I firmly believe every cloud has a silver lining.

My road to publication has been one series of ups and downs, but through all the downs, I tell myself THIS TOO SHALL PASS!

And…

It's okay to not enjoy the dips.

My favorite part of a rollercoaster ride is the fall. My least favorite is the climb to the next hill, but damn do I love a mean rollercoaster!

Why this image?

In my books, I write about my life in many ways, twisting them this way and that. I lived in Okinawa Japan for six amazing years. It's a tiny island south of Japan and if you think Florida or the Gulf are hurricane magnets, you can step that up 10-fold.

While we lived there, we experienced multiple Category V Typhoons–on that side of the world, we get to call hurricanes typhoons, which I honestly prefer–but YES. Each hurricane season we would have a dozen or more typhoons, most of them 4 or 5's, and we had several direct hits.

A direct hit meaning the eye of the hurricane passed directly. overhead.

Since most of Okinawa was razed to the ground during WWII, their buildings are made from concrete. So, we literally lived in a bunker, with storm windows, doors, and mylar coating on our windows.

One particular typhoon, a Cat V monster, passed right over our house, and those things don't run past, they take a leisurely stroll…we spent 18 hours in high winds before the eye passed over.

I've never seen rain fall UP before, but it sure did during that storm. The power was ferocious. We had cars tipped on their sides and moved like a child's Hotwheels collection. Just amazing….

but as powerful as the leading edge of the storm was, the quiet of the eye was absolutely breathtaking. And it came suddenly, within a five-minute period. We had rain blowing up and sideways, a light drizzle, then brilliant blue skies.

Aweinspiring.

So, I wrote that into a book.

Do you know which book I put that in?

So, those plunges down are terrifying and can be brutal, but there is always peace to be found in the storm and silver linings if you look hard enough.

I know this is a tough time for many, chin up! You've got this!