The Measure of Katie Calloway
Yesterday morning, at 3 a.m., I sent my editor the sequel to The Measure of Katie Calloway. The title is: The Endurance of Ingrid Larsen, and oh how I loved writing Ingrid's story! I spent most of yesterday, after sending the manuscript in, either staring into space or crying. Finishing a book is an emotional roller coaster for me. I am grateful to take a break, but my characters become so real to me that I feel a sort of grief when the book ends. In the Sugarcreek book, for instance, I still miss Bertha. I find myself longing to talk with her, and have to remind myself that she isn't real, but it never works, because in my heart she's very real.
That's why getting to write the sequel to Katie Calloway was so satisfying. I had never written a sequel before, and getting to revisit the lumber camp, was so much fun. (I'll tell you right now–Jigger did NOT enjoy his sojourn cooking for the health institute in Battle Creek, Michigan!)
However, in The Measure of Katie Calloway, it is Delia–the old prostitute–that I miss the most. This surprised me, because she was a minor character and only showed up at the very beginning and the very end. But there is something about her resilience, especially in the last scene where it's obvious that she's been beat up and she confides to Robert that she has been praying for a way out. There is just something about that scene that haunts me even a full year after I wrote it. Therefore, it felt wonderful, in the book I just sent in, to give Delia a voice and a life. She's turned into quite a lady, that Delia has!
I have to admit, I'm dying to know what readers think of this lumber camp story. Drop me a line if you get a chance! I read and answer every e-mail and love doing it.
envision my readers as I'm writing. The nurse in a child's hospital ward with a paperback in her pocket. The elderly widow in a nursing home. The teenager who escapes into a book to get her through the first weeks after her father's death. The young, overwhelmed mother taking a break while her children nap.
