The first week of September, I'll journey to Colorado to see my family. I will take the back roads out of Tucson and maneuver my way through all the towns that I have used as a backdrop in all my fiction books.
From the Old Pueblo to visits across the southern border into Magdalena...to Bisbee, to Douglas, to Phoenix -- all backdrops used in my book, The Loner, to the small towns like Cordes Junction, Mayer, Prescott, and Camp Verde -- all used in my book, Bucket Smith, followed by a journey north to Show Low and Pinetop and Flagstaff -- the area used as a backdrop in my book: The Dancer, and finally to the Four Corners area, of Cortez, Colorado, to Moab, Utah, to Grand Junction, Colorado and all the small towns along the Western Slope -- all of which were mentioned in my original middle-reader book, Billy's Victory.
I lived all of it inside my little brain -- all those fiction stories I have brought to life with so many characters I have met along the way and turned them into little movie stars. It's been quite the journey, in words, to the above cities and the countryside of all the little towns I have visited.
By Christmas, if all goes well, my new book, From Out of the Shadows, will hit the shelves, documenting ''my life" in words. If you read what's in print in front of you, and if you search a little between the lines, you should find my soul in there somewhere.
Now, I'm an octogenarian. Maybe I'm staring down my final decade, or two (that might be stretching it a bit). I look back now and see my past in living color, and I think of the heroes and the characters I've created. Is there still time to create more?
