I AM SITTING on my back porch. It’s a chilly, breezy day with rain showers threatening. The app, Merlin, is open on my iPhone advising me that the sounds I’m hearing are those of Carolina chickadees, Northern cardinals, a red-eyed vireo, and … what? An orchard oriole? That would be a lifer, if true.
A mug of hot tea sits beside me. The sentiment on the mug, attributed to Jane Austen, reads, I declare after all there’s no enjoyment like reading.
Unless it’s writing, I silently respond.
I believe she’d agree.
Two hundred fifty years ago, in Austen’s time, women did not publish books. Her father or her brother had to submit her work to a publisher.
These days, literally anyone can do it, thanks to book producers like Amazon.
Still, it’s a lot to publish a book.
We live in a fallen world. Artist John Hendryx says, “Good art does not want to exist and you have to fight for it.” Fight to create as an image-bearer. Fight for beauty, goodness, and truth.
I began writing All My Bones Shook almost a year ago, in July 2025. I began thinking about it long before that. The characters from my search and rescue series just would not leave me alone. They kept creating scenes in my head. Forging dialogue. What could I do? I had to write what was going on.
In October, two-thirds of the way through the first draft, these characters grabbed the story and ran with it, like a horse with the bit in its mouth. The story took a left turn and began careening down the hill toward The End so fast my head spun. I was typing, but I wasn’t driving the story. I was just along for the ride.
It was a thrill.
By early November I had a first draft. I sent it to my subject matter experts and waited for their responses, corrections to my thinking about SAR and FBI and medical issues. In the meantime, I began polishing the manuscript, line by line, here a little, there a little—adding little details that add richness and texture to a story.
From the very beginning, I prayed. And I asked my friends to pray. I prayed for wisdom, for clarity, and for direction. Sitting and staring at the screen for hours every day, I prayed for my body and my vision to hold out. Most of all, I prayed for you, my readers, and for spiritual fruit from this work—the “why” of my labor.
When you love something you want to talk about it, or in my case, write about it. Everybody who knows me knows I love dogs. Have since I was a little kid. I also love Chincoteague Island, where my grandparents lived when I was a child, and the Piedmont of Virginia, where I made my home for nearly half a century. All of these things populate my books—and all of them point me to the Great Love, God. And so it is ultimately for him and about him that I write.
As I said, you have to fight for good art. After unavoidable delays and regular setbacks, by late February my advisors, beta-readers, and my wonderful editor were all finished with All My Bones Shook. I began working with a talented, new-to-me cover designer. I told her I was fussy about dogs. Especially the dog, Luke. It took us a while, but she persisted and eventually got the cover just right.
More setbacks with the publishing program delayed us again, but we finally got a proof we were happy with, and release day, May 1, arrived.
So, the book is out. Now what?
You know what? Those characters just won’t leave me alone. Already they are arguing in my head Something wonderful is also happening. As well as something poignant, something gripping, and something you will not forget. Scenes are forming, scenes that, God willing, will become SAR 9.
So go read my book. And in a little while, I’ll start writing another story for you. I’ll begin at the beginning, but who knows? Those characters may run away with me again.
With my books, you can be certain of just one thing: The dog never dies.