Where Is Daytown, Texas?

I LOVE TEXAS!!! It’s my home state. (Huntsville, stand up!!!) No offense to the other two states that I have been blessed to live in, but no place compares to the rolling green hills of the second largest state in the nation. I love the cowboy hats and boots of the country, the lights of the city, and the way all four seasons can be experienced in one twenty-four hour period. Most of all I love the southern dialect that rolls off the tongues of its residents. I get a kick every time my name is pronounced “Shan” (with the first and last syllables seeming to disappear into thin air). I know they’re talking to me!!! And no matter what anyone says, “Y’all” is a word, and we Texans know how to use it!

Because I love Texas, I had to have the settings of my books there. The challenge of exactly where in Texas came while I was penning Casting Down Imaginations. I didn’t want to have the characters live in Huntsville, because I didn’t want anyone to think I was trying to tell their story in some way. I didn’t want to have it set in Houston, either. Even though it’s not that far away from where I grew up, I never spent a lot of time there and didn’t know much about it. I spent several childhood vacations in the Galveston area visiting family, but other than my grandmother’s house across from the railroad tracks, I was pretty much a foreigner. My only option was to use my imagination and make up an entire city.

Those who know me know that I am pretty horrible with names. I’m not proud of it, but it’s true. Someone’s name could be Peter and I’d call them David in a minute, not even realizing that I’d made a mistake. It’s not on purpose. I’ve been that way my entire life, so coming up with a name for a fictional town was tough.

After trying for several hours to come up with something, I took the desperate approach of pounding my keyboard. (Doesn’t it seem that we always hurt the ones we love? I apologized to it later. J) To my surprise, an internet search page pulled up openings for Bay City Apartments in Michigan. Seeing it as God’s answer to my prayer, I changed the “City” to town and combined it with the first word of the apartment building. But there was already a city in Texas named Baytown, so I closed my eyes and pressed a random key on my keyboard. It was a D. So my Baytown became Daytown by the forgiveness of my keyboard, and three books later, it exists in the hearts of my faithful readers.

It seems to be a nice place to live, as well. It has a college, which Anaya and Karen attended in my first book, Casting Down Imaginations. Kamilah attended one if its high schools and also worked at a coffee shop there, while Summer lived in is luxurious Lincoln Estates in Sweeter Than The Honey. Daytown also has a great interior decorator in Dana, who lives there as well in my latest novel, The Dorkiss Way. It even has a black entertainment channel.

I wonder what’s in store for Daytown next…

In L-O-V-E....

(From my Facebook page. Thought I'd share it here...)

Love tells THE TRUTH. The TRUTH is THE WORD OF GOD. Love looks beyond emotions. It may hurt to hear THE TRUTH, but the TRUTH will not fail. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the TRUTH (I Corinthians 13:6). No man can nullify God's word, no matter how big their platform is. No matter how much they are "RESPECTED" GOD is THE ONE TO FEAR. No matter how much they are exalted, none is higher than GOD! It's time to get out of your emotions and get into the WORD OF GOD and REALLY KNOW what the WORD says! Then you won't be influenced by worldly theories that contradict the bible, because you will know for yourself! COME ON CHURCH, WHERE ARE YOU?!?!?! WE ARE IN OUR LAST DAYS!!! Get off the phone and social media and spend some time with GOD in your WORD and stop speaking LIES to cater to THE FLESH of those who really need to know God, even if it is YOU!!! If I didn't love you, I wouldn't say it. #InLove #TheWholeWorldNeedsARevival #GodIsNotPlayingEvenIfYouAre

8 Quotable Notables From The Dorkiss Way

This is a list of my favorite quotes and lines from my latest novel, The Dorkiss Way.

1.)    “You’re missing the point entirely. It’s not about deprivation. It’s about preservation. Keeping yourself sexually pure is about honoring God with your body, as well as your future spouse. Your body is a pleasure that only he is supposed to experience.” ~Kelly Dorkiss explaining the principles of The Dorkiss Way. 

2.)    “Without God, there is no marriage. Just two people moving around, praying not to kill each other in the process. The stage before marriage is the easy part. After you say those vows is the hard part. Trust me. If it takes God to get you together, please believe that it will take God to keep you together.” ~ Kelly Dorkiss

3.)    “What? Oh my God, are you serious?” I asked, rightfully offended. “Why does a person have to be high to be happy? Can I smile? Can I have Jesus? Goodness! If I frown, everything is fine, but if I smile, all of a sudden I’m an addict?!” ~Dana on her sister’s assumption that she was on drugs. 

4.)    “This is the man that God is preparing you to marry, right? And he already had a son before you even met him. So if God is preparing you to be this man’s wife, don’t you think He’s also preparing you to be a mother as well?” ~Leah talking some sense into Dana

5.)    That’s why NeTesha’s little rug rat had to go stay with his grandma. That little horror wasn’t about to break anything else in my house. My sister’s kids were the only ones that I fooled with, and that was because I loved them. All others could go play with that freaky looking purple dinosaur and kick rocks. ~Dana on her dislike for children

6.)    “Your ears are not that holy, and you are not blind,” she insisted. ~Leah’s rebuttal to Dana’s denial of her attraction to Gavin

7.)    Oh my God… I need professional help! ~Dana realizing she’s never had a successful relationship

8.)    “I’m not trying to be your boyfriend,” he told me. “I’m trying to be your man.” ~Gavin’s response to Dana telling him that she wasn’t interested in having a boyfriend.

Birthday Giveaway - The Dorkiss Way (CLOSED)

It Was All Worth It

The past few days have been a bit emotional for me. I’ve laughed, cried, and danced, all in praise to God for what He has done.

Most of you know by now that my latest book, The Dorkiss Way, is about to be released. I got a proof in the mail a few days ago, and I promise you, I have not been the same since. When I opened the package and saw the book staring back at me, I screamed and immediately began to dance. The rush of joy that came over me still lingers today. As I flipped through its pages, one thought repeatedly went through my mind: It was all worth it!

Let me explain.

For those of you who don’t know, Writing books is EXTREMELY HARD!!! It’s no cake walk, and independently publishing, promoting, and selling books is EVEN HARDER!!! There is a lot of work that goes into producing a book, and of the three that I have been blessed to produce thus far, The Dorkiss Way was by far the most challenging. I have never labored to make something happen so hard before in my life (and I did four years in the military!)

There were days when I thought about giving up. After all, by the grace of God I’ve already published two books, and I havn’t even turned thirty years old yet. That's enough to be proud of. (Hey, I can be honest. It’s my blog!) But I knew God had more work for me to do. I couldn’t give up, no matter what was happening. 

To describe what I was going through as a setback would be the epic understatement of the decade. Initially, The Dorkiss Way was supposed to be released in 2011, but multiple unforeseen rewrites delayed its publication. Not only that, but I also started another job, which often left me too drained to write. It appeared as if I was going to have to push the May 28^th release date back even further. Things just were not happening the way that they were supposed to, and honestly, my faith was wavering. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to write this book. Everyone wanted a sequel to Sweeter Than The Honey, anyway. Maybe I should just toss The Dorkiss Way into the recycle bin and move on.

Even though I felt like quitting, I knew that I couldn’t. My writing isn’t about me or what I want to do. It’s about helping people. It’s about showing people that God loves them, no matter what situation they find themselves in. It’s about taking real life situations that people are going through today and showing biblical life application so that the love of Christ can be shown. I thought about myself and the struggles I went through when I was single and living for Christ. I thought about the countless other single women I’d met in the past year who were longing for a book like The Dorkiss Way. I thought about my call to write for God and how I couldn’t put it on the shelf simply because I was having a hard time. So, through my tiredness, I continued to write. Through headaches, my husband’s concern when he woke up one morning and discovered that I’d never went to bed the night before, and frustration, I wrote.

Now, my most stubborn child is here. The one who caused me so much grief, so much pain, and dare I write it, so much torture, is finally here!!! I can honestly say it was by no goodness or strength or talent of my own. It’s all by the grace of God, and I am truly thankful.

 Yep. It was all worth it.