Following a 28 year career as a private investigator, I decided to take the leap from fact to fiction in my first novel for the young reader, Beyond The Pond. I was inspired to write the fiction-fantasy based on the activities of my own backyard Koi pond. After all, I already had the characters; I just decided to give them voices on a page. I was not an avid reader as a child. But if the story involved animals, I would read that book.  Motivated by books such as Winnie the Pooh to Charlotte's Web, Black Beauty, Follow My Leader, and White Fang, I decided this was my genre because this is what I liked to read as a child. I started the book after my first grandson was born. I wanted to pass along the secrets of Pinecone Pond to him. Fictional writing was a great pass time and way to relax from the job of writing and proofing detailed investigative reports. Creating the characters in the story and giving personalities to the pond life in my backyard was a lot of fun. We had also just lost our wonderful dog, Sundance, to cancer, so writing about him and including him in the storyline was good therapy.The project actually started out as something I did for enjoyment, but when I found myself taking the writing more seriously, I decided since God had given me this idea, it was imperative that I include Him and the gospel of Jesus Christ in the story, too. This is when the blessing of writing came. There were months and even a year may have passed when I put this "hobby" on the shelf  because of my job. But, it was always there waiting for me when I came up with a new idea. Five years later, the book was done and I thought with the advent of self publishing, why not give it a try. After looking into all the pros and cons of using a self publisher, I decided to do it myself. I found my own artist for the book cover, found someone to format the pages into an ebook, searched for a local printing company and just the right color and texture of paper for the cover and pages,  and created Cedar Light Publishing as a way to produce my first book. The experience was challenging and fun. It is my hope that whoever reads Beyond The Pond will experience the same emotions that I did writing it, and come to a better understanding of God and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.   

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