Emilie Richards's Blog, page 125

Author Mollie Cox Bryan and Scrapbook of Secrets

When a new mystery novelist contacted me months ago and told me she was from the Shenandoah Valley and the author of pie cookbooks, I was intrigued.  She asked me to read the first mystery in her new series, Cumberland Creek Mysteries, from Kensington, to give her a cover quote, and I agreed.  After all, both the Shenandoah Valley and pie have been good to me, and Mrs. Rowe's in Staunton, VA, the restaurant connected to Mollie's cookbooks, is a "must-stop" whenever we journey to Asheville, North Carolina.  So  Mollie had me at "please."

Today is Mollie's book launch, and the perfect day for an interview.  As a bonus, we're hosting a unique giveaway, all the supplies for a scrapbooker's "brag book," pictured to the right.  One commenter will be chosen by random.org next Tuesday to receive this, so make sure to hop on before then and ask Mollie questions or to tell her how much you want to win. 

Here's Mollie's description of her book: 

Having traded in her career as a successful investigative journalist for the life of a stay-at-home mom in picturesque Cumberland Creek, Virginia, Annie can't help but feel that something's missing. But she finds solace in a local "crop circle" of scrapbookers united by chore-shy husbands, demanding children, and occasional fantasies of their former single lives. And when the quiet idyll of their small town is shattered by a young mother's suicide, they band together to find out what went wrong…Annie resurrects her reporting skills and discovers that Maggie Rae was a closet scrapbooker who left behind more than a few secrets – and perhaps a few enemies. As they sift through Maggie Rae's mysteriously discarded scrapbooks, Annie and her "crop" sisters begin to suspect that her suicide may have been murder. It seems that something sinister is lurking beneath the town's beguilingly calm facade – like a killer with unfinished business…

Emilie:  What compelled you to write this story? 

Mollie:  This idea came to me, actually, when I was going to a lot of scrapbooking events and was blown away by the generosity and quick friendships of other scrapbookers. About that same time, I read "The Secret Life of Bees" and  I wanted to write a story like it about the power of women's friendships. I also wanted to take a look at the darker side of that—what isolation and secrets can do to people.  So when National Novel Writing Month came around a few years ago, I decided to dip my toes in and go for it.

Emilie:  You're known as a food writer.  Why fiction now?

Mollie:   When I think back to my childhood writing, it was always fiction and poetry. But life came along and I needed to earn a living so I worked as a nonfiction writer and an editor. It's always been a dream of mine to have a novel published. And all of my writing is about story, whether it's fiction or non-fiction.

Emilie:  Your book is an ensemble piece, lots of characters and many of them important.  Do you have a favorite? 

Mollie:  I really love them all—but I like some facets of their personality better than others. For example, I like that Vera has such a kind and open heart, but I don't like the way she primps. But if I had to pick my favorite character, it would have to be Beatrice. She was the most fun to write and I think she's sort of my ideal fantasy of what it would be like to be a healthy eighty-year-old woman. Sometimes, she can be a little "too" honest and gruff, but you can't really hold it against her.  

Emilie:  Why did you set your novel in the Shenandoah Valley?  What will readers learn about the valley that you've learned in real life?

Mollie: I set my novel here because this is where I've lived for about 13 years and I still find it fascinating. It's one of those places that people tend to romanticize a bit—I know I did. While there are family farms, gorgeous mountains, and many "old-order" Mennonites, it's also much more diverse than that.  As a writer, one of the things I'm fascinated by is this clash of cultures that happens when new people move into communities where much of the population can trace its heritage back to the founding. Sometimes it's subtle, but it's usually just beneath the surface. Great fodder for fiction. 

I hope readers will glimpse that tension—one they might not realize exists. 

Emilie:  I'm a quilter, and you're a scrapbooker.  Both crafts share a love of the past and expressing that love through color and pattern.  What drew you to scrapbooking and what place does it have in your life?

Mollie:  I was a quilter first— I have a love of interesting fabrics, patterns, and textures. And you can say the same thing about scrapbooking and paper. I started scrapbooking, in earnest, when I became a mom, thirteen years ago. At first, it was all about keeping a record about them as they grew.  Then I fell in love with the paper and embellishments and also began to experiment with a sort of a cross between journaling and scrapbooking.  I found a lot of people out there that are really artists with this—like some of the quilters. And I'm also intrigued with this subculture, you know, where there's this language that develops in the group. Then there's also the notion of making a personal history. My grandmother left several scrapbooks and I cherish them so much—more than any gold or diamonds than could have been handed down, you know?

Thank you to Mollie for visiting.  Remember, Scrapbook of Secrets is at your favorite bookstore now.  Pick up a copy.  And don't forget to comment for a chance to win a "brag book" kit.

Sunday Poetry: A Burning Light

Welcome to Sunday Poetry.   If this is your first visit you can read about the purpose and inspiration of my Sunday poetry blogs here.

I fell in love with this poem and poet immediately.  The poem is short, but it packs a large punch.  I found Boarding House after first finding Ted Kooser through another poem on the same site. Then I began searching to find out more about him.  Please click this link to his website, which has wonderful videos of him reading his poetry out loud.  Remember, I'm a poetry novice and started this blog to learn more.   I think you'll be seeing Mr. Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate from 2004 to 2006, often here.

I was drawn by title to this particular poem because my Irish great-grandmother ran a boarding house in the Finger Lakes area of New York, or at least that's what my recent and brief foray into Kelley geneaology turned up.  I love the idea of this, and picture the book I could write about her life.  But I can't imagine a book with as much power as this poem.  And that's a large part of what makes poetry so important.  Revelation and transformation in the blink of an eye.

Remember there are no quizzes here, no right ways to read or contemplate the poem we share.  Absolutely no dissecting allowed.  Just come along for the "read."  What line, word or thought will you carry with you this week?  If you'd like to tell us where the poem took you?  We'll listen.

Words and the Way We Use Them

Sometimes we stumble into history.  My husband and I did exactly that last week when we chose to visit Mt. Dora, Florida.  Little did we know that Newt Gingrich was planning a visit, too.  The Florida Republican primaries were in full swing, and so was the Gingrich entourage.  As we ate breakfast on the porch of a historic hotel on Lake Dora we learned that Newt, Callista and the gang were appearing the next morning, to be introduced by Calvin Coolidge himself.  We  made plans not to attend, although we do like Calvin Coolidge. 

Late the next morning we decided to visit the hotel again, certain the hoopla would be over.  It wasn't.  While we missed the speech and Calvin, the Gingrich campaign was still there, shaking hands, having photos taken.  We took a table, watched and listened.  From my closest neighbor I learned that as a "liberal" I should be automatically deported to either France or Greece.  (I so wanted to ask this gentleman if Santorini was a possibility.)  Small groups of people wearing Patriot Army T-shirts converged on us, which made my heart beat a little faster. 

In front of us, deeply mired in the crowd, Newt continued to inch his way to the car.  I worried about security.  There were plenty of people in uniform, but it only takes one unstable person with a grudge to have another Gabby Giffords moment.  I was relieved to see him get in at last and be driven away.  I fervently hope all our candidates safely drive away at the end of these events. 

Seeing one of the candidates in person, and being subjected to the negative campaigning on Florida television did make me think harder.  I remembered hearing that in 1990 Newt, himself, published a list of words Republican candidates should use when talking about Democrats.  So after the event, I searched for it.  Along the way I found another list a group at politicalstrategy.org had put together to turn the tables.  You'll enjoy the contrast.

Newt's list: 

"Anti-flag, anti-family, anti-child, anti-jobs, betray, coercion, collapse, consequences, corruption, crises, decay, deeper, destroy, destructive, devour, endanger, failure, greed, hypocrisy, ideological, impose, incompetent, insecure, liberal, lie, limit(s), pathetic, permissive attitude, radical, self-serving, sensationalists, shallow, sick, they/them, threaten, traitors, unionized bureaucracy, urgent, waste."

Political Strategy's list:

"American, Best-interest, Bipartisan, Caring, Children, Choice, Clean, Common sense, Confident, Correct, Courage, Decent, Democracy, Determination, Diversity, Environment, Equity, Fairness, Family, Fiscal responsibility, Forward looking, Freedom, Growth, Hard working, Health, Humane, Innovative, Justice, Liberty, Life, Majority, Middle-class, Moral, New ideas, Open government, Open-minded, Passionate, Peace, Pioneer, Populist, Progressive, Pro-growth, Promote, Prosperity, Protection, Proud, Reality, Responsibility, Security, Solution, Strength, Success, Tolerance, Truth, Unity, Vision, We/us/our, Win, Women, Working, Working-class."

Does any of this sound familiar? 

Let's, none of us, Republican/Democrat, or Conservative/Liberal be taken in by lists of words in this next election.  Let's listen, but let's search hard for the facts and not be taken in by rhetoric. 

This is as political as I plan to get in the next months.  My job is words, not politics.  I'm just asking that we all use them wisely.

***

On another subject and speaking of lists?  Random.org tells me that the January winner for the "lists" giveaway is Myra Lynn Ross, whose comment fit today's blog so well that I had to include it.  For the list entitled "Things I Want to Know" Myra Lynn wrote: "Why we are so threaatened by those who disagree with us." 

More lists to come and more chances to win an autographed novel.  Stay tuned.

Amazing Grace

Florida. 

What's not to love about my home state in January?  Last Monday I stepped off a plane in Orlando and saw palm trees and sunshine, not to mention a host of children sporting mouse ears.  It was home-like if not exactly home.  Disney was still quietly buying up orange groves when I spent two of my teenage summers in Central Florida.  None of us had an inkling Hurricane Mickey was on the way.

For the first time in our marriage my husband and I are trying  to decide where to spend the next part of our life without having to consider his job or school for our kids.  Florida's winning big time, so we're investigating. The closer we drove to Mt. Dora, where we spent three nights, the more familiar the area looked to me. 

As a young teen I'd spent two summers not far away at Camp Oklawaha, in Ocklawaha, Florida.  Recently I discovered the camp hadn't existed under that name for years, but a newspaper article, decades old, pinpointed the location for me.  A little more effort turned up a new camp, Southwind, on the same lake, and while the photos showed a more modern facility, it was a place to start.  That camp is now run by Young Life, a Christian youth organization, and while they had never heard of Camp Oklawaha, they thought quite possibly it was the same place.  Good folks that they are, they invited me to visit.

Driving beneath live oak canopies dripping with Spanish moss, I wondered what I would find.  Most memories of those two summers are a pleasant blur.  My cabin mates and I were the Mohawks, Counselor-in-training.  We rode horses and swam, shot rifles and bows and arrows.  I learned to canoe and sing silly songs, if not to water ski (I always let go of the rope before I got to my feet.).  I sang camp ditties to Michael as we drove.  He was suitably impressed, if not with the songs, with the fact that I could still remember them.

I also remembered long, hot evenings listening to our camp director preach.  He was a Southern Baptist whose joy and mission was to bring us to Jesus.  I was an Episcopalian, long on ritual, short on sermons and patience. But I first heard Amazing Grace at one of his Sunday services.  It's still one of my favorite hymns. 

We arrived at Southwind mid-afternoon after first taking a  gloriously beautiful dirt road to nowhere.  Minutes later I knew I'd walked back into my own history.

Have you had that experience?  Have you revisited your past and discovered how distorted your memories were?  The Camp Oklawaha of my childhood was huge and sprawling.  The reality?  Southwind has room for everything, including, apparently, the imagination of a fifteen year old girl, but it's contained and sensible.  My cabin still stands, but did we really fit six girls inside?  Of course Mother Nature had done her part, as well.  The lake where we swam is now two shallow marshy sections which were visited by an alligator while we watched.  The island we canoed to for Indian ceremonials now has a house on it.  Horses are no longer part of the program.

I came away from the visit with warm feelings, and two strong impressions.  I remember returning home from camp all those years ago and thinking how tiny my childhood home was.  This time I returned to camp to discover the same thing. 

Life is like that, isn't it?  We blow things out of proportion and sometimes we need to revisit them to set them to rights. Only rarely is anything as immense as we make it.

Second?  Mr. and Mrs. Chiselbrook would be so proud of what their camp has become.  The kind folks at Southwind are doing exactly what the Chiselbrooks tried to do themselves.  I had a strong sense of their presence there, still.  Sometimes there really are happy endings, even if we don't live to see them.

I could almost hear Amazing Grace on the wind.

Work in Progress

This isn't a blog about the newest book-in-progress, although there will be plenty of those coming up.  No, this is a blog about the lack of a blog today.  Or if this isn't a blog, at least it's an announcement.

Tune in tomorrow instead, when I will have (mostly) recovered from my travels through Florida looking for a new place to call home.  Along the route I encountered Newt Gingrich and Callista, author and friend Julie Compton, my teenage self, several small alligators and possibly my future. 

No wonder I'm tired.  See you on Wednesday.

Sunday Poetry: By the Highway Home

Welcome to Sunday Poetry.   If this is your first visit you can read about the purpose and inspiration of my Sunday poetry blogs here.

Today's poem is Reluctance by Robert Frost.  Are you reluctant to let go of something in your life?  Are you hanging on when you shouldn't because you need to move on?  Are you afraid to let go because the future might be worse than the present?  Or are you unwilling to let go because life, just as it is, feels so right?

I love the way Frost's poetry seems to be about simple things, then changes in the blink of an eye into something profound, something I need to think about for days.

What will you think about?   Remember there are no quizzes here, no right ways to read or contemplate the poem we share.  Absolutely no dissecting allowed.  Just come along for the "read."  What line, word or thought will you carry with you this week?  If you'd like to tell us where the poem took you?  We'll listen

Lists: People I Really Want to Read About

Remember "lists?"  I introduced my first list on the 13th, and you responded with wonderful additions.  You can read the comments if you click on the link.

Here's my next and last list for January.  Anyone who adds an item by commenting on either post by January 31, is entered in a drawing for an autographed book.  No religion, politics or snarkiness allowed–at least nothing very snarky. 

Just follow the topic and speak from the heart.

Do you suspect an ulterior motive in my subject selection?  Of course.  I'm listening.

 

People I Really Want to Read About:

1–People who pick themselves up and keep going

2–People who make mistakes

3–People who fall in love, even if they know better

4–People who have something to teach me

5–People who live in worlds I'll never inhabit and still make them feel familiar

Now it's your turn.  Who speaks loudly enough that you have to pick up their book and immerse yourself in their life?

Who do you want to read about?

Everybody Loves a Hero

Novelists watch life unfold and shake our heads.  There's a test to tell just how absurd it all is.  We ask ourselves, what our would editors say if we went to them with a particularly odd story.

For example:

 "Have I got an idea for you.  Let me do a modern day Titanic novel, okay?  Only this time, the captain will be the bad guy–not the boyfriend with the sparkly necklace–AND (here's the twist) he'll also be the good guy–the new Leonardo DiCaprio.  Isn't that better?  See, he gets too close to shore when he's showing off to a female crew member (bad guy), then he's not sure what to do after he crashes (bad guy), but along the way, he falls into a life boat, and the lifeboat crew takes off with him, when all he really wants to do at that point is stay and go down with his ship." (good guy)

She groans. 

I try to explain, since she doesn't seem to understand.  "It's a story of transformation, see?  He wants to go down with his ship, but he's kind of a klutz.  He hits his shin, or his big toe and he can't swim back to deck.  It's a great story.  Even if it doesn't, well, end happily."

At this point I would have to manually jerk said editor's hands off her ears.  "Did you hear me?" I would demand.  And she, eyes glazing over, would say: "Have you lost your mind?  Nobody, and I mean nobody, would believe a story like that!"

How many of us can't believe it?   Can we count the mistakes of  Captain Francesco Schettino of Costa's Concordia this past week?  Showing off.  Denying reality.  Dithering.  Abandoning ship.  Lying about the way he abandoned ship?  Most of us were raised to believe that people in positions of great authority (especially people in dashing uniforms) are heroes, or at the very least, heroes in training.

This time, not so much.

This morning I read a wonderful article from the Greater Good Science Center by Zeno Franco and Matt Langdon.  The Captain Who Fell into the Lifeboat talks about heroism, and how to recognize it.  Unfortunately Captain Schettino failed on every level.  He didn't take the accident seriously enough.  He gave into pressure from others, which may not only have caused the accident, but also delayed response.  He didn't consider the long term results of his actions.  He tried to justify his decisions, even claiming he acted heroically by steering the vessel into shallower waters.  He let his own fears overcome the demand for leadership and "fell" into a lifeboat to avoid taking charge.

Yikes.

Now contrast this with Captain "Sully" Sullenberger, who in 2009 managed, with raw courage and outer calm, to land a disabled Airbus A320 in the Hudson River, and get every single passenger out and to safety. 

One of the differences between most literary and commercial fiction is the concept of the hero.  A thoughtful, insightful literary author could make an interesting story out of Captain Schettino's fateful day, the forces that drove him to make so many bad decisions, ending, perhaps, with a trial and no conviction, because, after all, the real world isn't fair.  In short, no heroes aboard.

A more commercial approach?  Captain Sullenberger and crew, facing challenge after challenge landing that Airbus and somehow, against all odds, making sure everyone is rescued.  Heroes aplenty.

None of us really know what we would do in a time of crisis.  But me, I'll take the story about the "captain-who-tried" over the "one-who-didn't."  Call me an optimist, but I do believe in heroes.  And sometimes my faith is vindicated.

 

Sunday Poetry: I Have No Name

Welcome to Sunday Poetry.   If this is your first visit you can read about the purpose and inspiration of my Sunday poetry blogs here.

Our family just welcomed a baby boy, my first grandson, and today's poem, Infant Joy by William Blake, is for Liam Michael, born January 12th, and precious, as all babies everywhere are. 

Infant Joy by William Blake

"I have no name;

I am but two days old."

What shall I call thee?

"I happy am,

Joy is my name."

Sweet joy befall thee!

Pretty joy!

Sweet joy, but two days old.

Sweet Joy I call thee:

Thou dost smile,

I sing the while;

Sweet joy befall thee!

Thank you for sharing my family's joy.  Remember there are no quizzes here, no right ways to read or contemplate the poem we share.  Absolutely no dissecting allowed.  Just come along for the "read."  What line, word or thought will you carry with you this week?  If you'd like to tell us where the poem took you?  We'll listen.

The Write Way: Setting Up A Series

This week, in addition to meeting my new grandson, I also met my new cover.  One of these I adored on sight.  (I'll let you guess which.)  Sometimes that happens. 

The new cover is for the first book in a series, One Mountain Away, which debuts in August.  The series is titled Goddesses Anonymous.  This time, more than usual, I felt we needed to get the cover absolutely right.  In addition to a cover that the bookstore browser would pick up, we needed a "look" that made it clear to my readers that the next time they saw the same "look" it would be on the cover of the second book in the Goddesses Anonymous series.

While my publisher and struggle together with the cover, I'm reminded of all the problems of setting up the actual story to lead into a series of novels.  So today, let's explore the first thing you must pay attention to if the novel you're writing could become the first of several–or a dozen. 

Will there be recurring characters?  Who are they, and what will happen in their lives as the story progresses?  How central will they be in each book, and if they are central, have you left a number of loose threads in their lives to weave in as the series continues?

There are different kinds of series, of course.  Mystery series usually feature a detective (amateur sleuth, law enforcement professional, or private investigator) who solves a different crime in each novel.  His/her life changes slowly from book to book, but the personal is not usually the focus of the story.  The life of the sleuth enriches but doesn't fuel each novel's plot. 

In contrast series in general fiction can focus on a group of friends, a particular place, a theme, etc., and they can vary in interesting ways.  Sometimes each book features a different character, but prior characters walk on and off stage.  (My Shenandoah Album series is an example, as is the new Goddesses Anonymous series.)  Other series (Happiness Key) use the same main characters in an ensemble from book to book.  If you haven't read Happiness Key, then think Desperate Housewives, of television fame.  Or Friends.

The kind of series you envision will affect how you use recurring characters.  Planning ahead is best, because if you don't, you'll find yourself working around all kinds of situations and background you set up in Book One without realizing that later you would be hemmed in by them.

Having said that, I'll confess that neither the Shenandoah Album series nor the Happiness Key series were meant to be series at all.  They were stand alone novels.  Only when I'd finished did I realize how many questions I still had about the characters, and how much fun it would be to explore the answers.  I found plenty of loose ends and added more as I went.

I promise we'll consider more items in another Write Way blog.  Meantime, for previous writing tips, click here, or on the Write Way category to your right.

For now, remember that characters matter most in a series.  Be sure you create characters your readers will want to read about from book to book.  Better yet, create characters they can't wait to read about, and just as important, characters you can't wait to write about.  Over and over and over again.