From time to time I take care of evening barn chores. It is something I love to do because one of my favorite places of all time is being in a barn after the horses are fed.

Happy, peaceful munching, contented sighs - it often has the quality of a sacred space, a place where I can think deep thoughts while I curry my mare.

I also love how the lowering light of late afternoon or early evening turns her impossibly more gold.

"You have to have a blog. An author should have a blog."

So, I got a blog. Now I find out I am supposed to post stuff on it from time to time.

I have read some other blogs and some folks are amazing at it. They document their thoughts, their lunches, their critters or their gardens. There are even blogs that belong to writers and they talk about their writing!

While I am willing to give it a try (and at least today will make it a reality) I very much doubt that my blog will ever be a font of Writer's Wisdom. However, I will always make the honest effort to supply an entertaining entry or at least one that is food for thought.

Long before I ever thought about being a writer, I fell in love with horses. Horses have been the subjects of my dreams, my daydreams and, as an adult, taking care of them has often kept a roof over my head. My current horse owns me, but then so did the several who came before her.

All of those things added something to my writing I wasn't aware of - until it was pointed out by several friends who are also life long horse people. It seems that when my characters look after and interact with their horses, they do so in the way real horse owners do.

I suppose I never realized how often something like that is glossed over in writing or someone writes something about a horse that is not at all the way that thing works. Therefore, I pinkie promise that my horse stuff will always be accurate, which may help out some other writers down the road.

One of my friends has grown particularly attached to my main character's gelding Rogue. Fond to the point I was told if something ever happened to him she was coming for me. I am both amused and well aware that she means exactly what she says.

In true once upon a time fashion, Rogue is based off of real horse. The first horse I purchased with my own money, the first horse that was ever truly and completely mine. Everyone said for years that when I lost him they would have to bury me with him.

It came very close but the wonderful thing about writing is that it helped me through that loss. It also lets me share him with the world, which I suppose it is its own kind of immortality.