Author: Gina Wilkins

My husband and I accompanied our medical-resident daughter and her husband to their new home in New England last week. My husband drove a UHaul truck pulling a car trailer while daughter and son-in-law followed in their second car. We had a great time, ate lots of seafood, and enjoyed sightseeing along the Atlantic coast of Massachusetts and Rhode Island even on one cool, rainy afternoon. It was, of course, difficult for John and me to board the plane coming home, leaving our middle child some 1400 miles away from home. Especially since our oldest daughter moved 2300 miles away to the Pacific Northwest last year for her own career training. For a family that has always been very close, very tightly-knit, it’s hard to be so scattered.

As often as I fuss about technology, it certainly makes it somewhat easier to live so far from my daughters. There was a time, not so long ago, when our communication would have been through letters that took days to arrive, or long-distance phone calls that would have to be carefully rationed because of high costs. Now, thanks to nationwide phone coverage on our mutual network, we can (and do) talk every day without worrying about how many minutes we’re using. Thanks to webcams, I could see my oldest daughter’s new haircut (and reassure her that it wasn’t as bad as she thought). Thanks to email, we can instantly send each other photos and notes and recipes or whatever we choose.

Depending on technology can have its downside, of course. Cell phones are notorious for dropping calls, and the internet goes down occasionally. We learned the hard way that depending on GPS directions without the backup of a map in the vehicle is not a good idea. I’ve always had a map close at hand, but forgot to take one on this trip. Had we had a map and a clue where we were going, we would not have sat for hours in traffic on the New Jersey turnpike in that 17′ UHaul pulling a pickup on a trailer. Not a good idea. And we wouldn’t have gotten slightly lost at detours in Nashville and Knoxville, nor ended up on a parkway intended for cars only in Connecticut (we got off that quickly enough — whew! — but the silly GPS kept trying to put us back on it). But the GPS got us to our destination eventually — and the communication lines have been open since we returned home, keeping us up-to-date as our “kids” settle in to their new home town.

On the whole, I suppose I’m a big fan of new technology — even when it intimidates me.

Don’t forget!

My newest book is on the shelves this month. It’s ALWAYS THE GROOMSMAN, a novella included in the FROM THIS DAY FORWARD anthology along with bestselling authors Candace Camp and Allison Leigh.

Contest update!

Don’t forget to enter the contest for an autographed copy of FROM THIS DAY FORWARD. To enter, send an email with your name to gina.w@live.com. The drawing will be held July 1. (Hint — because this is the first month of this new contest, if you enter now, your chances of winning are high!)

Just a reminder that my new anthology short story, ALWAYS THE GROOMSMAN, one of three stories in the anthology FROM THIS DAY FORWARD, will be on the shelves within the next few days (if it’s not already in your area). The stories are all connected and, in keeping with the year-long celebration of Harlequin’s 60th anniversary, all center around the celebration of the sixtieth wedding anniversary of a lovely couple, Claire and Jack Murphy. Claire and Jack’s romance begins this anthology, written by bestselling author Candace Camp, and set in 1949 (I loved the period details she incorporated into her story). My story is about Claire and Jack’s granddaughter, Rebecca, a wedding planner who is having trouble getting her own true love to the altar. And Allison Leigh wraps up the series with the story of Rebecca’s cousin, Nate, a man whose wounded soul can only be healed by the love of single mom Jordan Chelsey. We had a lot of fun collaborating on these stories, and I hope you’ll enjoy the results.

I’m trying something new beginning this month — a give-away contest, just for fun, for those of you who drop in on me here from time to time. Click the tab marked “Contest” for details. This could be a lot of fun. I hope you’ll enter for a chance to win.

Until next time — happy reading.

Occasionally, I feel the urge to reminisce about the changes that have taken place in my world since I sold my first book in 1986. I may have mentioned before that I wrote my first book on a small electric typewriter borrowed from my mother-in-law. I used carbon paper for my back-up copy. Whenever I needed to make a change, I either retyped the entire page or used correction fluid and hoped the correction fit into the same space. Needless to say, I learned to write without doing  a lot of drafts.

My first computer had a 20 mb hard-drive, a monochrome monitor (amber on black) and a very basic word processing program called Volkswriter. Being able to backspace and delete was truly a joy for me. I couldn’t imagine needing anything else. And then programs continued to develop, and I discovered cut and paste, search and replace, automatic formatting, spell check, word count — oh, my. (I’m currently using Word ’07. Oddly enough, my only complaint is that it sometimes wants to do too much for me!)

My first daisy-wheel printer required eight to twelve hours to print a manuscript. Yes, that’s right. I always scheduled a full day for printing and several days for the package to reach my editor’s desk. Now, I rarely print anything. I just hit “attach and send.” Moments later, my editor receives it. Lovely.

I was a bit late getting on-line. I wasn’t quite sure I needed email or the internet at first. How foolish I was! I honestly cannot imagine now how I wrote a book without having Google open on my desktop at all times.

It used to be that when I needed to do research, I had to drive to the library, turn to one of my own encyclopedia volumes, atlases, dictionaries or other research books, travel to a location, or make a few phone calls. Now, the information is at my fingertips. Whenever I need it. I still do all of the above, occasionally — I particularly enjoy the travel research — but it always amazes me how much information I can glean with only a few keystrokes.

Just within the past few days of writing, I’ve needed to know the duration of a flight from Little Rock to Dublin, the legal requirements for getting married in Scotland, random facts about several bacteria and the diseases they cause, and the approximate driving distance between Dublin and Dungarvan. A few minutes on-line, and I’m back into my story without having to even step away from my computer.  I wish I could say I’m guaranteed never to make another factual mistake, but I’m not that foolishly optimistic. I will say I always try to get my facts right, and the internet has made it so much easier!

The internet also makes it so much easier not to write. Today alone, I’ve also looked up several phone numbers for my husband, checked the entry price of a local comedy club for my son, searched Google maps for the route my daughter and her husband will take to move to the east coast in a few weeks — and made a list of several attractions I want to see when I visit them there. Social interaction websites, television discussion websites, writers’ chat groups, silly cat pictures, recipe sites, shopping sites, games, blogs — so much to see and do! All more fun than actually working. Being my own boss, I sometimes have to be very strict with myself about personal use of the internet during work hours. I don’t always listen.

Because I’ve met my writing goal for today and can play on the computer without guilt for a couple of hours, I’m off now to see what my on-line friends are saying about the American Idol finale. So, my friends, until the next time — happy Googling.

Yesterday, I watched one of my children participate in a graduation ceremony for the seventh time in eleven years. If all goes as planned, there will be two more graduation ceremonies. And I only have 3 kids. There have been three high school graduations, two college ceremonies, one graduate school ceremony (Ph.D) and one medical school graduation (M.D.) so far, with our son anticipating college graduation in two years and medical school four years after that.

Am I proud? Oh, yes. My husband and I have been so very blessed with three extraordinary children who have been polite, well-behaved and a joy to be around. Do we claim credit? No. We didn’t take the classes, study for the tests, write the papers or complete the assignments for these degrees. (My kids should all be glad I didn’t do their work for them, considering my limitations in math and science!)

What we tried to do was raise our kids with an appreciation of the value of education, which we stressed over entertainment, popularity or material possessions. We wanted them to have fun and to enjoy their childhoods — but the ultimate goal was always for them to grow into productive and self-supporting adults. I suppose we were stricter than some parents. Maybe too strict, at times, though none of them is currently writing a “Mommy Dearest” tell-all, as far as I know. We’re still friends. We love being together, even though two of them will be living on opposite coasts by the beginning of next month in pursuit of further career training (and I can’t tell you how hard it is to let them go that far away!). I’m glad they both intend to return to Arkansas eventually.

I’ve read that there are four types of parenting. High expectations, low praise. Low expectations, high praise. Low expectations, low praise. High expectations, high praise. We tried to follow the latter model. We expected a lot from our kids. We didn’t demand all As, but we expected them to live up to their potential, and the As followed that expectation. We didn’t pay them for grades, nor did we bribe them to be good students — but we made it clear that it was their lives, their futures that would be affected by their performance in high school, not ours. We would not financially support them as healthy adults, nor would we expect them to support us. If they wanted to be successful and make a decent living, it was up to them to do what was necessary to achieve those goals. They have paid for their own educations through academic scholarships and, in the case of medical school, through student loans. They have attended public schools and colleges throughout their educations, making their goals achievable and affordable.

Our children were fortunate to have some excellent teachers along the way (I talked about that in a previous post). The state of Arkansas ran a fantastic summer program called Academic Enrichment for the Gifted in Summer (AEGIS) that both our girls participated in every summer after sixth grade. Two to three week residential programs, AEGIS introduced them to concepts in math, science, history, arts and computers — as well as being a lot of fun for them and letting them make friends from around the state, some of whom are still friends to this day. It was inspiring for them to meet peers who also valued good grades and academic achievement (they didn’t always get that validation from their own schoolmates). Getting into an AEGIS program was very competitive, so they were encouraged to keep their grades high and their resumes full, because they loved the programs so much that they were considered them rewards for a successful school year. Our son was able to attend only one AEGIS program before the state discontinued AEGIS in 2001 for economic reasons. In my opinion, this decision was a huge mistake — and a great loss for our state.

I don’t take credit for my children’s achievements — sometimes I think they’ve done well despite the mistakes I’ve made as a mom (and there have been plenty). But I hope the love and pride I feel for them, and the gratitude I have for being privileged to know them, will always sustain them as they continue to make their way through life.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms reading this. This will be my second Mother’s Day without my mom, and I’ll be thinking of her all that day — as I do every day. I have so many funny stories to share about her. She was a larger-than-life personality with a quirky sense of humor, and an almost rabid loyalty to her family and the company she worked for her entire adult life. An incredibly resilient two-time breast cancer survivor, she was an inspiration to her many, many friends. Her eleven grandchildren called her “Nana,” but she did not define family by blood relationship. Stepchildren, adoptees, even close friends of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren became family to her. They all knew her as Nana — the woman who made lots of cookies and cakes and pies, who always served “goldenrod eggs” on Christmas morning, and who made sure everyone had a gift under her tree. She served as an influence to those three generations, as well as to the many teenagers she supervised in church youth musical groups.

Mother wasn’t a writer, but she was a storyteller. She always had a funny anecdote to tell when we talked on the phone (which was almost every day). She didn’t mind embellishing a little to make the story even funnier — and she never cared when the joke was on herself. I credit her with so much of my own lifelong desire to be a writer.

I’ll spend this Mother’s Day with my mother-in-law, who we are still fortunate to have in our lives, and two of my three children (I’ll definitely be talking to the other that day– and I know she would love to be here if she could). It will be a happy day with family, and a happy day of memories, since my mom would be the last to want anyone to be sad when we think of her. In my heart, I’ll always celebrate that special day with my mother.