Kindred Emotions
Dedicated to Elizabeth Agnes Jensen
(1820 - 1898)

Thanks for the gift.

I dedicated the book Kindred Emotions (Quotes of Wisdom) to Elizabeth Agnes Jensen. Elizabeth Agnes Jensen is a spirit that lives in my house with my son and I.
Something happened in December. There was communication with her and this is why I thanked her for the gift. But up until now, I have been the only one who knows the story. It will eventually come out in the book, A Father A Son and A House Full of Ghosts, Book Three, but I have been asked numerous times, “What is the gift? What happened?” And so I decided to post it on the website.

This is the story...

Writing season for me is in the winter months, and then I promote my books in the summer. That’s my schedule. And around Christmas break, and being a school teacher, it is a perfect time for me to start a new project. I always have about 10 days off during that holiday and so it is a great time for me to sit down, focus and get started on something new.

The problem was that I didn’t have any ideas. Or my ideas were horrible. I would sit and write pages about something, only to read it the next day, and it was bad...really bad. Or, I would write something and hit such a dead end that there was no recovery...no story to continue with. Nothing seemed to “take.” I began to get very frustrated, to the point of becoming angry. I was losing time and stressing out. I had to write something. The feeling that I must accomplish something was overwhelming, but I felt lost. I didn’t know whether it should be fiction, nonfiction...should I try a children’s book? I just knew that I felt pressured to produce something and that
I was losing time.

I then developed a list of criteria that this book must have:

1. I knew that it needed to appeal to the market. Books sell when they appeal to the market. Well, who is the market? Women! Seventy-two percent of all books sold are sold to women. Therefore, I thought it a good idea if it had emotional appeal and relationship appeal. That’s a safe bet.

2. I wanted the price to be under $10.00...preferably $9.95.

3. I wanted it to be positive and honest.

4. I basically wanted a quality product that was affordable where readers could move through it easily, and yet at the same time, be captivating enough so they didn’t want to put it down.

But I still had no ideas as to what this book was going to be. I just had a list of things that it “must be.”

For a couple of weeks I would pace and pace around my house thinking. But my attitude was becoming sour and I was noticeably more and more moody. My frustration became deeper and soon I was in a deep frustration with a martini in my hand. And after almost two weeks of doing this, I still had no ideas.

I gave up. I told myself that this isn’t something that can be forced. I’m just going to have to let it go. The time is going to be lost and there isn’t a whole lot I
can do about it.

A few days later after trying to forget about the whole thing, an idea popped into my head. It was nothing I had thought of.

The idea was that I would write a book of quotes from others. I was the compiler. It was just compiling information and putting it into a book. I would look for quotes from people like: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Mark Twain, Henry Ford, and various entertainers. I would find out what they said about topics such as : Love, Relationships, Happiness, Friendships, Life, Adversity, Aging, Spirituality, and Fear. All of these are associated with the emotions that we all share as human beings. So I will use the words of the great men and women who had lived before us, and seeing what they said about the emotions we all share as human beings. I would call the book “Kindred Emotions”

This idea had everything that I was looking for and it was like it was just given to me. It met all of the criteria I was looking for.

1. It would be appealing to women.

2. I could keep the price at $9.95.

3. It would be positive, honest, captivating, and easy to read.

I had it! This was it!

Well... the day that I got this idea was Christmas morning. And this was indeed a Christmas present from Agnes to me.

She sent it to me for two reasons:

1. In her day when she went to school, penmanship was an important subject and it had to be practiced. And she was made to write down famous quotes and the wisdom from others. That’s how she would practice her penmanship..

...And as I mentioned it was a very frustrating and serious time for me trying to get an idea.

2. The second reason she sent it to me was because she was tired of seeing me walk around the house like a grizzly bear.