Picture by Libby Atwater Books. 

Today is the sixteenth anniversary of that awful day in America, where the planes hit the towers and the pentagon. If you’re old enough to remember that day, I’m sure you can recall specifically where you were when you heard/saw the news. I was listening to the radio in the bathroom while getting ready for work. In disbelief, the DJ’s announced that a plane had hit one of the towers. I flew down two flights of stairs to the large television in our basement.

I arrived in time to see the second plane hit the second tower. I stood there in shock, crying. After a few minutes of watching the news, I returned to the bathroom, hastily finished getting ready and headed to work. By the time I arrived, the pentagon had been attacked. The rest of the day was a blur of calling our partners in New York, trying to figure out what to do with the trades. (I worked in Finance and managed a team who was responsible for placing the cumulative mutual fund trades for the firm.) Eventually, they closed the stock market.

While, I wasn’t personally affected, it still changed the way I thought about my world. It shaped my views and brought to the surface the ugly truth of how American’s viewed Muslims. (My husband was Muslim when I met him and seeing this broke our hearts.)  It also brought about good. People helping others. A renewed belief in God. Kindness to strangers.

Today, I choose to remember the good that prevailed during that awful time as a tribute to the survivors and the loved ones of the fallen.

Last month, I submitted to Pitchwars, a contest ran by Brenda Drake, and didn’t get in, but I’m not upset. Of course I’m disappointed. The prize was working with a mentor on your manuscript. Because of that it’s stiff competition. Only 4.7 of the 3,000 applicants did get into it. So, there’s a bunch of people in my shoes. However, I did gain some insightful feedback from author Kellye Garrett. She wrote Hollywood Homicide, which, if you haven’t read it is hilarious. The advice she gave me that resonated with me the most is that the tone of my thriller sounds more like Women’s Fiction. Yikes. That’s the last thing I want. To help with this problem, I read some of my favorite thriller authors and now am trying to correct the tone of my book. A huge thank you to Kellye for helping me get on the right track. If you haven’t read her book, you really should pick it up.

Summer is over at least for my school aged children. I’m sad, but happy that the fighting will and has decreased.

My current WIP deals with Black Lives Matter, which is the nice, polite way of saying that it discusses deaths of black people at the hands of police officers. A week ago, I had the opportunity to attend Writer’s Police Academy in Wisconsin. I learned so many things and have come back a better equipped writer who can now write with more accuracy.

This conference also provided me insight into the craziness cops endure while on the job and how every call can end with them not coming home. I always knew it was a dangerous job to be in law enforcement, but I didn’t understand the extent of it and how they have to be vigilant every single minute. Indirectly, it provided the opposite viewpoint of this issue in a way, I hadn’t thought about before.

I came home pumped up to explore both sides of the problem in my manuscript and to give it the weight it deserves. I’m not sure I have the skills or the talent to do it justice, but I’m trying.

I was looking through my research and stumbled across this video from the 1967 Detroit uprisings. I think it’s relevant now and thought I’d share. It’s an hour long, and outdated in terminology, but there are still so many nuggets of truth in it. **Heads up there’s some graphic, disturbing scenes.

I thought I posted this, but guess not. The kids are out and we’re doing summer things. I’ll catch you in August.

No posts for the next two weeks due to my kids being on Spring Break. Yes, the younger two get two weeks off, while the middle schooler only gets one.