I mentioned that I became a flight attendant rather late in life. I’m sure you’re wondering why. Remember, all of this is in the context of my writing career. If you have visited my website, you know that I have two children’s books published in hardcover. Three months after those books were published, I had the opportunity for them to be considered for an animated television series. One catch: in order to qualify, I was given 30 days to produce a demo featuring the characters in my books. Not a problem. I had some great producers who hit the ground running, found a local animation studio, and the rest is history. Our demo won the offer. However, we needed to raise funding for the first season. A successful season would mean the network would get corporate sponsorship for me.
At the time, I was employed as a marketing director but thought, “Hey, this is the brass ring—accept the challenge!” So I retired from my job, spent a year writing a business plan, and secured the necessary funding commitments in November 2007 (just after the stock market had reached an all-time high). We agreed to sign checks and get underway in February 2008. Does anyone remember what was happening in the stock market in February 2008? Refresher course: we were in the early stages of what came to be called “The Great Recession.” Investors, including mine, began backing away from prior commitments; and, if you remember, I had retired.
No chance to return to my former position. Suddenly, it seemed as if all the money in the country had gone into lockdown. “Now what?” I asked my friends.
“You should become a flight attendant,” some said.
“Say what?” I said in a tone of disbelief, as I pointed to my white hair.
“Oh, they love people like you,” they said. “And besides, it will give you a chance to meet lots of people and increase the opportunity to find funding for your children’s television series.”
Well, it’s true. I have met a lot of people. None, however, has stepped forward to fund my television series, but a few have offered to make some calls. Since my children’s character was featured as one of ten programming initiatives at a gala event held in the Chicago Field Museum, I continue to hold out hope for my beloved children’s series, “Has Anyone Seen Woodfin?” If you have any ideas, please visit my website at www.woodfin.cc.
In the meantime…I have heard so many stories and met such a diverse cross-section of people aboard my flights that I couldn’t help myself. I had to write about what I was seeing and hearing and experiencing: I had discovered an untapped resource in anecdotes that I knew would work well in adult fiction, so I published my first ebook mystery in 2012. When I wrote my first flight attendant mystery, “Souls On Board,” readers seemed to like it, so I wrote a sequel, “Ground Stopped!” Same reaction.
That was eight books and over 2,000 readers ago, and I haven’t stopped to look back. I’m working hard on the next sequel in the “Souls on Board” series, and I anticipate it will be published by the end of October. I’ve learned that Life offers interesting paths for all of us: some are a bit rocky, some even muddy, but all are exciting. I know mine is. But a lot happened in my life before this to enrich my writing. Let’s save that for another time.