I was twelve years old when I first dreamed of writing a novel.
I can't tell you exactly what sparked that desire, but I remember knowing that someday I wanted to write a book of my own. I loved the idea of creating characters, giving them lives, putting them into situations, and seeing where their stories might take them. At twelve, I certainly didn't understand everything involved in writing a novel, and I doubt I gave much thought to the patience, persistence, and sheer number of hours it would require. I just knew I wanted to do it.
That dream stayed with me as the years passed. Life, of course, had other plans for my time. I married, raised a family, served in the Air Force, and eventually built a career in the corporate world. There were responsibilities to manage, bills to pay, places to be, and always something that needed my attention. Writing a novel remained on my list of things I hoped to accomplish someday, although that elusive "someday" kept getting pushed a little farther down the road.
Then, sometime in my fifties, I learned something about my family that absolutely fascinated me.
My great-great-aunt was a famous novelist!
Her name was Bertha Muzzy Bower, although most people knew her by her pen name, B.M. Bower.
Now, if you enjoy classic Western fiction, particularly stories about cowboys and ranch life in the American West, that name might sound familiar. B.M. Bower was one of the most successful Western fiction writers of the early twentieth century. She wrote more than sixty novels, including her best-known work, Chip of the Flying U, which was published in book form in 1906.
And here's something I found especially interesting. Many of her early readers didn't even realize she was a woman!
At a time when Western fiction was considered primarily a man's territory, she published under her initials, and readers often assumed the person writing those cowboy adventures must surely be male.
I have to admire a woman who could hold her own in that environment, especially during an era when women faced so many limitations.
What amazes me is that I had carried around this desire to write a novel since I was twelve years old, yet I didn't discover until decades later that someone in my own family had actually made a career out of doing exactly that.
I had no idea!
I often wonder what I might have thought as a young girl if someone had told me about her. Would knowing that I had a successful author in the family have encouraged me to pursue writing sooner? Would I have been more determined to find the time?
Maybe. Then again, knowing myself, I probably still would have been too busy with everything else life threw my way.
There's another little coincidence that makes me smile. She wrote under the name B.M. Bower, and here I am, more than a century after her first publishing success, writing under the name T.J. Caldwell.
Two women in the same family, separated by generations, both publishing under their initials.
I rather like that.
Of course, our writing is quite different. Her stories brought the Old West to life, filled with ranchers, cowboys, horses, and the challenges of frontier living. My first novel, Tipping Point, explores the consequences of human decisions, the struggles people face, and the complicated questions surrounding responsibility, forgiveness, and redemption.
I wouldn't begin to compare my first attempt at writing a novel with her remarkable body of work. She was a prolific author who made her living telling stories, and I'm a woman who finally decided it was time to stop talking about a lifelong dream and actually do something about it.
But I do feel a connection to her.
I wish I could sit across the table from her with a cup of coffee and ask about her writing process. Did her characters ever surprise her? Did she sometimes sit down to write and find that the words simply wouldn't come? Did she ever finish a manuscript and wonder whether anyone would want to read it?
And perhaps most importantly, how on earth did she manage to write so many books without a laptop, spell-check, or the ability to delete an entire paragraph with one keystroke?
I suspect we would have plenty to talk about.
Now, as I prepare to publish Tipping Point, I'm finding myself thinking more and more about this unexpected family connection.
For years, I wondered whether I would ever get around to writing that novel I'd dreamed about at twelve. I suppose there were times when I thought the opportunity had passed me by. But retirement has given me something I haven't always had in abundance: the freedom to explore my creativity and spend my days doing things I've wanted to do for years.
And what an adventure it has been!
I've learned more about writing, editing, publishing, formatting, and marketing than I ever imagined I would need to know. I've made mistakes, changed my mind more times than I care to admit, and occasionally wondered whether I had lost my own mind taking this on at this stage of life.
But I've also discovered how much I enjoy the entire creative process.
Sometimes I think about God's timing and how differently our lives unfold from what we imagined when we were young. I don't know why that desire to write was placed on my heart at twelve, or why it took me more than fifty years to bring it to life. I do know that the desire never completely went away.
And now, knowing that my great-great-aunt was a novelist adds another dimension to the experience.
Perhaps storytelling really does run in the family.
I'll never know whether there's something about our shared family history that contributed to my love of writing, but I find the possibility intriguing. It also makes me want to learn more about Bertha, her life, her books, and the woman behind those famous initials.
In the coming weeks, I plan to share some of what I discover about B.M. Bower and her remarkable writing career. I think you'll enjoy getting to know her, too.
As for me, that twelve-year-old girl who dreamed of writing a novel would probably be pretty excited to know that, all these years later, her dream is finally coming true.
And I can't help wondering what Aunt Bertha would think.
I'd love to hear from you. Have you ever discovered something surprising about your family history that made you look at your own life a little differently? Or perhaps you've carried a dream around for years and finally decided to pursue it?
I'd love to hear your story.
Until next time,
T.J. Caldwell
Author of Tipping Point and the upcoming novel Vanished on Mission
