A good friend gone

Those of you who have been reading this blog may have noticed that my most faithful commenter was a woman by the screen name of nlindabrit.  I have received word that she passed away this morning, and I am distraught.

Linda Sherlock was an acquaintance of mine who I met on the Big Valley Writing Desk discussion forum on Yuku.  She lived in the UK, so I have never met her in person, but I and many others have always experienced her online presence as one of grace, generosity and kindness.  She has always been extremely encouraging of other writers, and I have greatly appreciated the faithfulness she has shown to this blog and my amateur attempts at my first novel.

Three days before her death, she posted how excited she was that she had won a Western story contest.  I'm glad she had this success, but am very sad that she will not be around to experience any more of the successes that I'm sure were ahead of her.

I shall deeply miss her - one of the reasons I was so faithful to post a new chapter every week was because I was eager to see what she would say about it.  It's going to be hard to keep this blog going forward - I shall feel her loss anew with every post.  But I should be doing her memory a disservice to stop writing now.  So the book when it is done will be dedicated to her memory.

Farewell, Linda.  You shall be sorely missed.

Linda's blog can be found here.