Chapter 4: Researching the Novel

All my life, I wanted to be an artist, but an artist, whatever the medium, lives to create something new, something that had not existed before. I did not start out being a writer. But a writer is no different from here, the sculptor (I’ve done that) in that the sculptor creates something new. So the writer takes bits and pieces from today, yesterday, or some other time and place. I have borrowed from history and from family.

Writing was not a plan of mine until a few years before retiring, dreaming instead of pursuing my art. I spent seven years at Mammoth Cave listening to stories of the cave and its history. Many years later, I began telling friends that someone should write the history of Mammoth Cave. I guess they got tired of hearing me say it because they began telling me to write the book. I was no writer, as I repeatedly informed them. But slowly, I began to think about some of them. My second husband thought it was a great idea. He loved history, and he liked to write.