Women Like Me Stories & Business

Melodie Romeo - How Melodie Romeo Became a Bestselling Historical Fiction Author

• Julie Fairhurst • Episode 140

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A history teacher with deteriorating health takes a leap of faith into the unexpected world of long-haul trucking, only to discover it's the perfect path to becoming an award-winning author. This is the remarkable journey of Melodie Romeo (pen name Adele Lane), whose career transformations illuminate the power of reinvention.

After 24 years teaching history in Mississippi, Melodie faced a crossroads. The mounting pressures of education were taking a physical toll, yet starting over in an office job meant significant pay cuts. Her solution? Obtain a commercial driver's license and hit the open road. This bold move not only resolved her health issues but provided financial freedom and, surprisingly, more time to write than she ever had in the classroom.

"I was making two, three times as much as I did teaching school driving a truck," Melodie reveals, highlighting how her entrepreneurial spirit led her to establish Driving Edge Transport, her own trucking LLC. Traversing all 48 contiguous states, she found herself with productive hours to develop her craft between driving shifts.

Today, with approximately 35 books published on Amazon, Melodie specializes in historical fiction featuring strong, intelligent heroines who defy the traditional "damsel in distress" narrative. What shines throughout Melodie's story is her encouraging message to women contemplating their own reinventions: "Don't be afraid. 

Website: https://www.authoredalelane.com

Goodreads author page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15264354.Edale_Lane

BookBub: https://www.bookbub.com/profile/edale-lane

Amazon author page: https://www.amazon.com/Edale-Lane/e/B07GRFPDRZ/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AuthorEdaleLane
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/edale_lane/
X: https://x.com/EdaleLane




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Who is Julie Fairhurst?
Julie Fairhurst – Speaker, Author, and Founder of Women Like Me

Julie Fairhurst is a champion for women’s empowerment and the founder of the Women Like Me Book Program. Since 2019, she has published 30 books and 300+ true-life stories—at no cost to the writers—giving women a platform to heal, inspire, and reclaim their power. Dedicated to breaking generational trauma one story at a time, Julie’s mission is to uplift women emotionally and financially, helping them create better lives for themselves and their families.


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Speaker 1:

Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Women Like Me, stories and Business. I'm your host, julie Fairhurst, and today we have a lady that I met at an author fair that I attended and was just so drawn to her, and you'll find out why when we start our conversation. But she's quite an amazing lady. Let me tell you just a teeny bit about her, and then we'll dive in. So we are joined by a woman who has mastered the art of reinvention and storytelling Melody Romeo. Don't you love that? Melody Romeo, also known by her pen name, adele Lane, an award-winning author known for her gripping historical fiction fantasy adventures and strong, intelligent heroines. Holy smokes, that was a lot for me to say here. Well, welcome, melody, and thank you so much for agreeing to join us. I really appreciate it.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I'm happy to be here. This is exciting. Oh, good, good.

Speaker 1:

Okay, let's just dive right in. So, Melody, let's start at the very beginning, so for you, before your author life, because you have quite an interesting story.

Speaker 2:

Well, I started out as a school teacher and a mother and I had taught history mostly for about 24 years. I have a master's degree in history. My first passion was music. I was going to be a band director, but that didn't ever work out. I still play my foot horn though, so that's nice. So I did teaching and of course school teachers in Mississippi don't make much money, so I always had to have a second job and I did a variety of things, from being a Kaplan test prep instructor to working at a Home Depot store and just a whole big variety of things. I ran a farm and sold produce and meat and all kinds of things, and so always busy, always doing something, but always writing in the background. Just, it wasn't getting published, but it was getting written, so I was practicing, without anybody really knowing it, I guess.

Speaker 2:

So then in my early to mid-50s I can't remember exactly how old I was, 53, 54, I just it got. Teaching got to be too much. It was too stressful. There was too many demands from the state, from the district, from the principal's office, from the parents, who were never there, and we were supposed to do their job for them, and it just it was affecting my health, and so I made a very bold move at that point, which was to retire early. I had enough years in to be vested for my retirement and find another job that was going to be less stressful and that way maybe I could get rid of some of my health issues. And I started searching for all these different office type jobs and things like that that, would you know, have my computer skills and organization, and they all wanted me to start at a beginner level and that was making less money than I currently was, and that wasn't going to do. So I saw this thing about article about truck drivers and how much money they could make, and I had always kind of in the back of my mind, thought that would be fun travel the country, see everything you know, get paid just to sit behind the wheel. And so I looked into it more, picked out a very reputable company and took a plunge. I gave up a for sure job that I would have been in until I died if I had stayed. But I might have died a few years early had I stayed.

Speaker 2:

So it was a little scary at first, because while I was in the training school to get my CDL, we weren't really getting paid, so I went about six weeks without a paycheck, but there was amazingly enough in the bank to cover the mortgage and the bills for that amount of time. And so then I started out as a lease driver, and I was driving a lease truck from the company, and I learned my way around what to do, decided if this was something I wanted to stick with or not, and so then after a couple of years I bought my own truck and created Driving Edge Transport, so that was my LLC label for my own business, but I was still with the company that I drove for. They provided my refrigerated trailer and I provided the truck. So my percentage went up and my payments went down, because obviously the loan payment was far less than the lease payment had been. And so then I got the truck paid off, and then I was I mean, I was making two, three times as much as I did teaching school.

Speaker 2:

Driving a truck but you know it was the first time behind the wheel was really scary, and just the whole leap of faith into the unknown was scary. But it definitely paid off.

Speaker 1:

What kind of things were you hauling? So you were, you had a refrigerator truck. Were you hauling food? Mostly food, mostly food. Yeah, and so all through the united states, were you in canada as well, or?

Speaker 2:

I, I was not. My company did have some truck cross-border products but they were few and in high demand, so other drivers who had been around longer got to have those routes and I just went to all 48 continuous states and it was really exciting, so I got to see them all.

Speaker 1:

Wow, well, you are so brave I mean, that's the ultimate and ultra and entrepreneurship right Is like having that leap of faith and and and good for you for recognizing that you, you, that you weren't happy and it was affecting your health, and so you took those steps.

Speaker 2:

Oh, and the all of the acid reflux disappeared. All of the other things that I had going on just completely evaporated. I currently take no medications whatsoever, so yeah there you go.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, were you riding during that time period as well?

Speaker 2:

I did. I started riding when I went out on the truck because, believe it or not, even with an 11 hour driving day, I had more time to write than I did when I was teaching school, which was pretty much all consuming endeavor. So, um, yeah, so I started out. It was really exciting. A student a former student of mine of mine who had read my first book that I actually had a vanity for us to do because I couldn't get a publisher. It was just ridiculous. That was back in 2002. And I swear I will never do that again. But he loved my book.

Speaker 2:

It was kind of a historical thriller about Vlad the Impaler. It was kind of a historical thriller about Vlad the Impaler and he was now a young adult and he was writing and he was doing horror genre. So he invited me to do some short stories for anthologies that he was in, and so that's kind of how I got back into writing after my years of rejection and so that was exciting and I was doing those under my name, melody Romeo and um, you did that, you know, for a couple of years, just a short story here and there, and then I london and um, so that was very popular and the company said you know, when I pitched them the idea for um my book, heart of sherwood, they said oh yeah, we'll, we would love to publish that. And so I. This was in 2018 and Heart of Sherwood got published, and then it got nominated for a Rainbow Award for Best Historical Fiction and then the publishing company went out of business.

Speaker 1:

So once again I was at a crossroads.

Speaker 2:

We're sorry, but we will no longer be selling your book. Therefore, if it wins the rainbow award, congratulations, but no one will be able to purchase it. So I had to do something at that point and I had made a contact, um, who has a whole web of of books that he deals with and authors that he helps out. And, um, he said, why don't you just self-publish it through Amazon? It's really easy, I'll show you how. And so my mentor picked me up and held my hand through the process and I got my book on Amazon and it did win the award and people have been buying it ever since. Congratulations, thank you. So that was the beginning, the first of. I've lost track. I have 34, 35 books published on Amazon right now, and so that was the story of the first woman. It was scary because I'd never done that before. I didn't know how to do all that stuff, and I've been learning and I learned something new every day.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes. And so how do you find so? So did you. So you couldn't get a traditional publisher to pick up your story? Yeah, right, yeah, I hear that, you know, I hear that a lot from a lot of authors, and and all of the books that I have, as well, are all on Amazon as well. So thank goodness for Amazon, because they really do help out a lot of authors. They do, yeah, but it is.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. Back in 2002, when I took that drastic move of, after you know, 500 publishers and agents and hearing nothing back but three or four little rejection slips and the rest just crickets, I said, well, I really think this has a chance. So I went with this vanity press, the ones where you pay them and they publish the book, and of course that was very sad. It got published but nobody knew, nobody cared. It got no promotion, it got no advertising.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's definitely a tough one. For sure, you have a degree in history.

Speaker 2:

History yes, University of West Florida Wow.

Speaker 1:

And so obviously then that's helped you with a lot of the books. What kind of genres are you doing? And I was, so I know we spoke a little bit before. I was really interested in learning more about how much work you put into every one of your books.

Speaker 2:

There's a lot of research involved, a lot of research involved For this one. I really got to know Eleanor of Aquitaine. I got to know her quite well because she's the character in that book, and so then I have several that are up for awards this year. This one is. The long winter of midgard is in a viking series that I do I love the cover.

Speaker 2:

Love the cover. I cannot take credit for that. My artist did that cover, um. But but, yeah, a lot of research into all the Norse mythology and Viking culture and keeping up with the most recent um, um, it's on the tip of my tongue the archaeology discoveries, um, that actually, that actually do prove that, yes, women were involved in warfare, among other things, they could be y'alls, they could be queens in charge of their region. That, um, we're learning more and more about that.

Speaker 2:

You know, when first people had discovered these little figurines of viking women warriors, they said, oh, those are just depictions of the valkyries, but where did the idea for the valkyries come from? Anyway, you know, there must have been some tradition of women with swords in order to come up with a valkyrie. So there's been a lot of new archaeological discoveries that go into that research. Probably the most research that I did was for this book, atlantis, land of Dreams, which is also up for some awards this year, and it's a historical fantasy because we don't know exactly what Atlantis was like. But I did a ton of research on everything written about Atlantis to come through and try to resolve the different versions and how what Plato said could go along with what you know more modern people have said and where it was and how it got destroyed, and I think I've pieced together a really logical, scientifically explainable resolution for that.

Speaker 1:

Wow, Because what I do is, of course, true life stories for women. So there's not a lot of research that I'm doing other than speaking with the authors and helping them to craft their stories, me to maybe dive a little bit more into, you know, any little areas that I can find that might help to, to just help help with our, with our stories and our books. But but I just I think it's great, you know, you're not just sitting down with your pen and your paper, you're actually crafting it and figuring it out and putting it all together. There is so much work involved in your type of writing. Well, writing in general is a lot.

Speaker 2:

Yes, well it is, but then sometimes I just want to do something fun, and so this book took me about three weeks to complete, so I put it over 69 because it's about an author attending a convention who has a stalker who shows up at the convention. So it's a suspense kind of a book, but it was all stuff that I already know and is part of my experience as being an author, and so it was very quick and very easy to write and and so I throw some of those in there because you know, like this one took months and months to finish.

Speaker 1:

So yes, yeah, wow, okay. So do you remember the moment, or was there a moment that you knew you wanted to be an author or did? Was it something that just sort of casually happened to you?

Speaker 2:

well, I don't know that there was a moment that I wanted to be an author. I always enjoyed telling stories and I wasn't an only child, but my sister was 12 years older than me so she moved out of the house and basically about the time I started kindergarten, in our first grade, and so I was essentially an only child, so I spent a lot of time just talking to myself telling stories to my stuffed animals. In grade two I wrote my first book. It was about dinosaurs. It was mostly plagiarized, um, and then I kept writing stories through school just as a hobby.

Speaker 2:

My mother loved to read and we had this big, huge bookshelf full of all the agatha christie's and all the classics and stuff and um, so she was very into reading and and one of our activities would be to lie in bed and read together and um, then I went on to college to become a musician and ended up teaching history and, uh, had kids and had life and was very, very busy. But on weekends my partner and I would go fishing and she would fish and I would write, and so we did that and that was, that was fun, but it wasn't until I started driving the truck and the kids were grown and moved away and I didn't have all those other responsibilities that I could actually focus on taking it somewhere.

Speaker 1:

I just I love that. I just when you were talking about your mom and you lying in bed reading your books, just such a wonderful visual, and that's where we, I can totally see, that's where you got your love. Yeah, absolutely so. Your characters are brave, they're clever and they're driven, so where do you find the inspiration for them? Where do you come up with your characters?

Speaker 2:

Well, sometimes I look in the mirror. Yes yeah, a lot of historical fiction, especially historical romance, is written around the concept of the damsel in distress and the dashing male hero must rescue her. And I thought let's break that stereotype. Why can't the woman be the hero? Why can't she be the one who is courageous and stands up against the wrong? And so you know, I just kind of wrote that in there.

Speaker 1:

I love that. And why can't we Exactly? Yes, I love that, that's that. So, so, a lot of your, so a lot of your characters, or most of your, I mean. The picture behind you, the cover behind you is amazing. That's an amazing cover. Love it.

Speaker 2:

And book brush did that. Book brush did that it's. It's actually a movie poster. Let me see if I can get there, there you go so.

Speaker 2:

So I have, as an independent author, I have to hire everybody who does everything for my books. I don't have a publishing company to do that, so one that I use is called Book Brush, and one of the many different graphics that they do is creating a movie poster of your book, as if it was going to be up at the theater and if people were going to see it and who it was starring and all that kind of stuff. It's just a publicity thing, but yeah, that's my, it is beautiful and and that's great that you shared that.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, because we have a lot of authors, that, um, I have a lot of authors that are watching and, uh, I think it's beautiful. I had no idea that that you could actually get that done.

Speaker 2:

That's, that's a great piece, great piece, thank you and you can make movie trailers for your books and um that you know like book trailers, and then it would be like a movie trailer, just you know. You know a couple of minutes long, going through some of the highlights and in a video format.

Speaker 1:

So on the marketing end then, melody, do you? You're obviously doing all of your own marketing, then oh yes, oh yes, yes, lots of time spent on marketing yes, yes. And so where do you do most of your marketing? Is it just? Is it strictly on Amazon? Are you using social media? Where? Where are you advertising?

Speaker 2:

I always run Amazon ads. Um, and I keep, I keep the ads running to the first book in each series. I may not keep ads running to all 13 of my lessons in murder books, but, um, I keep the ads running. Uh, there, I have done some book club ads from time to time.

Speaker 2:

I've tried facebook ads several occasions. They turn out to be so expensive and the problem is it's very difficult to determine where the sale of your book comes from. I mean, you put all this stuff out there and you see sales, but you don't know where the person saw your book to be attracted to it in the first place. So I don't know if the money I'm spending on facebook's ads has generated sales or if they came from amazon, if they came from my facebook page, my, my group. Um, I do know that I. My biggest core support is from my newsletter list. Um, I have, I have subscribers. I have almost 5,000 subscribers to my news list and they, they are. I can count on them to buy a book. So that's really really, really helpful. Oh for sure, it took many years to build that list. It's not like you just go out there and suddenly have 5,000 subscribers.

Speaker 1:

So yes, yes for sure. So what advice would you give to any female authors out there that are wanting to get in? You know, you probably know this there are so many writers. I actually was looking up the statistics and I don't remember exactly the statistic, but I read it a while ago. I don't remember exactly the statistic, but I read it a while ago and it was something like I'm not going to be accurate, but it was something like 90% of women want to write a book, but only 6% do so what advice could you give With?

Speaker 2:

the. With the advent of Amazon, um KDP, which is the publishing platform, anybody can write a book. Also, with the advent of Amazon, kdp, millions of new authors have flooded the book market. So you have kind of a two-point thing. If you know someone in a publishing company, if you have an in, that's a great way to go. But if you're like me, who was kind of on the outside and when she finally found a small press they weren't able to stay operating, then Amazon is where you turn.

Speaker 2:

You will have to have your book proofread. You don't want people to think that, oh, if I get anything by this author, it's going to be full of spelling and grammar errors. You want to have a test audience. I have beta readers or people who I have them read my book and give me their thoughts back. What parts did they like, not like, what worked for them, what didn't, and that has given me some very beneficial feedback.

Speaker 2:

And then, once I have it ready to go, it needs to have a cover, and I do some of the covers myself. Um, I did, I did this cover. Um, I did this cover and I did this cover. But my artist, who does most of my historical fiction work, did this beautiful, beautiful cover. I love that cover to do this. It is lovely. All the books in the series he's been beautiful covers for um, and it really depends on your genre, because you know if you're doing historical, people expect to have this beautiful painted scene on the cover, and so you know you want to get a cover that matches your genre. That's very important.

Speaker 2:

And if you're writing nonfiction, you want a cover that addresses the topic of the book. Okay, so then it has to be formatted. This is you can write it in a word document or a google docs or whatever you want to write it in, but in order to publish it, it has to be transformed into a pdf book format, which is something most people cannot do on their on their computers themselves, and it has to be. If you're going to have an e-book and e-books do typically sell better then you need to have it formatted for EPUB, and you can either hire someone to do this. A good formatter won't charge you more than $50, usually about $30 or $40 to format. If you're only going to write one or two books, that's the way to go. But if you're like me, you buy your own software and you're doing it yourself on your computer.

Speaker 1:

So yes, it's just it's. It's a lot of learning, but once you learn it, you've got the. You've got the skill, Exactly.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, got the. You've got the skill exactly. Yes, yeah, so and and. So what do you think about? About um, like, why do you think you had difficulty picking up a, a traditional publisher? I know they're tough out there oh, yeah, yeah, um.

Speaker 2:

First of all, they get inundated with millions of query letters a year and pretty much they ignore anything that doesn't come from an agent.

Speaker 2:

But then getting an agent is equally difficult, because each agent can only handle so many authors and do them justice. So you start sending in your letters to your agents and they're all full up, and they're all full up, and they're all full up, and they don't have anybody. And then it's so easy to be scammed these days because there's a lot of grifters out there. They want to charge you money and promise you the moon, and then they just take your money and you never hear from them again. Yes, so you have to be very careful, but it is difficult to get with a traditional publisher if you don't have some sort of a connection that will at least get someone to read your manuscript, because they won't even read it, they won't even look at it, um, if they don't have a reason to yes, yeah, yeah, and I I think, just like what you said, the problem is there's they just get inundated and and, and it would be easy for you to be lost, for any author to get lost, in the shuffle of all of that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think there's a lot of you know, there's traction and I think that you know, for example, for you, so you, you, you write those books, you, you, you're, you write those books, you, you, you're involved in the editing process, you're involved in the cover process, you're involved in, in the whole, putting the manuscript together, and then you're the girl who's putting it on and and doing the marketing, and, and it is a lot to do, but it's also very exciting and it's very rewarding it is.

Speaker 2:

And if you are with a traditional publisher, you are going to have somebody who will do the cover for you, who will do the editing for you, who will do the proofreading for you, who will help get them. You won't have to pay these people. They're going to do that and they will even give it some nominal promotion. They'll put out a press release, they'll get this or that, they'll get it into bookstores. But even traditional publishers expect authors to do their own marketing as well. Yes, that is that is. That is the contempt. That is the way of the world today. Yes, they'll meet you halfway, but they expect you to be out there garnering followers as well. But then there's the flip side of that. They then take control of your creativity. If they say we don't like this part of the story, it's got to be cut out and redone, then you have to do what they say. If they give you a cover you don't like, you're stuck with it.

Speaker 2:

So when you're an independent author, you have complete creative control and, of course, yes, you are responsible for everything. You have to pay for everything. The buck stops totally with you. When you have a publisher. There's someone to help you, there's someone to do these things that you don't have to pay out of pocket for, and if it is a legitimate publisher, you do not pay them a penny ever. They pay you your percent of royalties, the same way KDP pays me my percent of royalties. And there are other ways to go. You don't have to self-publish with Amazon. There are other outfits out there Smashwords and some other places that you can get your books done as well.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes, thank you for that. That's. That is a great insight, I think, for anyone that might be watching or listening to us, to understand. You know what is all involved. It's one thing to sit down and get that book written, which obviously if you don't have the book written then you can't do anything, any of this. So you need to get that book done. But then all of the stuff that maybe people don't understand in the background, that we all have to do and how many books do you have now, melody?

Speaker 2:

I don't know 34, 35. I lose track. As an independent author, this is how I've made traction. This is how I'm actually able to do this for a living. Now you really do have to have a lot of books. You cannot be that author of that one book Gone with the Wind, or To Kill a Mockingbird, and then that's all you write. If you're an independent author, you get your following, but you have to keep feeding them new books to buy. So the more that you can produce with quality per year, the higher it's going to boost your income. So it depends on the person's reason for writing. If you're wanting to write your memoir or you're wanting to write your knowledge to pass on to other people, you don't need to worry about making lots of money or getting huge followings. You just want to put your wisdom out there to share with people who are interested in it, and there's totally different approaches and amount of workload that's involved, depending on the direction you want to go.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes, yeah, You're just a wealth of information and I know you are seriously and I just appreciate so much that you're willing to offer your knowledge and your experiences, and certainly your teaching and your degree that you have helps with that. I just do you do public speaking at all? Have you gotten out there in the world and talked to any writers groups or anything like that? Are you just focusing, got your nose in the grind and focusing on writing?

Speaker 2:

Well, I don't know. I speak at church a lot.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yeah, yeah, not really, not so much. I'm a public speaker.

Speaker 2:

Yes, Well, you do very well. Well, thank you so much. If anyone out there would like to invite me to come and give encouraging words to women in your group, I would be happy to do so.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, yes, absolutely. It's great to have someone who's done it. Who's doing it and has all the knowledge, which is so helpful. Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

I don't have all the knowledge I'm still learning.

Speaker 1:

Well, you have a lot of the knowledge. Put it that way, for, for anyone that's sort of halfway through, or or starting, you've got some fantastic knowledge for sure. What's next for you? What's on your horizons?

Speaker 2:

well, I am. I have a new release coming out in July which is the book that comes after this one. It's the next one in the series called Thrall of Deception and it's kind of a historical mystery set in Viking times and everything. And then I have in August I have a book coming out. It's an anthology of four novellas that's called Queen vs Queen 3. And it's in a series of Queen vs Queen books and the topic for this anthology is mafia romance. So I've got a mafia romance in that romance, so I've got a mafia romance in that.

Speaker 2:

I am currently writing arsonist match, which is the sequel to this book, which really, really is hot and has been at the top of the lgbtq mysteries for quite some time. I'm very excited about it. It's it's rocketed my career. You never know and that's another thing you never know which book people are going to want. I spent six months of hard labor and heartfelt writing to get this epic created and this little action first responder suspense thriller has just gone to town. So I'm working on the sequel to that, which I hope has ready for september.

Speaker 1:

so wow, that's um, thank you for saying that. Like that's true, we don't know what is going to be the one that's going to going to take off or is going to do the best. Oh, thank you for that. Well, I'm excited. I, I uh, I love that, uh, I love, I love the the, I love the viking stuff. I'm norwegian, I got a little bit yeah, yeah, gotta go for it, yeah so before we closed, I have a few questions for personal.

Speaker 1:

Would you mind if I asked you? They're just to get to know you, and so your audience can get to know you a little bit better. Okay, so one of the questions I'd like to ask is, if you could go anywhere in the world tomorrow, where would you go and why would you go there?

Speaker 2:

If I could go anywhere in the world tomorrow, I would go to Ireland because my partner wants to go back and we don't have the money for that trip and it would be a long plane ride. But if I could just go poof and put us there and she could show me all the sites from her first trip to Ireland and I could go to a castle and put my hand on the stone and feel the vibrations from a thousand years ago, that would just be so awesome.

Speaker 1:

Oh, you just made me shiver. Oh, my goodness, would that not be beautiful. Oh, and and you, of all people I know, should definitely go. That should be on the to-do list, for sure. You have a really busy, busy day. How do you like to unwind?

Speaker 2:

um, I play RPG video games, yeah, okay, and uh, watch tv yeah, yeah, I, I understand what you mean.

Speaker 1:

It's like taking, because writing is so much mind work and so then to be able to do something that that is more reactive than than thinking, or just to watch tv, I'm with you, I, there's a few games that I like to play, and, uh, and I, I sometimes like to just get buried in a movie and not have to worry about all the movies, the movies over, and you're kind of well, right, okay, and your brain comes back to work. Yeah, what about a favorite book? Not your book, but what's? What's a book that would inspire you or that you've read, that you did found inspired you?

Speaker 2:

Well, early on, probably one of the ones, some of the books that inspired me to want to write were the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I started off with the Hobbit in probably upper elementary school and then junior high and I moved into the Fellowship of the Rings and the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy and I just loved the world building and I loved the fantasy and I thought, oh, if only I could write like that. And more recently I really enjoy Brandon Sanderson's books and I think, oh, the world building, oh, if I could only write like that. Oh, if I could only write like that, oh wonderful.

Speaker 1:

So if you had dinner with any woman in history, who would it be and why would you have dinner with her?

Speaker 2:

Okay, well, now I would have to say Eleanor of Aquitaine, because I would have to ask her did I represent you correctly? Because that was my goal and I really feel like I know this is going to sound crazy, but I feel like I was communicating with the spirit of Eleanor, asking her what would you say, what would you do, how would you act? You know, so that I can represent you correctly in this book and I would just love to chat with her. She was one of the most amazing women of her time period and she was way centuries ahead of her time period.

Speaker 1:

I love that, you know, because I think, whether you're an actor, or whether you're a creative writer or or, or any of those industries, any of those professions, you have to intuitively kick in, yeah, to really get your character. Even myself, when I'm helping my authors with their true life stories, I still, when they're telling me their story, I'm still visualizing, I'm still sort of intuitively kind of picking up things so that I can help them. I love that. I just I'm sure you were channeling her when you wrote it. I love that. I love that. Thank you for sharing that. Okay, my last one. If you could whisper one truth into the ear of every woman who is struggling out there right now, what would you say to them?

Speaker 2:

You can do it. Go for it. Don't be afraid. Put yourself out there because you are strong. You are powerful. You were made in the image of God. There's nothing you can't do. Go out there and do it.

Speaker 1:

I love it. I love it, and whoever's listening and watching remember where Melody came from. She didn't just start writing and she did a lot of things to care for herself over the world, her time in this world and look where she is now. So we can all do it. We just have to. Sometimes we have to zig and zag, but we get there. Thank you, melody, so much for that. You're welcome. Oh, I just love all your words of wisdom. Really. I appreciate it so much and thank all of you for listening to this episode of Women Like Me, stories in Business and

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