Don't Stop Laughing by Liz Flaherty

George Bernard Shaw said, “You don’t stop laughing when you grow old, you grow old when you stop laughing.” I'm not sure if he said it first, but his name was the first one to come up when I looked. My first thought was that I don't like two independent clauses being separated by a comma. My second one was who did I think I was, arguing with George Bernard Shaw about grammar?

I talk way too much about growing old. I complain and I whine and I forget things and my skin, like that of the wicked witch in Wizard of Oz is melting at an alarming rate. But mostly I laugh. With my kids, with the guy in the other recliner, while I'm writing, with friends.

I've just started a new book, working title Shades of Green. The heroine is younger than my usual--thirty-three. She's never been married, doesn't have kids, and is a terrible disappointment to her mother. She's a pastor in a little community church, and she is so funny. Instead of the solemnity one might expect in a minister--even if one's a Christian and knows better--Carissa Newland is brash and questioning and fully acknowledges her shortcomings. (She has several.)

There will, of course, be angst in her story. She and I will do some weeping, some hand-wringing, some hissing demands of What is it you want from me? to God. I will decide in the middle of the book that I'm not the right person to write it and that it's boring and awful, but then something will happen and I'll remember why I love Cari Newland. I'll recall that she looked up from stretching the lead for the stained-glass window she's making and asked me to tell her story.

I'll say, Oh, yes, that's when it was, and I'll go on from the something that happened even though it almost certainly wasn't planned. I'll talk to my friend Nan about it and to my husband and I'll make changes. Cut scenes and paste them into a file of notes for Someday. Doesn't everyone have a Someday file?

This then is one of the joyful parts of growing old, when writing is so very much fun and you've learned to treasure every page and every oops! scene because you don't know when you won't be able to do it anymore.

This then is why you keep laughing and why you know age is just a number and not a very important one at that.

Happy writing!

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Every Time We Say Goodbye is a Harlequin Heartwarming from 2016, the first book in the Lake Miniagua series. It's on sale for $1.99 now, so if you missed it, I hope you'll give it a look. https://a.co/d/9iL64qf