Holly Michael's Blog: Writing Straight - Posts Tagged "fiction"
DEBUT NOVEL!!!
Crooked Lines: Two continents. Two cultures. Two souls seek hope and a future.
On the shores of Lake Michigan, Rebecca Meyer seeks escape. Guilt-ridden over her little sister’s death, she sets her heart on India, a symbol of peace.
Across the ocean in South India, Sagai Raj leaves his tranquil hill station home and impoverished family to answer a higher calling. Pushing through diverse cultural and religious milieus, he labors toward his goals, while wrong turns and bad choices block Rebecca from hers.
Traveling similar paths and bridged across oceans through a priest, the two desire peace and their divine destiny. But vows and blind obedience at all costs must be weighed…And buried memories, unearthed.
Crooked Lines, a beautifully crafted debut novel, threads the lives of two determined souls from different continents and cultures. Compelling characters struggle with spirituality through despair and deceptions in search of truth.
On the shores of Lake Michigan, Rebecca Meyer seeks escape. Guilt-ridden over her little sister’s death, she sets her heart on India, a symbol of peace.
Across the ocean in South India, Sagai Raj leaves his tranquil hill station home and impoverished family to answer a higher calling. Pushing through diverse cultural and religious milieus, he labors toward his goals, while wrong turns and bad choices block Rebecca from hers.
Traveling similar paths and bridged across oceans through a priest, the two desire peace and their divine destiny. But vows and blind obedience at all costs must be weighed…And buried memories, unearthed.
Crooked Lines, a beautifully crafted debut novel, threads the lives of two determined souls from different continents and cultures. Compelling characters struggle with spirituality through despair and deceptions in search of truth.
New Novel Crooked Lines featured on INDIA'S CROWN-A premier site linking American Authors to readers in India
http://indiascrown.com/2014/07/28/cro...
Crooked Lines
A few Q&A's from the article on India's Crown. For the full article with great pictures from India, go to www.indiascrown.com
Like INDIA'S CROWN, CROOKED LINES--a novel set partly in India and partly in American--blends two cultures. Here's my answers to a few of our interview questions.
How do you suppose a reader living in a different culture--such as India--will relate to your book?
CROOKED LINES was inspired from stories of my husband and clergy friends who came of age in a religious order in India in the mid-1980s. Their tales as young seminarians (80s and into the 1990s and beyond) fascinated me--serving in a Mumbai slum, meeting Mother Teresa, freeing "untouchables" from bonded labor situations, rescuing youth out of radical communist situations, working in orphanages.
I also laughed with them at their hilarious Community Day pranks from their late twenties in the religious order. Of course, Crooked Lines being fiction, I changed names and fictionalized the stories (some less than others), but they give an amazing glimpse into a Christian perspective of life in this time and place in India.
Coming to know Sagai (India's main character and a fictional character), readers from India will also enjoy crossing oceans to Rebecca, who comes of age in the same era in America and struggles through her own life situations that relate--in ways of the human heart--to Sagai's life.
Why did you decide to write this story? What led to the premise of your story?
This questions relates to the one above and grants me an opportunity to offer more detail about Crooked Lines. After hearing the fascinating stories about life in a religious order in India, I was inspired to write a novel portraying the similarities between two souls from completely different cultures. The emotions, feelings, and life situations of a 16, 20, or 25 year old in India can certainly run parallel to a character across the world from them.
In Crooked Lines, Father Michael, who visits the US becomes a pen pal with Rebecca and connects the two together by first asking each to pray for the other.
What about your characters might Indian readers appreciate?
In India, a land of big dreams and hopes, I think people will appreciate the struggles each character pushes through toward goals while desiring to capture their dreams. And sometimes, as life goes, it takes a lot of crooked lines and twisting turns to grasp dreams, which may or may not be all we imagined they would be.
Is Rebecca (your main character) like you?
Although Rebecca--my main character from America--is fictional as are all of the minor characters in her story, I borrowed from a few of my life experiences. There's a scene where Rebecca recalls being six and dancing in the meadow for God, knowing He was real and that He loved her. That was a powerful moment taken from my life. I also dealt with tragically losing a younger sister, hearing the whispers of God during that time, and feeling guilty that I didn't somehow save her. Like Rebecca. I also struggled through ups and downs of life, lost sight of goals, and had moments of wondering how God could really love me. Given that, I add a disclaimer that Rebecca and the other characters in her life are truly fictional and do not represent any real person or persons.
What about setting, how do you choose it? And how did it affect your novel?
The settings in Crooked Lines go back and forth between India and the US. I was born and raised in Wisconsin, a short run or bike-ride to the Lake Michigan shoreline, where I spent a lot of time as a child. There's a winter scene in Crooked Lines along the snowy Lake Michigan shoreline where Rebecca discovers icicle caves. That moment, a real one in my life, further ignited my desire to exploring new places, foreign lands. And India always fascinated me.
Now, married to a wonderful man from India, we travel quite a bit around the US and all around India. I've visited many of the places in Crooked Lines--Darjeeling (loved having Darjeeling Tea in Darjeeling...
...seeing the peaks of the Himalayan Mountains from Tiger Hills was amazing! I've also drank in colorful and chaotic Chennai, delighted in diverse bustling Bangalore...
...and took a breather in peaceful pleasant Tamil Nadu hill stations.
In Goa, I've stood in wonder and awe, listening to the roar of the Arabian Sea as moonlight illuminated whitecaps on the beach.
While harsh realities of India have left me sobbing and devastated in the streets of Chennai, India has charmed me, lifted my heart, and brought me to great heights of exhilaration. India is an incredible, diverse land that I do love.
When the tsunami hit in 2004, my husband--then an Anglican priest, now an Anglican Bishop--and I were there ten days later for mission work.
Witnessing the devastation of teenagers who lost loved ones to drowning sure struck a chord of familiarity with me, having lost my sister to a drowning death. I integrated this experience in Crooked Lines. More and a chance to win a free copy of Crooked Lines on www.indiascrown.com
Crooked Lines
A few Q&A's from the article on India's Crown. For the full article with great pictures from India, go to www.indiascrown.com
Like INDIA'S CROWN, CROOKED LINES--a novel set partly in India and partly in American--blends two cultures. Here's my answers to a few of our interview questions.
How do you suppose a reader living in a different culture--such as India--will relate to your book?
CROOKED LINES was inspired from stories of my husband and clergy friends who came of age in a religious order in India in the mid-1980s. Their tales as young seminarians (80s and into the 1990s and beyond) fascinated me--serving in a Mumbai slum, meeting Mother Teresa, freeing "untouchables" from bonded labor situations, rescuing youth out of radical communist situations, working in orphanages.
I also laughed with them at their hilarious Community Day pranks from their late twenties in the religious order. Of course, Crooked Lines being fiction, I changed names and fictionalized the stories (some less than others), but they give an amazing glimpse into a Christian perspective of life in this time and place in India.
Coming to know Sagai (India's main character and a fictional character), readers from India will also enjoy crossing oceans to Rebecca, who comes of age in the same era in America and struggles through her own life situations that relate--in ways of the human heart--to Sagai's life.
Why did you decide to write this story? What led to the premise of your story?
This questions relates to the one above and grants me an opportunity to offer more detail about Crooked Lines. After hearing the fascinating stories about life in a religious order in India, I was inspired to write a novel portraying the similarities between two souls from completely different cultures. The emotions, feelings, and life situations of a 16, 20, or 25 year old in India can certainly run parallel to a character across the world from them.
In Crooked Lines, Father Michael, who visits the US becomes a pen pal with Rebecca and connects the two together by first asking each to pray for the other.
What about your characters might Indian readers appreciate?
In India, a land of big dreams and hopes, I think people will appreciate the struggles each character pushes through toward goals while desiring to capture their dreams. And sometimes, as life goes, it takes a lot of crooked lines and twisting turns to grasp dreams, which may or may not be all we imagined they would be.
Is Rebecca (your main character) like you?
Although Rebecca--my main character from America--is fictional as are all of the minor characters in her story, I borrowed from a few of my life experiences. There's a scene where Rebecca recalls being six and dancing in the meadow for God, knowing He was real and that He loved her. That was a powerful moment taken from my life. I also dealt with tragically losing a younger sister, hearing the whispers of God during that time, and feeling guilty that I didn't somehow save her. Like Rebecca. I also struggled through ups and downs of life, lost sight of goals, and had moments of wondering how God could really love me. Given that, I add a disclaimer that Rebecca and the other characters in her life are truly fictional and do not represent any real person or persons.
What about setting, how do you choose it? And how did it affect your novel?
The settings in Crooked Lines go back and forth between India and the US. I was born and raised in Wisconsin, a short run or bike-ride to the Lake Michigan shoreline, where I spent a lot of time as a child. There's a winter scene in Crooked Lines along the snowy Lake Michigan shoreline where Rebecca discovers icicle caves. That moment, a real one in my life, further ignited my desire to exploring new places, foreign lands. And India always fascinated me.
Now, married to a wonderful man from India, we travel quite a bit around the US and all around India. I've visited many of the places in Crooked Lines--Darjeeling (loved having Darjeeling Tea in Darjeeling...
...seeing the peaks of the Himalayan Mountains from Tiger Hills was amazing! I've also drank in colorful and chaotic Chennai, delighted in diverse bustling Bangalore...
...and took a breather in peaceful pleasant Tamil Nadu hill stations.
In Goa, I've stood in wonder and awe, listening to the roar of the Arabian Sea as moonlight illuminated whitecaps on the beach.
While harsh realities of India have left me sobbing and devastated in the streets of Chennai, India has charmed me, lifted my heart, and brought me to great heights of exhilaration. India is an incredible, diverse land that I do love.
When the tsunami hit in 2004, my husband--then an Anglican priest, now an Anglican Bishop--and I were there ten days later for mission work.
Witnessing the devastation of teenagers who lost loved ones to drowning sure struck a chord of familiarity with me, having lost my sister to a drowning death. I integrated this experience in Crooked Lines. More and a chance to win a free copy of Crooked Lines on www.indiascrown.com
Writing Straight
Writing Straight is from the maxim: God writes straight with crooked lines. Crooked Lines is the title of my first novel. Through life’s crooked lines and learning curves, people are the dots that con
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