Two great things happening yesterday and today!
Yesterday, I stopped by the Creatively Green Write at Home Mom and talked about how writing a novel is like growing a garden. Wenona is such a great host, and I want to thank her!!
You go through much of the same convolutions when writing a novel as growing a garden. You start with such vigor and high hope, but it doesn’t take long before reality sets in and you’re like, "This is real work!" But you put your head down and go and things start to happen and you get excited.
Today, I'm featured in the August issue of Bewitching Book Tours Magazine, where I answer questions like "Are you gay?" and "Are you Christian?" A minefield, to be sure! But I think it's best to talk about these things, especially when my characters bring it up for me. Here's a little bit from that interview.
Deep Down Things is a tragedy. Why don’t you write happy endings?
My mom asks me that all the time, as do a couple of my sisters. I fear I was born with a broken funny bone. I find things funny, but they’re usually English geek kinds-of-things—Monty Python, Terry Pratchett. The things that most people find funny, I usually find incredibly sad or incredibly angry. One of the reasons why, I think, is because the basis of a lot of humor is stereotyping, reducing someone to one dimension, and my goal in writing is to find the complexity of life, to express lived reality. That’s why I’m drawn to the genre of literary. (Not at all to insinuate that the other genres are anything less!) I don’t think of my endings as dark—what I often try for is closure without resolution, which is the way life is. There’s always a tension when I write between the messi-ness and meaninglessness of life and the creation of a satisfying piece of art.I'm so honored to hang out with all these great book people! There are so many out there who are passionate about reading and about books and they put their money where their mouths are ~ they keep the conversation going. Thank you!
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