I’m a typical Pisces, some days up, some days down, always dreaming and scheming. As a young teen I briefly imagined being a fiction writer (teen romances?) but it didn’t go anywhere. When, much later, I became a stressed-out multi-tasking wife and mother, I turned to writing my thoughts down in a notebook as a coping mechanism. That was sporadic, happening only on really bad days.

When that life came to an end and I “ran away from home”, returning to college at the age of 45, I picked up paper and pen once again to deal with the stress. That time it became regular daily journaling, a record of my day’s events and thoughts both good and bad. During many more twists and turns in my life, and many new adventures, I found myself not only writing daily in my journal, but also writing more in depth personal essays on my computer. Story ideas abounded.

By the time I met my new partner, Jim, and had made another major move, I had quite a collection of work in various stages of completion. For my birthday Jim captured enough of them from my computer to have them printed and bound into a book entitled “My Writing”. He made several copies for me to give to family and friends. The enthusiasm by which they were received encouraged me to once again consider writing as a career. I enrolled in a couple of writing classes and began submitting some short stories to magazines. I was thrilled when the first one was published in  The Country Connections Magazine in 2006. Since then I’ve had a few more published in the same magazine and in Canadian Biker and Cycle Canada.

It’s certainly not a full time career, but it’s something I enjoy and do often. Besides my own stories, I’ve been recording the fascinating stories of others including immigrant stories and family histories, with the plan to compile another book or two.

In 2008 I published Celebrating Twenty-five Years at Millbrook Manor, a book of memories of the residents of this Senior’s Apartment Building, including those of the very first resident who had been there for the full twenty-five years.

Hearing the personal stories of the residents at Millbrook Manor sparked my interest in researching family trees and recording the many interesting stories that I believe should be passed down through the generations. What better place to start than with the wonderful memories of my partner, Jim Victor, and his ninety-six year old mother?

After three years of work the book, Through Thick and Thin, A History of the Audrey and Ernie Victor Family was published early in 2012, and is available for purchase through Lulu.com or directly from me using PayPal. Email me at judylawless6@gmail.com

Be sure to check out my blog Mind Traveler to read about my travelling adventures and points of view, as well as my other writing..

Travelling, observing and photographing have become my passions. The photo on the header is a shot of the sunrise behind our motor home at a campsite near Carlsbad Caverns, New Mexico in the fall of 2017.

Update: During COVID, our motorhome travel came to an end. I filled my days writing my first book of Fiction, an historical romance novel titled Being Grace. I self-published it in March of 2023 through Lulu Press.