The Process—Wind Beneath My Wings
I have been like a bird gathering twigs and oddities for her nest since I was eleven years old. Nothing told me that I was beginning the process of writing a book. Nothing told me to do it, and nothing tipped me off that one day I would be an author, but as I stood on the steps in my home’s modest garage as that eleven-year-old girl, I told myself I would.
When you discover something significant has begun but it’s impossible to put your finger on it, call it a vision. Whether or not it’s a clear vision, it exists even so. Mine was tucked away, stashed in the crevices of my mind until much, much later when the reason for my collections of memories—the twiglets and tidbits of nest-making—started to develop and take shape.
When I was 6 years old I came down with Chicken Pox. I distinctly remember that very first itch. I was in school, sitting at my desk. First grade. I remember clawing my neck. Then there were 2 more itching spots, one on my forehead and one on my arm. By the time I was scratching all 3, the teacher took notice.
She helped me gather my things and escorted me to the door. I walked away from the school, raking my fingers across the chain-linked fence that ran in front of the playground—bump, bump, bump—letting them bounce as I walked along, dizzy with a fever.
Later on, I was lying in my bed, and Daddy came into the room. He sat on the side of my bed and leaned over me, reaching beneath my shoulders to support my head. With his other hand, he held a small, white container. I still remember the refreshing lime-aide oozing from the container and crunchy particles of ice filling my mouth. At that moment, I was Daddy’s girl.
The experience is in stark contrast to one a few years later when I lied to him. I got in trouble because of it and saw him differently, disappointed in me. I felt separated, no longer Daddy’s girl. He could be two people: gentle, kind. He could be serious and intense. For most of my growing up years, I longed for the lime-aide-bearing, tender-hearted daddy. And often I wondered what in his experience shaped his life.
That wonderment spurred my earliest writing process. Externally, it set before me the vision for writing, but internally I required an earth-shattering reason to tell the story. That reason gave it life. A vision moved me forward, but in my search to find the man who deserved my honor, the reason became the wind beneath my wings.
In my college years, I prepared for a career in interior design and for 34 years afterward, I owned a design business. So, creative writing came from something more. When I look back in time I see my writing evolved from a whim to a purposeful tribute to the man I call ‘My Father.’ It presented me with a deeply felt, delightfully consuming reason for writing.
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Annette Valentine: Annette is an inspirational storyteller with a flair for the unexpected. By age eleven, she knew that writing was an integral part of her creative nature. Annette graduated with distinction from Purdue and founded an interior design firm which spanned a 34-year career in Lafayette, Indiana and Brentwood, Tennessee. Annette has used her 18-year affiliation with Toastmasters International to prepare her for her position with the Speakers’ Bureau for End Slavery Tennessee and is an advocate for victims and survivors of human trafficking and is the volunteer group leader for Brentwood, Tennessee.
Annette writes through the varied lens of colorful personal experience and the absorbing reality of humanity’s search for meaning. Mother to one son and daughter, and a grandparent of six amazing kids, Annette now lives in Brentwood, a suburb of Nashville, Tennessee, with her husband and their 5-year-old Boxer. To learn more about Annette’s life and work, please visit https://annettehvalentine.com
A love story based on the author’s father, Eastbound From Flagstaff portrays an individual who comes to recognize the significance of family, loyalty, and the richness of his heritage.
Simon Hagan is running from a lie, intent on believing his own efforts and perseverance can overcome anything. He abandons roots that are his foundational strength and hides behind his charm, living every moment as if life’s daring him to fail―again. He’s reckoning with his father’s God who could have delivered better outcomes but didn’t.
This first installment in an epic trilogy that begins in the 1920’s, unique in its purposeful illumination of the human condition and its ideological indifference to God, asks the question: “Why was God silent when I needed him?” Simon’s return to the notion of forgiveness is the catalyst for a new beginning as it reunites Simon to the place he once thought was the impossible dream. The answer for Simon isn’t blowing in the backwinds of his dream chase; rather, it unfolds in the outstretched hand of a villain.
Category: On Writing
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