Murphy – Self-publishing no longer has the stigma of vanity publishing attached to it thanks to the internet, the great equalizer of small presses and self-publishing enterprises.
Local resident Sandy Reid knows this firsthand as publication of her first book, My Lieutenant, approaches.
The book, set partially in Murphy, grew out of her creative writing classes at Tri-County Community College in Peachtree. Reid said teachers encouraged her to compile her essays and seek a way to share them.
“My instructors kept telling me I have a gift for storytelling,” she said. “So, you would get extra credit if you entered the prose contest, and I got first place for nonfiction and honorable mention for fiction.”
Those wins and encouragement spurred her on to rework her stories into something a bit longer that she could publish.
Reid’s stories are a combination of fictionalized life experience, following her service in the U.S. Army while stationed in South Korea and seven years in Murphy after moving to the area from Great Falls, S.C. She weaves in Murphy locales, such as the hardware aisle at Lowe’s and grabbing a coffee at Rare Bird Emporium for chance encounters with past acquaintances.
“The stories center around someone I knew during my time in Korea,” Reid said. “That’s the basis for the title My Lieutenant. We had a special friendship before I met my husband, and I thought about what would happen if he showed up as a retiree in Murphy.”
“It’s fiction – all fiction,” she adamantly added, along with a wink and nod that her husband has read and approved of all the stories, understanding that it’s purely make-believe rooted in a past reality.
Her sister and children were a bit more reticent at reading the stories. Reid describes their reactions as, “Ewww. We don’t want to read this. We cannot believe it’s you.”
Reid readily told them that, “it’s not me. It’s just a character. … Well, OK, maybe it was a little bit me.”
Reid describes that past friendship as short-lived because she was quickly rotated back to the United States, losing contact with her special friend.
“Suddenly, with no warning I was gone. No contact, no time to say goodbye,” she said. “You go when and where you have to with the Army, so I went.”
Having met during a USO tour with which the lieutenant worked, Reid recalled concerts they attended.
“The O’Jays and Chi-Lites come to mind first,” she said. “Just the fun it was to get have a break from tense situations, because that was when North Korea was firing almost daily on the South. How nice it was to see the shows and talk with each other.”
After the Army, Reid and her husband moved to South Carolina to be closer to family and after caring for aging parents and becoming empty-nesters. They decided to move to Murphy because of Reid’s sister, who had already done it.
“We visited and fell in love with the mountains, found a little cabin near my sister and found the perfect place to retire,” she said.
However, the boredom of retirement, combined with the relaxed pace of life in Murphy, unsettled Reid after several months.
“I was kind of at loose ends, in a depression after my mother passed away. I was just wasting my life playing games on the iPad. That’s all I did. I’d already decorated the cabin and there just wasn’t a whole lot left for me to do,” she said.
“That’s when I was watching a movie, I think it was Teachers, and I thought ‘I’d like to be a teacher.’ When I said that my husband said, ‘Why don’t you go back to school?’ And so I began the enrollment process through Tri-County.”
When describing the process of re-entering college later in life, Reid is also quick to describe her long-distance education through a joint program between TCCC and Clemson University.
“I thought it would be cool if, as a Nana, I could graduate from the same university as my grandson, who will graduate from there in a few months and I also have another granddaughter who’s attending Clemson,” she said. “So, I thought I could be a part of that legacy.”
That legacy is a long time coming, since Reid left her Army career to focus on raising a family.
“It was a different time for women in the military then. So, I left to raise my family,” she said.
“My husband was still in, so we made it work. But I hadn’t been to school since 1985 or so. I wanted to see it through finally.”
Reid will indeed see it through and graduate Friday, May 10. All proceeds from her book will go directly to her continuing education, tuition and further expansion of her writing, as she’s already turning her first book into a full-length novel.
“It’s really cooler though to have my first book published at the age of 69,” she said. “Everyone has a book in them. Mine was just a late bloomer.”
Details: My Lieutenant can be purchased at Indigo Mountain Traders, 49 Peachtree St.