Waiting for that email!

So fellow authors is there anything worse than looking in that email box every five minutes waiting to see if you get offered a contract. Waking every hour of the night just to check because you know they are on a different time zone and your night is there day and you couldn't possibly wait till morning to find out. And you plead for sanity to return , hating the damn email account, and hating the refresh button even more.

I am finding myself in that position again, the waiting game and its one that I hate to play. This time seems so much worse than the first time, I guess now I have had a taste of success I want it to continue. So why would I put myself through this again...because I love what I do. The versatility suits my life style, sometimes I write through the night, or it could be in the back of the car, perhaps the library or it could be on the other side of the world sitting on my friends porch enjoying the North Carolina sunshine...oh yes I love being a writer.

How many jobs could you have where you can say your talents are so wildly focused   historian, researcher, psychologist, sex expert, typist, geologist,and the list goes on and on...what a clever lot we are!

Dilys J Carnie Contemporary Romance Author : Destiny and choosing the right path!

Dilys J Carnie Contemporary Romance Author : Destiny and choosing the right path!: Fate? Do you ever think that you're life is determined by which road you take at a certain point in you're life.  How many times do you ge...

Destiny and choosing the right path!

Fate?
Do you ever think that you're life is determined by which road you take at a certain point in you're life. 
How many times do you get the chance to choose?
Our life's are defined by our choices and what we are willing to accept. I think we all have an equal chance at choosing. Some would say that the past has stopped them from being able to choose, that they haven't been fortuitous enough to decide what is best for them. I think that we all have to take responsibility for our own destinies, at some point we have to decide what is right for us and only we as an individuals can decide..

Life is a continues lesson of learning, loving and humility and those guide lines have stood me well.
Every breath we take is a miracle  and I firmly believe that it is a gift of life that should be cherished and nurtured after all we never know what is around the corner.

Life is a struggle there is no denying that,and living with a past that haunts you can be consuming but when you finally are at ease with you're life a calming influence eases over you and at last you can finally breath out and say I struggled with it, I lived it and  I survived it . 

The reason I am feeling so philosophical is that on October 30th it will be four years since my dad passed away. He had cancer and this is what I wrote a year after he died and it started my writing career again and subsequent publishing contract I signed last June for my book 'Her Passionate Protector' coming out in November 2012.

As I sat by the bed of a dying man, my mind went back to happier days. Those days filled with laughter and fun. How could a short time make such a difference, how could life change so rapidly. It would be a long night, I didn't want to leave him, didn't want him to die on his own.

Scottish to the core, he had lived on Anglesey for thirty six years, this was his home, and this Island had been his way of life. Finally settling in Llangefni an old market town that had lost its center  almost portraying a ghost town. From the days when it had been bustling with business full of people and shoppers. Now most of the shops were boarded up.

Looking at the man laying in the bed, a shell of his former self, it broke my heart as I remembered the fun times we had as well as the bad. It had always been a tumultuous relationship, full of more downs than ups.

As the wind and rain lashed against the bedroom window, I watched the large tree sway from side to side, dropping the crumpled autumn leaves to the ground all the life and colour ravaged by the fierceness of the wind a sign of the impending winter, Sighing my gazed returned to the small frail body lying in the large bed. Eyes closed, mouth thin, suddenly I realized how old he looked. His lips were dry from the oxygen that he now needed to breathe, his chest was struggling to cope with the heaviness of his breathing. It was only a matter of time and I knew that his life was slowly ebbing away, there was  nothing I could do to stop it, even trying to make him comfortable was becoming increasingly difficult as he became more embedded in his illness.

Is this what life does to you? We are born, we live, and we die. Is it the bit in-between that counts? It passes so quickly, how can you be sure that everything you dream about becomes reality? You can't. 

I look at the body ,pale against the blue sheets, here is a person who has organized his own funeral, picked out the clothes that they want to be buried in ,spoke endlessly about all the things they haven’t been able to do. Our discussion this morning was about after life. Its strange how knowing that you are going to die changes the way in which you think, the fear of the un-known makes you want to believe in something even if you can’t see it. My dad asked me if I believed in there being something else after death. And I looked at him and said that I did and to my astonishment this made an impression on him.He had never even voiced his thoughts of what he thought was going to happen afterwards and  there was a smile of relief as it finally embedded in his mind that there would be somewhere else to go when he was finished here ,somewhere he would feel at amity with himself. No loneliness, just peace.

Picking up his bony hand I looked at body of the man that was  now a ghost of his former self I smoothed my thumb against his paper thin skin, his eyes flickered and a small smile appeared as he gripped my hand, his blue eyes pale, his pupils enlarged as he struggled to get his breath. I felt like he was apologizing for all the fights we had, all the disagreements all the un-spoken words between us.  Encasing his hand in mine, I wrapped my fingers around his and smiled, leaning my elbows on the bed so that I could get closer. The verve slowly leaving those once vibrant blue eyes I waited for the struggling breath noises to stop as I watched the existence that was his life leave his body .The silence of the room filled me with the deepest agony as I realised this person who had been part of me for all of my forty seven years was gone. Tears ran down my face as I grieved for the loss, the emptiness that surrounded me was excruciatingly painful. Putting his still warm hand to my face I kissed it for the last time.

Laying the red rose on the coffin he chose himself, I watched as it disappeared behind the curtain, as I say goodbye to my dad.

He was seventy seven years young and I never remember a time when he wasn't fit and healthy. The dreaded cancer struck him down, and little by little it ebbed away at his life. Slowly and painfully I watched him, cancer concise in its life taking abilities. I wouldn't have said he was a wonderful dad because it would have been a lie. I wouldn’t say he had always been there for me because it would have been a lie. Would I say he was the best dad in the world, no, but he was my dad and I loved him more than words could say. I miss him, miss the joking and the laughing. I miss the friendship we had at the end after such a tumultuous relationship of more downs than up’s. He was courageous, he organised his own funeral, even down to what clothes and shoes he was going to wear, making sure his shoes were as shiny as a pin. That gave me admiration for a man that I had constantly battled with for a life time.

You are constantly with me dad, I hope you are at peace as I am.

Miss you and love you. Dil x

Life is short and now as I get ready to visit his grave I wish he was here to see my success as a writer, I know he would have been proud and I know now that I forgive him .

Forgiveness is something that we should all carry in our hearts because I truly think it makes us better people.

Stress Relief

As I finally sit down with a glass of nice cold Kiwi Cuvee I wonder where does it say anywhere that when you prepare and cook a large roast dinner that you also have to clear away and stack all the dishes in the dishwasher? *raises eyebrows*  No where, but never the less they all get up from the table with what seems to be no guilt what so ever and I sit there and think what the... Evidently they think that it is my place to do it So a lesson to all you young mums out there, make sure you teach your children and husbands that you are not there to clean, cook and be general dogs body to all who pass through!!!

Going to the gym is my stress release and I love it. I will spend at least three days a week and as much as five if I am really stressed. My old bones need that extra kick up the ass to keep them from giving up entirely. Cardio makes my lungs feel like they are going to collapse at any given moment. My butt which seems to be gravitating south invariably gets cramp and at the end of it my legs almost give up completely. The only thing that stops me from caving in is my Pilates and I relax and stretch those tense muscles until I am almost slithering into the shower at the end of it.

Another six thousand words written today, yesterday was spent researching and getting my story board up and ready for this new book. Thank goodness my board stands tall (three feet) because there is a lot of research going into this next story. The best part about putting a book together is finally putting the idea you have on to paper and watching it grow into something that for three months becomes part of your life where you eat , drink, and think nothing but scenes and paragraphs I even lie in bed going over in my mind the day's writing and I have been known to get up at 2am( quite frequently) to change a scene or add some more words to the days count.I love to write at night, there is something about working through the night, no phone, no one shouting for me to do lunch or make coffee.