Almost Finished

I have been writing my book, True Tales of Whitethorn, for 4 years. I am now on the next to last chapter. The book is 80,000 words long. I plan to submit it to a publisher but I might delay this because of the poor economy. The book chronicles my childhood in Whitethorn. My blog is about Whitethorn but most of it is general information rather than the drama of my life.

I considered self-publishing a collection of three stories but again decided against it because of the economy. I have done considerable market research in northern California and find book stores would take it on consignment. There is an especially good market for books about loggers and lumberjacks in northern California.

The following is the beginning of a chapter from the book called, A Cat's Tale:

An earsplitting screech shatters our evening as my mother and I stand by the sink doing dishes. My mother, hands wet with soap, picks up her rifle. I grab the flashlight. We both rush out to the back porch. I shine the light on a huge black tom cat tearing out of the storeroom and leaping to the top of the porch railing. Just as the he dives out into the night, my mother takes aim and squeezes the trigger. For a moment we both stand frozen as the acid smell of gunfire fills the darkness.

“What on earth are you trying to do, Ruby?” My stepfather shouts, as he stomps out of the house.

We ignore him and run to the storeroom at the end of the porch. Even though I am only eight years old, I get there first.

“Are they alive, Sharon?” my mother cries.

I count the small kittens. “They’re all here and it looks like none of them are hurt. Mama cat must have fought him off.

“Is moma cat ok?”


“She’s just fine. But why do tomcats kill kittens?”

“I wish I knew,” she says. If we hadn’t gotten here in time, the big tom would’ve killed them all.

“Ruby, I’ve told you again and again how dangerous it is to be shooting that gun,” my stepfather Al hollers from the porch. “And now you’re out here blasting away in the dark. Don’t you have any sense?”

“I’ve been shooting guns all my life,” my mother says. “Just because you don’t know one end of a gun from the other doesn’t mean I don’t know what I am doing.”