I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.
James A. Michener

Like Michener, I love writing. Writing has always been important to me. It’s as much a part of who I am as my blue eyes, Irish ancestry, and New York City roots. And like Michener, I love tangling words around the emotions and drama of humanity. Actually, I tend to love the storytelling more than I do the mechanics of writing, but without the mechanics (which have to look effortless), there is no book.  Ernest Hemingway once said, “There is nothing to writing. Just sit at a typewriter and bleed.” And so it is for me. Ah, but the finished product always gives me a thrill and the bleeding stops until I start the next manuscript.

I took a long break from writing books, although the stories called to me on a daily—and nightly—basis. I ignored the voices of the characters who whispered in my ears, telling me their stories, and asking me to put those stories on paper. I ignored the fact that writing is oxygen for me. It isn’t that I haven’t been writing, but for many years it has been for other people - for work, charitable organizations, committees, friends, and always in a "safe" way.  No one really knows that I’m attached to the work. It’s rather cowardly, isn't it?  I’ve denied myself the great pleasure - and agony - that being a writer holds.  I realize now that writing—really writing—is an agony I can’t live without. 

I’m getting much advice and confidence from the great writers of the past, and if you’ll forgive me for one more quote, William Faulkner said: “ A writer must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid."

And so I’m back to writing …for my previously unheard characters and historical figures who have been demanding attention. It has started again with non-fiction in Colonial Inns and Taverns of Bucks County: How Pubs, Taprooms and Hostelries made Revolutionary History. This book is my springboard back into the pool. No more breaks for me ever again. I have set my fingers to the keyboard, my heart to the work I so love…a little afraid…bleeding…but loving every minute of it.