Serena B. Miller's Blog, page 12

Buckeye Book Fair–November 3

Just wanted to let everyone know that I’ll be in Wooster, Ohio on November 3rd, Saturday, from 9:30 to 4:00 signing books along with about a hundred other Ohio authors and illustrators. I’m hoping there’s some local readers around there who would enjoy coming over and saying hi. This will be the 25th Annual Buckeye Book Fair, and will be held in the Fisher Auditorium on the OARDC Campus. They do charge $2 admission, which is given to various libraries and adult literacy programs. I noticed in the program that they have a children’s class at 2:30 with a professional illustrator. It’s going to be hard for me to stay in my seat. I want to take the classes and hear the speakers, too! See you there!

A Promise To Love

As I was researching The Measure Of Katie Calloway, there was one thing that kept cropping up in the old books I was reading. The wildfire that swept across Michigan in the fall of 1871. It was one of the greatest natural disasters in the history of the United States, and yet I–who had lived in Michigan for 18 years of my adult life–had never heard of it. It was the perfect storm of drought, thousands of acres of dry-as-kindling pine tops left over from the lumber camps, farmers burning off fields, and some believe there was a low-flying comet that added its fiery path as well.

I read true stories of heroism and of great stupidity, desperation and wisdom. I read of the enormous outpouring of compassion that came from people all around the country in the way of food and clothing long before the Red Cross existed.

It wasn’t easy working all these elements together into a book about a marriage of convenience, but of all my books so far, this one is my favorite, and the valiant Ingrid Larsen is my favorite heroine.

A Promise To Love

A Promise to Love

Can a marriage of convenience ever become one of true love? Ingrid Larsen arrives in Michigan in 1871 with little more than the clothes on her back and a determination.

Destitute and barely hanging on to hope, the young Swedish immigrant crosses paths with Joshua Hunter, a newly widowed farmer with eyes the color of the ocean she had crossed and five rambunctious children to raise on his own. Marriage would solve both of their problems, and Ingrid finds herself proposing in broken English to a man she barely knows. Many difficulties lie ahead–but the hardest battle of all will be winning the heart of her new husband. Order now from Amazon or Barnes and Noble

Winning the RITA

It has taken a couple days to write about this–a couple days to believe that it is true.

On this past Saturday night, my second novel, The Measure of Katie Calloway won the most prestigious award in the romance genre–the RITA.

I was up against such strong writers, I didn’t think I had much of a chance. Still….I watched the tweets of those who were at the awards banquet in Annaheim with a small flicker of hope in my heart.

Then I saw my name come up as the winner of the inspirational genre and I will never forget that moment as long as I live. I screamed, and my husband came running. Then he realized what had happened and threw his arms around me and we hugged and cried and laughed and sobbed. It has been a long, long road.

Anyone who has ever attempted to get published, knows how hard it is. I was told many times that it was nearly impossible for an unknown author to get published anymore.

I kept telling myself that the Lord had never asked me to be successful, He had only asked me to be faithful.

It’s hard to write year after year with nothing to show for it except a stack of unpublished manuscripts and the blind faith that some day all those hours will mean something. I wrote day after day telling myself to just do the work and that someday God’s timing would be perfect.

And then, after over a decade of hard work, Sandra Bishop came into my life and quickly established herself as one of the best literary agents in the world. Vicki Crompton was the perfect editor for my historicals. As these two women and I worked together, I began to think that maybe we were creating something special.

Saturday night I learned that The Measure Of Katie Calloway truly was a winner. I am so grateful. It is no small thing to be allowed to make a living– by living a dream.

Hurricane…in Ohio?

At our church, we pull out all the stops for our Vacation Bible School. It is not unusual for us to have 150 or more little kids running around squealing and having a good time. Last Friday, though, the squealing turned into terrified screaming.

On the Friday of VBS we traditionally hire a company to put up a parking lot full of inflatables. We rent a sno-cone machine, and grill about 300 hotdogs and make vats of baked beans and it is all free to the children and their parents. One of the prettiest sights in the world is watching these little kids skipping around, giggling, having fun, just playing themselves silly, while the adults stand around, watching out for them, while they congratulate themselves on having survived another year of VBS:-)

The wind came out of nowhere. Apart from an overcast sky, there was no warning. None. In a matter of seconds…not minutes…seconds….hurricane force winds swooshed down and literally almost blew some of the children away. The wind picked up a 1400 lb. inflatable and carried it several feet along the parking lot–even though it had not yet been inflated. Peat moss from the playground swirled around in everyone’s faces, dust, gravel. Our two back metal doors were swinging back and forth, being slammed by the wind. My brother-in-law, a heavy equipment operator in his late 70′s saw the danger, happened to be near the doors, saw that the children could potentially be crushed by them, and braced himself in the middle of the doors, holding them open and stationary while children ran beneath his arms. He says he still can’t get the sound of screaming children out of his mind. It was truly terrifying.

A huge tent we’d rented was ripped out of the ground and when this thing the weatherman called a Derecho wind was over, we discovered the tent was slung up over the church roof. A barn next door had a portion of its metal roof ripped off.

Back home at our house, we had electric lines lying all over the place like spaghetti. Trees had been blown over. The electricity was off at our house for 5 days, and the width and breadth of the damage so great, electrical crews came from as far away as Texas to help the local electric company put things right again. The team that fixed the electricity on our back road was from Missouri. I was so happy to see those men show up, I had to hold myself back from running out and hugging them.I would have baked cookies—but, oh yeah, we had no electricity.

But no one was hurt. Barn roofs can be fixed. Inflatables and tents replaced. The loss of 300 hotdogs is one we can absorb. I was able to meet my tight writing deadline by plugging my computer into my car’s battery. The bottom line is that no child was hurt. Every last one got in the building safely.But really,  I never dreamed I’d see hurricane force winds in Ohio!

 

Radio Interviews

I’ve been learning how to do radio interviews recently.

I’ve been learning that the way you learn how to do radio interviews is by doing them:-)

If you want to listen to me stumble through one–here’s how: The live interview is on May 7.  You can listen live on-line anywhere in the world at 9:05 am pacific/12:05 pm eastern at www.faithplace.org or listen to the recorded show after the live interview at www.debbiechavezshow.com

This is kinda a big one. I really hope I do a good job……

 

 

 

 

Attack In Afghanistan

Many of you know that my son is an HR contract worker in Afghanistan. This morning at  6:00 a.m. (Afghanistan time) his compound in Kabul was attacked by Taliban men dressed in women’s burkas. They set off a car bomb at the front entrance and then began lobbing grenades into the compound and shooting. By the grace of God, my son got into a bunker safely, but it was the closest call he’s had since going over there. A sad little side note is that May 2 is his birthday and the cooks had made him a little birthday cake–which got destroyed by shrapnel–along with most of his clothes which was in the laundry that took a major hit. A pretty lousy birthday.’

I got to skype with him this morning, and he is fine. Here is a small story about the experience that he sent me to cheer me up:

“Here is your happy thought, Mom. I got to the bunker and was looking around and saw my Rough Tough Marine friend sitting at the end of the bunker reading An Uncommon Grace when the second round of bullets and explosions were going on. I knew he was ready to fight if need be, but calm, cool, and collected there he sat slowly flipping the pages as he read. He finished it and said. “When does your mom’s next book come out?”

I wish I could hug that Marine’s neck right now! Along with my son’s!

‘

Teaching The Amish How To Cook?

I’m hanging out with one of my Amish friends today–she’s writing some poetry for me to use in my next book–and somehow we get to talking about homemade Amish egg noodles. She tells me she doesn’t know how to make them. To put this in perspective, this is a woman who milks cows, raises chickens, grows a huge vegetable garden, and helps butcher her own pigs. The fact that she’s never made homemade egg noodles astonishes me.

It turns out that there is a small local factory that makes Amish egg noodles and all the Amish women simply buy them dried and packaged.

Well–thanks to my mom’s old-fashioned cooking, I have made tons of egg noodles! So I volunteer to teach this Amish woman and her five daughters how to make my favorite dish which I always thought was Amish: Egg noodles and cabbage drizzled with butter and sprinkled with crisp bacon.

So here I am today, with five lovely Old Order Amish girls ages twenty-one to five, gathered around me while we mix and roll and cut. The mother fries the bacon and cooks the cabbage while watching ad commenting from the stove. The littlest one really wants to help, so I let her mix the flour and egg and use the rolling pin. We both manage to get covered in flour.

One daughter is sewing a teddy bear to sell. She turns the treadle sewing machine around facing us, so she can watch our fun while she sews.

The table is magically set–no complaints. The girls just see what needs to be done and do it. No fussing. No arguing. The food is put on the table and then the brother and father comes in from their jobs in the carpentry shop.

We have a silent prayer, and then dig in. Our joke is how sad it is that I had to come and teach the mother how to cook proper Amish food.

I loved every minute of it.

But here’s one thing about the Amish–they share. Before I left, the mother had walked out to the phone shanty and called her sister-in-law, who also does not know how to make egg noodles.

The upshot of this is: Tomorrow it appears that I will be cooking my egg-noodle dinner for nineteen people:-)

I’m a little surprised, but I’m really looking forward to it!

Hotel Millersburg

So…I’m in Holmes County, researching my next Amish book, and since I’m going to be here all week and it’s still not tourist season, the owner of Hotel Millersburg gave me a great discount. This historic hotel is lovely and clean–decorated in antiques and authentic Victorian decor. Only one problem-it turns out that this really IS off-season. A three-story hotel–and housekeeping told me this morning that I’m the only one staying here. Seriously. It’s after nine o’clock and I just crept down the stairs to get some ice and a pop. Could hear every creak of the floorboards. Felt like all the old pictures of dead people hanging on the hall way walls were looking at me. You know–moving eyes. Came back to my room. Slammed it shut. Hit the dead bolt immediately wrote down a title for a new Amish book—Murder In the Millersburg Hotel. lol

Age and writing

I've given two talks in the past 48 hours. One to a group of aspiring writers at my local library, another to a book discussion group a couple hours away. Both had dreamers there with stories in their soul who have always wanted to write. Nearly all were people who had put these dreams on hold while they raised families, tended to ill parents,and  worked demanding jobs. Most were at a point in their lives where they finally had the time to write–but assumed they were too old at 40, or 50, or 60 to try for publication.

When I began seriously writing and submitting at age 50, I "knew" I was too old–but felt compelled to at least try. At my first writers conference where I shakily pitched my first book to a New York editor, I was astonished to find out that my age didn't seem to be a consideration. The only thing that mattered to her was whether or not my writing was any good. She accepted a manuscript, read it, and turned it down with suggestions for improvement–not because of my age but because the novel's structure was dicey.

I was sixty years old when my first book Love Finds You In Sugarcreek, Ohio was published. I am sixty-two now. My third novel came out this month and I have four more contracted novels that will be publishing at six month intervals into 2014.

This is one of surprising things about the publishing industry: Age, weight, gender, education, looks, social connections–everything by which society tends to judge us–is unimportant compared to whether or not we can write well and consistently. I even heard one literary agent say that he prefers to represent older people because their life experiences tend to make their writing deeper.

It was never my intention to become a poster child for starting a writing career simultaneously with qualifying for social security–but if it will help give someone the heart to write–so be it.

A friend in Tennessee has been e-mailing me short stories he has written. He's a retired teacher and writing has become a retirement hobby. He thinks he's too old to publish–but these stories are SO good! One thing I've noticed–his latest story, written at age 79, is even BETTER than those he wrote five years ago. Pushing 80, he's grown as a writer.

And then this morning, I read the most amazing thing–and it triggered this post. Herman Wauk, author of The Caine Mutiny, and War and Remembrance, recently sold a brand new book to my publisher, Simon & Schuster. The word is that his new book is really good.

Here's the thing: Herman Wauk is 97.  Compared to him–I'm a mere child! Kinda made my morning:-)