Cherie Roberson lives with her husband of thirty-five years in a small Midwest town surrounded by the cornfields of Illinois. After retiring from teaching, she loaded up on chai tea and fulfilled a dream of authoring a novel, which is only second to her greatest achievement of raising three children to be better adults than herself.
When venturing to faraway places, a mountain, or a beach are impossible, she dreams about them, plays games with her two grandchildren, tames her extensive garden, or reads another author's words.
A very misty walk on a Florida beach and a canceled trip to Scotland due to a pandemic inspired her debut romance novel, Man in the Mist.
Why pen a romance novel? She credits God's great love she sees everywhere--in her sleeping grandkids to the Italian roads older than her home country.
When asked if she dreamed of becoming an author. Her short answer is "No," but her longer answer is "Maybe and I didn't know it?" Relaying what she visualizes in her head and heart takes wordsmithing.
She's always loved a delightful story. As a child, she spent summers reading the largest stack of books the library would lend her. She never kept endless journals, just an occasional diary, poetry. and notes on her travels to Ireland. But she loves creating imaginary conversations between animals and scenarios between strangers she observes.
When her mom asked after she retired, "What do you think you'd like to do now?" she responded, "Travel and write a book."
Her first retired winter, she and her husband worked up quite a "story" about a real-life stranger who magically appeared from the fog hovering over the Florida beach. "You should write that story!" he said. She accepted his challenge.
She had to unlearn some writing techniques she'd taught to students (third grade through freshmen) for thirty years. Dreaming of wonderful ideas, knowing all the best practices of writing in theory, and following all the rules of grammar, doesn't create a novel. At times, she admits to staring down the page and climbing the proverbial Mount Everest--trekking, even gasping for air, through all the difficult stages of getting a novel out into the world.
Between raising three kids, teaching, and her husband's career in law enforcement, she has plenty of material for future stories.
Follow Cherie for updates and read her blog at www.cherieroberson.com.
