Hearing Voices

I did a live internet radio show last Thursday night on Amish Wisdom with host Suzanne Woods Fisher. Suzanne is the talented and popular author of Amish fiction and non-fiction including the best selling novel, The Choice. On her show that airs every Thursday at 5 p.m. EST she interviews authors of Amish fiction, Bed & Breakfast owners, and others who have a connection to the Plain life or are striving to live simple. I don't write about the Amish or have a Bed & Breakfast or make quilts, but the Shakers did have a song "Tis a Gift to Be Simple." They aimed for simplicity and plainness in all they did. Their furniture had no decorative swirls and designs. Their clothes were basic attire with no lace or fancy trimmings. Their houses and buildings were sturdy but lacked porches or fancy woodworking. And in their pursuit of the simple, plain designs they found beauty.

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So Suzanne asked me to be a guest on her show to talk about the simple ways of the Shakers. I'd not done a live radio show before and as it turns out, I still haven't - exactly. Oh, we were live (and maybe even lively) talking about the Shakers, but the internet station had server outages and nobody in my part of the country was able to get the show to come up. But you can listen to the archived program now at www.toginet.com/shows/amishwisdom. I even got brave enough to listen myself. I thought I'd better do that before I posted the link out there on Facebook or mentioned it to anybody in case I was glad the server was out and nobody heard me!!

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And while I wondered for a few minutes if that was really me talking, the interview didn't sound too bad. Isn't it odd how our voices never sound the way we think they will when we hear them recorded? I hear one tone of voice in my head and everybody else hears me another way. I remember the first time I heard my voice recorded. I was in high school and I vowed never to speak again. Of course that lasted all of five minutes. A friend sent a link, www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=why-does-my-voice-sound-different, explaining the scientific reason for this for those of you out there with inquiring minds who want to know. You can find an answer to almost anything out on the net somewhere.

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But voices are important. I used to have a part time job where I scheduled substitutes for the school system and I could usually tell on the first call if the person was going to be a good substitute or not. And not always by what they said, but by their voice. That's why they tell you to smile while you're talking on the phone if you want to make a good impression. I smiled some of the time while I was talking to Suzanne last week. I'm sure I did.

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Voices are important in fiction too. Dialogue is such a vital part of fiction these days. People like to listen in on your characters talking. At Bible study tonight, I got a really nice compliment from one of my church friends who's reading my new book, The Seeker. She said she just loved "hearing" Mellie (one of my characters) talk. And that's what I want readers to do. To hear my characters talking in their heads. Just the way I do. Just the way I hope you do if you read one of my stories.

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Hope all the voices you're hearing are saying good things!

A New Book Cover - Coming 2011

What do you think about the cover of my next book, Angel Sister, scheduled for release in February 2011? I really like it. The little girl is a perfect Lorena and doesn't it just look like she's gazing up at her "angel sister?" I had been holding off sharing the new book cover since The Seeker has just hit the market and started landing in readers' hands. I didn't want to overwhelm everybody, but then Fiction Finder posted Angel Sister's cover on their Facebook page yesterday. So I thought I'd better get with it and let my reading friends see it first from me and share some of my excitement over another beautiful book cover.
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As you can tell, this is not a book set in my Shaker village of Harmony Hill. It's set in 1936 and is the story of the Merritt family. My mom and her three sisters used to tell stories about when they were growing up and usually ended up laughing until they cried. They had to have lived in a community with the weirdest assortment of characters you might ever want to meet. So I took all those stories I'd heard so many times, got Mom to tell me a few more, and then read some WW I history (there's a flashback romance to WW I) and put it all in the fiction blender in my head and after changing the characters into people whose stories I could tell came up with Angel Sister.
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It is without a doubt a story of my heart and I'm hoping readers will too even if it is different from my Shaker books. Don't worry I'm still working on a couple of those for the future too. But you know, that's one thing about my books. Even the Shaker books. They're different. That's good, isn't it? You don't want me to tell the same story over and over again only changing the characters' names. You want different, don't you? I certainly do. In writing stories and in reading them, too.
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But back to the book now, The Seeker. The Corinth Parable Bookstore in Frankfort, KY is hosting a book launch for me this Friday, July 2 at 7 p.m. I'll be talking a little about writing The Seeker and then those who are there will have time to talk and ask questions - my favorite part of any talk. If you're in the area, come out and join in.
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And now for this week's winner of an autographed copy of The Seeker. It's Samy of Pennyslvania. I'll be getting the book off to you sometime next week, Samy. The rest of you still have a few more chances to win if you sent me an e-mail from my website or made a comment here. And if you haven't thrown your name in the hat, you still can.
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Hope you have a great week and thank you for reading. And if you get a minute, let me know what you think of the cover for Angel Sister. Last but not least, if you're reading this, Happy Birthday, Johnny!! Today's my oldest son's birthday. Can you still claim 39 when your kid has to stretch the truth to say he's that age? But I remember my first sight of him as a little baby. He was screaming in outrage, but he was still beautiful. And so loved. My life was forever changed.

On the Road to a Story

This is the road through the middle of the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill near where I live. It's peaceful looking, isn't it? No traffic runs on it today except maybe what the workers of the living history museum there use to carry supplies, etc. But at one time this was the main road for everybody wanting to go between Harrodsburg and Lexington. And it wasn't peaceful at all during the time of my Shaker novel that is being shipped out to stores and readers now. The Seeker takes place during the first two years of the Civil War and soldiers were continually marching along this road between battles and skirmishes. John Hunt Morgan actually mustered in his troops in the middle of the Shaker village since it was a central location for the soldiers from the nearby towns. Later Morgan came back through the village on one of his guerilla raids through the area. The Shakers hid their horses, but prepared food for the soldiers. They did that all through the war. Before the Battle at Perryville, the Shakers served 1,500 meals on one day to soldiers marching through the village. And I set my characters of The Seeker right down in the middle of it all.

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That's one of the fun things about writing historical fiction. I get to read history out of the history books and then say what if this woman or this man (my characters) was there. What would they do? How would it change their lives? The War Between the States certainly changed our country and the lives of the people who lived then. That included the everyday life of the Shaker village.

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The Seeker is being shipped out to stores and those people who pre-ordered copies should be getting them in the mail soon. I got a couple of boxes of books today to have for my book launch in July and to take with me to the Kentucky Christian Writers Conference Friday and Saturday. I'll be teaching three classes. Two on "Making Characters Come to Life" and one on "Revise, Revise, Revise." Have no idea how many people will be in my classes, but hoping a few people sign up so that we can have fun learning together. I taught some writing classes for Community Ed several years ago and enjoyed teaching. But I like writing better.

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I did finally type "The End" on my work in progress, Shaker book four. But really that's just another beginning. Now I have to go back and pay attention to my teaching about "Revise, Revise, Revise." I'm anxious to read back through it and see what I need to do to make it better. Anxious as in excited as well as anxious in worried that I'll see major holes that need patching. I'm hoping nothing too major since Mr. Deadline is stomping ever nearer.

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I'm doing a guest interview on Margaret Daley's Blog tomorrow, June 10. Check it out at www.margaretdaley.blogspot.com. She had some great questions and if you make a comment there you'll be entered in yet another drawing for a copy of The Seeker.

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I'll draw for another winner in my book giveaways this weekend. Check out the details on my website, http://www.annhgabhart.com/. Hope I get to meet some of you this week at the KCWC. Two whole days of nothing but talking about writing and books. Sounds like great fun! If you're in the area (Elizabethtown, KY is really close to a lot of towns in KY) and want to come, they are taking same day registrations at the door on Friday and Saturday morning. You can check things out at their website. http://www.kychristianwriters.com/.

Sweeping the Shaker Way

~~Whenever I go to the Shaker village not far from my farm, I feel as if I've gone back to a different moment in time. I can't deny a feeling of peace in that place. Even though I've read a lot of Shaker history and know their Societies were not always peaceful and trouble free, still I feel the peace there as I walk along those tree-lined streets and gaze at the sturdy buildings that have lasted far longer than their Society did in that place. The Shakers sought peace and union with God and their fellow Believers by putting their hands to work and giving their hearts to God. For many of the Believers it worked. They did find peace and purpose and walked the Shaker way with gladness and devotion. Others did not and went back to the "world."

~~The Shakers did their best to be self sufficient with each member working for the good of the whole. Then as their numbers grew they needed a way to keep all hands busy so they began to manufacture items for the world like these flat brooms. A Shaker man in one of the eastern villages came up with the idea for a better broom and a way of stitching the broom flat. Today re-enactors in the village still make brooms the Shaker way. Then they ape the good business sense of the Shakers and sell the brooms that were made for the entertainment of the tourist guest in the village's gift shop. That's where these brooms in the picture were. Waiting for someone to carry them home and put them to work.

~~The Shakers are long gone from this Shaker village of Pleasant Hill. The pathways and buildings are empty of all but tourists and workers. Nothing is left now of the people who once lived and worked there except a few markers in their graveyard. But if you try you can hear the echo of their songs and the stomp of their feet in the meetinghouse. You can imagine with very little problem a Shaker sister's skirt whirling about her as she spins in religious ecstasy. And you can wonder at this contradictory people. Every action of their daily lives was disciplined and ordered by their Ministry, but yet their worship could be open and free. In reading accounts of some of their spirit visitations, they sound like children playing pretend.

~~My Shaker books are not so peaceful. In The Seeker first one army and then another marches through the center of the village destroying the peace of the place. Just a few more weeks until the book is out to bookstores. I received beautiful postcards and bookmarks today. If you would like some, contact me from my website, http://www.annhgabhart.com/ and I'll send you some. You can also click on my Facebook page and/or sign up for my newsletter from the website. I should have a newsletter spinning across cyberspace by the end of the week. There will be news of how you can enter several drawings to win a copy of The Seeker in July.

~~Have you ever visited a Shaker village? What did you like best about it? Maybe you bought a Shaker broom. Hope you have a great today and a better tomorrow.

2010!! Can You Believe It?

2010 sounds like a title of a sci-fi book. Maybe it has been the title of a sci-fi book. And you know if you had written a book twenty or thirty years ago about all the things we do in 2009 it would have sounded like a sci-fi book. We have Facebook friends we talk to via computers. We want to find out about something, we "google" it. There's not much demand for door-to-door encyclopedia salesmen these days. Drone aircraft drop bombs on our enemies without the need for a pilot to be aboard. Robots build our cars. We drive up to square piggy bank machines that spit out cash when we insert a little card into them and punch some buttons. We can hold a little book shaped gizmo in our hands and read a book without every turning a page. We put our music on something smaller than a deck of cards. We walk around with a phone to our ears or if we're of the younger generation, type out messages on a tiny screen without having to say a word. And check the weather forecast on those phones or the movie times. We take kidneys, hearts and various other parts from one person and put them in another without the first thought of that being strange. We can make puppy dogs that glow and sheep and cats that are clones. The DNA from a hair or drop of blood can tie someone to a crime or prove he's innocent after fifteen years.
~~Twenty ten. Two thousand ten. Ten. We're entering the second decade in the Twenty-first Century. I had to get up and find a piece of chocolate to keep that from being too depressing. Not really. The chocolate, yes. Any excuse for chocolate. The depressing, no. I have a calendar of daily quotes and one of them reads, "Life is like an exciting book, and every year starts a new chapter." I like starting new chapters in exciting books, don't you? So 2010 here we come.
~~And on the way are you going to make any New Year's resolutions? I've got some I could make. Use my time more wisely. Grow as a person (spiritually, not in the waistline!) and grow as a writer. Write more. Write better. Write right.
~~Write right - that's what I'm trying to do now as I finish up the edits on my new book, The Seeker. I think I could work it over a hundred times and still see some things I might do better. So I'm trying to vary my words, make them flow smooth and easy so that anyone who reads my story won't notice the words at all. Only the story I'm trying to tell about Charlotte and Adam. Most people don't realize how much a story has be polished and worked over before it ever makes it out onto a bookstore shelf. So I'm doing some of that polishing now. Not a bad way to finish out a year. Then next year I can dive back into my work in progress and figure out what happens next to those characters.
~~Hope your year ahead is chock full and overflowing with all the best blessings and that you'll find lots of good books to read as we head out through the teen decade toward 2020. Talk about a sci-fi title!! But we've got a few exciting chapters to go before we get there. Enjoy! And thanks for reading.