Amy L. Wink, Ph.D.

Amy L. Wink, Ph.D. Writer ~ Writing Mentor ~ Editor ~ Morgan Driver

Welcome to my website. I am the author of She Left Nothing In Particular: The Autobiographical Legacy of 19th Century Women's Diaries (University of Tennessee Press, 2001) and the editor of Tandem Lives: The Frontier Texas Diaries of Henrietta Baker Embree and Tennessee Keys Embree, 1856-1884 (University of Tennessee Press, 2009). You can find out more about my work on these diaries by visiting embreediaries.com. My essays have appeared on insidehighered.com, in the Austin-American Statesman and, most recently, in YogaPlus Magazine. If you have been redirected here from my "Writing Mentor" website, please check out my new pages on mentoring and manuscript services.

I am beginning work on my next book project (tentatively titled "Horse and Writer") which I hope you will enjoy reading about in the blog below. This website is best viewed with Firefox or Safari. MS Explorer manages to make the photos too large.

Ride and Drive

amywink January 19th, 2012

Last week, we had a HOTMHC meeting in Bastrop and decided on the date for the 2012 Show: April 21. So, we have 3 months to prepare! Lisa thinks I need to enter a riding class, walk/trot. “We’ll see” is my basic approach. I do intend to think about it and work toward that possibility and to that end, this past weekend, Will tried on some old duds to see how they fit.

This week, we’ll try the riding bridle again to see what he thinks about being able to look around more. He hasn’t been ridden since 2007 or so but he seemed to remember his saddle just fine.

Our drive went fine as well and we’ve added a new element to our training, a passenger and her horse! Since Lisa is recovering from wrist surgery, she decided to ride along and pony Windy to keep her in condition while she herself recovers from surgery. Windy seemed to enjoy the outing and Will did too, though he wasn’t always sure she was close by. I did let him look around several times to see her and I got a quick shot of her as we stopped to visit Popeye and Kid in the back pasture.

The Do-Over

amywink January 8th, 2012

The first week of 2012 has been dedicated to my own personal Do-Over. The last time I tried riding, it didn’t work out like I’d hoped. I can’t even put my finger on exactly why except to say I never could get comfortable or confident and I had a lot of background noise in my life at the time. So I hung up my saddle and started in on driving.

Which I LOVED.

I spent several years learning and improving my skills so I could be comfortable and confident. I went about learning to drive very differently, always in an extremely controlled and safe environment (Thank you, Tom O’Carroll) and then I kicked it up a notch with my move to Taipan Station. It never really bothered me much that I’d left riding behind.

Much.

But apparently, it was back there, like a little dust mote you can’t sweep up, floating around in those corner recesses. When I saw Blessing saddled up and looking unbelievably adorable, that dust mote of desire floated right out into the center of my mind.

what to do, what to do…. dither, dither, fret, fret, fret….

Well, duh, schedule a riding lesson–which is what Lisa pointed out I should do–instead of fretting about it. And so, I did.

Yesterday, I had my first real riding lesson since I was a 4th grader. Gee, how time flies.

It was FABULOUS. FAB-U-LOUS. Best. Do-Over. Ever.

I could not stop grinning. All my driving training had made a difference and though it took me some time to get my balance right, I was able to post the trot and stay on. Which was my entire goal: stay on.

So my little Blessing will proceed with her training to become a Ride *and* Drive mare.