As I trim and shoe my way through the summer I have talked to my customers about my novel. Most express surprise that I am a writer. When I sat down and thought about it, I have been writing all my life. It should not be a surprise that a novel would be the culmination of that work.

Writing is a difficult as horseshoeing. I am not talking about physical labor. Rather self confidence, tenacity, and failure. As a kid, and still today, I live a whole different life inside my head than the face people see. I thought everyone was like that, but as an adult I realize that is not true. I was always fascinated by horses. My first story on paper was part of a homework assignment in middle school. I was so proud of that story. It was 43 handwritten pages on notebook paper in its’ finished product. I titled it Blue Max. It was about a 100 mile endurance trail ride. I mostly wrote for myself for the next few years. There was a magazine called Horse of Course. I sent a fiction horse related story to them when I was 11. They used it six years later. They never notified me or paid me. I was not getting the magazine anymore, but someone in 4-H with me was, and showed me. As a senior in high school I wrote for the newspaper and the literary magazine. I had several stories published in the literary magazine. One of my English teachers, Polly Cleary, put my name in for the national Quill and Scroll award without telling me. I won the award. I remember how special I felt. I was also a scholarship finalist for a journalism school.

My best friend, Diana and I were so in love with Starsky and Hutch. We started writing an S&H mini novel. She would hand write on paper a segment and hand it to me. I would add to it and hand it back to her. One day, I was so excited about what I wrote, I could not wait until after school to tell her. I don’t do very many ‘bad’ things. But that day, I went down to the bottom of the floor of the senior high school all the way to the back of the building where there was a pay phone near the gym. I knew the gym would be deserted that time of day. I looked up the phone number for the junior high school and called the office. I told them I was Diana’s mom and needed to speak to her about an eye doctor appointment. When Diana got to the phone I read the new passage to her while the poor girl was being watched by the principal of her school.

Now that I have been shoeing horses for the past few years, I have developed a much tougher skin and have quite a bit more self confidence. People seem to respond to my writing now. I think I can with stand the continual rebuffs now and still keep trying to write.

I have some new trim customers that are great. At one stop my customer cried while I was trimming her horse. I asked if I was doing something wrong. She said the past five shoers hit her horse when the mare would not hold her leg up. While I realize this is in my benefit because it gets me customers, I still can’t believe there are shoers out there that don’t understand geriatric horses don’t have the flexibility to hold their legs up. When I arrived at the barn, the first thing I noticed what how swollen the horses joint are. The tendons on the back legs were so stretched, they would not hold the ankle up. Her face looked old. I let her smell me and rubbed her withers. Then I kneeled down on the floor and rested her front leg on my lap to trim. On her hind feet, I picked up her hind leg and rested her hoof on the titanium on my boot. She was not in pain, so she left her leg there. It made it uncomfortable for me to trim, but she was happy. The owner was thrilled that I didn't hit her horse and begged me to come back in eight weeks.