I write southern historical fiction, local history, and I've written a devotional book. The two novels I'm writing are set in Virginia and the Carolinas in the 1760s. My weekly blog started out to follow my journey as a writer and a reader, but in 2025 it has been greatly expanded to include current events and politics in the United States as I see our democracy under attack from within. The political science major in me cannot sit idly by and remain silent.
With the change of seasons to cool mornings, I’m trying to take some of my own advice and follow along in my new devotional book and its companion journal:
I Need The Light! 26 Weekly Devotionals to Help You Through Winter
I Need The Light! 26 Weekly Devotionals to Help You Through Winter, by Janet Morrison
And
I Need The Light! Companion Journal and Diary.
I Need The Light! Companion Journal and Diary, by Janet Morrison
In case you haven’t purchased your copies yet, here’s a sneak peek at Week 1
The Scripture for Week 1 is Genesis 1:1-5. It’s about God creating the Heavens and the Earth and light. By the power of His word – “Let there be light! – and there was light!
I can’t imagine life without light, which leads me to think that people who have been blind all their lives probably can’t imagine what light is.
Thos of us in the northern hemisphere are entering the time of the year when natural light and the warmth it brings is in short supply. Those of us with Seasonal Affective Disorder and Fibromyalgia are not fond of cold weather. In fact, it is difficult for me to enjoy the beauty of fall because I’m dreading winter.
I need the natural light to help set my circadian clock and combat the effects of Seasonal Affective Disorder, but I need Jesus Christ – The Light of the World! – for all aspects of my life. He is my Rock and my Salvation.
Look for my books on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. You should also be able to find them at your favorite independent bookstore, such as Second Look Books in Harrisburg, NC; Blue Ridge Books in Waynesville, NC; and Highland Books in Brevard, NC.
Some independent bookstores refuse to sell books that are self-published, but I know the three I listed above have ordered copies. Please support them!
Each week in my devotional book includes a recipe for a food that brings me comfort. Week 1 has my mother’s recipe for Drop Biscuits. Yum! I think I need to go to the kitchen right now and make biscuits!
When I planned my blog’s editorial calendar for 2025, I thought I would be writing today about the 233rd anniversary of the laying of the cornerstone of the White House.
I thought I would write about the construction of the White House; how it survived the flames at the hands of the British on August 24, 1814; and its current transformation during the Trump Administration.
That’s what I thought until Friday. So much happened on Friday, I decided to ditch my earlier plans and focus today on more pressing concerns. I also want to catch you up on some of my writing projects.
Ramifications of the federal government shutdown
Photo by the blowup on Unsplash
More than 4,000 federal government employees were fired on Friday by the Trump Administration as the White House continues to blame the Democrats for the shutdown. President Trump announced that the “layoffs” would be “in Democrat programs” and the Democrats need “a dose of its own medicine.”
I’ve always thought that federal programs were for all Americans, regardless of their political leanings or voter registration. In 2025, though, it appears that the programs and services provided by the federal government are being labeled as “Democrat” and “Republican.”
The ones seen by President Trump as being “Democrat” are now fair game for being slashed and the employees who implement those services will be fired.
I thought it was against federal law for government employees to be fired based solely on the existence of a government shutdown, but I guess I was misinformed.
As the federal government shutdown continued and neither side showed the will to compromise, we entered the weekend anticipating something we usually don’t see during a government shutdown: 1.3 members of our military not getting a paycheck on the 15th of the month. However, President Trump said on Saturday that he had found the money somewhere to pay the military.
Democrats in Congress attempted to bring a bill to a vote on Friday for the military to be paid, but Republicans blocked the vote. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said the Republicans voted three weeks ago on the budget, which would have provided pay for the military. Johnson’s paycheck not being affected by the shutdown, he seemed unable to consider the hardship his actions/inactions would cause most military families.
The weekly newsletter I received from my U.S. Representative on Saturday plainly illustrates the standoff between the two political parties in the U.S. Congress. I will share that newsletter with you in tomorrow’s blog post as we sink deeper into this shutdown and all the uncertainties and hardship it causes.
The Nobel Prize for Peace
Photo by Sincerely Media on Unsplash
President Trump will whine about the Nobel Peace Prize for the rest of his life. He claims Maria Corina Machado, the Venezuelan woman who won it on Friday, called him that day and told him he “really deserved it.” He claims to have ended eight wars since January 20.
A detail that seemed to be missed by Trump was that nominations had to be submitted by January 31, 2025. That was just ten days into his second term. He has campaigned to receive the Nobel Prize all year. Most people who are awarded the prize don’t do that. Off the top of my head, I cannot think of anyone else who has openly begged for it.
True to form, a few days ahead of the announcement of the award, Trump said that it was rigged and he probably not receive it. After the announcement on Friday, Trump said that the Nobel Committee “put politics above peace” in awarding it to Maria Corina Machado. He also once again claimed that President Barack Obama received it “for doing nothing but destroying our country.”
Has anyone ever seen a 79-year-old be such a sore loser?
Qatari Air Force coming to Idaho
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth made a stunning announcement on Friday. He said that Qatar is going to build an air base at Mountain Home, Idaho. These was shocking, especially in light of the fact that in 2027 President Trump called Qatar “a big funder of terrorism.”
A few hours later, on Friday night, Hegseth had to clarify his announcement – which had been heard around the world. Actually, Qatar is NOT building an air base in Idaho or anywhere else in the United States. They will send fighter pilots to the U.S. Air Force Base in Idaho to train.
Whew! That’s a relief!
We knew there would have to be a payoff after Qatar gave Trump that $400 million plane that the U.S. taxpayers are paying $1 billion to rehabilitate so Trump can take it with him if he ever moves out of the White House. Perhaps this is the beginning of the payoff.
I don’t think Hegseth majored in communications in college.
President Trump’s semi-annual annual physical
Photo by shahreboye on Unsplash. (I tried to find a picture of an x-ray of a fist. That would have been more appropriate!)
President Trump had his second “annual” physical exam on Friday and was once again pronounced to be “in excellent health” even though he doesn’t appear to be and he doesn’t speak like a person in “excellent health.”
Additional tariffs on China
President Trump announced tariffs imposed on China amounting to 130%. Since most things American buy were manufactured in China, the coming months or years should be interesting.
I’m fortunate because I already have everything I need. I shouldn’t need to buy anything but food and medicine for the foreseeable future.
As an aside, I noticed last week that the cereal I often eat for breakfast came from Germany instead of Canada. It’s been coming from Canada for years. I’m still trying to figure out how it can be cost effective for a box of cereal to be shipped all the way across the Atlantic Ocean. Perhaps it is grown in Germany and packaged in the United States. It is a wheat product. I don’t have anything against Germany, but I’d prefer to get my wheat from farmers in the United States or Canada. It just makes more sense.
A Quote from Sunday
If I hadn’t heard it, I wouldn’t have believed it. The 4th Congressional District of Ohio must be so proud of their U.S. Representative, Jim Jordan. Yesterday on TV, Representative Jordan said, “I think the ICE agents are doing the Lord’s work.”
What a horrible thing to say about Jesus Christ!
The Christ that I worship would never condone masked men going around snatching people on the street or out of their beds in the middle of the night, pepper spraying a Presbyterian pastor who was praying for them and their detainees, detaining people for months on end, then deporting them (or not – perhaps just detaining them indefinitely) to random countries where they don’t speak the language.
I think Mr. Jordan needs to read the New Testament. He has been misinformed if he thinks ICE agents are doing “the Lord’s work.”
My writing projects
I continue to try to spread the word about my devotional book and the companion Journal and Diary on Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram. I Need The Light! 26 Weekly Devotionals to Help You Through Winter AND I Need The Light! Companion Journal and Diary are available on Amazon and from your favorite bookstore. We need all the help we can get as we navigate the next six months.
I Need The Light! 26 Weekly Devotionals to Help You Through Winter, by Janet Morrison
I Need The Light! Companion Journal and Diary, by Janet Morrison
I edited several of the historical short stories I have written for my upcoming book: Traveling Through History: A Collection of Historical Short Stories. My sister and I are doing one more proofread. I created a bookmark for the book on Bookbrush.com. I also created an information sheet about it to distribute to independent bookstores and the public library system here in Cabarrus County.
Want to see what part of the cover looks like?
Partial cover of Traveling Through History: A Collection of Historical Short Stories
I hope to have the book ready to self-publish through IngramSpark and Kindle Direct Publishing before the end of October, so stay tuned!
See – I don’t spend ALL my time tracking the political news. Each of us must find a way to put one foot in front of the other every single day as we navigate unchartered ground.
I don’t know whether American students still learn about Nathan Hale. I’ve heard that students are now taught that U.S. History began when George Washington became President.
I hope that is an urban myth. If a child isn’t taught that there was an American Revolution, a Revolutionary War, and why those came about, it will not mean anything to them to know that George Washington was our first President.
In case you need a refresher about who Nathan Hale was, I’ll give a brief summary.
Nathan Hale
Nathan Hale was born in Connecticut in 1755. He graduated from Yale University in 1773 and became a teacher. He joined a Connecticut regiment in 1775 and was commissioned as a captain the next year.
Hale went behind enemy lines on Long Island during the siege of New York. Deemed guilty of spying, he was captured on September 21, 1776. He was hanged by the British in Manhattan on September 22, 1776.
He was barely 21 years old! I did not realize he was that young until I was doing some research to write today’s blog post.
Things were not going well for the Americans, so leaders used Nathan Hale’s hanging as a rallying cry.
Hale has often been quoted as saying, “I regret that I have but one life to give for my country,” but there is no proof that he uttered those words. British Captain Frederick Macenzie, who witnessed the hanging, wrote in his diary that Hale’s last words were, “it is the duty of every good officer to obey any orders given him by his commander-in-chief.”
Hurricane Helene Update, 51.5 weeks after the disaster
As of Friday, 38 roads in North Carolina were still closed due to Hurricane Helene. That count included five US highways, two state highways, and 31 state roads.
Interstate 40 is, of course, still just two lanes, 35 miles-per-hour.
Don’t hesitate to travel to western North Carolina. Just be aware that there are still spotty road closures. The area needs tourists to support all the small businesses struggling to recover from this September 26, 2024, natural disaster. Eat at a diner instead of a fast-food chain restaurant. Make sure the souvenir you buy was handmade by a local artisan and not mass-produced by a large corporation.
A Note in Closing
I’m pleased to announce the publication of I Need The Light! Companion Journal and Diary to go along with I Need The Light! 26 Weekly Devotionals to Help You Through Winter. Both books are available on Amazon.
We are living in strange times. Pay attention to what is happening. Ignore the attacks on free speech at your own peril.
I am thrilled to announce that my book, I Need The Light! 26 Weekly Devotionals to Help You Through Winter is now available!
I Need The Light! 26 Weekly Devotionals to Help You Through Winter, by Janet Morrison
Even if you love the fall and winter, I think you will benefit from reading this book.
Why I Wrote I Need The Light!
I wrote it from a place of physical challenges in cold weather, so I think people who have such illnesses and conditions as Seasonal Affective Disorder, Fibromyalgia, and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis will be able to identify.
I settled on writing 26 weekly devotionals because with the onset of fall, I start dreading winter. Seasonal Affective Disorder affects me half the year.
What Does the Title I Need The Light! Mean?
To help me combat the symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder and sleep problems, my former physician’s assistant told me that I needed to get out in the natural light early every morning. I needed natural sunlight.
I’m not a morning person, so I had to force myself out of bed and outdoors in the morning – even in cold weather. As I walked, I repeated in my head the words, “I need the light. I need the light. I need the light. I need the light.” On about the fifth repetition, I had an epiphany: I realized I also needed The Light – Jesus Christ – “The Light of the World.”
I’ve been a Christian all my life, so it wasn’t a new concept for me that I needed Jesus Christ in all aspects of my life, but the sudden connection between “the light” and “The Light” was startling! It was then and there that God planted the idea in my mind and heart to write a book about the light and The Light.
That day, I started looking for all the references to light and The Light in the Bible.
Format of I Need The Light!’
Each week’s devotional follows this basic pattern:
The week’s Scripture reference is stated.
“Setting the Stage” in which I give a little background for that Scripture.
The week’s Scripture is then presented from The Message, The Good News Bible, The Living Bible, The New Oxford Annotated Bible (New Revised Standard Version), and TouchPoint Bible. The second week has the bonus of including the Bible verse from my great-great-grandmother’s 1849 The Psalms of David in Metre.
Insight from a Bible commentary, such as the series by Rev. William Barclay.
“My Thoughts” – Then, I usually share my thoughts about the Scripture.
“Remember” – one sentence of encouragement to ponder.
“Thought Pattern Interrupter” – One sentence to help you put a positive spin on that week.
“Activity Suggestion” – An activity you might choose to do that week to get you out of your own head/situation.
“Comfort Recipe” – A recipe that I consider a fall or winter “comfort food” from my own experience.
How to Use I Need The Light!
Readers are encouraged to read the devotional book as they choose. You don’t have to read it over a 26-week period. And each week, you can read the entire chapter in one sitting, or you can string it out over the week. It’s totally up to you to read the book in the way that best helps you.
Where to Find I Need the Light!
If you think I Need The Light! 26 Weekly Devotionals to Help You Through Winter would help you, or if you know someone who might benefit from the book, it can be purchased at your favorite independent bookstore. If you don’t find it there, please ask them to order the book from IngramSpark.
The book is available in paperback and as an e-book.
Click on “Read more” under the photo of the book cover.
At the end of the book’s description there, click on the BookShop.org buy button, which takes you to BookShop.org (a site that supports independent bookstores throughout the U.S.)
Put my book in your basket.
Select the independent bookstore you wish to support.
Place your order and have the satisfaction of knowing you are supporting an independent bookstore!
So far, Second Look Books in Harrisburg, NC; Blue Ridge Books in Waynesville, NC; and Highland Books in Brevard, NC have been very supportive of my book so I’ll give them a shout-out.
Available for your cell!
The book is also available on Amazon and from Barnes & Noble.
Here’s a Sneak Peek at I Need The Light!
From Week 12, here’s the “Setting the stage” introduction to that week’s devotional about the Parable of the Lost Coin:
“In Halley’s Bible Handbook, Henry H. Halley describes the fifteenth chapter of Luke as ‘the calm before the storm’ in Luke 14. In the fourteenth chapter of Luke, Jesus doesn’t beat around the bush as He talks about the price people will pay for following Him. He goes on to explain that He must be first in our lives. We must love Him more than we love anyone else. It’s enough to make a person question the wisdom of following Jesus!
“But then we come to Luke 15. It is a beautiful chapter about the tender, forgiving grace of Jesus. The chapter includes the Parable of the Lost Sheep, the Parable of the Prodigal Son, and the passage we’re looking at this week: The Parable of the Lost Coin.”
Does this sound like something you or a friend would like to read?
I wrote I Need The Light! 26 Weekly Devotionals to Help You Through Winter in a conversational tone as I imagined I was talking one-on-one with a good friend. If this approach to the Bible appeals to you, I hope you will look for my book.
I’m not an “in your face” kind of Christian. I’m a lifelong Presbyterian, so I’m not going to scare you into being a Christian. That’s not the Presbyterian way!
Even if fall and winter are your favorite seasons of the year, I believe you will find something of benefit in my 188-page devotional book.
I invite you to look for it!
If you read it and like it, your rating and/or brief review on such sites as Goodreads.com and Amazon will be greatly appreciated.
I was caught off-guard on June 14 when I read Sarah Johnson’s Reading the Past blog post and learned that the decade of the 1960s is now the hottest thing in historical fiction.
Yikes!
I remember the 1960s well. In fact, I remember some of the 1950s. I admit that I had not thought of the 1960s as fodder for historical fiction yet. Wasn’t it yesterday that I was still reading World War II fiction? Why did we leap right over the 1950s?
Photo by History in HD on Unsplash
Calling books set in the 1960s “historical fiction” just doesn’t seem right. I’m not ready to read it, and I’m certainly not ready to try to write it. I like to write about the 1760s and 1770s, so I must be in a 200-year-old time warp.
When I finish my novel-in-progress, I just hope I’m not the only person out there who likes to read about life in the 1760s.
My blog is all over the place!
The first 11 years or more that I wrote a blog, I concentrated on my life as a struggling writer and a reader. (Make that “struggling reader,” too, in light of my memory problems. Many times I get to the bottom of a page in a book and I have no idea what I just read, but I digress.)
I have also written history pieces, often on the anniversary date of an event. Some of them are well-known dates and events in history, while others were little-known events that I stumbled upon.
Over the years I toyed with how often to blog. I eventually settled on just once-a-week. That seemed to be all I could handle. I settled on posting my blog every Monday. That worked very well for me.
Then came Donald Trump’s reelection, and my comfortable blogging routine went out the window.
After blogging as many as six posts a week since January 20, I think I’m probably “preaching to the choir.” My readers are probably keeping up with politics as much as I am.
Since I don’t want to bore you with our new normal in the United States, I hope to add some variety to my blog posts. I certainly don’t want to write about politics every day! It’s not good for my mental health or yours. I miss writing fiction, and I desperately want to get back to a place emotionally where I can turn off the politics in my head and switch gears to colonial America.
I have written 90,000 words of an historical novel, but I put it on the back burner a couple of years ago when I realized the protagonist’s backstory deserved its own novel. I’ve done a ton of research and I wrote 35,000 words before I let myself get derailed. I think about my protagonist every day and I yearn to finish writing her story.
Her story lets me travel back to The Great Wagon Road in the 1760s to the backcountry of Virginia, North Carolina, and into The Waxhaws in South Carolina. I look forward to sharing her story with you, but first I must get my devotional book published.
I have had success in the past week in turning my attention back to the devotional book I’m writing. I have been doing what I hope will be my read aloud proofread. It is tedious. It is time-consuming. It is 186 pages.
I took a big step yesterday. I have published my other books and two short stories through Kindle Direct Publishing, but I would like for my devotional book to be available for bookstores to sell. I have researched IngramSpark and yesterday I set up an account with that company.
That decision had been weighing on my mind for several weeks. After reading the lengthy agreement and reviewing the company’s User Guide, I settled on IngramSpark and created my account last night.
I will explain in an upcoming blog what the book is about and the double importance of the title: I Need The Light. My goal is to publish it in August.
What happened to the historical short stories I mentioned last year?
Sadly, those stories are exactly where they were the last time I mentioned them in a blog post. They are on paper and in my computer. Some are complete. Some are almost complete. Some are just story titles on a list.
I want to get back to that project!
Here I am.
If you have wondered what happened to all my grandiose writing projects, now you know.
Please don’t give up on me. I have stories to share with you.
Hurricane Helene Update
As of last Friday, June 20, 2025, 59 roads in North Carolina were closed due to Hurricane Helene. That count included five US highways, nine state highways, and 45 state roads.
That is an increase of six state highways and four state roads since the report issued on Friday, June 17. I don’t know why the numbers went up. It could be a typographical error in the online table I check every week. It will be interesting to see what the next weekly NCDOT report will indicate.
The North Carolina General Assembly voted unanimously yesterday to allocated another $500 million for Hurricane Helene relief. That brings the state’s total to around $2 billion so far.
Due to a micro-burst rainstorm and flood on June 19, section of I-40 in Tennessee and North Carolina in the remote Pigeon River Gorge had to be closed again. The closure is approximately 50 miles long. It is the same portion of the interstate that was closed for five months after Hurricane Helene… and until Thursday of last week was finally open to one lane in each direction.
Tennessee Department of Transportation reports on Wednesday sounded doubtful but said they are still working toward possibly getting the highway reopened by July 4. Detour information can be found at https://drivenc.gov/.
I’m beginning to think the Pigeon River Gorge does not want an interstate highway. It keeps revolting!
Until my next blog post
I hope you have a good book to read.
If you live in Europe or on the east coast of the United States, I hope you get some relief from the heatwave this weekend. After a week, I have gotten used to the triple-digit heat index numbers, although anything above 105 degrees F. is still a little extreme.
Remember the people of Ukraine and western North Carolina.
The year 2024 has been a difficult one for many people. It has been stressful for most of us, but I’m better off than a lot of people. Here’s a brief review of 2024 from my viewpoint in North Carolina.
Travel: My sister and I took advantage of the Covid-19 pandemic being over and vaccines continuing to be available – along with relatively good health – and we took trips to Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Cherokee in the western part of NC as well as a long-anticipated return trip to the Outer Banks of NC in the early part of the summer.
Welcome Sign at Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Black Bear, perhaps two years old, photographed in Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Elk, photographed in Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Welcome sign at Cherokee, NC
Welcome sign at Cape Hatteras National Seashore
We visited Boone and the campus of our alma mater, Appalachian State University, just two weeks before much of western NC was ravaged by Hurricane Helene. We continue to count our blessings that we did our traveling in the months and weeks before the hurricane.
A view of Rich Mountain from the Appalachian State University campus
Hurricane Helene: September brought a “perfect storm” of days of heavy rain followed by Hurricane Helene to western North Carolina. It is the most destructive storm to hit the state in recorded history. The statistics and photographs are impossible to get one’s head around.
Of the 1,329 roads that were closed due to the flooding and landslides on September 25-26, 183 of them remain closed as of Friday, including Interstate 40 near the border with Tennessee.
I saw a video made on Wednesday of several miles of US-19 in Ramseytown, NC. You can’t even tell there was ever a road there, and it is unimaginable that the little Cane River running alongside it is capable of rising so high and doing so much damage.
Last week, 10,000 tulip bulbs were delivered to Swannanoa, NC – a gift from the head of a bulb company in The Netherlands. Next April, Swannanoa will look quite different than it has since September 25th!
A hint of what to expect in Swannanoa next spring!
Photo by Krystina Rogers on Unsplash
People from all over the US and world have pulled together to help western NC begin to recover from the September storm. I’ve tried to highlight examples in my weekly blog posts. I’m not equipped to show the full picture. I’ve merely tried to keep a light shining on the situation as it disappears from the news headlines.
US Presidential Election: We survived a US Presidential campaign that seemed to last for a decade. Now we’ll get to see if our democracy and our country’s long-standing ties with other countries will survive the results.
Award for my local history books: I received The North Carolina Society of Historians Journalism Award of Excellence for Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 1 and Harrisburg, Did You Know? Cabarrus History, Book 2 in November.
My Writing: I’ve made a lot of progress over the last couple of months on my devotional book, I Need The Light: 26 Weekly Devotionals to Help You Through the Cold Months. Work continues on my historical novel with the working title The Heirloom. Stay tuned!
If you haven’t subscribed to my e-newsletter yet, please click on the “Subscribe” button on my website: https://www.janetmorrisonbooks.com. You’ll receive a free downloadable copy of my historical short story, “Slip Sliding Away” and my e-newsletters.
In November I changed my newsletter from a several-page every-other-month format to a short weekly email.
Social Media: Technology is still pulling me into the 21st century, but I’m kicking and screaming. My new endeavor this year was Instagram. I try to share quotes I like (many of them from books I’ve read), information about my website and blog, as well as publicity for my books. I’m trying not to not come across too salesy.
Until my next blog post
I hope you have a good book to read.
I hope you’ve had an enjoyable holiday season so far.
Remember the people of Ukraine and western North Carolina where it is mighty cold for the next several months.
Janet's Writing Blog 