Finnegan's Run, San Fran, Paris and Keeneland...all

by Rebecca Mance on 02/02/17

Cheers to all –

Yikes, I know!  I should have blogged long ago!  Unfortunately, my life took rather complex turns and twists, which is, undoubtedly, the story of my life.  Maybe that is why I write such unique books. 

This blog was supposed to be another interesting past story, however, instead, I do need to give an update on next book…and my move. 

So….I have had emails… “Where is the next book?”  Yes, actually, the book is finished. 

The book just bloomed late last month.  I took a train ride through Napa, then a subsequent drive to stay down in Carmel and suddenly the book just came together.  I am now just really adding the fairy dust. 

One always has doubts mid-way through a book. I thought, so many times (as I was stranded on BART packed in like a sardine with no place to sit down and work…though I have carried my computer diligently) that I was not sure if I would ever finish this book.  If I did finish the book, I just felt it wasn’t what it should be.  It was missing the magic.  Well, I found the magic.  Now, I am in final stages.

Book writing is not an exact science.

However, final stages of book have been and will continue to be delayed by life events.  Blogging, obviously has totally taken a back seat.  My sincere apologies. 

However, truly, the things that happen to me in real life are novels onto themselves.  I will not share, as those are for my memoirs and not for a blog. 

In short, someone like me quickly gets into loads of adventure and sometimes trouble without even trying.  I try, in fact, to avoid the trouble part.  It doesn’t always work to avoid it.  I often think of myself as a tiny frog jumping from lily-pad to lily-pad escaping crocodiles…and sometimes I barely escape and ….sometimes I don’t escape them.  Giggles.

However, I am still alive.  So far. Then there is BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) which is like a jungle filled with various kinds of wild animals…all pushing and shoving for some tiny space to stand in (and it is so expensive).  I wish they had a wine car…but then, you’d never be able to get to it.  Most likely there would be a stampede situation with casualties.  You can’t even get into the car during rush hour to go home even with the daunting prospect of being packed so tight you can’t move…I can’t imagine the mob scene if wine was involved….more giggles.

To sum all of that up...writing was slow because of all of that, working in my day job and jumping from lily pads before being eaten.

However, I am excited to say, and yes have been hinting on Twitter also…I am returning home to Finnegan’s Run, my home. (Paris, KY outside of Lexington). 

Depending on events, February 28 is my absolute last day of commute like a sardine for work. 

But what am I really going to do besides write there?  Well, I have my family (the two Joes).  My plan is to freelance my California paralegal skills and work for attorneys in Cali at a Kentucky rate.  Husband Joe is going to get me satellite internet so I can efile legal documents at flash-speed [Company officially opening at Finnegan's Run on April 17 called EGlobal Legal Support...egloballegalsupport.com.] 

So, I am going to have a global operations center (me) to do contract work for attorneys in Cali who don’t need a full-time, in house office staff person...or need overflow work for a fraction of what I am paid here.  I am a certified California paralegal who will have global operations center in Paris, KY.  Hey, if all goes well, I might hire other Parisians to be my helping staff!

Yes, I am very excited.  The time that I would have spent stuffed on BART like a sardine will be time with my writing of novels, gardens, seeing the lovely fillies, colts and big horses around me….not to mention Ferguson the Fox, the deer, my reforest project, my fruit trees and my lovely neighbors. Plus, there is a rumor that American Pharaoh is stabled somewhere around my farm….so…maybe I will manage to get a pet on the nose of an King.   

Cheers also to California Chrome and I am so excited to learn that he is returning to a farm very close to me called Taylor Made Farm!  How exciting is that?  He is, like me, taking a ride down the country road home...two Californians going to Kentucky. Pretty cool.  So, I will live near another King.  Horse heaven.  Welcome Home Chrome!

When I get home…..

I have tickets to Opening Day at Keeneland, already, with my husband and son (both Army men..Vietnam and Afghanistan…so call before just showing up at Finnegan’s Run). 

Back to Opening Day at Keeneland….Keeneland has dining rooms.  I got the LexKY room for Spring Meet on April 9.  I just can’t decide what dress to wear…or which hat?  We will see….But I am so, so excited.

First line of business when I return is walking my 12 acres with a ball mason jar filled to the brim with Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale with my two puppies, Oliver and Merlin.  I will see how my reforest project is coming along.  I will, at some point see Ferguson the fox, now grown (who used to eat my chickens from time to time, I suspect), the many deer that like my newly filled-in tree lines and reforest project, my fruit trees….and everything else on my land in Paris at Finnegan’s Run.

Finnegan’s Run is very much tied to California,  like I am.  It is as if there is two Rebeccas.  One loves San Francisco, Napa/St.Helena, Carmel….I love the Palace Bar, Big Four, Top of the Mark, Walking Nob Hill, China Town, The Crocker Galleria where I have lunch nearly every day with the lovely dome and flowers, the view of the Bay from the Ferry Building…all of it…all of it.  The America’s Cup was the most amazing sporting event besides the Derby I have ever experienced or would hope to….

I can, when I really try, be sophisticated at a wine party, or at the palace bar…San Francisco and the Bay area is an amazing place to me.  But in the end …I am simple (not as sophisticated as the people around me).  So, the “other Rebecca” is a very simple country girl.  I long for the land and days where I see no people on my 12 acres.  Horses and dogs, undoubtedly, are often better companions than people.   I want my gardens again and to see the fillies and colts kicking their legs on the farms around me. 

Yet I love people and this city of San Francisco…though lately quite hostile to the likes of me…if they knew me truly…but I love this place.  So, I will leave my heart in San Fracisco, Napa/St. Helena and Carmel.  My next book, as is the case with most of my books, largely takes place in SF Bay Area, but it goes exotic.  Those are my only clues to that book.

Without question, the book will get more exotic in its final stages when I walk the land again with Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale in a Ball Mason Jar! Even more giggles.

Anyway, I am not leaving California truly.  I am bringing California with me to Kentucky because when I work for California attorneys remotely…assuming a few of them hire me to be a global operations person….and advance the law in California, practicing my other craft (besides writing) while in Kentucky ….of being the best paralegal (the third Rebecca)…then I have not left California at all.  California gets in your blood and you can never quite leave it behind.  Though I would, most assuredly, like to leave behind the angry and quite out of control, protestors…who don’t seem to have jobs. 

Besides that, when I walk the land in Kentucky I will be thinking of Carmel and Napa/St. Helena and San Francisco.  However, I am so excited to go home to Finnegan’s Run.

Finnegan, himself, was a California collie.  (Namesake of our farm).  My son Joseph drove all the way to Palm Desert to pick him up for me.  Then he rode all the way from California to Kentucky.  He lived only a bit over a year.  But in his last 6 months of life in Kentucky, he learned about snow, about grass (he had grown up in the desert)…and he ran the land with me.  He died in April just after his first birthday.  A California collie who ran the land in Kentucky and he is the namesake of Finnegan’s Run. 

When I hear the mocking birds now in early February in California, they sound just the same as in April in Kentucky.  Come St. Patrick’s day, I’ll be moving.  Don't worry California, I will always return.

Thank you so much to my friends, family and to my fans who keep after me about this next book. I’ll put it out for free the First Saturday in May to celebrate the Kentucky Derby.

Thank you to everyone who purchased my books this year.  Thank you so much.  Iron Horse King has emerged as top hit (the story of how San Francisco was built, in fact the whole country changed…but this is a romantic interpretation), The Letter - second, Chosen One - third….but you have all been so good to me with all my books, Once Upon a Misty Blue Grass Hill is my "girl and horse" story who meets handsome Irishman.  My attempt at light erotica, of course, was my last book The Wine Prince, Vine of Obsession....book after current one in works is going to be a sequel to The Letter but very much related to Wine Prince....

Now, this has gotten long winded...to both all who buy my books in the US and outside in countries all over the world…thank you …thank you to all of you so very much from my very humble heart.  Blessings to all…2017 is going to be a very amazing year.

Meet me in Paris.  Because Paris, after all, “is always a good idea.” 

Goes unedited.

Sincerely,

Rebecca