Maybe it’s just me. . .

When I am asked who my favorite authors are I often respond by listing my favorite books instead. I have yet to find a contemporary author whose every book is among my my favorites. And I guess I am okay with that. I know I don’t always hit one of out of the park every time I write a novel, how could I place the same demands on another writer?

For example, I loved Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees. Not so much The Mermaid Chair. I gobbled up Ahab’s Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund, and only merely enjoyed Four Spirits. Loved Map of the World by Jane Hamilton, just liked When Madeline was Young. And I thoroughly enjoyed Anita Diamant’s The Red Tent and was so glad to hear she had something new out this fall, Day After Night.

I liked it. But I can’t say I loved it. I loved the premise, and I still love her writing style, but the execution of the story didn’t grab me like Red Tent did. The level of magic in the prose was decidedly different. Or maybe I am different, five years after reading Red Tent.

Here’s the story in a nutshell from the book’s promo material: “Day After Night is based on the extraordinary true story of the October 1945 rescue of more than two hundred prisoners from the Atlit internment camp, a prison for “illegal” immigrants run by the British military near the Mediterranean coast south of Haifa. The story is told through the eyes of four young women at the camp with profoundly different stories. All of them survived the Holocaust: Shayndel, a Polish Zionist; Leonie, a Parisian beauty; Tedi, a hidden Dutch Jew; and Zorah, a concentration camp survivor. Haunted by unspeakable memories and losses, afraid to begin to hope, Shayndel, Leonie, Tedi, and Zorah find salvation in the bonds of friendship and shared experience even as they confront the challenge of re-creating themselves in a strange new country.”

That premise alone would’ve hooked me even without having read The Red Tent. But each evening as I read the next chapter of Day After Night I found myself anticipating the moment when I wouldn’t be able to put it down. That moment never came. I liked the book very much. But I was able to put it down. The prose is lovely, and Diamant’s voice is as simplistically powerful as always but there was no Wow! factor this time. And I found the ending sentences rather trite. I doubt my editor would’ve let me offer up the same last closing lines. “You can do better,” she would’ve said.

Perhaps I am becoming too much of an editor. I don’t mean to read others’ novels with a critical eye, but I do. And I can’t seem to stop.

It’s a good book. But my expectations were high.

And I really don’t know if I want to figure out how to lower them. I think having them makes me want to be a better writer. . .

Oven-door fences

Today I welcome author Linda Clare to the Edge so we can chat about her new book, The Fence My Father Built. Linda has been jotting her thoughts down since she was young girl (I totally get that). She lives in Eugene, is a wife and mom, and teaches college-level writing. I had the pleasure of reading an advance copy of her new novel with its very distinctive cover – a fence made of oven doors. We both think it’s kind of cool that our newest releases feature fences in the titles and in the cover art!

Here’s the publisher’s description: When legally separated Muri Pond, a librarian, hauls her kids, teenager Nova and eleven year-old Truman, out to the tiny town of Murkee, Oregon, where her father, Joe Pond lived and died, she’s confronted by a neighbor’s harassment over water rights and Joe’s legacy: a fence made from old oven doors.

The fence and accompanying house trailer horrify rebellious Nova, who runs away to the drug-infested streets of Seattle. Muri searches for her daughter and for something to believe in, all the while trying to save her inheritance from the conniving neighbor who calls her dad Chief Joseph. Along with Joe’s sister, Aunt Lutie, and the Red Rock Tabernacle Ladies, Muri must rediscover the faith her alcoholic dad never abandoned in order to reclaim her own spiritual path.

Edge: Where did the seed of this story come from?
Linda: The Fence My Father Built drew on several life experiences. Since I was a small child, I always longed to know my birth father. I was a precocious little brat who remembered the day Mom and NewDad (who adopted me) left me with Grams while they went to Las Vegas to get married. Adopted Dad was the best! Yet this part of me couldn’t let go of the question: Where did I come from? To make matters more complicated, Mom was adopted too, so my family tree was a really skinny short bush. I located RealDad when I was an adult, but unlike the story, he is still alive and well and living in Chino Valley, AZ.

Edge: Did you see a fence made of oven doors once that you knew you just had to weave into a story?
Linda: I got the idea for the fence from a newspaper article my local paper did, about a nice old guy who lived in a ratty trailer, mended bikes for kids, kept potbellied pigs and had built a fence from old oven doors. No photo, just the description. I stole that shamelessly.

Edge: What is the significance of the oven doors to you?
Linda: The fence symbolizes my father’s (and Muri’s) lifelong search for his daughter. Dad never gave up hope of finding me. I also think it’s a statement of how God has given us the Bible as a way to see the path we travel. A beacon, if you will. You gotta admit, that fence is eyecatching.

Edge: How about the rundown trailer Muri inherits?
As a child, I used to stay with my folks in a similar trailer in Oak Creek Canyon, a beautiful place in Northern Arizona. I loved staying there.

Edge: What do you hope the reader draws from those images?
Linda: I’m hoping readers see that life circumstances do nothing to alter God’s opinion of you. Whether you’re rich or poor, fancy or plain, God loves you and is willing to meet you where you are—even if you’re on the fence.

Edge: Are any parts of it autobiographical?
Linda: Probably a lot. My aunt was a head librarian for a large school district. I was driven to know my dad and once we met in real life, I learned I’m part Cherokee Indian.

Edge: Does your interest in the Nez Perce tribe stem from your own history? If not, then where?
Linda: Originally I was going to set the story in Arizona near Oak Creek and Sedona. But when I took a trip to Central Oregon, I saw the same red dirt and I was hooked. The Nez Perce piece came because Muri’s father was named after the famous Chief Joseph, and because I decided to set the story in Oregon.

Edge: What do you think makes us, to one extent or another, yearn for “home?”
Linda: When I was a ten year-old in Yuma, Arizona, I was sent far away by myself to a hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah for corrective orthopedic surgery on my left arm—paralyzed from polio I’d had as a baby. I stayed in that place for 3 months without my family. I had two more trips there, until I was 12 and each time I got so lonely for family. You never realize how important home is until you can’t get there.

Edge: What do you like to do when you’re not writing?
Linda: When’s that? I also teach writing at a local college, and also mentor and edit other writers. But aside from reading, I love to garden and I love cats. And playing with my daughter’s new teacup Chihuahua, Bella.

Edge: What’s next on the horizon for you?
Linda: I’m nearly finished with another stand-alone novel, this time set on the blustery Oregon Coast, called Hiding From Floyd. And if readers yell loudly enough, maybe they’ll let me write more about Murkee, the oven doors fence and those crazy Ponds.

Thanks for being here, Linda. You can learn more about Linda from her interview at the Novel Journey and on her blog.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving everyone!

I am the guest blogger over Cara Putman’s place today. If you want to know what I do with my characters when I finish writing a book, this post will tell you that I send them all to Disneyland. . .

Have a superb weekend. On Monday, a visit from novelist Linda Clare.

Kudos to the carrot

Every year, right about this time I’d say, the speed on the turntable gets kicked up a notch and life just seems to start zipping by at chipmunk-voice speed. I get dizzy just writing those words.

I know why, of course. There is a not-so-subtle shift within the You are Here camp – right after the cheesy Halloween decorations disappear off store shelves – to taunt, tease and tempt me to produce Christmas. Not enjoy Christmas or understand Christmas or give Christmas. But produce it. Make a list. Make a budget. Make cookies. Make Christmas happen. And make it bigger and better than last year.

I am more aware of than I have ever been and more of the mind to refuse to comply, but it ain’t easy. It’s like trying to enjoy munching on carrot sticks on Carrot Day when all around you, at every turn, is a plate of warm chocolate chip cookies made with real butter and Ghirardelli chocolate. You really want to enjoy Carrot Day. You love carrots. They are good for you. They don’t contribute to heart disease or your waistline. They are a lovely shade of quiet orange. They are full of vitamins and are sweet and wet and crunchy. And if the people making all those dang cookies would just take their stupid cookie plates away until Cookie Day, for pity’s sake, it would be a lot easier to celebrate the Carrot.

The speed, though, is the problem that keeps us from holding up a hand and saying “Wait just a doggone minute!” Everything is happening so fast, we are numbed into a cookie-eating stupor from which we don’t emerge until January, when the cookies disappear and it becomes Treadmill Day.

I’d like to dial it all down to the speed of pharmaceutical commercials. You know the kind I mean. Those commercials for COPD and fibromyalgia and depression and rheumatoid arthritis, where everything happens at super slo mo speed and the person who needs to make a change can do it because cookies aren’t being shoved in her face at 60 miles per hour.

Don’t get me wrong. I like cookies. But if it’s carrot day, and not cookie day, then shouldn’t the cookies disappear so that we can celebrate our carrots?

Carrots, by the way, are not a metaphor for Baby Jesus. But our addiction to fast-moving plates of cookies is a metaphor for a lot of things. . .

I am taking a deep breath this morning. I am imagining eating a carrot at slow-motion speed, and savoring its crunchy sweetness.

Cookies are lovely, no doubt about it.

But it’s not cookie day. Not for me. . .

Today I welcome debut author Ariel Allison to the Edge to talk about her new book, eye of the god, (that’s right, grammarians – no caps!!) an intriguing suspense novel about the one and only Hope Diamond. Two things I can tell you right up front: 1. The Hope Diamond has a past – it’s very nearly a character in this book. 2. Someone wants to steal it.

Edge: Where did this idea come from? Are you in some ways like your main character Abby?
Ariel: In the Spring of 1995, I stumbled across an article in Life Magazine on the Hope Diamond. The two-page spread showed Michelle Pfeiffer wearing the jewel and gave a brief history of the legendary curse. I knew instantly that it should to be a novel. Being the curious gal that I am, I dug around and was surprised to find that although most people were familiar with the curse, no one had done anything with the concept. So I began researching and writing. That was fourteen years ago this spring. The main character, Abby Mitchell, has a very broken relationship with her father. Unfortunately, that is something I know a great deal about. My dad died six years ago and I had to ask him on his deathbed if he loved me. So I was intrigued by the idea of a woman who would do anything to gain her father’s love – even if it meant betraying her own values.

Edge: So, where does ‘eye of the god’ as your title fit in? What do you want your title to communicate?
Ariel: According to legend, the Hope Diamond was once the eye of a Hindu idol named Rama Sita (thus the lower case letters in the title). When it was stolen in the 17th century, it is said that the idol cursed all those who would possess it. But that doesn’t stop the brilliant and ruthless Weld brothers from attempting to steal it from the Smithsonian. However, they are not prepared for Dr. Abigail Mitchell, the beautiful Smithsonian Director, who has her own connection to the Hope Diamond, and a deadly secret to keep. Yet, when all is said and done, and the dust has finally settled over the last great adventure of the Hope Diamond, we understand the “curse” that has haunted its legacy is nothing more than the greed of evil men who bring destruction upon themselves. No god chiseled from stone can direct the fates of men, nor can it change the course of His-story.

Edge: Were there other stories of the diamond that you had to leave out for space that really intrigued you?
Ariel: Honestly, that was the hardest part of writing this novel. All told, there were over thirty historic figures that came into contact with the diamond since its discovery and I had to choose three around which to anchor the story. Some of the more infamous characters include Louis XIV, Marie Antoinette, George IV, Napoleon, Caroline of Brunswick, May Yohe, Evalyn Walsh McLean, Harry Winston, and Jackie Kennedy. A few of my favorite historical tidbits that I discovered during my research are:

The Hope Diamond was pawned by Evelyn Walsh McLean in order to pay the ransom in the Lindbergh baby kidnapping.
Jackie Kennedy petitioned the Smithsonian to allow the Hope Diamond to visit the Louvre in Paris just months before her husband was assassinated.
The Hope Diamond was confiscated from the possession of Louis XVI a short while before he was beheaded during the French Revolution.

Edge: What kind of research did you have to do to get the details on security at the Smithsonian? Did you spend a lot of time observing the museum in action?
Ariel: All of the security details regarding the Hope Diamond display are accurate, and publicly available, but everything else is a product of my imagination. The Smithsonian is, for obvious reasons, very tight lipped about it security protocol. So I did as much general research as I could and then filled in the gaps. It is as realistic as I could make it without getting my hands on the actual schematics. However, I have never been to the Smithsonian myself – though I would love to go one day. Yet the museum offers hundreds of display photographs, floor plans, and virtual tours online, so in that regard, I’ve visited it dozens of times.

Edge:You have some very intriguing plot twists in the story. Did you plan all those twists from the beginning or did the plot evolve as you wrote? Did anything about the way the story developed surprise you?
Ariel: I am a very serious plotter, so I spent at least a month outlining the story before I ever began writing. I created the characters and charted out everything (major and minor) that happened in the novel. Then I wove together the main storyline and all the subplots so I knew what to write, scene by scene. Once I had the structure in place I felt free to start writing and let the characters grow and surprise me, which they did, on more than one occasion.

Edge:Have you always been a fan of suspense? What are some of your favorite books or writers? Ariel:I first fell in love with mystery/suspense novels when I read Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie. I remember being stunned when I finished the book – when I realized that she gave me every clue I needed to solve the mystery and I still wasn’t able to. I had that same feeling the first time I watched The Usual Suspects. Being outsmarted by an author is such a fun feeling. And it’s something I try to bring into my novels. I love giving readers a puzzle to solve.That said, I don’t just read suspense. My reading tastes are very eclectic. A few books that come to mind are: The Narnia Chronicles. The Lord of the Rings. Keeper of the Bees. Anything by George MacDonald. Anne of Green Gables. Watership Down. The Gifts of the Child Christ. The Kite Runner. The Time Travelers Wife. Water for Elephants. Harry Potter. The Shape of Mercy (yes, your book has recently made it to the top of my favorites list). As I look at that list I realize that the first ones were books that my mother read to me while growing up. She didn’t stop at picture books and she didn’t stop when I could read them on my own. These are the books I lived out during my playtime as a child.

The recent titles are the ones that inspire me to become a better writer. Books like The Kite Runner and The Time Travelers Wife are so beautifully done that they almost make me want to quit writing. I aspire to be that kind of storyteller. More than anything, I just love an original story. I can appreciate good writing in most any genre and if the author can take me away to a new place, they’ve earned my respect forever.

Edge: What’s next on the horizon for you?
Ariel: At the moment there are fifteen novels in various stages of development tucked away on my hard drive. But the three books that will be making an appearance soon all involve mysteries: one from Shakespeare, one from 1930’s New York City, and one from the famous author L.M. Montgomery.

Thanks for being here, Ariel. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Today I welcome my friend Robin Lee Hatcher to The Edge as we chat about her new release, Fit to Be Tied, the second title in her Sisters of Bethlehem series.

EDGE: So, Robin, what’s the inspiration behind this series?

RLH: The Sisters of Bethlehem Springs series sprang from the question: Who says a coman can’t do a man’s job? And I can’t fully express just how much fun I’ve had looking for the answer through the eyes of my heroines in this series. Although I have no favorites among the novels I’ve written (each were special to me at the time I wrote them), I do have some favorite characters. I love her for her strong faith, for her quirky turns of phrase, for her confidence with horses and her lack of confidence with men, even for her impatience with Sherwood, the English aristocrat that she’s supposed to turn into a cowboy. I’ve been delighted that readers have taken her into their hearts the way they have. I hope you will feel the same way about her.

EDGE:Tell us about Fit to Be Tied.

RLH: Cleo Arlington dresses like a cowboy, is fearless and fun-loving, and can ride, rope, and wrangle a horse as well as any man. In 1916, however, those talents aren’t what most young women aspire to. But Cleo isn’t most women. Twenty-nine years old and single, Cleo loves life on her father’s Idaho ranch. Still, she hopes someday to marry and have children.

Enter Sherwood Statham, an English aristocrat whose father has sentenced him to a year of work in America to “straighten him out.” Sherwood, who expected a desk job at a posh spa, isn’t happy to be stuck on an Idaho ranch. And he has no idea how to handle Cleo, who’s been challenged with transforming this uptight playboy into a down- home cowboy.

Just about everything either of them says or does leaves the other, well, fit to be tied. And though Cleo believes God’s plan for her includes a husband, it couldn’t possibly be Sherwood Statham. Could it?

About Fit to be Tied, the Library Journal said: “A master of lively historical romances, Hatcher demonstrates an expert ability to craft spunky, unlikely heroines who go against the tide of the times in which they live, making for fun, exciting stories. She also pays close attention to historical detail. This second series entry (after A Vote of Confidence) is highly recommended for readers of inspirational and historical romances and women’s fiction.”

Want to read an excerpt? Here you go.

A bit about Robin: Best-selling novelist Robin Lee Hatcher is known for her heartwarming and emotionally charged stories of faith, courage, and love. She makes her home in Idaho where she enjoys spending time with her family and her high-maintenance Papillon, Poppet.

Phriday Phobias

Those who know me well, know that I had a long list of things I was afraid of as a kid. I know now that these phobias were just the outworking of an overly creative mind – something that comes in handy now that I am a fiction writer.

Back when I was little kid, though, I wasn’t writing novels and I had a hard time appreciating my active imagination. Actually, I had NO time to appreciate my active imagination; I was too busy defending myself from enemies like Mr. Bubble, Mr. Clean and, insert gasp here, the Michelin Man.

I really, really hated that guy. Everything about him was wrong. He was a man made of tires. White tires. Even a six-year-old knows that tires are black. How on earth could anyone trust a man made of white tires?

And what would he do to me if he got close to me, this man-made-of-white-tires? Why, he’d wrap his fat, white arms around my body in a boa-constrictor-like hold and suffocate me, of course. What other purpose could he have?

I survived my childhood, obviously, and no longer have nightmares about company mascots chasing after me, but even now – as recent as last night – when I see the Michelin Man on television (last night he was pulling little black tires out of his abominable snowman body and throwing them at evil gas pumps who want our wallets) a ripple of unease courses through me. I am instantly reminded that I used to be afraid of him.

There is much I know now about the Michelin Man that I didn’t know when I was a kid. He is happy. He likes cars. He’s a hundred years old. He has a cool name no one even knows. Bidendum. Bib for short. And his record is as clean as his cottonwhite body: He has suffocated no children.

A good friend gave me a Michelin Man T-shirt and sometimes I wear it as a token of my remorse for having had unjust thoughts about him all those years ago.

But the truth is, he’s made of white tires.

And tires are black.

My trust can only extend so far. . .

Time traveling

I’ve long admired an author who can weave a story of two time periods into a seamless ride that doesn’t make you feel like you are spinning in one of the teacups in Disneyland. I loved People of the Book and The Thirteenth Tale for that reason, and now I can add Kate Morgan’s The Forgotten Garden to the list. And get this: Morton crafts a story of three time zones, an even more admirable feat, I think.

And here’s why.

We authors lure you into our fictive world by creating a character in a certain time and space and we entice you to care about them. It is incredibly important that you care about them; that’s what keeps you turning pages. When we create a second storyline in second time zone, we are now asking you not to split your character loyalty in half, but to double your capacity for character loyalty. Add a third character in a third time zone and now we ask you to triple it.

It’s a tall order. And when someone can pull it off, I think that’s a feat worth mentioning.

The Forgotten Garden begins at the turn of the century in an Australian port where a four-year-old has been found alone on ship that originated in London. Unable to give her name or any other identifying information, she is taken in by the childless harbormaster and his wife. When someone comes looking for the child many months later, well after the harbormaster and his wife have grown to love the child, they move away with her and try for decades to pretend she was always theirs. Upon the harbormaster’s deathbed, the girl-now-older-woman learns the truth and so begins her and reader’s journey to find out who she is and how she ended up on a boat, all alone with nothing but a tiny suitcase and a book of fairy tales.

In addition to the clever story construction, I was also thoroughly impressed with Morton’s committment to making every chapter stand-alone sweet. It’s easy, once you have story momentum going, to minimize the care and labor you spend on those supporting chapters that just provide a momentary rest stop for the real plot line. Morton peppered her pages with nuggets of story all over the place. I admire that. She could’ve saved those images for her next book, and made them stars in their own right. But she gifted them to the reader inside a story that was already intruiguing.

Well done.

You can read an excerpt here:

See you on Friday.

Archive: November 30, 2009

Maybe it’s just me. . .

Oven-door fences

Kudos to the carrot

Phriday Phobias

Time traveling