Let's Talk A Year with the Harrisons

This book has taken a long time to make it into my collection, but it’s a really fun read, so I’m glad I moved it on into a more permanent position. I started writing it over 10 years ago, and about 8 years ago added the subplot of Betty Hilligan and her family to the initial idea of the Harrisons, 3 girls who had been educated at home and were now moving into the world. Betty added a lot of comedy to keep the story from getting too dull (social issues about homeschoolers is a topic that easily becomes tedious.) Her mother’s plot with Mr. Shotgun, which was created literally on the spur of the moment as I was writing rapidly, made me able to tie me in some of Letty’s adventures so all the storylines came full circle and interlocked together.
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There’s a ton of local flavor and hints of daily life based on where I lived these earlier years of my own life in Texas. Small towns, country fields of corn and wheat, churches—even the college buildings are based on real places I went to constantly. I think the authentic hum of daily life is what really stands out about this book. While the characters are invented and not based—for the most part—on anyone I’ve ever known, the setting is real. It’s a place you can really sink into and live because it’s based on the places I knew.

What I hope would be a lasting impression from the book is the theme of being genuine and honest. It’s a story with real, ordinary situations, even if some of them are exaggerated for fictional effect, and I would like to think I talked honestly about those situations. What it’s actually like to go through them. Even if it’s topics that don’t come up in most people’s lives, like church politics, TV families, and getting framed for a blind date because you accidentally ran into someone popular, there’s a thread of emotional genuineness about how it really feels to deal with things. Honesty the only thing that gives relationships integrity and I think that shows in The Harrisons.

And there will be more updates.