Sharon Stephenson

I've not written a blog for 2 months. To be honest, I haven't written much in the past 3 months. Life, or to be more accurate our move, had caught up with me. I have moved a lot in my life—back and forth from one US coast to another 3 times, up and down the US east coast 1 time, across…

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As I write this, snow is continuing to fall at quite a rate at my home on the Eastern Shore. Having spent most of my life living in states (5) bordering Canada, snow is nothing new to me. In fact, I really love it, especially…

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It's been a little over a week since our container was delivered to our door and our furniture and roughly 200 boxes were unloaded. We're all unpacked now and gradually getting our house in order. Writing has temporarily taken a back seat but I will be back at…

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We're waiting for our ship to come in...literally! We packed up our house and moved to the USA from the UK in late June. Having done this ocean-crossing move…

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Ahh September. A month for beginnings. We're beginning to settle into life in Maryland, still living with a couch, a TV, a bed, and an outdoor table and chairs on loan from a dear neighbor. The container with our goods has finally left our UK removal company's warehouse and is sitting on a dock—in a UK bay—waiting to be loaded onto a container ship due into a nearby port in the USA at the end of September. I'm trying not to think about the fact this is hurricane season and as I sit here writing this on our porch I am noticing the wind picking up as we…

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Well, we made it. After all the pre-move pitfalls (read June's BLOG if you're interested in the details) we made the trip from the UK to the USA. Halfway through our…

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Note to self: don't make an international move during a pandemic. Unfortunately I didn't get the memo until after my husband and I had packed up and sold our UK house, bought a house in Maryland (over the internet) and just a week ago were halfway over the Atlantic with…

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I missed April and May—wanted to finish Taking the Sun and then we got busy! As I write this I am sitting between two tables laden with stuff to be packed into boxes and eventually loaded into…

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It might have escaped your notice, but I didn't do a February Blog. I was 'on a roll' finishing up my latest book, Taking the Sun, and doing a blog seemed like an interruption. This lockdown in the UK (#3) has felt like the longest and the toughest. Maybe because we're in winter, with long, cold nights and dreary skies. Winter was also a time for planning our travel, something we're not confident about doing at the moment. Maybe it's because my days have fallen into a routine and I feel like I'm…

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A new year. I'm hopeful we can keep all the good things about 2020 and never revisit the bad. My list of the good—clear, blue, pollution-free skies; hearing bird song and not traffic noise, helping to support folks in our village; learning to plan meals ahead and…

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I flipped the calendar over to December and other than eating a chocolate from my Advent Calendar the day was lost on me. I was busy and forgot all the jobs I should have done on the first of a month--writing my blog, giving my dog her monthly flea and tick pill, weighing myself—the day came and went like any other. It wasn't until the middle of last night I realized it was 24 days till Christmas! And then I began remembering Christmases past... First there were the childhood…

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I didn't do a blog for October. I was feeling quite agitated by the end of September and couldn't seem to focus my attention. September is usually a 'traveling month' and this year it was not going to happen. After much deliberation, my husband and I decided to head to Scotland—a much-needed trip. The empty distances and surreal beauty afforded by the moors…

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There was no August blog--I was deep in the process of editing Stealing Thunder, now available through Amazon. And now it's September. Ahh September. I've written about this before—how the first of September is my NEW YEAR. In the past,…

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Stealing Thunder, my latest book, is finally finished and I'm halfway through the editing process. One would think with all this social distancing I should have written half a dozen books since we entered lockdown in the UK. In fact, you could make the point that self-isolation would…

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May was not a month I necessarily want to remember. There was a couple of highlights—my husband and I celebrated 20 years of marriage and our dog Abbey turned 6. But by the end of the month we had been under 10 weeks of lockdown, my godson had coronavirus and was in a hospital in Portland, Maine, (and is doing very well) and George Floyd had been killed by the Minneapolis police, inciting peaceful protests but also igniting looting and many injuries. I lived for many years in Minneapolis and St. Paul—they are wonderful cities. I still have friends, relatives and many wonderful memories of life in the Twin Cities…

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I started a journal when 'lockdown' began. I hope when I re-read it (if I do!) in ten or fifteen years this whole period feels like a hazy story—with highs and lows. I hope I remember the good things about this 'lockdown' period and take to heart the things I've…

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In the far reaches of my mind—the part that files everything away for my writing—are constantly emerging plots, characters, locations. But no part of my imagination could have dreamt of a plot where a microscopic particle kills millions of people and brings most of the world to its knees. Not even James Bond in 'Moonraker' went this far. And yet here we are. 2020. We are all paying for the hubris of governments who thought pandemics were the stuff of bad dreams—they happen somewhere else, and should…

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I didn't write a blog for February. After receiving a lot of advice about this, I spent time advertising my books on Facebook for December—stepping WAY out of my comfort zone. When the 'campaign' was over I really felt I needed to pull back a bit. Please don't get me wrong—I do want my books to be read, but the reality is I prefer 'word of mouth' to purchased advertising. I…

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Today is the first day I have had since the first of September when I didn't have much of the day planned—when there wasn't a list of 'jobs' that needed to be done…

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As we near the winter solstice, the sun barely makes it over the top of our back hedge (okay, it's a pretty tall hedge) before plunging out of site like a nightshade drawn down. And then it is pitch black out. More so in our village because—by virtue of public decree?—there are no street lights of any description. To venture out at night…

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I'm a day late, but I THINK I have a pretty good excuse. Yesterday, November 1, I finished the first edit of my new Breaking Camp Mystery, CAUTION TO THE WIND. I'm really, really happy with it and am especially fond of the ending. I wasn't sure…

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My husband and I have recently returned from a wonderful trip to the USA. We visited places I had been before—the Teton Mountains, Yellowstone National Park, Durango-Silverton Railway, Mesa Verde, Monument Valley, Flagstaff and…

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It's the first of September and as usual I find myself 'seasonally stimulated'. When I was young, September was all about the excitement of going to school, meeting new friends (especially the boys), learning new things, moving one step…

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Who is this person? This is a question I kept asking myself as I worked my way through the thousand photos—printed and slides—that I was determined to digitize. Once I was finished with this project, there'd be no more lugging…

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I am super late with my July Blog because my husband Roy, our border terrier Abbey, and I have been to Wales for the past week. This was a completely spontaneous event in direct response to my husband lamenting that we had not made any holiday plans for this summer. My idea of 'going away for a holiday' is to anyplace outside the British Isles. But when I heard Roy say yet again he would like to go to Wales I…

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My decision a couple of years ago to start a monthly blog attached to my website was for two reasons—to try and nurture/retain an interest in my books from new and existing readers, especially in the time between book releases, and as a way of…

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Last month I wrote about the satisfaction I got from typing the words THE END as I finished my latest book, Those Who Wait. After the past three intensive weeks spent editing- and re-editing, (no mean feat during 'birthday month' when our family celebrates 7 immediate family birthdays!) I feel my book is now DONE. Those Who Wait is out today, 2nd…

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One of the greatest satisfactions in my writing life is when I type the words THE END. I did this two days ago when I finished the novel I began writing last May. I am hoping THOSE WHO WAIT will be available on Amazon by this May. I had been using a working title up until the day I finished my novel, and then not only the title, but the cover design for my book came together in rapid succession. I do actually love the entire creative writing process. I write because it is what I am driven to do. Regardless whether words are actually being typed or not, my mind continuously creates characters and stories out of…

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It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.—Charles Dickens. Growing up in and living…

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My husband and I recently attended a showing of The Wife at our village movie night. If you aren't familiar with it, it's the story of an American who has just won the Pulitzer Prize in Literature.…

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The tree is down. Ornaments and decorations are all gently packed away for next Christmas. Our house looks refreshingly stark, like it's just been decorated by someone from Scandinavia. Outside, the trees are bare, the bones of their branches fully exposed; limp…

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Every year at this time I write a reasonably short letter to go with our Christmas cards. With family on both sides of the Atlantic this has always felt like a good way to keep in touch and I enjoy receiving and…

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When I first started to do BLOGS for my website, I set myself the goal of trying to always turn out a new one the first of every month. Plans this month have gone haywire. I started November's BLOG on October 31st and I'm still struggling. It isn't that I don't have any thoughts—it's just that I'm finding it difficult to organize them. First, we are approaching the 100th Anniversary of the end of World War I, and although I had a pretty good schooling on The Great War (always wondered about that title!) I have felt the need to learn more. I had a great uncle (British) who died in WWI…

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My husband and I did a fair amount of traveling in September. The travel proved to be very nostalgic for me, returning first to Seattle (last…

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It's here again! September! It's always been a month of changes for me, with many new beginnings in my history. I've always been very peripatetic, finding it difficult to settle in a home or even in a state. And lately, as my husband and I evaluate what we'd like our retirement life to be like, we're also considering which…

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ON THE MOVE My novels always involve some form of movement. My "Breaking Camp Mystery Series" takes a retired couple travelling all across America. My novels As Clear as Glass and Running from the Moon move readers through centuries. For a Rainy Day moves across countries and Winter Pursuit takes readers across decades…

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Time is Passing. Are You? These words were printed above a doorway at Glenwood High School, in Canton, Ohio. I passed under those words every day during high school—they weren't meant to move us along. We weren't supposed to loiter in the halls—we were meant to keep moving. In the past few years, those words have come…

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I'm late again, but this time I have an excuse I'd just as soon not have. A little over two weeks ago I woke up to the news that my brother Dave, two years younger than me and my nearest sibling, had died suddenly in his home. It was a chronic heart condition that took him, despite his belief—and recent assurances to his…

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When I first left home, September 1971, at the age of 19, I could fit all my possessions into my VW Bug. All my clothes, my records, record player—everything! After a year at Bowling Green State University, I needed to try my wings, and leaving the nest for the first time meant moving from Ohio to Florida. This was the beginning of A LOT of moves- back and forth…

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I have just finished Between a Rock, my latest book in my BREAKING CAMP MYSTERY SERIES. I had hoped to have it through its final edit and on sale by spring, but spring is late coming to England this year, and I'm afraid I'm a bit late as well! One of the more onerous tasks of self-publishing is self-editing. I have always hated going back over anything I've done before—but I actually don't mind editing my books because I usually wait a day or two and then it feels as if I'm reading a new book- even though I know what will happen, I'm usually surprised! I think this is because there is a lot of…

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As I write this on the last day of February (yes, I'll be on time with my BLOG this month!) it is snowing- the British have named these past 3 days of cold temperatures and snowfalls the 'Beast from the East' and where I live we've had an accumulation of about 5". I grew up in snow—in the aptly named town of Geneva, in New York State, where snowfalls were often marked in feet. And for most of my life I've lived in states that had snowy winters—New York, Ohio, Minnesota, Washington, and Maine. So there's not a lot you can tell me about…

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On February 1st, I was sitting alone in our family room, looking up through the skylights at the brilliant blue sky (unusual for England, especially in winter) and said aloud, "Dad, if you're ready to go, this would be a good day for traveling." Not ten minutes later my husband, who was out walking our dog, called to say his father had 'just passed'. My father-in-law had been a widow since 2016. Boxing Day night he suffered a fall culminating in hip replacement surgery three days later and after two weeks in the hospital, he went to a care home, where he knew he would…

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FOLLOWING THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD I wish you all a happy and healthy New Year! "The old year now hath passed away"...words from an old Lutheran hymn and so appropriate for a NEW YEAR. I didn't get that quite right one time- I was working for a church and in typing up the Sunday morning 'bulletin' or program, I mistakenly listed the hymn title as "The old year now hath pissed away" and didn't catch the mistake till the church service began. It was fortunately well received with Yankee good humor. But the older I get,…

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My father always said I was "a day late and a dollar short", and so, keeping in character, I am 'late' with my blog! I love the sense of peace I feel during Advent when the days are short and the sun teases as it barely clears the treetops. I love Christmas!- the music, the Christmas plays, shows, movies, the hand-crafted decorations, and the hand-made…

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I've been reading Lucy Worsley's biography about Jane Austen (Lucy is a UK historian & TV presenter). At the same time I'm reading Northanger Abbey and I'm watching Sense and Sensibility. I've never read Jane Austen before and I must admit there are sentences I'm re-reading several times in order to 'get it'. But I'm going to persevere because I want to get to know this author; my curiosity about her has been aroused thanks to Lucy's book. One thing that intrigues me is that Jane appears to me to be very much influenced in her writing and in her…

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TRAVELLING HOME I'm late with my October blog because my husband and I have just returned from a two week trip to America- it had been 18 months since I was last there- the longest I've ever been away from the USA. We flew into Denver, and thanks to a pre-season winter storm raging in Yellowstone and Teton National Parks, we headed south instead of north. After threading our way through the Rockies, where the Aspens were in full color, we spent a few days in Santa Fe, New…

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September—the month of autumn and all my favorite colors—is frequently the time when I check my compass bearing and make sure I'm headed in a direction I want to go. Often correcting my course means making a move—which I've done several times from coast to coast and in between! Which brings me to Mary Tyler Moore. (For readers not familiar with Mary Tyler Moore, she was the star of a popular sitcom in the U.S.) I obtained my undergraduate degree in the 1970's during a pretty severe recession. There were few jobs in Portland, Maine and I didn't know what I wanted to do anyhow, so I packed up my…

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It's the middle of summer and I'm working on another book in my Breaking Camp Series. This time the Trasks are visiting the Black Hills of South…

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