Good Words from Dead People...and a GIVEAWAY!!!

As we've visited with some guest posters this week and received some great tips. Don't forget to stop by the posts and comment and enter for the giveaways as we'll be drawing at the end of today.  Today I thought it might be fun to end with some advice from beloved authors of the past. They may be dead people, but their works have outlived them. 

TRUMAN CAPOTE: To me, the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the inner music that words make.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY: There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at the typewriter and bleed.
Prose is architecture, not interior decoration.

HENRY MILLER: Work on one thing at a time until finished. 

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD: Nothing any good isn't hard.

JOHN STEINBECK: Abandon the idea that you are ever going to finish. Lose track of the 400 pages and write just one page a day, it helps. Then when it gets finished, you are always surprised.

E.B. WHITE: Writing is not an exercise in excision, it's a journey into sound.


Writers do not merely reflect and interpret life, they inform and shape life.

ANTON CHEKHOV: My own experience is that once a story has been written, one has to cross out the beginning and the end. It is there that we authors do most of our lying.

HERMAN MELVILLE: To produce a mighty book, you must start with a mighty theme.

ROBERT FROST: No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.

WILLIAM FAULKNER: Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but its the only way you can do anything really good.

Don't be a writer. Be writing.

JACK LONDON: You can't wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club.

VIRGINIA WOOLF: If you don't tell the truth about yourself, you can't tell it about other people.


Is there any writing advice here that spoke to your heart? Or is there another piece of advice that has been passed on to you that you have taken to heart and remembered? 

GIVEAWAY: SHARE WRITING ADVICE IN THE ARCHIVES AND WE'LL ENTER YOU FOR A COPY OF UNDENIABLY YOURS BY BECKY WADE. PLEASE INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS. 

Interview with Patti Hill and book-launch giveaway!

Today we welcome Patti Hill, one of my all-time favorite voices in Christian fiction. When you pick up one of her books, you’ll see why. She has a fresh, beautiful voice – lyrical without being ostentatious, heartfelt and whimsical and easy to read and emotionally complex all in one. Oh, and did I mention funny? It’s no wonder she’s multi-published and a Christy award finalist. Not only that, she’s just the sweetest person you’ll ever meet. I’m so thrilled to have her with us at the Alley on this extremely exciting day!

What’s that? Why is today exciting? You mean you didn’t know? Today – drumroll, please – is the official launch of Patti Hill’s newest release, Goodness & Mercy! To kick off with a bang, Patti’s novel will be FREE on Amazon in e-book form for three days only, starting today! If that’s not enough, Patti will also be giving away a paperback copy to one lucky commenter – all details at the end. Without further ado, here’s Patti:

Bio: Patti Hill is an unlikely novelist. Books played only a small part in her life until her high-school years. And she only remembers her mother reading to her once. Her mother’s voice flowed like water.

Always resistant to sleep, young Hill created stories to entertain herself until stories of galloping Arabian stallions and pirate ships segued into dreams.  That was the beginning. Then she discovered people enjoyed hearing her stories—real or imagined. She loved having an audience. Still does.

She didn’t think to write a story until she read a novel so beautiful that when it ended, she was bereft.  A passion to orchestrate words, characters, and stories consumed her. Fortunately, she’d married a man who thought leaving a good-paying career to write novels was a splendid idea. In other words, she is a kept woman.  Happily so. In Colorado. She is the author of six novels. Writing is one way she worships Papa God.

Welcome, Patti! We’re going to pick your brain a little today. Goodness & Mercy is your first historical fiction. What challenges did you face in this new genre?

I had a terrible time stopping the research phase. I interviewed people, picked peaches, spent hours in the oral history department of the local museum, anything to get into the skin of the people who lived during WW II and insert myself into their lives of the people of Palisade, Colorado. I met the most amazing people, like a 95-year-old man who ascended Mt. Belvedere with the 10^th Mountain Division.  Everyone was generous. The bonus was learning so much about my own valley.

I can just about smell those sun-warmed peaches. You actually make research sound like fun. (Can you tell I’ll never be an historical fiction author? Love reading it, but phew – hard work for the author!) Why did you decide to try historical fiction?

Over the years, my mom had asked me repeatedly to write her story. Writing my family’s story, including six siblings and all of their children, scared me to death. There were too many perspectives on what had happened. So, I borrowed the premise of my mom’s story.

In 1946, my grandmother was declared an unfit mother, and my grandfather was institutionalized for a mental breakdown. At sixteen, my mom quit school and set about being breadwinner and caregiver to her six siblings, ranging in age from 2 to 14. The state eventually stepped in and took her siblings to orphanages.

Although dispersed, Mom managed to keep her siblings a family. I have relationships with all of my aunts and uncles. Thanks to Mom, we are a family.

I love the tenacity Mom demonstrated, and I put that quality in my main character, Lucy. She has twin siblings, Goody and Mercy, a boy and girl, when her parents are killed. Lucy tries to be all the twins need, but the state steps in and the 8-year-old twins head off for an orphanage. When a farmer and his wife decide to adopt Goody, the question becomes: How far will Lucy go to keep her shrinking family together?

I love your premise. The fact that it’s based on a real-life story is goosebump-worthy. What a rich vein of family lore you have to mine. Okay: let’s get down to the nitty gritty. What is your writing day like?

Since I work in my home, I like to have my ducks in a row before going to my desk. For me, that means time with Papa God. I talk back to Him daily in my journal. It’s a great time. Then I take my Australian shepherd, Tillie, for a long walk. We both need to work out the kinks. Once I’ve cleaned up, I do a household job, and then it’s off to work. I unplug the phone, look at the pages I wrote the day before, and write three more. It’s amazing how quickly the pages add up. When I reach my writing goal, I’m out the door to meet a friend for a cold drink or spend time with my dad. This is how I regenerate.

Sounds like you’ve achieved a great work/ life balance. Did you always want to be a writer?

Heavens, no! I told my 8^th grade math teacher I didn’t need to solve for X because I was going to be an entertainer. I left my ingénue stage in time to marry and have two sons, so I stayed home with the boys for most of their growing-up years before I returned to college for my literature degree. I was born a teacher, so I taught elementary school for a while.

But I’d read that beautiful story. And I couldn’t think of anything else I wanted to do. I quit teaching—the original plan was for a year—but I hadn’t even written the first page after one year. I was discovering that writing was hard work. I buckled down, got the first chapter written. Within months, I had a book contract for Like a Watered Garden.

You realize we all hate you right now. Or at least, we would if you weren’t so completely loveable. Seriously, it’s a credit to the caliber of your writing that you snagged the attention of a publisher so quickly. I’m impressed. What advice do you have for aspiring writers?

Don’t make publication your goal. Make writing God-honoring stories your goal. Be willing to put the time and sweat it takes to be a good writer. Take classes at your local college or attend writers conferences to hone your skills. Keep learning. Never be satisfied, but never go safe either. Above all, persist. Persistence is the secret ingredient to being a good writer. And one more thing I wish someone had told me: Start small. Write short stories or novellas. They’re a great way to experiment with ideas, and if your experiment tanks, you haven’t lost all the time and effort a novel requires.

Great tips, Patti. There’s a lot to chew on there. I’m so pleased you could come and hang out with us today.

The best to you!

***

Isn’t she lovely? So here’s the lowdown. To win a SIGNED paperback copy of Patti’s novel, please comment below with why you would like to read Goodness & Mercy. One winner will be announced in the weekend edition.

Then after you’ve commented, skip right on over to Amazon and click yourself a FREE copy of the e-book. (Don’t forget – it’s FREE for three days only! Help spread the word!) 

If you win, you can keep one and give the other as a gift to a book-loving friend. Or keep it just to sniff the pages (I know you still love the smell of paper and ink, even if you ARE a Cool Kid with a Kindle). Or leave it casually lying around on your coffee table, open to the autographed flyleaf, so everyone can be suitably impressed by your authorial connections.

Whatever the case, we are determined to get Patti’s newest novel into as many hands as possible, so get commenting and get clicking! And if you read it and enjoy it, please help spread the word by writing a review or recommending the book to a friend!

TWEETABLES

The heart-wrenching true story that inspired Patti Hill's newest novel, GOODNESS AND MERCY:  Click to Tweet 

Author Patti Hill on her latest release, the writing life and making her first sale: Click to Tweet

FREE e-book, GOODNESS & MERCY, available three days only: Click to Tweet

Interview with Beth Vogt

I am so very excited to welcome an Alley Cat friend and incredible author to the blog today... Beth Vogt! Isn't she just the cutest? Today I'm going to be chatting with her about her newest release, Wish You Were Here. Be sure to look at the end of the interview for your chance to win one of Beth's two books!

Beth K. Vogt is a non-fiction author and editor who said she’d never write fiction. She’s the wife of an Air Force family physician (now in solo practice) who said she’d never marry a doctor—or anyone in the military. She’s a mom of four who said she’d never have kids. She’s discovered that God’s best often waits behind the doors marked “Never.”  Her inspirational contemporary romance novel, Wish You Were Here, debuted May 2012 (Howard Books.) Her second novel, Catch a Falling Star, releases May 2013. Beth is an established magazine writer and former editor of Connections, the leadership magazine for MOPS International. Visit with Beth at her website bethvogt.com.

1) Wish You Were Here is your first novel. Can you tell us about your road to fiction publication and your non-fiction work? I was a never-going-to-write-fiction journalist. I wrote my first book, Baby Changes Everything: Embracing and Preparing for Motherhood after 35 (Revell 2007), because I couldn’t find a faith-based book on late-in-life motherhood when I was pregnant with my “caboose kiddo.” I wanted to give other older moms the encouragement I’d wanted during my pregnancy. Several years later, God used a season of burnout to move me from nonfiction to fiction. Burnout became a bend in the writing road. My motto is now: God’s best is often behind the door marked “Never.”  

2) What advice would you give to our readers who are in the beginning stages of their writing journey? Relax. Breathe in, breathe out. These beginning stages are a necessary part of a writer’s life. Don’t rush past it because what you learn now becomes the foundation of your writing life. Take the time to build a solid foundation of faith, craft and relationships.

3) Wish You Were Here opens with a scene where the heroine, Allison, makes the mistake of kissing her fiancé’s brother just five days before her wedding. As soon as I read that first chapter in the bookstore, I knew I had to buy this book! What made you decide to open the novel with that particular scene? When I was burned out on writing and editing, I told my husband I was never going to write again—ever, ever, ever. Three days later, he came home and found me sitting at my computer, writing. But I told him that it didn’t count because I was just having fun with a scene I’d written for a Christian Writers Guild assignment. I’d gotten good feedback on that scene written from 3 POVS: the bride’s, the best man’s and the photographer’s. I was playing around with it, asking myself, “Who is this woman and how did she get here? And is she going to walk all the way down the aisle and marry that guy?”

4) Who are some of your own favorite authors? Have they influenced your writing? I love novels that are character-driven. I grew up reading books by Louisa May Alcott and Georgette Heyer and L.M. Montgomery. And then as I transitioned to fiction I was blessed to meet Susan May Warren and Rachel Hauck—two talented authors who have helped me become a better writer. Susie wouldn’t let me quit when I wanted to bolt back to the non-fiction side of the writing road. And Rachel keeps pushing me out of my comfort zone as a writer, challenging me to not just be a writer, but to be a storyteller. And both of them help me stay grounded in my faith.

5) Allison deals with a very deep struggle from her past. Ultimately, she feels more comfortable sharing this part of her heart with her fiancé’s brother, Daniel, rather than her fiancé, Seth. Why was it important to you to include this element of the story? That was a telling moment, wasn’t it? That question—who do you feel safe with?—is often at the core of love and romance. If you can’t feel safe with someone, can you ever truly allow yourself to fall in love with them?

And now, some questions for the main character in Wish You Were Here, Allison:

1) What sorts of things do you like to do in our spare time? I could answer that question so differently. For too many years I would have said “Whatever Seth likes to do.” Now, I actually allow myself to think “What would I like to do?” I’m painting again and I’ve just invested in a wonderful new camera for my photography. I’ve even thought about becoming a part-time wedding photographer. I love happily ever afters, don’t you?

2) With all that time spent around llamas, did you ever learn to knit? No. Me, yarn, and knitting needles? A disaster waiting to happen.

3) Be honest. What happened to that atrocious wedding dress after your moment of liberation from it at the end of the book? Is it still up for grabs? I like how you describe that, Ashley – the moment of liberation. I don’t think any bride would want to wear the gown after my “freedom” moment – but it is available for photo shoots.

4) What sorts of things do you look for in a guy? Well, I’ve found my guy … he just happened to be standing next to the guy I thought was right for me. For me, the best kind of guy is the one who you can be yourself with … and who invites you to join him on new adventures too.

5) What do you hope readers will learn from your story? We often say that God can bring good out of our mistakes … but do we live like we really believe that? For too many years, I lived like I was a mistake. And I was afraid to make any more mistakes. Where’s the grace in that kind of life?

CONTEST!!!

Leave a comment below about why you'd love to read Beth's book (or if you've already read it, what you loved about the story) to be eligible to win either Wish You Were Here or Beth's non-fiction book, Baby Changes Everything: Embracing and Preparing for Motherhood after 35. Please specify which book you're most interested in winning!

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Ashley Clark writes romance with southern grace. She's dreamed of being a writer ever since the thumbprint-cookie-days of library story hour. Ashley has an M.A. in English and enjoys teaching literature courses at her local university. She's an active member of ACFW and runs their newcomer's loop. When she's not writing, Ashley's usually busy rescuing stray animals and finding charming new towns. You can find Ashley on her personal blog, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter. She is represented by Karen Solem.