My mother's not around to ask, but I suspect that my entry into this world wasn't an easy one. I'm the kind of person who's more comfortable in the middle of something: I like to know where I'm going and how it's going to turn out. Beginnings are tough.
In one big way, I was lucky at the start: I was born only eleven months after my sister Sue. So she forded the way in front of me during most of my growing up. We shared a room until high school, wore a lot of the same clothes, attended tap and ballet classes together, swapped books, teased our younger siblings, talked about boys. (That's me on the ground, Sue standing up.)
Our family moved quite a few times when I was a kid--and all those beginnings were hard. I can still remember starting sixth grade in a new town in Michigan. My mother took me to buy shoes and we picked out black and white (or were they brown?) saddle shoes. I realized quickly that these weren't the style in my new town when the kids nicknamed me "the cow." But I always had my friend, my sister, at home.
Sue became a writer well before I did, but she didn't seem to mind sharing the profession with me when I came to it late. In fact, she's one of my biggest fans. Instead of boys and clothes, we talk about word counts, and writing with heart, and promotion. She supported my first rather pathetic attempts at writing a novel and has encouraged me every step along the way since then. (Picture below is Sue (R) and me with the cat man of Key West, who's part of the scenery in the first Key West food critic mystery, A TASTE FOR MURDER.)
Publishing, of course, is changing like crazy right now--and we writers are invited to adjust to the latest trends, or move on. This year, I've acquired a new protagonist, Hayley Snow, a new mystery series, a new publisher, a new editor, and even a new name. A lot of beginnings for a woman who's most comfortable in the middle.
So here it is, the Equinox, the first day of spring, and I'm ready to assume my new name on this blog: Lucy Burdette. Since everything's so new, and beginnings aren't easy, I will be grateful if you'll come visit! Meanwhile, the phone lines between my home and Sue's will be humming…
With gratitude, Lucy (formerly known as Roberta Isleib:)
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