When I turned 50, I was floating on an inner tube on Lake Irene, contemplating the clouds and my life. I decided that at some point I could live at the lake, become a part of the Alexandria & Miltona, Minnesota communities, and do something other than run the IT consulting firm that my husband Scot and I owned. I spent the next ten years working towards that goal.

It’s a good thing I started then, even though “retirement” seemed like a far away venture. The next ten years I spent running the sales and marketing of the company as well as being the face of the business. During that time I had three children graduate from high school and college, lived through the great recession with the business intact, had one kid get married, lost my mother, father-in-law, and a brother-in-law. I gained ten pounds. I began coloring my hair more often. I was a founding member of a women’s business owner group we called Mindshare.

But always, in the back of my mind, I wanted to write.

I have always written. During my Cargill years, I proofed copy for ads and took a stab at writing some of the copy myself. During my Management Protemps and Interlinx years I wrote all the marketing materials, and later the content for the website. When we finally sold the Interlinx business December 2016, I was ready to go back to that first passion, and the job I always wanted but never quite knew how to do—that of being an author.

Growing up on the farm in Montana, I didn’t personally know anyone who had written a book. As a child, I had thought writing word to songs would be a great job. I just had no clue how to get into the business.

Now I am old. I know people who have written books—lots of people and lots of books. For a while I tried writing while I was still 110% employed in our business. It didn’t work for me. So when we sold, my sole caveat was that I was out of the business the day after the close.

On December 1, 2016 when the business was sold, I was out of a job. My husband stayed with the new owners for a year thereby staying out of my hair. And that began my journey to become a writer.