IV: Are there real-life inspirations for your protagonists and their mothers?

Thomas: Absolutely. The mother-daughter relationship my main character Chloe has with her mother Amanda is a more lighthearted, greatest-hits version of the one I had with my own mother. That’s why I’m so thankful I have this series. When my mom died unexpectedly of an aneurism at the end of 2011, I was so glad I had this book and that it was the first in a series. Working on it makes me feel close to her.

Lawton: Billie, I am sorry to hear you lost your mom—and so recently! Mine has been gone twenty-seven years, and losing her was huge and life-changing. She definitely fills my heart to this day, and some of her wonderful qualities are found in Ruth, Madeline Kruse’s inspirational single mom. Our connections with our mothers never leave us.

IV: How much of the story is based on your own relationship with your mother?

Thomas: All of it, I suppose. My mom and I had a roller-coaster relationship. I always said no one could get under my skin like she did. But there was always great affection for one another, especially as I got older and moved further away. Time and distance distill a relationship down to its most potent form and I’m proud to say that there was more love than anything else in our relationship. I hope that’s reflected in my story.

Lawton: I certainly felt the love in your story. And because the threat to Ruth’s life is key to the story line in Junction, Utah, I have to say that a huge part of the novel revolves around the mother-daughter relationship as I understand it. That understanding comes chiefly from my connection to my mother and my daughter’s connection to me.

IV: Is anything about the mother-daughter bond a key motivation in your story?

 Thomas: Daughters sometimes have a clumsy way of asserting their independence, rebelling against their mothers, sometimes to their own detriment. And moms can have a hard time letting their daughters grow into their own lives, especially if it seems like that new life is a rejection of the one mom, herself, is living.

Once I learned – as my character Chloe learned – that mom doesn’t have to be wrong for me to be right, tensions eased considerably.

Lawton: Great realization! In Junction, Madeline believes that leaving home will save her mom’s life. She acts on that belief, and the story takes off! Therefore, Madeline’s desire to be heroic motivates her journey, which is done out of love.

IV: What is the part played by the character’s father?

Thomas: Alex, Chloe’s father, is often a peacekeeper between these two stubborn women, much the way my dad was in my house. And the relationship between Chloe’s parents is similar to the one my parents had. A true love story, full of humor and affection. Definitely something to aspire to!

Lawton: Yes. And Madeline’s father has been missing in action in Vietnam since before she was born. The darkness of that loss has shadowed her life and her relationship with Ruth. His disappearance is a mystery that runs through the story, which I kept there to add tension and a key motivator for both mother and daughter.

IV: Billie, you dedicated Murder to “my sweet, funny mom.” Rebecca, you dedicated your first book, Reading Water, to “my mother, who sent me in her place.” Does or did your mother play a big part in your writing life?

Thomas: My mom gave me a life-long love of books and reading that endures to this day. She and I always traded mysteries back and forth and one day, out of the blue, I asked her to collaborate on writing one with me. I think I surprised us both, because I’d been struggling to write another book and hadn’t planned on putting that aside, much less starting a project with my mom.

Lawton: That is wonderful! My mom passed away before I published any books, but when I was hired to work as a magazine writer, she was proud and supportive. I’ll never forget her letters to me (we lived with the entire country between us then) expressing pleasure upon seeing my byline when I first published! I hadn’t given much thought to the fact that I was getting my initial exposure as an author, but she was hyper aware of it. As if she knew who I was going to be before I did!

IV: How, if at all, is your relationship with your mother different from your character’s?

Thomas: My mother and I had some really painful fights where ugly things were said and feelings were badly hurt. Chloe and Amanda are a little further along in their relationship, I’m happy to say. I wouldn’t want Chloe to regret the things she said to her mom the way I regret the things I said to mine.

Lawton: Ouch. Yes, I believe that’s a rite of passage for most of us—pushing away from our moms so we can actually get on with our lives. My relationship with my mom differed from Madeline and Ruth’s relationship in that Madeline grew up in a home without a father. My dad was very much in a strong partnership with my mom, while Ruth’s partner was just gone.

IV: Is there a key scene in which your protagonist clashes with her mother?

Thomas: Chloe and Amanda clash all throughout the book, over everything from Amanda’s attempts to fix Chloe up on dates, to the smudges on Chloe’s glasses. When Amanda underestimates the strength of sour apple martinis, Chloe is a little too glad to see her Mom lose control for once.

Lawton: Yes. Madeline confronts her mother toward the end of the book, and it’s a key scene for their growth in the mother-daughter relationship as well as a transformative scene for Madeline.

IV: Finally, how is your character’s relationship with her mother transformed in the course of your novel?

Thomas: Both women come to respect the strengths of the other and they start collaborating more, both as decorators and investigators. It’s a surprise to them both how well they work together.

Lawton: I love that about Murder on the First Day of Christmas. There’s such a powerful change that occurs—and it’s written with such a light hand that your readers aren’t hit over the head with some sort of message. In Junction, Madeline and Ruth are transformed, together and apart, and I can’t say much more than that without writing a spoiler. I’d love for our readers to explore these stories and find out for themselves.

IV: Agreed! We suggest our readers go to their local booksellers, Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes and Noble to purchase and read the novels to celebrate the joys of mother-daughter bonding. Thanks for taking time today!

Junction, Utah:

http://www.amazon.com/Junction-Utah-ebook/dp/B00B0QQ9XK/ref=la_B001K7UN7M_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1367772199&sr=1-5

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/274442

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/junction-utah-rebecca-lawton/1114304026?ean=2940044250314

Murder on the First Day of Christmas:

http://www.amazon.com/Murder-Christmas-Carstairs-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B00APPOR40/ref=pd_rhf_gw_p_t_2

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/murder-on-the-first-day-of-christmas-billie-thomas/1113992722?ean=2940016095981

For years, a recurring nightmare suggested I’d lived a sordid life. The images hinted I had murdered someone and hidden the body in the recesses of a decaying mansion.

That I would be found out plagued me. I had no clear memory of when the murder had occurred or who I’d offed, but I couldn’t shake the fear and guilt. I woke with the terrible knowledge that my crime would eventually come to light. I sat up, puzzled. Had I really killed? Or were these scenes from a past life? Or metaphor? Repeatedly, the many-roomed house showed up at night. Attics were locked. Dark corridors led to nowhere. A bricked-over cellar, patched walls, and labyrinthine passages suggested that somewhere in the mansion lay a secret that would undo me.

That I would be cast out from my otherwise peaceful life terrified me. The disgrace would burn a hole in the fabric I had spent decades weaving. Squads of law officers would circle my home then carry me off in full view of my neighbors. Everyone would finally speak openly of their suspicions. “I thought so,” they’d say. “I thought she had something to hide.”

I don’t remember when these nightmares stopped, but they did. No more imagining what it felt like to live in fear I’d be discovered—night sweats, sleeplessness. No more certainty of what would follow —shunning, imprisonment, loss of everything.

The nightmares stopped, but the lesson remained in my bones. I’d follow a road-map to the straight and narrow. It seemed the only solution to preventing transgression. I’d live above reproach, the only proactive medicine. I became a devoted churchgoer, my actions transparent and unquestionable. The kind of bold behavior that could incite innuendo and gossip became anathema to me.

 There was power, I reasoned, in living clean. No one would ever suspect I had hidden secrets or a checkered past. No one would carry me off or censure me.

A Jungian analyst could make a field day of this, I’m sure. He or she would also likely make sense of the two other recurring nightmares from my past: the one in which I’m rafting through a horrendously difficult white-water run in a red rock canyon from which there is no escape, and the one in which I drive off a cliff, Thelma and Louise style, but somehow come out okay on the other side.

For some reason, those nightmares are gone now, too. They haven’t visited in decades. I no longer live in fear of imprisonment. I’m fairly certain I’ve never murdered and covered it up. I no longer wake in terror of rafting inescapable gorges. I haven’t driven off cliffs in the desert Southwest or even been tempted to do so.

I don’t miss those nightmares for a minute. I’m happy to have an active imagination, and I love having exciting, instructive dreams, but I’m grateful to be rid of the plague of recurring, frightening images.

 I’m also glad not to have to atone for a crime I didn’t commit. That there are people serving time all over the world without provocation is an injustice I can relate to in my cells. I’ve lived that in a parallel universe.

Living without nightmare is satisfying, though. Maybe I’m reaping the rewards of a scandal-free life. Or maybe those scenes of terror dissipated simply due to the passing of time. Good—nice to feel some benefit to growing older. And nice to live with the belief that those parts of my story are behind me instead of yet to come.

Let’s start with the opposites that inspired some of our greatest writers.

1.         North versus South in Gone with the Wind (Mitchell)

2.         Free versus Slave in Huckleberry Finn (Twain)

3.         Light versus Dark in Moby Dick (Melville)

4.         New versus Old Money in The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)

5.         Truth versus Lies in To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee)

6.         Mice versus Men in Of Mice and Men (Steinbeck)

7.         Establishment versus Renegade in The Monkey Wrench Gang (Abbey)

8.         Refined versus Rough in Angle of Repose (Stegner)

9.         Masculine versus Feminine in The Green Hills of Africa (Hemingway)

10.       Domestic versus Wild in The Yearling (Rawlings)

Begin your story with conflict, say our writing instructors. Start off with a clash right away. And don’t just start with conflict, keep it coming. Embed it in your every page and thereby engage your reader non stop.

Even before I knew how to write conflict into a novel, societal split instigated my writing Junction, Utah. Cultures were clashing over resources in the Great Basin, where the story is set, and I wanted to explore them. There was much to tell.

A river doesn’t just run through this story, it divides it. On the west side of the river: settled families, irrigated acres, grids of streets and houses. On the east: desert scrub, space, and an itinerant group of whitewater guides. Why should they mingle, why should they meet? What if they do? Will they understand each other’s lives and dreams? Or will they clash?

They are so opposite, after all. Nomadic river guide Madeleine Kruse has grown up without a father, and her loving mother has a life-threatening illness that shakes the foundations of Madeline’s world. Chris Sorensen, a rooted alfalfa farmer, bears the weight of a family farm on just his shoulders. His brother Luke, a U.S. Marine, despises the itinerant guides. In turn, the guides oppose the intruding oil company pushing to claim all the wilderness in the state.

Working out all the large and small clashes in our stories keeps them moving. In his fabulous manual, Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook, Donald Maass instructs the writer about all the levels of conflict needed to create the texture of tension in our stories. There is Inner Conflict (the clash of desires within a character), Bridging Conflict (temporary conflict or mini-problem), Inherent Conflict (a world of conflicting forces), and Main Conflict (main problem in the story). What all this conflict leads to is tension.

Tension holds our interest as readers. Building tension might be as simple as adding an off-key note to a conversation, a character saying pot-tay-toe to her mate’s pot-tah-toe, a kid who wants to go east when his mom says west. Tension also holds our interest as writers. Who among us has not fallen asleep in our keyboard? Who has not bored herself to tears? When it happens to me, I know the passage I’m writing has no energy, no tension. Time to amp up the conflict.

A world of opposites inspired me to write Junction, Utah. I discovered a place time had passed over, and I knew the world would be knocking at its door. That world was a oil-hungry society that knew Utah overlay underground petroleum preserves. When I first lived in the town that would become the model for Junction, oil was cheap and pressure to develop oil shale hadn’t yet manifested. It’s happening now, though—wildlands that once extended unbroken for miles are now dotted with those pterodactyl-headed oil pumps, as far as you can see.

Here are 10 of my observations about opposites that I brought to my characters and settings.

1.         Dry versus Wet

2.         Settled versus Itinerant

3.         Hawk versus Dove

4.         Solo versus Communal

5.         War versus Peace

6.         Wild versus Developed

7.         Wounded versus Healed

8.         Home versus Away

9.         Lost versus Found

10.       Death versus Renewal.

These are the things lives are made of. There also the things that beat at the heart of truth in stories that care about the land. My hope is that those who read Junction will never forget the people and places I’ve created. And my greatest dream is that the story reaches and inspires so many readers it brings change and hope for rivers and wilderness as well as the people who love them.

Interviewed by Tomi L. Wiley

IV: Let’s just start with the big news, since this series of interviews focuses on success stories in indie publishing. You recently won the Writer’s Digest magazine Self-Published Book Awards contest. Congratulations! What was that day like for you?

LP: I was checking emails on my phone on my way to lunch with my husband when I saw one from Writer’s Digest. At first glance I thought it was a solicitation for a contest but then I noticed that it said, “Life Stories: Grand Prize Winner of WD Self-Pub Competition.” Then I had to keep it to myself during my daughter’s parent/teacher conferences! It took until later that night for it to sink in that I won the Grand Prize and not just the category that I’d entered, which would have been amazing in itself. That was an exciting realization!

IV: You knew your story deserved to be told, and you even took on an agent. Once it wasn’t sold, you took the reins and decided to publish independently. Tell us about that decision – was it a difficult one? What obstacles did you face, and what support system did you have?

LP: After I took my book back from my agent and worked on platform and editing, my intent was still towards traditional publishing. I finished and began querying but saw immediately that the publishing world had completely changed, and I had as well. I saw that the publishing world might never have a place for me in it as a writer of memoir who wasn’t a celebrity or well-known, especially in that my book had been turned down by various publishing houses. I also knew from my prior experience that just getting an agent wasn’t going to give me peace of mind any longer. I’d had an agent and the outcome had been very disappointing.

One of the greatest obstacles I faced was that Looking Up is a self-published memoir. Self-published books can conceivably do very well in genre fiction – there are book bloggers who will review them and readers who will take a chance on them. But memoir? It is not only a painful stereotype but a painful reality that many self-published memoirs are written by people who may very well have a story to tell but may not have taken the classes to ensure they have the skill to tell those stories properly.

My support system was made up of my blogging network, my Facebook Friends and members of various groups on there, local workshop participants, and friends. Those were my first readers.

IV: Memoir writing can be painful both for the author and their family and friends. How did you manage the choppy waters of the past and keep your confidence? What has it been like to win an award such as this with a book based on your own family and hometown?

LP: My family was disconcerted by my writing when I first began, in 2001. In a way, having a writer in the family is like having a spy among you. Suddenly innocuous events show up in print. They got used to it, however, though after my disappointment with the agent it may have looked final to them.

I did change the names of most of the living people in the book in order to give them some privacy and to allow for the fact that it’s my view of events and may differ from theirs own. I have found that with memoir the people you worry about reading it never do, and those that do don’t see themselves in it. I also tried to keep a question before me at all times while writing and editing:  Is it true, is it kind, is it necessary?

IV: Before publishing Looking Up, you wanted to “build your platform.” What does that mean to you, and how has it helped your career and sales?

LP: When I left my agent, “building my platform” meant becoming known as a writer, having readers, and creating a name for myself. I started out doing that and did do that to some extent through blogging, editing and Facebook activity. What I found was that the platform that was more important was the platform of relationships. When I joined Facebook groups for children of Holocaust Survivors I was part of an online community that was real and that led to interest in the book; the same for groups concentrating on my hometown, my grade school and my high school. I did not create a “platform” in a traditional sense, but I did create a community and that community of readers bought my book.

IV: Your memoir is on the shelves of numerous libraries throughout the country, which can be rare for indie published books. How did you manage that?

LP: The day that I googled my book title and found it listed in the first library it was in was a great day! I’m not sure exactly how this happened. Apparently, by allowing CreateSpace to provide my ISBN (as opposed to purchasing one on my own) my book was listed in Baker & Taylor, from which libraries order their books. It was probably helped along somewhat by having a subtitle that referenced Skokie – the book has done very well in Illinois generally – and Survivors. Besides this, some potential readers on Facebook here and there told me they had made specific requests to their local libraries for my book to be ordered.

IV: Publishing a book independently takes a lot of work, dedication and time – the author does so much of the production and promotion herself. Did you hire an external editor or use beta readers? What advice would you give to writers interested in publishing their own work?

LP: I had three beta readers: a sister who is an attorney; a well-read friend; and a writer friend who’s been published in the NY Times and the Washington Post. Although I received interesting comments from each, and certainly from participants in all the writers workshops I ever attended, ultimately it was me who had to make the decisions about the organization of the book. I do feel that it is almost impossible for a writer to be their best copy editor. I felt very confident in my abilities and went over my manuscript multiple times with every editorial hat on possible and, yet, the first time I picked up the book there was a glaring error on the last page. When you’re in indie author, there’s no one to blame but yourself.

IV: What have been the three best aspects of being an indie author? What would you have changed about the experience?

LP: One of the best aspects of publishing independently for me was that after going through so much anguish with traditional publishing and seeing nothing come of my agent relationship, finding myself in charge of my book and finally holding a physical book that I had designed was an amazing experience. It was wonderful being in charge of my final product.

The second aspect I’ve loved about being an indie author has been the contact I’ve received from readers. I have no way of knowing if readers write to indie authors more than they do to those traditionally published, but I received so much personal contact that it’s truly touched me. I’m not sure I would have experienced that if there had been publicists, agents and publishing house websites in between us.

The final aspect that I like the best about being an indie author is truly also the most terrifying: that without a major publishing house and publicity department standing behind me, it’s really just me and my book standing together or falling together. I feel that in indie publishing more than any other type of publishing the quality of the work will determine the fate of the work.

The first thing I would change about the experience would be the general air of disrespect I received for having self-published. From my local JCC staff, who advised my publicist that they don’t include self-published books in their Jewish Book Week, to various websites where the first question was, “Who’s your publisher,” it was disappointing. I would change the assumption that, if something is self-published, it is of lesser quality. Happily, that does seem to be changing.

IV: Any advice for your fellow indie authors? Any websites, blogs or resources that you would recommend?

LP: I’ve been reading Nathan Bransford’s blog for some time. He’s a former agent who now works for CNET. Right now, as a traditionally published YA author, he’s self-publishing a how-to book and it’s interesting to watch the process, especially the level of acceptance it shows in self-publishing from just a few years ago.

I read JA Konrath’s blog from time to time. Although I believe any self-published memoir writer will never have the experiences Mr. Konrath has had in publishing genre fiction, I like reading his blog posts and he has great links.

I can’t imagine what I would have done without the help of all the writers over at the CreateSpace  community board. I chose to format and upload my book on my own; in other words, without paying an employee of CreateSpace to do that for me. I never could have done it without searching through the community board for instructions every step of the way. Anyone considering self-publishing should open an account on CreateSpace just to mosey around there a bit and get familiar with what people are talking about.

Indie authors should not underestimate Facebook by putting off their involvement in Facebook groups until their book is published. They should join groups that have to do with their interests, their alma maters, their home towns, the subjects of their books, their jobs, their high schools, grade schools and junior highs. It’s important that a writer be a serious member of these groups and not just on there to hawk their book; relationships are formed through social media.

IV: Prior to winning the WD award, you focused a lot of your time and efforts on your blog, barmitzvahzilla.blogspot.com. What has the blogging experience done for your writing and strengthening your audience and media platform?

LP: Blogging was the first time I ever pressed a button that said “publish” and allowed my work to travel out into the greater world. Before that I had shared work only in writer workshops and with friends so it was an amazing experience. Blogging had a lot of positives. I learned to write posts that had a certain voice and a certain humor and built not only an audience but became part of a community of “mom bloggers” for a while. It was a very supportive community and they were some of the first readers of Looking Up, and some of them hosted giveaways and posted reviews. It was, however, extremely time-consuming – not so much the blogging itself as remaining a valuable member of the community. There was an obligation to visit many others’ blogs on a daily basis and to comment on those blogs, and that took time I just didn’t have as I was heading towards publishing Looking Up.

Once a blogger, however, always a blogger, perhaps. I’ve kept lists and lists of blogging topics out of sheer habit and plan to begin blogging again, however, with limitations on my involvement in the community.

IV: You’ve won a coveted prize – what’s next?

LP: I’m off to the Writer’s Digest Conference in New York, which begins on Friday, April 5^th, where I’ll receive recognition for my prize and will appear on two panels about self-publishing. Since I’ve had an agent before, I know that getting an agent doesn’t always mean a book sale. That being said, there will be many wonderful agents at the conference and I’m hoping to meet someone who connects with my work and whom I feel could represent it enthusiastically, especially to do the things I can’t do, such as foreign rights, translations, films.

I’m also working on my second book which takes up where Looking Up left off and I have a few more in me.

IV: Okay, onto some fun stuff: What do you like to read, and why?

LP: I love 19^th century British Literature like Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and Anthony Trollope. I read memoirs, though I tend to be picky. I also love Louise Erdrich, particularly Love Medicine, and All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren.

IV: What are your hobbies, things you do in your spare time?

LP: I draw, paint and do mosaics. I also wake up just about every day and do jazz dance and yoga.

IV: What would you choose as your last meal?

LP: Beef barley soup and potato pancakes with an Austrian Torte for dessert, from a recipe my mother gave me and which I’ve never even attempted, it’s so difficult!

IV: If you could pick the perfect setting in which to write, anywhere in the world, with any conditions, sounds, ambience, time-frame, what would this look like?

LP: I love the desert, where I live, and fell in love with a house in the foothills of Moon Valley, an area of Phoenix, about 7 years ago but which, due to various circumstances (like price!) I will probably never own. That house in this time period is my dream writing place. It has a balcony running across the entire back of the house which looks out across miles and miles of desert, mountains and cacti and, even though it’s in a convenient area of Phoenix, it’s completely quiet. That’s where I’m hoping to live and work one day.

IV: You’re given a chance to spend a day with a resurrected dead, famous person. Who is it, why, and where will you have your rendez-vous?

LP: I’d like to spend a day with Bjorn Wiinblad, the famous Danish artist, in his studio in Copenhagen. I recently discovered his work and am mesmerized by so many aspects of it: the optimism of it, the playfulness and the lack of ego he brought to his work. I love that he started as a poster painter and that he’d work in any medium, from tapestry, to pottery, to china, to painting. He was versatile and prolific and, unlike the stereotype of the tortured artist, photographs show him with a perpetual smile on his face. Here’s a link to two photos of his studio –  thegildedowl.com/bjorn-wiinblad

Thank you for taking some time out to give our readers a glimpse into your experience and process as a successful indie author. Should you choose, we hope you blaze a trail into the mainstream publishing world and the best of luck with your future projects.

Thank you, tomi!

Amy McElroy: Writing memoir/personal non-fiction, my quest has been to find a way to write and publish about significant events and people in my lives, while always living in the real fear of destroying or severely damaging those relationships. Taken lots of classes on the issue; made some strides with the new blog; and trying to write a guest blog on this particular issue for Jordan’s site. But, it’s still very real.

Victoria Faye Alday: My biggest quest: Just getting the writing done! And not crapping all over myself about my writing when I do get it done. If I could just get out of that mind set , I wouldn’t even be so scared to self publish. Or even just let an editor get a hold of what I’m writing. lol

Chelsea Starling: Victoria- you’re in a gentle group of women who would be happy to look at what you’ve written! Be brave! I know how you feel though. I am still terrified to let people read my story.

Becca Lawton: Biggest obstacle: time. As a working author–and many of us do have day jobs as well as this incredible drive to write our books–there’s only so much time in a day to do deep, pure writing. Transformations: structure, structure, structure. I went from a free-flowing, write-when-you- can life to a write-first-thing-in-the-morning and-THEN-go-to-work life.

Julia Park Tracey: Morning pages can be helpful when I hit a roadblock.

Jordan Rosenfeld: Oh yes, I am a big fan of the stream of consciousness journal to help with block. Though I have to say I don’t have writer’s block as much since my dark period about a year ago…I just make myself write the crap no matter what.

Julia Park Tracey: I don’t get blocked as much as I need to get back into organization
.

Julia Park Tracey: After a time of laziness and sloth, I mean. When I need discipline, I go to my Morning Pages.

Tomi Wiley James: The obstacle I always had to peek over, around and then chip away at was my job: I wrote for and later edited newspapers, so I was writing constantly, all day, under a lot of pressure. I wrote articles about things that actually happened, were still happening, and often they were very bad things, like child abuse and murder, house fires on Thanksgiving and profitable animal abuse. So, a lot of the time the last thing I wanted to do when I got home was sit back down at a computer to write. I did journal a lot during this time, a habit which has fallen away from me and I need to get back to, which helped process my emotions.

Jordan Rosenfeld: Tomi Wiley James, I experienced some of that as a freelance journalist, too, the writerly fatigue. In those days I had to get up super early to do the creative writing before my brain got molested.

Stephanie Naman: I feel that too working in advertising. Creatively, I get tapped out, so I try to get up early to write. My dog things I’m crazy for leaving my warm bed, but someone has to keep her in kibble.

Julia Park Tracey: Yes to both Jordan and Tomi, as far as what I was writing about or covering. Writing about the death of a child — or a whole family in a plane crash — or covering a story only to find at the end that it was a suicide and that I was one of the last ones to see the kid alive — those obstacles were hard to leave at the office and go merrily to my fantasy world of fiction. I wrote nonfiction at the time — crafted essays and editorials, mostly on my blog, but often for print, and it was some of my best work. I was unable, at that time, to write fiction. However, I would plan a 5-day vacation, which also gave me the weekends for a total of 9 days off, and that was a designated writing retreat. I wrote almost a whole draft of my short story collection in one of those. I wrote most of a draft of a novel in another. But it had to be completely away from the work environment.

Julia Park Tracey: And I also agree with Stephanie — because during the “work” days, I feel my spirit-passion-desire or ability to write creatively just trickle away. There’s only so much “juice” in my brain. If I spent it writing about parking meters or fire trucks or the school board, then I didn’t have a lot left for the creative page. But giving myself mini writing retreats, as I mentioned, helped a great deal. And I considered it a great coup against corporate America when we had a four-day week planned (like Thanksgiving or the Fourth of July weekend) and I took just a few days of vacation off, but somehow managed 9 days on my own (with weekends). I showed them who was boss!!

Stephanie Naman: I do the same thing, Julia.

What about you? Do you believe in Morning Pages, mini writing retreats and other techniques to get your creative juices flowing? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

It’s a tradition in my family that we get together with good friends for bloodthirsty card games. One of our favorites is Quests of the Round Table, an educational game manufactured by Gamewright for ages 10 and up. Yes, Gamewright promises it’s educational, and it’s true I’ve learned a lot about Arthurian legend from playing rounds and rounds of this game. But I hardly notice that I’m learning as we engage in tournaments, quests into faraway kingdoms, and hand-to-hand combat. What I notice is the story that the game suggests.

Card games have long been part of story and song: there’s the riverboat game in Huckleberry Finn, the name-changing poker hand in The Ballad of Weaverville, the camouflaging spread of cards in A Thousand Clowns. So it’s no surprise that the challenge of Quests has led us game-players to seek out literature to understand just what it is we’re playing. The most-loved book we’ve turned to in our thirst to understand Arthur: The Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley. A gorgeous, generous book, Mists has taken each of us in turn on a remarkably memorable adventure alongside mythical characters such as Lady Morgaine of the Fairies, King Arthur of Camelot, the Merlin, Queen Gwenhwyfar, Sir Lancelot, and the dreaded Mordred.

These larger-than-life characters are locked in a battle for the soul of their islands — the British Isles as well as the island of Avalon — and one has to read clear to the end of the 876 pages to know whether the ancient Druids will prevail past the time of Arthur (in this telling) or whether Christianity will drive ancient land-based tradition out of the realm.

It’s a quest that’s no less relevant today, that search for tolerance among different ways of being in the world. The Druids needed the sacred groves to practice their essential rituals; the Christians were moved to build churches and cathedrals for their vital religious rites. That the two views of worship and care of the land were not compatible even so many centuries ago boggles the mind. However, the story of the struggle to control the islands assures us that the quest for power is nothing new; differing viewpoints on resources and rule have long driven men and women to harm the earth and each other.

The Gamewright brochure promises that in Quests we will, “Slay dragons, battle giants, defeat foes. Gain allies and your strength is secured.” Quests of the Round Table and The Mists of Avalon remind me that whether we author a game, a book, a movie, or a song, we’ll be writing about struggle. Game and book alike agree on that, and there’s not a soul at the table who doesn’t play the game to win.

Julia Park Tracey: I think my biggest obstacle (I always want to pronounce that word as they do in “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”) — has been myself. I didn’t write when I didn’t think anyone wanted to hear my story. I felt like I’d never “get there,” wherever that was. I didn’t trust myself, or my voice. I filled journals with the same question — When will I be a writer? Whether I was alone or in a writing group or a class, I felt like I wasn’t as good as everyone else. I think just putting my head down and writing — and getting better and better rejections — helped me gain confidence. And I stopped looking for external approval and validation for what felt right to me.


Jordan Rosenfeld: My biggest obstacle is that I feel like a fraud. I published a book on writing with a traditional publisher before I ever had a novel published and I was always waiting for someone to call me on being a fake. Like Julia, my own inner critical voices have also hung me up. They’ve stopped me from writing altogether. And several times I let rejection and disappointment sap my will to write.

Christina Mercer: Self-doubt is my worst demon. This wretched devil does cartwheels on my psyche with every criticism and rejection that comes my way. I’ve often thought of just hiding in my little corner and never putting my work out to be judged. But then I remind myself that there are actual people who like what I’ve written. I also fight shyness–a secondary demon, yet just as scary. The thought of public speaking utterly terrifies me, which is sort of weird since I loved doing theater in H.S./College. Go figure!

Jordan Rosenfeld: I think self-doubt is as part of the writing process. What also troubles me is how willing people are to go with mass opinion and buy or not buy a book based on the fact that “everyone” is or is not reading it. I have trouble with that streamlining, pop culture model.

Stephanie Naman: I suffered from a weird mix of self-doubt and self-satisfaction. I’d always gotten praise for my writing and it made me lazy. Because I felt like a high standard to live up to, I half-assed a lot of my writing. If I got rejected, it was because I didn’t really try. Well guess what, the rejections started rolling in and kept coming even when I was trying. Yes, they were better and better rejections as Julia said, but that only added to my frustrations and feeling that I was a fraud. To overcome this, I’ve taken classes and workshops and sought out mentors. There’s no shame in asking for help and sharpening your skills also sharpens your confidence.

Frankie Rose: I will definitely respond to this question. On the train. Later. After coffee…

Stephanie Naman: Yeah, we don’t want to hear from you till you’ve had your coffee, Frankie Rose.

Frankie Rose: It wouldn’t make any sense until then, anyway

Jordan Rosenfeld: Because she might talk about flaming nipples. Want to read about nipples on fire? Click here

Stephanie Naman: Talk of flaming nipples is always encouraged.

Frankie Rose: Oh god. I better stop. My propriety filter isn’t fully loaded and in force yet. COFFEEEEEEEEEEE

Sharisse Coulter: Frankie can you make some for me too?  I’m about to start sleep typing after an epic day of driving yesterday and radio and TV spots this morning. I will never understand morning shows and HD going together. It’s just cruel. Rant over. Back on point. Like most of you, my biggest obstacle was myself. Initially I thought I “should” write literary fare a la what I read in school. When I tried to write that way it sounded forced and horrible and then my self-doubt reared her ugly head, informing me that I was, in fact, a terrible writer and should give it up. But when I finally accepted that my natural writing voice is geared toward what I enjoy reading anyway, the story came easily and I found my writing stride much more easily. My current method of evading self-doubt is to tour at such an insane pace that she doesn’t have time to catch up with me.

Julia Park Tracey: For a long time I falsely believed that my family got in the way of my art. That really wasn’t so. It was really about setting priorities and making it work. When I was full of doubt as a writer I was also full of doubt as a mother. I had to keep mothering, though, and I didn’t always keep writing. I believed that I had to choose, and that also was not the case. (This is kind of a different topic, but I still think it’s important.)

Christina Mercer: Wow, all that nipples and coffee talk has me zazzed. I like the parallel between motherhood and writing, Julia. They both swing you in such highs and lows.

Chelsea Starling: Self doubt seems to be the bitch that bullies us all. That, and time management/feeling overwhelmed. I’m personally completely mystified by the amount of tweeting and blogging and connecting I’m supposed to already be doing when I haven’t even finished my damned book yet. I also harbor a crippling fear of blogging and tweeting, and constantly, easily find ways to avoid them.

Stephanie Naman: Your book comes first. Write the best book you can and everything else will fall into place.

That’s enough for today. Check back in tomorrow for Part Two when talk turns to Morning Pages, time management and being creatively tapped out after a hard day’s work. Meanwhile, let us know what your obstacles are or if any of ours resonate with you by commenting in the space below.

Despite being distantly related to larger than life movie-maker Frank Capra, Mercer claims to be shy (though we can’t tell in person). Her words, however, speak loudly for themselves. The staff of Indie-Visible asked her a few pointed questions:

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JPT: I loved the natural elements in ARROW OF THE MIST. The ancient tree names, the folklore of the garden, the botanica for herbal remedies and the fauna of the woods — the story is lush with green world details. Do you have a background as a botanist or as a really devoted gardener?

 I love them, too! I have a garden with certain key herbs (varieties of mint, sage, rosemary, lavender, feverfew, mugwort). We’ve planted lots of trees on our property in the hopes to one day live in our own little forest. More formally, I earned a certificate in herbal studies from Clayton College of Natural Health, as well as attended a variety of workshops centered around herb crafts.

JPT:  With a female protagonist, especially one who has kicked off the traces of a traditionally female role, how do you present her as a positive role model, so that she’s believable and not a stereotype; so that she becomes a heroine, not a strident political mouthpiece? What makes Lia tick?

Lia’s strength comes from her (learned) ability to discern the truth for herself. She’s highly motivated by the love she has for her family and by her reverence for nature. She’s a leader, yet she’s highly inquisitive and willing to learn. Love, a thirst for knowledge, and a passion for nature’s magic make Lia tick.

 JR: Do you have a personal interest in healing of a holistic nature? Or is it more of a romance with days of yore, so to speak, when we had no medicine and had to work with the natural world?

I have a great interest in natural remedies and spent most of my twenties studying alternative healing. I earned a few titles including herbalist, massage therapist, reflexologist, and in my thirties, my love of all things honey turned me into a beekeeper.

 JR: If you could pick the perfect setting in which to write, anywhere in the world, with any conditions, sounds, ambience, time-frame, what would this look like?

I adore the ocean and visit our beautiful California coastline whenever I can. The rhythm of the waves, the fresh air, the sun on the water inspires me. A sunny balcony overlooking the sea, sitting on a cozy chaise with endless quantities of honeyed tea–that’s my perfect setting.

 SN: Since you mentioned honey, what are some of the benefits of it? Any downsides? Especially compared to other sweeteners. Because I may have a secret addiction and might need an intervention.

 Honey is a miracle sweetener. Unlike white sugar (and don’t even get me started on “fake” sugar) honey contains all of the B-complex, vitamins A, C, D, E, and K, and minerals. As long as it isn’t heat treated or filtered, the live enzyme content is one of the highest in foods. It is also antimicrobial and antibacterial, and can survive a shelf life of forever. 2,000+ year-old honey found in Egyptian tombs was still edible!

SN: Have you had to embark on a quest, as Lia has, and if so, how did you persevere when the odds seemed stacked against you? What strengths or weaknesses were revealed on your quest and how did it change you?

My quest for courage has been ongoing from the time I was a painfully-shy little girl. I found ways to express myself with small groups of friends and family, and even behind the mask of a character on stage. Writing, albeit an introverted endeavor, forced me out of my shell more than anything. Because my passion was so great, I pushed through enough scary “out in the public eye” moments to realize I’m not so very different from others on the writer’s path. Being an introvert is who I am, and I pride myself in some of the qualities that it brings. But I can also suit up and face the dragons of the outer world, taking heart that most aren’t as scary as I’ve made them out to be.

I was giving one of those ridiculously long, lectures from the front seat of the minivan the other day, rattling on about  how I consider honesty and integrity, along with kindness, two of the most important things in the world.  But, I said to Emma, my quest to stay on the honest path has sometimes made an odd stopover.

“I was the kid who never stopped moving,” I told her.  “I was always dancing, or doing cartwheels, jumping off our high cement porch, climbing trees, and acting out plays.”  I checked my rear view mirror.  “You’re not reading are you?”

“Hmm…No, I’m listening.”  Her big blue eyes zoomed wide on mine, framed by a perfectly tangled web of curls as if they’d just been arranged by a stylist.

“Except in the bathroom.”  I swallowed.  I knew many ten year olds would be laughing by now, but the intense energy between us—for better and worse–has always sliced through any childish notions like bathroom humor.  “Sitting down on the toilet was the only time I ever stopped long enough to be alone with my thoughts.”

I can still see the mustard paint that walled me in from three sides as I sat alone in the chamber.  At those times, my body became a barometer as something deeper than a gut feeling arose from the faded linoleum of the bathroom floor haunting my blood and my bones.  Every time I tried to isolate the feeling, it dodged.   There in those yellow, hallowed walls, I spoke deeply with myself, in a way I never faced myself anywhere else.  I dug deep into the jagged edges until I felt around for the source, for what ailed me, be it a chore undone, a untruth told, some sort of guilt.

For a long time, I felt like I was made differently than most people, as if I were transparent.  I believed that my skin was so thin you could see right through me to the inside at everything I did or ever thought about doing, like people could peer right into my heart.  I didn’t know that other people might also have something like this “toilet feeling.”  Even less did I envision that great thinkers like Martin Luther had been famous for his toilet reveries, and Alexander Chase had called the toilet “the seat of the soul.”   Bumping around inside my own not-so-innocent bubble of ignorance, I don’t remember learning how to handle when I did something wrong; I was always supposed to do it right.

After awhile, I learned to recognize this symptom, the “toilet feeling,” though I sometimes chose to ignore it. It ate at me like a deeply buried tumor, weighing me down, making me grow more and more lopsided until I could barely walk.

Even in one of my earliest memories, when I was four, the seeds of my heavy conscience had already taken root.  My mother told me not to eat anymore Tootsie Rolls from a giant Tootsie Roll bank my great-aunt had given me.  I snuck more, shoving the waxy wrappers in my pocket, as I hid behind the kitchen counter before I headed back to my great-grandparents’ house.  Walking along alone with my dad, I couldn’t resist unwrapping one more and popping it into my mouth.

“Didn’t your mother tell you not to eat anymore of that candy?” he asked.

“No, she didn’t say anything.”  The lie grabbed me like a noose by one side of the throat.  I dragged the ignored “toilet feeling” like a plow down the dusty, red-dirt road in East Texas toward my great-grandparents’ house.  After what felt like eternity—but was actually probably only a few seconds—I suddenly burst forth my confession with snot and tears.  “Actually, Mom did say not to eat any more Tootsie Rolls.”  I imagined him turning red as the road and beating me with his belt.

But after a pause, neither his color nor pace changed at all.  He simply looked at the ground.  “Well, just don’t eat any more of them.”  His subdued tone draped me in more shame than any lashing ever could have.

Not long after my lecture, Emma approached me after school.  “Mama, I had the ‘toilet feeling,’ too.”  She admitted having taken some candy without permission from the candy basket in the kitchen cabinet.  Though I can’t say I was glad to hear the details of the “crime,” I took some solace in the confession.  I already knew, of course; I’d found the wrappers in the back of the cabinet. While I’m sure my explanation in the car that day had gone on way too long for her taste, at least she understood the basic sense of conscience I was trying to impart.

When you become a mother, you give up any sense of privacy in the bathroom, so I rarely have the chance to meet with myself there in the same way I did as a child. The term “toilet feeling” sometimes sounds absurd, even to me, but it so fully exemplifies that sense of shame that comes when something’s not right in my own private world: when I’ve broken a promise, misled, or need to make amends to someone. I still think of it as “the toilet feeling” — that pulls me back and reminds me to stay honest and true to myself.

Amy McElroy often writes about parenting. Her daughter chose “Emma” as a pseudonym.