Favorite PASTimes Interview Questions

Tell us a little about your road to publication.

I started my first novel when my eldest son was four (he’s seventeen now!). It was pretty bad, a meandering plot of scenes from my favorite novels strung together like mismatched beads on a necklace. But it was a crash course in novel writing, and I was so proud to have finished it, all 120,000 words! Knowing that it wasn’t good enough to try to publish, I began my second novel. Snow Angel was born on a frosty night in an old farmhouse in Fishers, Indiana, where the cold floor gave me plenty of motivation for the snow scene. After the first chapter, I knew I had something special. A couple of years later, armed with my jewel, I sat out to get it published.

And so began some of the hardest years of waiting that I have yet endured. When I look back on it, I can hardly believe all the crazy things that happened. (I feel the need to insert a graph or table, some timeline or something to explain it all:). I began my search by doing the conference thing, meeting with editors and learning the submission process, studying the publishing houses and markets for romance novels. Then I sent out several query letters to both ABA and CBA publishing houses. It took months and sometimes years to hear back, but each one was a rejection letter. I wasn’t sure what to do next, so just kept researching and waiting.

My first break came in 2000 when Time Warner started an online writing group called iPublish. There was a lot of talk at that time about ebooks and how big they might become, so TW thought to tap into that market with an online community of writers providing the content for these ebooks. I signed up to be a beta tester for the website (praise God for the internet!) and within a couple of months got a call from an editor with Time Warner.

They LOVED my book and felt that in this new format they could stretch out into something on the inspirational side with little risk on their end. Now, I wasn’t crazy about the whole ebook idea, but at that point, I was pretty desperate, so I signed the contract, hoped that my book would be so successful that they would eventually print it and looked at the whole thing like a possible springboard for my career.

After 9/11 I received the news that Time Warner was shutting down the ebook division and letting all the ebook authors out of their contracts. One of the editors went to bat for my book to be traditionally published in trade paperback because she loved it so much. Those were months of living on gut-wrenching hope, but it was determined that it was too inspirational.

I sank into a minor depression for a couple of months after that and didn’t write anything. I kept praying and asking God what was going on, wondering what His will was for my life.It felt horrible to think of letting my dream go, but I wanted to prove to Him and myself that it wasn’t bigger than He was to me. I was willing to let it go if that was His will.

But my desire to write soon surged through me so strong that I was back at the keyboard. By this time I was knee-deep into homeschooling my two boys which lead to various writing opportunities with our co-op (skits, poems, short stories, teaching writing, etc.) and doing some newsletter work for my church. But I wanted to write novels and decided to begin another one and send out queries again.

Now I could at least add my Time Warner experience to my cover letter which I hoped would give me some credibility. In 2002, I got a letter requesting the full manuscript from Avalon. Their blub said they were the “family channel” of romance novels and I thought it might be a good fit. The only problem was that I had a 110,000 word novel and Avalon only wanted 80,000 words. I started cutting like crazy. Anything that wasn’t “jump off the page” good was cut. At first, this was really hard to do. But after awhile I noticed something. The story gained pace and emerged stronger than I could have imagined. Like a diamond being cut, it really began to sparkle and shine. Excited, I mailed it in.

That was the beginning of two harrowing years of next to no communication from the publisher. I called, I emailed, I begged, they just kept putting me off. Finally I threw up my hands (probably railed at God about how unfair life was) and sent it off to a few more publishers.

If you’re wondering if I was looking for an agent during these times, the answer is, of course! But I had always heard that getting an agent was even harder than getting a publisher on a first time book, so I had little hope there. But I did try hard. One day, I was online looking up agents and came across an agency that I had never seen before. They had an online form so I thought I wouldn’t have to wait quite so long to hear back and . . . why not? I was shocked to get a call from one of their agents who had just relocated to Indianapolis. Within minutes of talking, he asked if I would like to meet him somewhere with the manuscript. With my five year old son’s hand firmly clasped in mine (I’d had a third son by then) we walked around a Boarders book store in search of my new agent.

I was a nervous wreck as I handed the pages over to him, believing he was my ticket to publication. He read it and loved it. So again, I signed the papers without knowing very much about him. Now this man was a really wonderful person, but he had never sold fiction before, only non-fiction in the technology field. He was able, however, to get the editor at Avalon to finally give me an answer (I think he sent her chocolates – ha!). The answer was “no.” It just didn’t quite fit their list.

During the next ten months, I continued to have great hope that my agent would sell my book. At the end of the tenth month with him, realizing he hadn’t sent out more than two proposals, I decided to take a leap of faith and part ways. This terrified me because now I was back on my own, but I honestly thought I could do a better job myself, and I kept hearing that still, quiet voice say, “I’ll be your agent.”

“Really?” My slacker-faith self asked.

“If I am for you, who can be against you?”

“Really?” I whispered as tears began to flow down my cheeks.

Armed with fresh faith, two novels finished and the beginning of the third one, I set out to query every possible Christian and non-Christian publishing company that had ever published a romance novel. I poured over each word and sentence in the query letter. I used a sample proposal from a well-known agency as a template and polished my 40 page proposal until it glared it was so bright.

Then, in November 2005, I sat at my kitchen table and looked at the giant stack of brown envelopes. A part of me felt hope, a part of me felt fear, but a big part of me said, “This is it, Lord. If this doesn’t work, I’m going back to college, getting a degree in advertising or something creative. I have too much creative energy inside me not to be doing something with it. Then, surprisingly, my sister dropped by on her way to work. Jennifer is something of a prayer warrior and we laid hands on the stack and prayed over it, asking God to bless each proposal.

Within two months I had a bite from Bethany House and B&H Publishing. Bethany eventually bowed out due to the fact that they had an author already doing a series on Alaska. B&H gave me a call. I took the call out onto the deck where it was quiet.

“We want to publish your book.”

Long, deep breaths. Was this real? Would it work out this time? I was excited but wary. “I would love that.” I said simply. And, in the months that followed, I found that I would. God even provided me with a wonderful agent to help navigate the contract! His timing is perfect, but it was hard to wait for the fruition of that.

When you first entered the publishing world, what surprised you the most? Was there any aspect of the business that caught you off guard?

How slow the publishing process is! From the time I got the call to the time I signed the first contract, to the time I finally held Snow Angel in my hands . . . it was a year and a half later! It is going faster now. And for that I am thankful.

Why historical fiction?

History is full of the untold stories of our ancestors. They are stories of hardship and hope, fortune and lack, from frontiersmen to statesman, the great that were seen and the small that only appeared to etch out a living against the backdrop a new born country. I love our nation – America. I cherish our stories. And there are so many stories yet to be told. When I am beginning to envision my next book, I pray that God will reveal to me something that really happened and give me a glimpse of it so that I can share some long ago person’s passion with the world. Can you imagine all the stories God knows? He knows every one. He walked with them in all their footsteps across this earth, just as he does with us. My desire is to find those stories He wants me to tell, and then tell them in such a way that we feel like we were there. History is a delightful looking back that can help lead us into the future. I think we can learn and experience so much from another person’s story.

What are you working on now that you’d like us to know about?

I am currently working on Scarlett and Christophé’s story. It is set in France during the French Revolution. What has struck me in my studies is the difference between the American Revolution and the French Revolution. I don’t think we have any idea how blessed we were to have the men we did begin our country. I didn’t. The French Revolution was a bloodbath that murdered many innocents in the name of freedom. Yes, the monarchy was corrupt. Yes, the peasants were starving and living worse than farm animals. But the men who came into power after Louis XIV and the famed Marie Antoinette were little better leaders. Power madness and the guillotine led to a nation dripping with blood. We had upright men such as George Washington whose sole heartbeat was to die to himself so that this new country could live. We should be on our knees every July 4^th in thanksgiving. It could have gone so wrong. My story begins with a count’s son, Christophé St. Laurent, and his sister Emilie, hiding in a secret room in their chateau. They are forced to hear the guillotining of their parents and brothers. He escapes to Carcassonne and meets a woman who is eight months pregnant with his enemy’s nephew. Here’s a brief excerpt:

The mist rose above the circle of the earth. The air was crisp, quiet, deadly quiet as it always was in the old graveyard at dawn. Christophé St. Laurent grasped his dark cloak against his chest with one fist, the other holding a knurled walking stick. It was not used to walk, only to swirl the mist when the mood suited him.His gaze tripped over the headstones as he passed. Robert Rubberier, born 1732, died 1765. A small stone. A short life, his. Mdm. Genevieve Montaigne rested on the laurels of goodwife, to ten children, and yet not a plant or flower to grace that simple edifice. And then there was Capitan Fontaine, with a headstone so tall, the etching so old and proud, the moss clinging and thick – a hero in some long ago history lesson. Christophé’s lips grew taunt and grim as he contemplated their ghostly eulogies.A small yellow glow started on the horizon. He stopped his first light walk, stilling the clip of his heels to turn eastward and watch the second by second display of a planet’s rotation. It never failed to fill him with wonder and he found himself taking a deep breath, feeling the mist move into his mouth and throat and chest.It was turning pink.A joyous thing rose to his throat and then his eyes. “Thy kingdom come,” he whispered into the fading mist. “Thy will be done.”He turned and continued his walk, brisk now, knowing the way like a child knows the path to his safety place. Energy flowed from the earth, through Newton’s gravity to rise up from his legs and cause a sweat to break between the sharp planes of his shoulders. His breath came faster as a feeling of power rushed through him. He could run. The thought struck him as new. He hadn’t allowed himself that freedom in so long. An image flashed across his memory. He and his brothers and sister running through an ornate garden – a palatial dream. He saw their bright faces in stark relief. The light was too bright. Something in him wanted to shield it away, but he couldn’t. Every blink brought a face. His brother, Louis, with hair so dark and eyes that flashed back a challenge at him. Roberé, a year older than Christophé, quiet and solemn, quick and encouraging, quick as moonlight, but willing to forfeit the race to see any one of them smile. Then he saw Emilie. She reached her hand out toward his, her shorter legs unable to keep up. She was as bright as the braids that had tumbled loose, bouncing upon her shoulders.Christophé blinked hard several times but could not rid himself of the image of her face, so alight with laughter and . . . life.“Thy will be done,” he breathed through sudden tears. He stopped, realizing he’d been running. He bent over his legs, felt his long hair fall forward like a dark curtain, heard his rattling breaths, waves of sound that made no difference. He lifted his head and watched as the tears dropped in liquid pools that scattered the dust on the stone path into tiny puffs.It was like that sometimes. A sudden memory that swept away all but this core of grief. No matter how he fought it, it knew his weakness. It sought him out in the sane moments when his mind wasn’t obsessed with light and color and the complexities of a mathematic scheme that shouldn’t work but always, somehow did. When his mind was a silent crypt it crept in, an insidious rotting, a ruin, and then simply . . . overwhelmed him.With nothing short of grace, he pulled himself up and together, took a bracing breath and continued on this morning-ritual walk of blurted-out-prayers and nonsensical thought. It was the only thing that kept the thread holding his mind and soul from snapping. With a deep breath he turned another way. It was frightening, this varying from routine, but this morning he found himself running. This morning, he found he could do anything.He moved smoothly, his legs and feet pushing against the stone path, up a slow rise, his breathing soft and even. He ran with the cool wind blowing back his hair, the remains of the dead flashing by like glowing stones. He ran and felt he could keep running forever.He saw her and stopped. She was crouched low, her head down, her shoulders curled within her, stiff and unmoving. He couldn’t help but stare at her long, unbound hair. It was dark but alive with color, the pink glow of a morning’s glory reflecting in each strand.Gold and amber and bronze and the color of glowing coals. Bright, white light. He saw the prism in his laboratory. Saw the split of white into the colors of the rainbow. Saw them reflected on the old castle’s walls. Brilliant but cold. So brilliant and cold.He wanted to tell her of it. He breathed with the effort not to blurt it out. She stood suddenly, as one who has heard a sound. She whirled around – long, dark cape and glorious hair, flowers still clutched in her hand. Christophé’s gaze dropped from her frightened face to her rounded stomach and then the grave stone that glared chalk white in the mist behind her. “Color.” He thought as he caught his breath.God help him. He had said it aloud.

Do you have a favorite historical novel?

Flowers by the Storm by Laura Kinsale is my favorite historical romance. Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers is my favorite Christian historical.

Is there anything or anyone that inspires your writing?

I am inspired by people who love others despite how hard that can sometimes be. They are living examples of Jesus to us.

What do you enjoy most about reading historical fiction?

I love traveling back to some time and place that I can only imagine through books or movies. It opens my mind to possibilities. It makes me appreciate those who have gone before us. We are all blazing a trail for future generations. Do not underestimate the power of your life’s story.

Once we become writers, we read with a critical eye. For some grammatical errors in a book are like fingernails on a chalkboard. For others weak plots cause them to lay a book aside without finishing it. What, if anything, annoys you about some historical fiction? (Without naming names!)

As time becomes more and more a precious commodity, I find myself without the patience to press through and keep reading if the first few chapters aren’t gripping.

Historical fiction requires a lot of research? How did you go about researching your work?

I try to immerse myself with the ‘feel’ of a time period. Books, movies, art from the time period, and prayer. Anything God puts in front of me that helps me get into the mood of the period. Then I just take a deep breath and begin typing.

What would you like readers to gain from reading your book(s)?

Hope. Hope that no matter what, God has a plan and even though we fail in a million ways every day, His way will prevail if we seek Him. Our Father is the master storyteller. He has all of us in the palm of His hand. He knows things about us that we will never know or understand until we see His face in heaven. Hope in His greatness. Rest in His omniscient power.

Any advice for aspiring novelists?

Pray. Read everything you are remotely interested in. Be lead by His Spirit. Study the works you love best. Write your heart – bleed into it. Grow a thick skin in the sense of being available to hearing God speak through others – but be true to your heart at the same time, because everyone will have an opinion. And then just work really, really hard. Every day.

Any final words?

Marketing is vast territory these days. People like you who have taken the time and resources to care about books, mean a lot to me. Sincerely, I thank you!

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