is my daughter, Bonnie's, 30th birthday. Many of you know her online as "Princess Bonnie," which she is in every way. She's sunshine blended with a healthy dose of Missouri mule. ;)

After our birth daughter, Barbi, was born on Christmas Eve in 1981, my obstetrician informed us that another pregnancy was "paramount to a death wish." I have this nasty blood-clotting disorder that makes pregnancy very high risk. So we spoiled our beautiful baby for four years, then started looking into adoption.

One thing we knew for certain--we wanted an infant. The other thing we realized after taking a workshop on special needs adoption was that we had absolutely no qualms about bringing a baby with Down Syndrome into our home. So after completing this program and our home study, we went on a waiting list as not only potential, but eager, adoptive parents for a newborn with Down Syndrome. Imagine our surprise when a mere 3 months later, the phone rang to inform us that our wait was at an end.

We lived near Tulsa, Oklahoma at the time, and Bonnie was born in Oklahoma City. The laws at that time would not permit "placement" until she was eleven days old. We stayed in constant contact with the agency. Not only was she born with Down Syndrome, and a little premature, but she also had a heart defect, which isn't uncommon. Because her birth mother didn't have medical insurance, the only test that had been done was an EKG. Our medical insurance would cover Bonnie the moment she came into our family, so I made appointments for her with a pediatric cardiologist and our pediatrician before we even brought her home.

Finally, the day arrived, and the social worker suggested we meet somewhere between Oklahoma City and Tulsa. Dave took the day off from work, and the three of us packed the diaper bag, car seat, and blanket I had crocheted for our new baby, and drove to the appointed rendezvous point.

McDonald's, of course!


Bonnie only weighed four pounds, fourteen ounces. Considering her big sister had weighed eight pounds, seven ounces, holding her was like holding half a baby. Pretty scary little bundle, but sooooooo loved and soooooo adorable. People stared at us in the restaurant while we exchanged baby and paperwork. I have to admit, looking back, it must have looked a little clandestine, but nothing could have been more right or good.

The next morning, when I took 4 1/2-year-old Barbi to Noah's Ark Preschool, she marched in the door and proudly announced, "We went to McDonald's. I got a Happy Meal and Mommy got a baby."

The teachers and other parents looked at her with their mouths agape when I stepped through the door behind my daughter holding our tiny Bonnie. All I could do was laugh, because Barbi had simply told the truth. After the initial shock and a few explanations, we made our trip to the cardiologist, where we learned that Bonnie's heart murmur wasn't as serious as originally feared. While she did require heart surgery at eighteen months, she now has a normal--and very loving--heart.

Since that wonderful day in 1986, we went through another so-called "special needs" adoption to add our son, Ben. As far as my late husband and I were concerned, the only special needs were ours, and our children have fulfilled them and then some. Since both our adopted children are of other races, I was often asked while out shopping whether or not they were my "real" children. I always smiled and said, "Of course. I left the pretend ones at home."

It's all about love--not blood or DNA.

Each of our children was meant to be part of our family. It doesn't matter how they came to be here. We're family. Period.

Bonnie's special all right, but not because of that extra number twenty-one chromosome. She's special because she's Bonnie. Her dad often said she was born missing the mean gene. I think he was right....

Happy birthday, Princess Bonnie.

Love, Mom

Once Upon a Time...

In a land far, far away, known as Wichita, Kansas, I met a handsome prince. It was 1976, and I was only 19, though I thought--of course--that I knew everything. He was 21 and had recently left the US Air Force Academy and was stationed at McConnell Air Force Base. My mother thought he was a "walking, living, breathing doll." And, well, he was. We were married on August 6th, 1976, and remained together until our children and I lost him to cancer on May 14th, 2005. He was, and always will be, our hero .

Love,
Deb

August 6th, 1976 in Wichita, Kansas

My Favorite Photographer's 1st Show

Please join local photographer Martin Yaslowitz at Covered Treasures Bookstore, Corner of Second & Washington in Monument Colorado, on July 15th between 5:30 and 8:00 PM to view his amazing images, and to discuss the joy and challenges of photographing our Tri-Lakes region. For more information, Email: covrdtreas@aol.com or Phone: 719.481.2665

The beautiful slide show you see here on my blog is his work, as is my publicity photo. :)

~Deb