In my July blog post, I answered a few of the questions I was asked during school visits I did last year. Here are a few more.

 

Where do you get your ideas/find your stories?

I find story ideas nearly everywhere I go. Since I mostly write historical fiction, historical sites abound with story ideas for me. So do museums and libraries. I find ideas in books about historical events, and I listen to stories people tell (oral histories). My next book (NOT ON FIFTH STREET) was inspired by stories my dad used to tell about his time during the 1937 Flood.

 

How do you create your characters?

Once I know the story I want to tell, I decide what kind of character can best tell that story. Then I imagine myself as that character and ask a lot of questions. How would I react as that character in a given situation? What would I (the character) do? How would I talk? The important thing for me is to think through the story from my character’s point of view.

 

Of all your characters, which is your favorite?

That’s like asking a mother which is her favorite child. I created all these characters, so it would be impossible to choose one over the others. Pete Brinkmeyer (in NOT ON FIFTH STREET) was loosely based on my father, so he has a special place in my heart. Given McGlade (in LIKE A RIVER) is a character I admire, but that’s not the same as being a favorite.

 

Which of your characters is most like you?

There is a piece of me in all my characters, and in writing the novels, I “become” them for a period of time, so that is another impossible question. Perhaps one day, I will create a character who is somewhat autobiographical, but for now, I can see elements of myself in each of my characters.

A number of years ago, a writer friend went to a writers’ conference and came back feeling dejected.

“It was as though all those successful writers were on a mountaintop shouting advice down to me,” she said. “It was good advice, but it made me realize how far down the mountain I was and how much further I had to climb.”

My own writing journey was even longer than hers was. I spent decades writing poetry before I sold a poem to Ladybug magazine. Thirty-nine years passed between my first novel submission and my first contract offer for a novel. I am glad I didn’t think of my journey as climbing a mountain.

I always preferred to think of my journey to publication as a road trip. While I always remembered my goal, I tried to make the most of every step I took.

My husband and I like to take road trips. We stop at lots of interesting places along the way to wherever we’re headed. The Route 66 Museum, Devil’s Tower, Meteor Crater, AZ, and Belle Meade Plantation in Nashville were a few of the dozens and dozens of sites along the way. Though never our main destinations, they were wonderful places to visit, places I’m glad I didn’t miss.

My journey to publication has had its own stops. And I have always enjoyed the creative process, which I consider the fuel that keeps me going. I attended workshops and classes where I learned a great deal about writing and learned to find the writer within me. I met published authors and editors and realized they’re people, too. (Astonishing!) I made friends at critique group meetings and workshops. Many of them became dear friends, who have enriched my life.

Now, as I work toward my third published novel, I’m glad I didn’t miss any of those experiences.

No matter how long your road is, the journey is better if you take time to enjoy the stops along the way.

Nearly everything I write is intended for a young audience. My novels are all written for readers aged eight or nine and up. It is the “and up” that has surprised me. Leander in LIKE A RIVER is fifteen, so I thought “and up to fifteen”—maybe. Adabel in EMPTY PLACES is thirteen, so “and up to thirteen,” right?

My friends who are also writers, who are in my critique groups, have enjoyed my novels even though they are above the age range considered my target audience. But they also write for young readers. This was not unexpected.

Relatives and friends have raved about my novels and asked for more, even though they are also above my target readership age. But they are relatives and friends. Again, not entirely unexpected.

Teachers who have read my novels have told me they loved them. But they teach the young people I write for.

But I have also heard from parents who read my book with their children or who read the book because their children recommended it to them. These were a surprise. I didn’t expect my novels to get the response they have from adult readers.

Last December, I was contacted by an 86-year-old man whose daughter gave him LIKE A RIVER for Christmas. “I couldn’t put it down,” this Civil War buff told me. His two grandfathers fought in the Union Army. Still, he was not the audience I had expected.

In April, I did an interview for a radio show on books of all kinds. The host of the show read both LIKE A RIVER and EMPTY PLACES before the interview, yet he didn’t realize the books were intended for young readers until I mentioned that during the interview. And he had enjoyed them!

Young readers are still my primary target audience, but the way my books have crossed over to adult readers has amazed and thrilled me. I hope all readers who like a story about America’s younger years will continue to give my novels a try. Thank you to all my readers!

I did nine school visits during the 2015-2016 school year, each visit consisting of from one talk to as many as five. The number of students at each talk varied from twenty-five to more than three hundred. I have spoken in classrooms, gymnasiums, and churches.

Many of these students had been aware of my novel, LIKE A RIVER, either reading it as an assignment or having it read aloud in class. For that reason, the majority of each talk focused on that novel, though I did always mention EMPTY PLACES. My talks always include a question-and-answer session. I thought I’d share here a few of the most-asked questions and their answers.

When did you become a writer? And why?

I can’t remember a time when I didn’t write. I began selecting words to put on pages at the age of five. My first writings were short poems, but the poems grew longer as I used them to tell stories. That’s when I knew I wanted to write novels. Creating characters and telling their stories gives me great satisfaction and joy. I have been a writer since I was five, and I do it because it’s what I love to do.

Why did you write about the Civil War?

The Civil War was an interesting and pivotal part of our nation’s history. It changed us as a country. I first became interested in it after reading biographies of Abraham Lincoln. Since Lincoln’s presidency and the Civil War occurred during the same time frame, they are impossible to separate. So my interest in Lincoln led me to an interest in the Civil War. The more I read about it, the more I wanted to learn. I studied it from both perspectives, Union and Confederate. The number of dead from both sides amounted to more Americans killed than in all our other wars added together. How could I not write about it?

How do you choose names for your characters?

Writing historical fiction requires learning everything I can about a certain time period and its settings. As I do that research, I am always on the lookout for names that are appropriate to the place and time. Often I find those names on tombstones or in old documents. Leander and Polly were names I ran across more than once. I saw the name Given only one time, a signature on a Civil-War era letter in a museum in Andersonville, Georgia. I knew immediately it was the right name for my character.

For EMPTY PLACES, I knew that an important aspect in naming offspring in areas like Harlan County is kin. Babies were usually named for parents or grandparents. Three of the children of Ray and Ada (Pickens) Cutler are Raynelle, Pickens, and Adabel.

How did you know the way people spoke back in the old days?

That is part of my research. Reading old letters, diaries, and newspapers is a good way to find out, not only how people spoke, but how they felt about their lives and the events happening around them. I also visited the areas I wrote about and listened to the way people in that place speak now. It helps me to “hear” my characters.

I will answer more of the questions I’ve been asked in future blog posts.

After LIKE A RIVER and EMPTY PLACES, both published by Calkins Creek/Boyds Mills Press, I am thrilled to have signed another contract with them.

Tentatively scheduled for a Fall, 2017 release, NOT ON FIFTH STREET is loosely based on family events and my father’s experiences in the Flood of 1937. In his home town of Ironton, Ohio, that event is known simply as The Flood.

My father has been gone for more than two decades, but I remember clearly his stories of The Flood. His sister, Margaret Ann, was able to verify his memories and fill in details for me. She has been an enormous help in making this novel come together.

NOT ON FIFTH STREET is the story of two brothers, who experience The Flood in different ways. The younger brother, Pete, most closely resembles my dad, though older brother, Gus, also has elements of him. Creating fictional characters who resemble a real person makes those characters alive for me from the start, and it is my task to make them live for readers.

The book still needs to go through revisions, and I know editor Carolyn Yoder will help me see what I have to do. While I await her revision suggestions, I sift through my idea file, trying to decide which project to focus my attentions on next.

I have been jotting down ideas for stories for four decades, so I have much to choose from. Some have already been substantially researched and some will require extensive additional research. How do I choose? My choice will not be affected by the amount of research and work I still need to do. It will come from which story wraps fingers around my heart and begs to be told. It will be the story that refuses to wait patiently while I revise NOT ON FIFTH STREET and while I continue promoting LIKE A RIVER and EMPTY PLACES.

At one time, all three of those novels were stories that lodged in my brain and cried, “Tell me, tell me.” And that is how I will decide what I work on next.

I have always been a busy person. In my younger days, I worked numerous jobs, raised four kids, served as president of the PTO, did volunteer work, planned family reunions, and (more or less) “kept house.” But I always made time to write. I wrote poems, short stories, and novels. My dream was to be a published novelist.

Now, by virtue of my age, I am a Senior Citizen. And my dream has come true. As my peers retire or think about retirement, I am a published novelist, a working writer. While they take up hobbies or relax on their decks or patios, I am busier than ever.

My debut novel (LIKE A RIVER) launched last year, my second (EMPTY PLACES) launched in April of this year. I work tirelessly to promote both of them. I arrange, prepare for, and do school visits, book signings, and speaking engagements. I answer interview questions, select excerpts, and write blog posts.

Finding time to actually write has become more difficult, but I manage. I am working on a new novel and researching possible future ones. Writing and research are work I enjoy, but working against a deadline (whether contractual or self-imposed) is a lot of pressure.
I try to make time to read, and I always find time for my husband and family. Unfortunately, keeping house is one of those good intentions that rarely comes to fruition. But my dream has come true! I am a published novelist.

If I were younger, maybe I’d slow down. But when one is a Senior Citizen, one is more conscious of the “ultimate deadline” that grows closer for all of us each day. I still have a lot I want to do. And I am busier than ever.