I am pleased to announce that book #4 of Baron of the West is now available
in Kindle and paperback format on Amazon. It is entitled: Rancher Baron's Descendants.
A couple of years ago I launched into something new: writing lessons on writing, for teachers pay teachers.com. It is a site where teachers write teaching lessons for other teachers. Since I used to be a teacher, I decided to try my hand at it. If you are interested, the following should get you to my page and store:
Share Follow Link https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Sally-Demaray-Hull.
Likewise most, I don't think of my own life as being so very interesting. It just seems like regular life to me. But since we all have different experiences, I thought I'd share a few things about my life that you may find interesting, or out of the ordinary.
I think I first became a writer when I was in the second grade. I wrote a story about my dog. I was allergic to animals--all animals--except to three breeds of dogs: Chihuahuas, poodles, and schipperkes. She was a Chihuahua. She represented the entire animal kingdom to me. I loved her so much. I even illustrated my storybook about her. From there I wrote other short stories. But it was not until I was seventeen that I wrote my first novel. I was actually doing it in order to practice my typing skills the summer before my senior year in high school. My mother had told me that sometime during my four years in high school, I had to take a typing class. (Those were pre-computer days. I remember dreaming of one day owning an electric typewriter.) I really did not want to take a typing class, and so waited until my senior year. The summer before that, I wanted to polish my typing skills so that the class would not be too frightening and humiliating. As long as my fingers were going to go over the keys, I decided that I might as well write a book. Over the years I rewrote it several times. In 2010 it finally got published. I called it: The Trail Beyond. I am so thankful that my mother insisted that I take that typing class. I may never have attempted to write an entire novel otherwise.
As a child I dreamed of growing up to be a missionary. At the age of forty-two, I went to China as an unofficial missionary, teaching English as a Second Language. Having spent most of those forty-two years in a small farming community in Michigan (Gladwin), suddenly finding myself in the middle of China's "Paris" city of Shanghai, with a population of 15-20 million (depending on who was asked the question), knowing only a few words of their language, and having no sense of direction, forced the romance of missionary life to quickly flee away, leaving behind the only real reason to stay: Telling my students how they can have a relationship with God, being forgiven because Jesus paid for their sin, and live forever with Him.
Another thing I had pondered on for years, was the idea of spending a lot of time on the road. When I was forty-nine, I married a truck driver and found myself in the position of learning firsthand what it is like to live on the road, going from truck stop to truck stop. Friendships are formed quickly at the truck stops, because you know that you will likely not see these particular people again, unless they work at the truck stop, so there is no time to waste. When blizzards come, and you are among the many drivers who have pulled off the road, waiting in the drivers' lounge, hoping to catch a shower and find an available washing machine to do out your laundry, only to discover that the machine will not accept your card (for whatever reason), you learn to feel like a member of the family when one of the drivers sees your plight and pays for a shower for you. He has been there too. And then later, in the restaurant, you see him again, and the three of you decide to eat together--now long lost buddies. Finally the storm lets up, the roads are plowed, and you climb into the truck and you pull back onto the road, never to see that driver again. But you pray for him.
Sometime in between China and being on the road in an eighteen-wheeler, my sister-in-law Donna and I used to visit a nursing home once a week. One day I took my puppet with me, to give the folks a ventriloquist show. They were all in the dining hall, waiting for breakfast. I went from table to table, my puppet happily chatting with the people. On that day, not one frown could be seen. Frail bodies sat up a little straighter. Dull eyes suddenly began sparkling with the fun of childhood. Folks who were accustomed to muttering now called out merrily to my puppet. What a sweet day that was.
Not every memory evokes a grin to my lips, though. I remember one frightening time in China. I had caught a taxi to go to the post office. I had also come prepared to hand out tracts that were written in Chinese, telling about the Lord Jesus Christ. Handing out religious material was not allowed. But Jesus said, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." (Mark 16:15 KJV) I chose to obey Jesus over the Chinese government, even if it would mean that I would be punished for it. I wrapped up the tracts in Chinese paper money. Each time I came to the post office, I would see an old woman sitting on the ground with a rice bowl in front of her, begging. On this day, I dropped one of the money-encased tracts into her rice bowl and then stepped away. Since this was a government building, there were many police around it. The police in China look like soldiers to me, dressed in olive drab. She began unwrapping it. I knew that if one of these policemen saw that inside was a tract, he would detain me. Suddenly my heart began pounding as I slipped through the crowd, trying to cross the busy street--a street in which a pedestrian literally takes his life in his hands when crossing. I dared not linger to hail a taxi, and so kept on walking and finally stepped into a flower shop. I purchased a bouquet of flowers and then left, hailed a taxi, and returned to the college campus where I lived and taught. I still pray for that woman. I never saw her at the post office again.
One of the things I feel good about that I've done was being a caregiver to my parents, during the last months and years of their lives. My father had been diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease when I had been a young teenager. But in my late twenties, my mother was diagnosed with cancer. She stepped into Heaven two and a half years later. And then two years later, my father was diagnosed with cancer and stepped into Heaven six months later. It was a privilege to be there for them, and I'm so glad I had this opportunity. I would not trade these memories for anything.
At this time, I now have fifty books published. (They are available as print and down-loads from Amazon and Kindle) I have a wonderful husband. And I'm on my way to Heaven, because "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (John 3:16 KJV). God has been so good to me.
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