Humorous mystery novel set on Cracker Trail

Deborah Sharp was Florida born and bred. She rode horses as a child. But the former journalist overreached when she asked if she could ride the Cracker Trail with men and women who spend their lives on horses.

February 2007 was one of the coldest she could recall.

"The temperature actually hit freezing," she said. The point of the Cracker Trail ride is to recreate a 19th century Florida cattle drive. Since there were no Doubletree Inns back in the old days, today's cowpokes camp on the prairie, along with their livestock.

"So here I am in this pup tent, sleeping out in the wild," Sharp recalled Friday. "I have socks on my hands."

She didn't realize - and this is an exact quote - "that you had to put all the stakes in the tent." So in a driving rainstorm, her abode went rolling across the pasture, spooking the horses.

In a tip of the hat to modern conveniences, the colorful, congenial cowboys and cowgirls she rode with brought along port-a-potties. But in the middle of the night, those don't seem as accessible as they could be. So Sharp, laughing, admitted to watering the nearby grass.

When she woke up on the coldest morning, her toothbrush looked like it had been dipped in a Slushee from 7 Eleven.

"Sedentary, desk-bound novelist hits the 120-mile trail. Riding. Camping. Freezing. At age 50-plus. What was I thinking?" That was the way Sharp put it.

"I rode as a kid, but that wasn't the same as riding every day," Sharp said. The six-day ride started near Bradenton and ended with a parade at Fort Pierce.

But after six days on horseback and a mule wagon, Sharp had what she needed: research for the second book in her humorous mystery series, "Mama Rides Shotgun." It will be released next month by publisher Midnight Ink.

The first book, "Mama Does Time," was published last year; the third, "Mama Gets Hitched," was just sent to the publisher. The series is set in the fictional Florida town of Himmarshee.

"I stole the Indian name for New River," she said. It flows behind her Fort Lauderdale house, but her Himmarshee is like Okeechobee, where Sharp and her husband, NBC reporter Kerry Sanders, camp in a trailer along the Kissimmee River.

Sharp took up novel writing after feeling burned out as a reporter. On the Florida beat for Gannett for 20 years, she covered every story. The last one was a profile about soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"I decided I want to do something that makes people smile," Sharp said. "Because I get to decide how they end."

As a USA Today reporter, she took notes in a reporter's notebook, then composed on a computer. As a novelist though, she rides to the beach and writes the first draft in longhand. The second draft - the rewrite - is done on a desktop computer at home.

Being a novelist isn't the gravy train people imagine, though. Even though she has a three-book contract, her accountant laughs at what she makes - and it's less than she earned as a reporter.

Now, she's both writing and publicizing her books. The publisher's publicist sends out the book for reviews to major newspapers and television programs - Sharp promoted her book on the Today Show, for instance - but she e-mailed this newspaper requesting an interview.

National books tours? If that happens, she'll pay her own expenses. She's still driving a 1992 Mazda Miata.

But, she's philosophical about it. "I know a lot of people who didn't make anything off their book."

To watch Sharp's appearance on the Today show, go to http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/27519880/

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