The Day After Thanksgiving

Yes, I know, most self-respecting bloggers put up a post the night before or the morning of Thanksgiving and label it something obvious like "Thanksgiving Day".

Remember, though, I am the procrastinator, so I'm usually a day late! Hence, you will find this post a little different from the typical Thanksgiving Day greeting, although I hope it conveys an important message for writers and non-writers alike.

Yesterday at this time, I was so full I could hardly move. Today at the same time, I'm searching the house and wondering what to eat!

Thanksgiving is that time of year when we become overloaded with food, family, and fun. It's all wonderful at the time we are enjoying it, but the next day, we kind of breathe a sigh of relief that it's all over.

Kind of reminds me of a writers conference, where I get information thrown at me for hours, stay up half the night preparing for the next day, and totally immerse yourself in the magic of socialization with others who understand what I am talking about and how I think!

In the case of both, there is a valuable and lasting takeaway.

Thanksgiving should remind us of how much we have to be thankful for all year long, not just on November 25th, or whatever date the holiday happens to fall. We come together to celebrate our bounty once a year, but we easily fall into the routine of taking our blessings for granted as Thanksgiving recedes into the background of our busy lives.

We as writers can be like that. A thousand ideas for that best-selling novel and good intentions for prospective magazine submissions crowd our brains while we surround ourselves with the knowledge, expertise, and advice of mentors at a conference. We get home and we tuck that wisdom away and forget about it until time to attend the next "feast of information".

We need to strike a balance in our personal and our writing life. Enjoy the feast, but be thankful for the bounty and make use of the blessings all year round!

Thanks for reading my blog!

What Do You Read?

I ran across this post on Facebook tonight. It is a list of 100 books of which the BBC believes most people have read only six. Bold titles are those I have read, italics are those I’ve either started and never finished or read an excerpt.

When I add up my tally of read books, I come up with a tally of 21. I have to admit, though, that at my age, I don’t remember all of the titles.
Have I heard so much about such and such book that I assume I must have read it? Okay, so worst case scenario, I’ve read fifteen. So, if I have my figures right, that means I’ve read 2.5 times, or 250% more books on the list than it was predicted I had read. (Okay, I admit, I’m a numbers person!).

Anyway, it was just this evening that I found myself questioning what kind of books I really like to read. I think the answer is that I am an eclectic reader. I enjoy western and romance, thriller and mystery, books about the rich, books about the poor, books that take me behind the scenes (think Airport – those of you who remember it), books about the average family, books that inspire, books that challenge my intelligence (sometimes that’s not very hard to do!), and books that teach me something. (Yeah, I know. Run on sentence for sure!).

Ask me who my favorite author is and I really couldn’t tell you. I don’t watch for any particular author’s new book to hit the shelves. Half the time I don’t even remember the names of the authors who wrote the books I read, unless they are personal friends, of which I have many writers who are. Heck, at my age, I sometimes can’t even remember the name of the book! That’s why I keep a list of what I’ve read, but if I forget to add the title to my Excel file, it’s probably forever lost to my memory. Ever start a book, get half way through it, and suddenly you know the ending because you realize you’ve read it before. Been there, done that.

I love to read! I never miss the opportunity to devour a few words. I’ve been known to devour a few words while waiting in line at Wal-mart, sitting in “park” while traffic streams by from the opposite direction in a construction zone, sitting in line at parent pickup before my granddaughter gets out of school, and of course, there are those two to three minute commercials during a TV show (DVRs have kind of knocked out those reading moments, though).

What do you read? Where do you read? Why do you read?

Copy the list into a blank page on your own computer. Take the test. Let me know how you came out. Oh yeah, for the non-numbers folks, all you need is a number between one and one hundred. No need to report the percentage. I'll understand!

Thanks for reading my blog!

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling (all)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Berniere
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Interview with author Karen Witemeyer

Karen, welcome to Patti’s Porch. Hope you brought
a light sweater. You might find the air a little cooler
here in Colorado than you are used to in Texas.

Being near the glorious mountains is worth a few goose bumps. Thanks for having me over.


Tell us about your book, Head in the Clouds.

Since I enjoy Regency romances as well as those set in the American West, I thought it would be fun to blend the two by bringing an English nobleman to Texas.

Here's the official blurb:

When a recovering romantic goes to work for a handsome ranch owner, her heart’s not the only thing in danger.

Adelaide Proctor is a young woman with her head in the clouds, longing for a real-life storybook hero to claim as her own. But when a husband-hunting debacle leaves her humiliated, she interviews for a staid governess position on a central Texas sheep ranch and vows to leave her romantic yearnings behind.

When Gideon Westcott left his privileged life in England to make a name for himself in America's wool industry, he never expected to become a father overnight. And five-year-old Isabella hasn't uttered a word since she lost her mother. The unconventionality of the new governess concerns Gideon--
and intrigues him at the same time. But he can't afford
distractions. He has a ranch to run, a shearing to oversee,
and a suspicious fence-cutting to investigate.

When Isabella's uncle comes to claim the child--and her inheritance--Gideon and Adelaide must work together to protect Isabella from the man's evil schemes. And soon neither can deny their growing attraction. But after so many heartbreaks, will Adelaide
be willing to get her head out of the clouds and put her
heart on the line?

On your web site, you describe your journey to publication as “bumpy”. Share your ups and downs to publishing success.

It doesn't take new writers long to learn that rejection is an inevitable part of this journey. But deep inside, we all hope we'll prove to be the exception to the rule. I had been attending the ACFW conference for several years and meeting with agents and editors on other projects with no success. However, in 2007, I was sure that God was opening doors for me. I met Karen Schurrer, a Bethany House editor, while volunteering in the preconference set-up room. There was no doubt in my mind that this was a "divine appointment." Then I sat at her table for lunch later in the week, and after we all gave her our pitches, one brave lady (not me) asked if we could send our proposals. Another divine intervention. After conference, I sent in my proposal, and miracle of miracles, they asked for the full manuscript! God was definitely at work. I was certain an offer was right around the corner. Instead, I found a rejection. This couldn't be right? God had opened all the doors. What had gone wrong?

As it turns out, there is such a thing as a good rejection. My first novel was turned down because the plot was too similar to something they had recently published. However, they liked the writing enough, they asked to see more. They also mentioned that they liked the dress shop I had introduced. Could I make another story centered around a dress shop. Now, you have to understand, the dress shop in the original manuscript burned to the ground in the prologue. It wasn't exactly a pivotal ingredient. But I wasn't about to tell them no. So I worked up another proposal focused on a dress shop.

In the meantime, I was more than halfway through writing my second novel, so I took a chance and sent them a synopsis for it and asked if they would like to see it when it was finished. They agreed to take a look at it. So by conference time in 2008, I had a completed manuscript in addition to the single chapter I had put together for the new dress shop book.

By January 2009, I had a three-book contract set to release with the dress shop book first. That book became A Tailor-Made Bride, my debut release in June 2010. The second completed manuscript became my latest book, Head in the Clouds.

You love to write about the American west, which brings to mind a cattle rancher hero. Yet, you chose a British sheepherder. What precipitated your choice?

I read a lot of historical romances, and while I love a rugged, hard-working, no-nonsense cowboy hero, my heart also pitter-patters over those dashing charmers that grace the pages of Regency novels. So I thought it would be fun to find a way to combine the two. They raise a lot of sheep in England, so sheep ranching made more sense than cattle ranching, and the area of Texas where I chose to set my story historically ran more sheep than cattle. Believe it or not, the wool industry was big business in Texas in the 1880s.

Why did you choose to inflict little Bella with the handicap that you did? Have you had experience in dealing with a mute child?

No, I have not had direct experience with a mute child, although sometimes I wish my three children came with a remote that had that option wired in.

In graduate school, I studied school psychology and learned about the various ways trauma can manifest itself in children. Isabella had suffered dramatic grief and loss and was haunted by the possibility of future danger. She reacted by withdrawing into herself. She withdrew to such an extent that she stopped talking. Elective mutism is rare, but I thought it fit well with her situation


Head in the Clouds is your second book. Tell us about your first novel, A Tailor-Made Bride.

Tailor-Made is a fun story that pairs
a seamstress that values beauty with a
livery owner that condemns vanity.
He thinks she's shallow. She think he's
arrogant. But both couldn't be more wrong –
or more right for each other.


Tell us what part Crown Fiction Marketing has played in the promotion of your books.

CROWN is a marketing group geared toward Christian historical fiction authors who write stories set in 19th century America. We support one another and help promote each other's books by writing reviews, handing out bookmarks, spreading the word about new releases, anything we can think of to help. We are also great at simply cheering one another on – something I always need. I would highly recommend the group to anyone who writes for this specific genre.

Are you a plotter or pantser?

I'm a combination. I need to have a general idea of where I'm going before I start. I need to know my characters and their background, I need to know the major plot points and have a clear idea of the beginning and the end. After that, I just sit down and see where each chapter takes me. I usually stick pretty close to the synopsis, but I'm always surprised at the character nuances that emerge or how an unplanned scene fits so perfectly into the spiritual thread. God definitely gets all the credit for the creativity.

What does your writing schedule look like?

I work full-time outside the home and have three school-aged kids who keep me busy with soccer games, band practices, and Math meets so my schedule is crazy to say the least. What seems to work best for me is to set weekly writing goals instead of daily word count goals. That way, I have the flexibility to make up for lost time if a family or work event takes me away from the computer. I'm also one of those odd ducks who loves to edit as I write. This makes my pace much slower, but once I finish the manuscript, I'm actually finished. My goal is to write one polished chapter a week. My books tend to be about 40 chapters long, so this pace works well for me in getting out a new book every year. I still have to find time to do rewrites, marketing, and all that other fun stuff, but somehow it all manages to get done.

What do you like most about the writing process? Least?

Editing is my strength. I have a strong perfectionist streak, so I love to tinker with things to make them better. Plotting is what makes me pull my hair out. I don't consider myself to be a naturally creative person, so coming up with new story ideas is a struggle. I pray a lot, read a lot, and daydream just enough to keep the inspiration percolating until an idea develops that is publication-worthy. Brainstorming with editors and other writers is also a great way to get my creative juices flowing.

Do you have a new project in mind?

I'm currently working on the rewrites for my next novel called To Win Her Heart which is supposed to release in May, 2011. It is set in Texas in the late 1880s and asks the question – what happens after the prodigal son returns? So many times, we focus on the wonderful homecoming the lost son received from his father, but have you ever asked what life was like for him after the celebration was over? How did he relate to his bitter older brother or the servants and townspeople who were only too aware of his past arrogance and wild living?

In my story, I play on those very questions. My hero is a man recently released from prison who has returned to his faith roots and rededicated his life to the Lord. The heroine is a woman who has been disappointed by men in the past and has little tolerance of those who don't meet her high standards. In an effort to make a clean start, Levi hides his past and Eden believes she has finally found a man of honor and integrity. But when the truth about his prodigal past comes to light, can this tarnished hero find a way to win back her affections?


If you could give only one piece of advice to new writers, what would it be?
Be committed to mastering the craft, tenacious in submitting your work, flexible enough to move when the industry moves, and grounded enough in who you are as a person and as a child of God not to lose heart when rejection comes. Accept the lessons of humility you learn now, for you will need them later when you find success.

Thank you for visiting Patti’s Porch today, Karen. It’s been a pleasure to spend some time with you. I wish you much success with your writing career.

Thank you. It's been a joy to be here.


To learn more about Karen and her work, be sure to visit her web site.

Thanks for reading my blog!