Dear Readers,
The following description for the official Stillwater page and background of the series were originally posted on my old blog (no longer in existence) back in 2024 whenever the last two editions of the series were initially released. Except for the initial introduction to the works and (then) release dates, I have left the following descriptions and background entirely unchanged from when it was originally written because, as I have said elsewhere and will say again in the future, I do not ever change nor delete my words. I believe that, as an author who takes my work seriously, and writes with passion and soul directly from the heart, a good relationship with readers and reader trust is a most fundamental thing. As such, I want readers to know the author and the history of the author as much as the works themselves.
The Stillwater novels are being categorized as historical romances (20th century). The manuscript of the original Stillwater has recently been completely reformatted and edited to weed out any remaining grammatical or technical errors (except the intentional ones!) that were left over in the text, but other than that, absolutely nothing about the original script has ever been altered or changed in any way—nor will it ever be. The only exception is that I went in and added a specific date to the beginning of the story. It made me sick inside to even do that much, but, as I explain below, there was never supposed to be another Stillwater. The original novel was supposed to be set vaguely sometime in the 1950s, but, since I was now writing additional novels to create a series, and I didn’t want my story running into the 1960s, I had to push the date back as far as feasible.
But other than this tiny detail, the script of the original Stillwater remains to this day precisely how it was originally written, precisely how it was meant to be. I even made a grammatical mistake in the opening right at the beginning before the book begins. I was in the process of editing the manuscript and was going to change it. I even started to correct it, but then I stopped myself and put the mistake right back in the way it originally was. I ended up leaving the mistake in the manuscript when I went to edit it because I remembered where I was when I wrote it. I was sitting on the computer, right there at that old kitchen table of ours, years ago, daydreaming with a glass of red wine right beside me, so I left that mistake in the script because it represents a memory, a piece of personal history.
Readers should understand, as I said, that there was never supposed to be another Stillwater. I know my husband always said “You need to write another Stillwater!” (I’m sure it was probably the sex scenes) and I always simply responded “Never.” This is partly because writing another Stillwater would include—cringe—actually going back and reading my own novel, but also because I just didn’t want anything to do with it. I left the book out there, kept it on the market over the years. If somebody found it and wanted to read it, then, great, but if not, well, oh well. I didn’t care.
To illustrate just how much I neglected this work, I even lost the original manuscript and actually had to retrieve it from Amazon. I wanted no part of the book and, in fact, kind of hated it. Some people apparently like the book, but I, of course, never did. In fact, I always hate all of my works and, surely, just as soon as this post is up, I will hate these two new works as well and wonder why I ever wrote them. I always say that the only thing worse than nobody reading my works is that somebody might actually read them. That’s part of what keeps me writing. I guess I just have a mental breakdown or something, write a novel (or two), hate it, then have to go and write something else—something better! —to try to forget all about it.
But something made me change my mind about Stillwater. Part of my disdain for and reluctance to ever write another Stillwater, besides the obvious fact that I wrote it, is also my love-hate affair with the state of Arkansas. Much the same as the disdain I feel inside for what my homeland overall has become, I feel that same disdain inside for what Arkansas is now, what I know it has become. It’s not a place that I can love, not a place I even want to so much as ever see again unless I absolutely have to (and even then, the rare times I go back there, I try just to close my eyes), nor is there much good left of it to ever recommend, and, though I might still defend Arkansas at times, or at least the spirit of what it might once have been, I’m not proud of the fact that I even have any ties whatsoever still to the land. To this very day, if there is any social ill or negative life outcome or expectancy, Arkansas continues to fall right to the bottom of the barrel on every indicator. But, in the end, it was that very disdain itself that made me say, “Okay. I’ll do it. I’ll write another Stillwater.”
Whereas with Indira I killed my homeland in the fiction, with Stillwater I instead preserve it. Recent political events in America are partly predicated on rising feelings of despair, displacement, anger, and discontent among the native populace at large, as well as underlying cultural currents seeking to return and restore America to a former state of greatness—of prosperity and glory. Of course, several millennia of human history showcase the grim and harsh reality that the latter just simply isn’t possible. Nonetheless, much the same as with the Wild West, the good elements and prosperity of the past can still be immortalized both in history as well as in fiction, thereby living on forever in the human heart. When I write, I also write with the understanding that fiction can oftentimes have a profound and lasting influence on culture. This is never far from my mind when I write.
As far as why I write what I write, this is something that is not always clear even to me. When I write, I have no plans. I have no outlines—not even for my novels. I was always told in my school days (both as an adolescent and even in higher education) that outlining was the key to good writing—outline, outline, outline! But I could never do it. Ask me to write a 50-page law article, and I could well meet that challenge (without outlining), but if anyone were to ask me to make a 2-page (even double-spaced) simple outline, even on the simplest of subjects, I’m stumped.
I suppose I was just born with some kind of strange mental deformity or something, but I can literally just sit in solitude and silence and plots, characters, and scenes simply pop up in my head. Like a motion picture before my eyes, I can see, hear, and feel everything as though it were happening in real life. I just daydream of people, of a basic plot, of a time and a place, and when I sit down to write more characters, scenes, and plot twists just pop up as I go along. I don’t know who the characters will be or what will happen. I can’t shove them into a box and place them into an outline of where they are to go or what they are to become. The story becomes what it will be, and I never know just how it will end until I get there. I just simply record whatever happens in my mind.
If anyone were to ask me why I wrote the original Stillwater, that one is quite easy. I was dissatisfied with romance novels, kind of fed up with how watered down and tame that they were, especially the ones published after the mid-1980s or so, and sick of always dealing with the same stubborn-minded feminist heroines, and the same ‘ol, same ‘ol plot.… So, one day I just had the idea that I’d write my own. I know there have been books written about Arkansas, but most that I’ve ever seen have dealt with the same old stories of racism and segregation, etc. And while these might be important themes in their own right, to the best of my knowledge nobody has ever (or such a thing has been extremely rare—I’ve never found one) written a historical romance novel set predominantly in rural Arkansas —and especially not of the old-school, “bodice-ripper,” truly propping up the good ol’ patriarchy variety—before. So, I set about to write one. I had no idea how to even go about writing a novel. Again, I just dreamt up a basic scene, got started with a blank document, and the rest is history. I dreamt it all up from scratch, no outlines, no anything. I got stuck somewhere three-quarters of the way to the end, so I sat down to daydream again. The next day, the heroine then had a dream, and the plot continued on.
When it comes to the subject of the novel Indira, however, the story is a bit different. If anybody were to ask me why I wrote that novel, or why it went the direction that it did, I can honestly say “I don’t know.” And I don’t know. I started working on Indira in the fall of 2023, right after I finished my memoir (I don’t like to talk about that, either, and probably never will again). I just felt a darkness inside that’s hard to describe. So I sat down to write. Subtly weaving bits and pieces from the fabric of history into a dark and dystopian world, that darkness simply became what it was.
And so it goes with Stillwater II and Stillwater III. After I finished with Indira, I guess I just saw Stillwater sitting over there, all alone and abandoned. I began to think seriously about writing another book. So, sitting there by the window, looking out over the field, I began to daydream. The characters instantly came back to life. What one sees in the first scene is exactly how it happened in my mind. There the heroine, Jessica, was. Staring out of the window upstairs in the cabin, she was fantasizing about Tommy. At the same time, unbeknownst to her, Tommy was out there, watching her, wanting her, desiring her, thinking of her, too. That’s how it all began. When I started the first draft, I wasn’t sure if I’d have one long novel or two separate novels, but in the end I had two novels, which now total three in the whole series.
So, for Arkansas, and for Missouri, for what once was and will never be again, here is a piece of fiction, of American culture, that I add to the vast collection of literary history crafted from the human mind and spirit. For whatever it may be now, for whatever it might one day be, only time will tell. In the future, of course, I do hope that I might continue on with such historical themes, next time though taking it back even further in time. It all depends upon where my mind desires to venture to next. I can make promises about the quality, genre, and type of writings that I create (for instance, readers can guarantee that they won’t be reading a feminist novel, or a novel with a “strong female lead” or a novel with anything that my bio says I don’t write or include in my scripts), but I can’t make exact promises of content, time or place.
So, in conclusion, to the readers out there, enjoy if you will.