A Writer's Voice

I did an internet radio program this afternoon with Ivy on Dottin' the i. She has regular interviews with writers of inspirational books, both fiction and nonfiction. This is the second time I've been a guest on her show, but this is the first time I've had the nerve to listen to the show. Here's the link in case you'd like to go back and listen. Dottin' the i. All the interviews are archived there, so you can probably poke around and find out about a lot of interesting writers. Today she was interviewing me about my book, Summer of Joy and my inspiration for writing the Heart of Hollyhill books. We talked about the Sixties and Jocie and Wes and small towns. She also asked how I was able to include the faith moments along with the story. I told her that I like that to be a natural part of the story. 

Anyway, I've never particularly liked hearing my voice. The first time I heard myself on a recorder in high school, I thought I might take a vow of silence. That lasted maybe five minutes and then I started talking again. Since then, I've gotten more used to hearing my voice, but I'm still a little surprised each time. Somehow my voice sounds different inside my head. But today wasn't so bad when I listened to the program. I didn't stumble around searching for what I wanted to say but once or twice and didn't say "umm" or "uh." Several years ago a morning radio program ran a contest where callers could win a prize if they called into the show and were able to talk for thirty seconds without saying uh. Hardly any caller could do that. So at least I made it thirty seconds without saying uh. At least, I think I did.
 
I've done a few storytelling videos to post on my Facebook page and my friends have said I sound fine. I still think I could sound better. I'm trying to post one of the videos here, but it's not working and it's getting late. Sometimes technology won't cooperate with me and my ideas.

But you know there's another kind of voice that a writer has to consider. Each writer has an individual "voice" that comes through in his or her writings. That voice can be as unique as a person's fingerprints. If you've read a few books by the same author then you might be able to recognize that author's work without seeing a by-line. The hardest question I'm sometimes asked is what other authors do I think write in the same way I do. I don't know. I want us all to be different. I want to have my own voice and not be like anyone else. 

"The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and dance and live as only you can." (Neil Gaiman)

So enjoy your voice and your stories. And thank you for reading mine. 

You can read about how I developed my voice and got the inspiration for my Hollyhill books at Finding Hope Through Fiction and you have one more day to leave a comment at The Book Club Network to be in the drawing for a copy of Summer of Joy. Plus, you've got a few more days to enter the giveaway on http://bit.ly/1eROuiu to win that copy of Summer of Joy.

A New Chapter in Life

No one finishes this race, but everyone gets to pass a baton, and a good hand off means that you will not slow anyone down during the hand off, especially any one of the billions who will live after you. Everyone today is an accumulation of the 106 billion batons that have been passed forward for thousands of years. So make your baton count. 
(http://www.basicknowledge101.com/subjects/inspiringquotes.html)

Passing the Baton

Today, my husband, who has been singing with the Patriot Quartet since 1997 sang his last concert with them as their first  and only bass. It was a sad day for me because I hated for him to quit the group. I think they have always had a great sound. (You can check out their music at the Patriot Quartet's website or see some short video clips of their concert today on my Facebook page.) But Darrell felt strongly that the Lord was leading him to step aside and pass the bass singing baton on to a younger man who has a great voice and will be a fine addition to the Patriot Quartet. They will continue their ministry and Darrell will step into new ways to minister, still singing, but no longer with the Patriots. And so the year begins a new chapter for him as he moves forward. 

Singing Families

When a singing group has been together as long as the Patriots, the members and their families become something like extended families. That has been especially true with this group since for several year we traveled to concerts in a big old bus that gave us hours and hours to share stories and songs. In fact, it's partly because of that big old bus and all the rides on it that I wrote Angels at the Crossroads. That book, the only nonfiction book I've written, is the life testimony story of the first tenor in the group after Darrell began singing bass with them. 

Angels at the Crossroads - Jerry's Story

Jerry Shepherd has an amazing testimony. As a young man

he become involved in drugs and alcohol and eventually, at age nineteen, was sentenced to prison for murder. While he thought his life was over, the Lord wasn't through with Jerry. He gave him a second chance by putting people in his pathways to help him start making right choices and following the right roads. Jerry couldn't change what he'd done, but he could accept the Lord's forgiveness and try to live for Him going forward. Jerry always wanted to write his story and so when we were thrown together on the bus and I had recently had my first inspirational novel published, it seemed to be meant for me to write his story. I wasn't sure I could since I'd never written anything except fiction, but the words flowed so easily that it had to be the Lord helping me write Jerry's story. The book didn't find a traditional publisher, but it is available on Amazon and other internet sites. Here's a bit of a review just posted yesterday on Amazon. "Hope, forgiveness, and God's love is what helps us all through difficult times just as Jerry finds out. If you face a crossroads in your life, Shepherd's inspirational journey may help lead you down a new pathway to a life filled with compassion and love."

Jerry is now pastoring a church and doing solo appearances to share his story in song and words, but he will always be part of our singing family just as the members we said goodbye to today will be. Batons are passed and new chapters of life are begun. But that doesn't mean we forget the good times we've shared. Sometimes it's good to look back through some of those old chapters of our lives.

Authors - the Old and the Young 

One of those life chapters I've shared with all of you here on One Writer's Journal is that of my great-niece, Kaelyn, who was diagnosed with leukemia when she was five years old. The church where the Patriots sang today is pastored by Kaelyn's father, our nephew-in-law. After three long years of treatments, Kaelyn was released by St. Jude. She has to go back periodically to be sure all is still well, but she now has hair. She doesn't have to wear a mask when she comes to church the way she did the last time the Patriots sang at her church. She can go to public school without the fear that every cold germ will land her in the hospital with little way to fight off infection. On that hard journey of chemo treatments, she never let go of the Lord's hand. She is a special child with a big heart and a sweet spirit. I know many of you prayed for her and rejoiced when I posted about her "no more chemo" party last year. (Here's the link to that post if you missed it last year.) Anyway, I thought you might like to see her picture with her great smile and nice long hair. She told me today she'd just written a book with ten whole chapters for her little brother. He loves Ninjas, so she came up with that type characters and made it funny. Here's a photo of the new author with the old author. 

On to the Next Chapter

Chapters of life start fresh all the time. May your next chapter be a good one. 

Connecting with My Reading Friends

I know. It's not Wednesday or Sunday (that's my usual posting days), but I'm testing out some new links with Amazon.com's author pages. There are so many ways to connect with readers these days. Facebook. Twitter. Author pages. Blogs. Blog tours. I've tried to stick my finger into the internet pie on all of them but twitter. Still not twittering. Are any of you? The facebook has been a fun way to keep up with friends and family. And I'm hoping to have a Facebook Fan page soon. You can talk more about your books and do book giveaways, etc. on the Fan pages. Or at least that's what I've been told.

My only problem is wondering why anyone would even think about signing up to a fan page for me. I don't think about having fans. I think about having reading friends. But I have to admit I'd like to gather more reading friends, and didn't our mamas always tell us the way to have a friend is to be a friend? That's sometimes hard to do when you spend hours making up imaginary people. Coming up with new stories takes some solitary time. A lot of solitary time. That's why some writers talk so much when they get a chance to be away from their desks. And it's also why some don't. Sometimes we're still in that story. Still hearing conversations in our heads that no one else can hear, but that we hope everybody else will someday want to read. Just as soon as we write it down.

I'm hoping to get some stuff written down soon. Being between books is not my favorite place to be, but I had to catch up on all the mundane "the house will fall in if you don't take a shovel to it" chores.

Come back Sunday and we'll talk.

A Sunny Saturday at the Book Fest

It's rained buckets today in Kentucky but we had a beautiful spring day yesterday. Couldn't ask for a nicer day for a belated Easter egg hunt (some of my grandkids got to do that with their other grandmom) or a day to wet that fishing line or to take a walk down the creek to feast your eyes on some newly bloomed wildflowers. That last might be my pick for such a welcome warm sunny day.

But it was also a good day to talk to some readers and writers and sign some of my books. That's always a favorite day for me and that's what I got to do at the Southern Kentucky Book Fest on Saturday. I told some of my fellow writers at the reception the night before that nobody would be at the Book Fest because they would all be home mowing their yards or planting flowers or still picking up limbs from the ice storm. All along the road down we saw piles and piles of limbs and trees where the road crews were cleaning the fallen branches out of the right-of-ways.

I'm glad to say I was wrong about the Book Fest and not everybody stayed home to mow his or her yard although one lady did tell me she couldn't come to my panel discussion because she had to get her yard mowed. Me, I've never worried that much about grass. You'd have no trouble believing that if you could see my yard now. I gave that chore over to Darrell when he retired and he mows on his own schedule. But even when I was doing more of the mowing, I would have picked a book fest over mowing any Saturday of the year. It is such a treat to be able to wander through rows and rows of authors all ready to talk to you and tell you about their books.

I've been on both sides of the table. I've been the wanderer wanting to buy every book in the place, and I've been the author hoping my book will catch a shopper's eye and he or she will want to stop and talk to me for a while. Even better maybe give my book a chance. Or best yet, maybe have already read some of my books and be anxious for the new one. I was fortunate enough to have several of those best yet readers come by my table this year. That's always fun.

One of the other most fun things besides meeting so many readers is meeting so many writers. I was in a great row of writers. On one side was Elizabeth Emerson Hancock with her memoir about growing up a preacher's kid called Trespassers Will Be Baptized. Titles that make people smile draw the browsers over to an author's table and so many of those browsers bought Elizabeth's book that she sold out before the Book Fest was over. Of course I bought one too and I think the inside is going to be a make-you-smile story too. The book got a starred review in Publishers' Weekly. Not always an easy accomplishment. So I'm looking forward to reading it.

On my other side was Patti Lacy with her first novel, An Irishwoman's Tale, based on a true story. This book is also getting great reader reviews on Amazon.com. I didn't buy it because, well, I couldn't buy all I wanted yesterday or I would have had to rent a truck to bring them home and then build a room to hold them. Oh, wait, I am building a room! But that's to hold all my grandbabies. Still a few extra books might fit in there somewhere. Patti's book looked and sounded very interesting and I'm sure I'll enjoy reading it when I do get it.

Then down the table was Leisha Kelly who publishes with Revell the same as I do. I came home with one of her signed books, Julia's Hope, that I'm going to use in one of my book give-aways. I'll announce what next Wednesday. Got to make up my mind. I bought several books to give away. Leisha and I were on the historical novel panel together and one way she researches for her novels is by going to nursing homes and talking with the people there. She says she wants to keep their stories alive. I did something the same with my book, Angel Sister, that Revell has scheduled to come out in January 2011 about the depression years because I used all the stories my mother and aunts told me about those years to get the feel of the era.

I was also on a panel for Inspirational Fiction for Women with some great writers: Patti Lacy, Virginia Smith, Angela Benson, and duo writers - Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant. We didn't have many people come to listen, but those who did got a treat. I did too as I enjoyed hearing about the other ladies' books and writing methods. I bought Angela Benson's The Amen Sisters, a gritty story of hope and strength that tells it like it is. That one will be in a give-away soon too. I already have my friend, Virginia Smith's book Age Before Beauty since I did an endorsement for it. That will probably be the first one I give away. All of us had a blast talking about our writing as we shared a lot of laughter. I made some new writing friends and reading friends. I wish I could go to a book fair every month. But if I don't stay home and do some writing I won't have any reason to go now, will I?

Baby Raegan is home from the hospital and doing well. So is Mom although it'll be a while before she's ready to run any races. Dad's staying home this week to take care of everybody. He's great with the kids and with the baby. As soon as I get a chance I'll get a picture of Raegan posted along with some updated pictures of the twin boys.

Tune in on Wednesday. Who knows what I'll talk about then! I'm sure I don't.