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About
About
nicah
nicah
I'm a writer. I used to be someone else, but that was in another life. One moment I was sitting down to dinner, feeling breathless and light headed, the next moment I was in a strange room full of strangers. I'd had a stroke and a heart attack.
I'd suffered with detached retinas earlier which left me with poor eyesight, and my driving license was withdrawn. Now following the stroke, I have to stop and rest or pass out every five hundred or so yards when I walk. With the brain damage caused by the stroke I have difficulty in speaking and writing especially when I'm tired. Time and therapy has helped.
That's why I started writing. My therapist suggested the recovery of my speech and written abilities could be benefited by writing. She was right; The progress has been slow but steady. I use this pen-name to separate my writing from my former career. It's partly vanity, and partly the look I get from people when they realize what at hot mess I've become now. Enough about me, let me tell you about the my writing (therapy).
Books
Books
I've written a series of four books, so far. I have plans for two more in the 'Family Secrets' series in the pipeline, but publishing four novels and blogging is all I can handle right now. It's taken over two years for me to learn the process of writing again.
If I try to write quickly, the words come out wrong and it's gibberish. If there is anyone talking while I'm writing, their conversation will magically appear in my writing. It's like two people are sharing the keyboard and typing at the same time. When I concentrate really hard I can do it, but it's mentally exhausting. Punctuation is a whole other problem. I may know the I want to say but I can't figure out how to spell it. Even simple easy words like 'know'. My brain tells me it's wrong but I want to start it with 'n' or 'm' or 'h', or whatever. I finally figure it out but it could take me five minutes. Go figure! Brain damage, yeah!
Over 750,000 words, four versions of 'Family Secrets' and one of each of the other three books, of over 100,000 words and I'm still trying, still making mistakes, but I've decided to publish.
'Secret Family', is the first in the series and the introduction to the mystery. The three girls depicted on the cover art are cousins. The story centres around what happens when two of them discover the existence of the other and their 'secret' family. Struggling with the emotional aftermath of a family tragedy, they need to understand the past to find a way forward.
What happened the night that splintered and destroyed their family? How did three devoted sisters, Faith the eldest and twins Hope and Love just vanish forever? What happened to their parents? What were the secrets they hid from the own children and grandchildren for rest of their lives? Can the cousins, more than seventy years later, untangle the mystery before history repeated itself?
'Hope's Secrets' are next. The events of that fateful night in Berlin. The night Nadja died and Hope rose phoenix like rose from her ashes. A night she was destined to revisit in her nightmares for the rest of her life.
She fled across Europe spreading mayhem in her wake as she literally ran for her life. The hunt was relentless day after day with the Gestapo on her heels, and night after night pursued by her nightmares.
'The night times are the worst. Shadowy figures stretch out, crying out for help, my twin, elder sister, parents, and grandparents, strangers. I've failed them all, I've brought shame on my family and myself'. She sobbed.
She wrote about her shame in her journals, the encrypted ones she kept locked in a box in her room. It was all there. She'd meant to destroy them before she died. Now it was in Kellie hands, and Solo had decrypted it. Now her secrets would get a voice and now she could never silence them, anymore than she could forgive herself?
Faith's secret was the biggest of them all. The worst, the most shocking of all. Vera, (Faith) had been her christian name, not that she prayed to any kind of God anymore. She'd betrayed her beliefs long ago as she found herself doing unconscionable things to try to survive. So much, for faith!
Thrown into the Ravensbruck death camp her fight was not for her faith, her fight was for life itself and she was determined to win, whatever the cost. Left for dead by the retreating, and defeated Nazis army, she found herself transported to the Ukraine under the heel of the Russians. She'd swapped one oppressor for another. Finally, free to return to Berlin she was repatriated to East Germany and another kind of prison.
Would she ever find freedom and the family she'd lost? Could she find forgiveness?
Do they all have something to hide? Surely Lubja couldn't be harbouring any secrets? It's an open secret that Lubja had very a 'light fingered' touch, everyone knew about it. She was the first to admit it, so that couldn't be it. Were those light fingers to become the cause of her downfall.
Hounded by the Gestapo the twins decided to increase their odds of survival by separating. Love headed south to neutral Switzerland, never to see her twin sister again. All to soon there were stories of her capture and then her death. Never feeling in her heart she was gone, for years after Hope searched in vain. Had she been captured and executed as the Gestapo claimed, or could she somehow, as a master of disguise, have fooled her hunters and escaped to America.
It would going to be more than seventy years until anyone would find the truth when Kellie and Solo located and decrypted the secret of Love's journal.
Beyond these four books, two more books about the adventures of Anja, Kellie, Marte, and Solo exist in my rough notes, but they will have to wait until I've re-written the other three.
I'm also working on a non-fiction book about building a website and blog. Those of you who read my blog will be familiar with my struggle to write and some of the things I've found about the process. I've started collecting my blogs and other material for write a 'how to' book 'for dummies' like me. Yes, I'm the dummy in chief. The book is packed with tips and guides to designing websites and blogs, the stuff that I've had to learn the hard way, and the stuff other people don't tell you. Maybe, I'm so dumb that other people know this stuff without being told, but I'm brain damaged, literally, and I need to be told. I will be blogging about some of it but there is some much I can't cover it all on the blog, hence the book.
Find more about the books under the 'Books' menu.
Blogs
Blogs
I post twice monthly depending of time and circumstances. Recently I have failed miserably to get meet even that modest target. Read my blogs to see how I screwed-up. Sorry, I promise to do better.
I've reorganised my posting schedule. Well, I should say I've built a posting schedule and managed to written a bunch of posts to fill at least a couple of months posts. I stored them in the 'cloud' so I won't be repeating that mistake again. As well as re-organising my schedule I have also re-organised my Blog to help readers find what they are looking for.
I know the jumble of posts made readers frustrated, it frustrated me too. When you look on my blog you will see a heading on the right called 'Labels', it and then click the category you want and it will list all the posts under that heading.
Another major mistake was re-naming the titles of 'Searching for Love' to 'Secret Family'. I have been serializing it in the Blog. It appears to have caused some confusion. My readership plummeted. I'm sorry! At usual nic came up with the solution. He's such a 'smart alec', or something similar. So, there will be two copies of the same book called 'Secret Family', and 'Searching for Love'. They are the same except for the title. A list of the blogs under both titles show below. The only changes are to the Cover art.
You can download other posts are available in my 'Blog'. Click here for nicah's other blogs.
nicah
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