This Author Places a Nurse Where She Needs to be for the Story

by Janet K. Shawgo

My entire Look for Me series was written for nurses.

Actually travel nurses, which is what I am. I felt inspired to turn this profession into a series of books. I was able to find travel nurses as far back as 1939.

The ability to take a nurse and place her where she is needed was the determining factor for this series. The story of the family is just an added tease to keep readers interested.

I was Inspired to Tell the Stories of These Amazing Healers

My biggest challenges while writing these books were time and finances to get the series completed and out to my readers. The plots, themes and story lines were always there for me.

The biggest emotional challenge was facing what these nurses did during battle. I had to place myself with them, see what they were seeing and how they were doing what must be done to heal. I did a huge amount of research for book one, Look for Me, and two, Wait for Me. What these women must have seen and dealt with was horrific.

This series inspired me to keep going so that I could get the stories out.

Feedback from Readers Made it All Worthwhile

In Look for Me, I knew I had hit a mark when a male reader contacted me and told me he enjoyed the story, but ended up in tears when the birth of a child was described. He told me that scene touched him.

In Wait for Me, a reader contacted me and told me that her father had been in WWII. She said that she had to stop reading several times and walk away from the story because it seemed so real she could swear I had written a biography.

She told me that she had to keep telling herself this wasn’t a true story. What an awesome compliment.

In Find me Again, when I ended the series, I had a peace about the three generations. I knew I had left the stories with the endings they all needed.

Not All Stories Have a Happy Ending

Find me Again did change my writing, as it was a spin-off book, which is completely different.

From book one until present, my writing has, as it should, improved. I have been honored with approximately forty awards for my four books that are out at this time. I have learned that I can write about emotions and have the reader feel and experience them.

This is the one thing I had hoped I could accomplish in my writing.

As in life, not all stories have a happy ending. It would be a great injustice to always say that life turns out happy or for the best when it does not. I try to show both sides.

I’m not sure that writing is spiritual practice for me, but I find a great deal of fulfillment in it. It is peaceful to be lost in a story. I find myself smiling, laughing and hoping for those I write about.

Advice to a Young Writer: Stay True to Yourself and Keep Writing

If you truly want to write, do it!

As an indie author, I knew how hard traditional publishing could be, so I struck out on my own. Today publishing is very very difficult. Do a lot of research on publishers and choose the one that fits what you want. You will have to do a lot of work yourself, but if you want people to read your books, it will be a pleasure and not a burden.

There is nothing like receiving an award. This tells you that others feel your work is worth reading. Stay true to yourself and keep writing.

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Janet Shawgo lives in Galveston Texas, but over her twenty-plus years as a travel nurse, her life has crossed the United States. Being a nurse for over thirty three years, most of those in labor and delivery, has fueled her writing.

She starting writing in 2009 and has five books published to date. Her Look for Me series has some thirty awards and acknowledgements. Janet has added some interest to her stories from her own travels. Research and actually putting feet on the ground helped to bring her stories to life.

For more information on Janet and her work, please see her website, or connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.

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Find Me Again: With a fortune at stake, Taylor White-Shaw, independent reporter, is hurled into a journey to fulfill the request of his Great uncle.

Jace Bowen, travel nurse, receives a package from home containing a worn medical pouch holding the remnants of a time long gone. She feels a pull from the past when she visits Gettysburg, something there is very familiar.

Zack Keens, fluent in three languages, becomes an interest to the CIA, who offers her a job with the company. Zack’s special ability seems to get her in and out of trouble but it will allow her to connect to the past and save the lives of those close to her.

This next generation of Whites, Bowens and Keens find themselves entwined again in a promise made by those before them. They must work together and finally bring peace to those separated by war and death.

Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Look for Me: In this gripping tale of Civil War-era romance and espionage, these three lives are brought together, with consequences none of them can foresee. Samuel, a New York-based reporter, leaves the comfort of home to report on the war, where his focus changes from the men who fight to the women who heal. Sarah, a Southern healer, leaves the safety of her home to travel with nurses and use nature to heal.

Meanwhile, Mack, a teenage girl, disguises herself as a boy to infiltrate Union camps. Mack befriends Sarah, and the two women begin a friendship-and deception-that will be carried throughout the war.

When Samuel encounters Sarah on the battlefield, he realizes she is the childhood friend he has known for years. But when love blossoms, the war becomes a wedge between them, and they’re forced to make a promise, for now and forever.

Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Wait for Me: December 7th, 1941, America is at war. Many will go to fight, to heal and to report. The Whites and Bowens will be there.

Susan Bowen, nurse and great niece to Sarah Bowen, will answer the call of her country. She will become a Task Nurse and care for the wounded on battlefields far away from Waynesboro, Georgia. In another part of the world, she finds someone to care for, maybe to love. Is it chance or fate?

Larry White, young, handsome and working his dream job as a reporter in Honolulu. Amid the death and destruction at Pearl Harbor he is saved by a beautiful woman. He’s unsure if she was truly there or if it was just a dream. Larry is determined to make a difference in the war by reporting it, just like his great uncle, Samuel White.

Deelyn Johns, pilot, mechanic and dreamer. The sky is her playground. When the war begins, Deelyn searches for a place, somewhere she can be of the greatest help. After all, she can fly a plane!

They know the danger and face it; perhaps souls lost will find one another. Available at Barnes & Noble and Amazon.