I’m Nancy Perez.
I’m Victoria Hardesty’s co-author of the Wonder Horse series.
If you haven’t yet read my writing partner/friends’ entry on how she became a published author I sincerely hope you will. It will dovetail with my story and hopefully between the two of us you will find a little spark that sets the fire of creativity glowing in your heart.
Some of our readers have told us the “real story” is that two people can maintain a friendship for more than fifty years. Together we have been care-takers to ailing parents, a husband and several siblings. We’ve arranged and been to many funerals. We’ve both struggled through deep debilitating grief – life can really sling the arrows.
On the bright side we have had elation and joy endowed by loving family, friends and four legged angels. And now we have readers that encourage and help us.
The big life altering “event” for us was being diagnosed with serious, chronic illness. Suddenly I had too many choices. I didn’t want to believe the doctors, then I wanted to be cavalier and wish it away. I spent time just being so mad. I wanted to take a bite out of everyone or a least yell at the top of my lungs. I wallowed around in self pity for a while. After all, I had always been able to count on my strength to get through everything. Now my doctors informed me that either I follow their guide-lines or I would die soon and miserable.
Finally, I just blocked it from my mind and searched for systems I could use to make following the rules as easy as possible. That is when the idea of writing a novel with my lifelong friend Victoria came about. I remember her exact answer, “type out an outline of what you have in mind, I’ll work on it in my mind and when I get through this next surgery we will start.” I was ecstatic and scared, but hope broke through.
I have written all through my life but my fear of having people see the soft, gushy, vulnerable part of me prompted me to tear up everything I created. Now I was committing to Victoria to put all of me out there. I read Sea Biscuit by Lauren Hillenbrand and I knew she wrote the book while bedridden with a chronic illness. When Victoria agreed to write a novel with me, I had to find a system to work around illness just as Lauren must have done. I searched the internet for interviews with her but at that time there wasn’t much there. I needed to pattern a process for myself and get it done fast. I needed to acknowledge the destructive thoughts and quickly turn them around.
My husband says that “projects take on a life of their own.” You find yourself moving one step at a time forward and each step tells you where to put your foot next. Writing has really proven that true. When we write we are “in” the story—the characters are real—the events are possible. When I am so completely wrapped up in a story, I don’t feel sick. I don’t feel vulnerable. I am totally alive.
Victoria and I are working on our fifth novel, our fourth one is almost ready for release.
We will always be working on our “how to get it done” process, from time to time we will share with you and hope you find it of value. I hope you will share with us.
