SPENCER, W.Va. (AP) -- On 40 acres of land in rural Roane County, an author and her three children are living an uncommon life.

Suzann McMinn is a bit uncommon to locals, too, known as "that romance writer," and then, after a country road mishap, "that romance writer who ran her car into the river."

Nearly three years ago, the 44-year-old McMinn was at a crossroads.

She was divorced and given the first chance in her nomadic life to choose where she would live. Figuring that as a writer, she could take her laptop computer and work anywhere, she turned to her family's 200-year-old roots in Roane County, to an area outside Walton.

McMinn, who has 26 books under her belt - many with the Harlequin romance imprint Silhouette - also keeps a daily Web log of her adventures in rural living.

She calls it "Chickens in the Road: Life in Ordinary Splendor," and it has become so popular that last month it had 18,000 hits from around the world, enough to garner some advertising interest and pay her a little money.

McMinn's blog can be seen at www.suzannemcminn.com.

She updates it daily.