Candace Lynn Talmadge | Stick a (South)Fork in It: One small momentous choice saved my life

Remember the summer of 1981? That hot season everyone was wondering who shot J.R. in the hit TV series, Dallas. The family with two adult sons who still lived in their parents’ home (Southfork) and behave liked toddlers.

That was also the summer I signed on as a foot soldier in the great Dallas newspaper war, the last crosstown brawl of its kind before newsprint gave way to pixels.

As a business reporter for the long defunct Dallas Times Herald, I covered advertising, marketing, media, and retailing. The rival and hometown owned rag, the Dallas Morning News, paid four separate reporters to cover each of those beats.

More often than not, I scooped them. Those were heady days.

But what I most wanted in my heart of hearts was to write a novel. After decades of research and thought, I tried to start it in 1982 and in 1985. No dice.

That same year, my mom phoned me. She and my dad lived in California, where my siblings and I were born and where my parents spent all but six years of their married life.

Mom wanted me to take over her business, Capitola Realty. After my parents became empty nesters, she returned to the real estate career she pursued in the 1940s. She was good at it and wanted to pass it on.

I thought about it. It was tempting. Not many people get the chance to take over a thriving business. But I also knew I was lousy at sales. And deep down I wanted something different.

So, I thanked her. And told her that if I was going to be a success, it would be as a writer. A novelist, specifically.

That proverbial fork in the road. I knew what it represented even as I declined her generous offer.

I could have returned to California and done my best to sell houses and other property. But had I chosen that fork, I doubt I would be alive today in this body. My fears would have consumed me.

And had I chosen that path, I would not have met Jana, who pulled my emotional and spiritual fat out of the fire. I would not have encountered dozens of other delightful people, in their own ways seekers just like me. A few of them have become lifelong friends.

And I most likely would never have written that novel that grew into a series. While Stoneslayer tells one story in its pages, the story behind it is about my own emotional-spiritual growth and healing. My personal transmogrification.

I tried to write this very tale in at least one past life that I know of, and am beyond grateful that this time, I succeeded. In doing so, I freed myself from emotional and spiritual issues (karma, if you like) that have dogged me since my beginnings as a soul.

Well, I’ll be forked.

About Candace Lynn Talmadge

Candace Lynn Talmadge is a USA-based author of dark high fantasy about political intrigue, demonic warfare, and spiritual awakening. Get a free excerpt from Stoneslayer: Book One Scandal when you sign up for her free author newsletter on her Substack channel, Wider Realities.