(questions you might like answered
especially if you'd like to write, yourself)
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| An
Interview With the Author (questions you might like answered especially if you'd like to write, yourself) |
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| ...................................................................................................................................................................................... Why did you start writing? I’m interested in stories I feel need to be told—things others might not know. If one happens to have been witness to history in some way, perhaps one has a duty to share those perceptions with others. For instance now that the Cold War is over, all anyone seems to remember is the Berlin Wall. What about all those soldiers who had a secret and suicidal mission along the Border that stretched across Europe for forty years? After living on that Border for seven years, out of my empathy for their story being neglected, and others needing to know, came Shadows on an Iron Curtain. We know what Hitler did to the Jews and the POWs during World War II. We don’t know what he did to his own people—the ordinary German family. So Mutti’s War needed to be told because it was a part of world history not found in history books. It's like being a fly on the wall in the enemy camp...what were events really like? Many people don't understand the special pressures on a military marriage, so I needed to write Between Duty and Devotion. Often duty to one's country and love of another human being can be in conflict, and a military officer must make difficult choices. Street Smart on a Dead End delves into the culture clash between street kids and the families who try to help them. Again, it's a story I felt needed to be told since many of us are still naive enough to believe that love is always enough in raising children...sometimes it isn't. Mama Told Me Not to Come is a comedy for a change of pace. Two teachers, one accident prone and one a 29 year old virgin to whom "nothing ever happens" travel Europe and the Middle East bringing problems even Lucy and Ethel could only imagine. Yet, we learn how people can modify their expectations to become friends. I Think I Can, I Think I Can, is more of a memoir. Children see the world through the filter of their innocence, and what adults say can influence their beliefs and behavior for a lifetime. I felt this story needed to be told so that people would watch what they say in front of children. We see parents saying dreadful things thinking their children are too young to understand or remember. Not true. Also, I wrote the story for children to learn to never give up. Anything is possible if you believe hard enough. This one is the "real" story my former students have been waiting for. Dancing in the Wind, the newest novel, came out of newspaper articles and watching friends and family of the "sandwich generation" when people are caught in the middle between caring for their young family and caring for an elderly relative. The conflict is one that needed exploring and the family dynamics are important for us all to understand. I think there are stories out there that need to be told, and I love finding them and sharing them. |
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What has been a major influence in your
writing? Classical literature with its universal themes of human behavior under stress has always intrigued me, and probably Ernest Hemingway’s “iceberg theory”--that only what is necessary should show in a story—the reader can surmise what is beneath the surface if you have given the right clues. I’d love to do it as well as he did, but probably no one ever will. |
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How is Between
Duty and Devotion different from your other
novels? It’s more psychological, more probing of human emotions simmering under the surface. We may judge others with no idea what they are facing under the bright shiny exterior they show to the public. This may be especially true among military officers. I watched as friends made spur-of-the-moment mistakes and became painfully-flawed characters. In seeking to understand how these things could happen in a relationship, I tried to tell the story from all sides using multiple points of view and probing how relationships change and either grow stronger, or disintegrate under pressure. I've been told by several readers that if they liked Bridges of Madison County, they would like this "military version." I often am also told that the emotion "hits a nerve" in most people who read it. I'm not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing, but it certainly gives us some super discussions. |
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How have your own life
experiences helped you?
Problems you see in ordinary people every day offer endless drama
to be morphed into story form. It seems that people tend to solve their
personal problems vicariously through characters they can love or hate or
with whom they can identify and grow. Many of my stories have military
themes since that experience was from living among military families for
over 21 years. Though they are not much different from everyone else, they
are subject to more stringent rules. And their danger plays a role,
as well. Watching them in crisis, and having them as close friends
has given me traits on which to model my fictional characters. A
subject's willingness to share their innermost feelings with me has been
helpful, and it comes from the trust we’ve all built up together over many
years. |
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Symbolism is apparent in your stories. How do
you create it? While teaching literature, I thought symbols were always a conscious construct of the author, and I assumed I’d probably never know how to “create” any. I find now, that when I’m merely telling a story, trying to make my fictional characters feel realistic emotions, I’m always surprised to recognize a symbol as sort of a happy accident. Yet taken altogether, I find that many of the symbols that came accidentally, actually build up to a warning for my characters that I had never voiced in the story line. In Between Duty and Devotion, here is an example of such an “accidental” symbol. I tell the story of a couple falling in love in this old cabin, alone for the first time. The man builds a fire in the fireplace, anticipating a romantic evening with wine and firelight. But in his excitement, he forgets to open the flue, the room fills with smoke, and they must evacuate the cabin coughing and choking. The woman laughingly says to him, “What a shame. All that fire and no place to go with it.” It wasn’t until much later in the writing process that I noticed the event and her remark were “symbolic” of their relationship--loving each other with all the fire possible, yet never being able to be together forever, as they both desire. Truly, they had no place to go with the fire of their love. As I edit and reread, I find many such symbols that indicate things will never be the way they want them to be, yet they cannot see these warnings, so they keep hoping and believing. Well, what do you know? I made some symbols after all. How exciting! |
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| What is
the hardest part of writing a story? I get too attached to my characters. I tend to write about real life problems—in my estimation, the only thing I enjoy writing about or reading. (fantasy writing friends, please don’t take offense) When you know wonderful human beings who have been battered by life, it's hard not to want to make things work out better for their fictional counterparts. But life rarely hands us what we want. For instance, a fairy tale ending would put Between Duty and Devotion in the category of a Romance, and that is not what it is about. It would put Shadows on an Iron Curtain in the awkward role of a "military romance," whatever that might be. My stories are not about unfortunate events of life--they are about how we humans handle those events. That is the more realistic story, and it throws the light of understanding on people who have been tested, sometimes, through great difficulty. In Street Smart on a Dead End, it was hard to relive those 1960's days when drugs and gangs were just starting and, God help us, we thought they were "isolated" events. We never dreamed they would be as prevalent as they are now. We were so naive. But in telling the story of Olivia, of both the pain and joy she brought into our family, it hurt to sit down and write. So many of the people I loved are now gone, both real and fictional. So I needed to do the comedy, Mama Told Me Not to Come to pull back and laugh awhile. In I Think I Can, I Think I Can, I found it hurt to remember things I had worked for years to forget, yet I suppose even pain must come out in your writing for it to be true to life. It seems I love my characters as much as their real life counterparts. I always find myself crying for my characters because they become very real to me as I write their story. I always hope life, and my novel, will treat them more kindly, but it rarely does. |
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How much research is
needed?
Research is imperative, but there are many types of research.
Interviews with people about their observations of life are my favorite
form. There is nothing quite like the camaraderie one develops through the
give and take of personal interviews. With Shadows on an Iron
Curtain, Between Duty and Devotion, and Mama Told Me Not to
Come, I had the advantage of letters and diaries—even divorce
papers—that friends were willing to share with me. I also worked on
military bases for 21 years, so I had much personal knowledge of the
activities, secrets, and human failings that took place there. For Street Smart on a
Dead End,I had personal memories of a difficult time when the drug
and gang wars affected our family when my children were all young--in
another life, I guess one could say. |
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| Why is your fifth novel a
comedy? After four such serious novels probing human existence under the pressures of society, war, culture, or mileau, I needed a break, and I wanted to try something light-hearted for a change. Don't look for deep themes in Mama Told Me Not to Come, but you will laugh. I don't think there are any, except perhaps the unusual ways in which two strangers can become lifelong friends. But maybe that's a more serious theme today than we realize. In an age when people can sit at the same dinner table and each hold a cell phone or texting conversation with someone else, (which I see as the epitomy of rudeness) perhaps my comical characters will become role models in a future Psychology class. "How do we start as completely different and opposed people and yet learn how to see into each other's hearts, and come to trust each other for a lifetime?" It's a mystery. Maybe someday, a story like this will become a "required" course on how to actually live with others and not leave them isolated, as I see so many people, especially the young, doing these days. I almost foresee a time when human creatures stare at a screen in air-conditioned computer rooms, have cell phones embedded in their ear so they never miss a call or a text, yet they become disillusioned and lonely, and wonder how it ever got that way. When did they lose the art of socializing through just having fun with others--becoming friends with someone, going out to play, to sing and dance, to have a bit of adventure and travel? Those are the skills these two zany teachers exhibit. Today, it seems folks merely text or Facebook, or twitter each other, isolating themselves from any real contact, and reducing their actions and emotions to twenty-word "tweets" with a smiley face. They can't communicate with another human being without a text message to "distance themselves." They are becoming afraid to risk face to face contact. To me, this is sad, since the impersonal nature of that kind of communication will lead to the loss of the personal interaction and compassion that makes human beings a wonderful breed. The two major characters in this story come off as accident-prone as the famed comediennes, Ethel and Lucy, and they get into trouble everywhere they travel. Yet, through it all, they are rather reluctantly forging a life-long habit of friendship and trust. From a simpler time, we watch a friendship unfold into something pretty special. I hope our generation was not be the last to find friendship as a form of "art." |
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| How close to
autobiographical material can you go? Sometimes, when writing, some detail may be missing. For example, one of the three POV characters in Between Duty and Devotion is a widow who tries to express her fear of losing someone again. My own pain from having lost my first husband to an early heart attack is probably as relevant as anyone’s, so I can give the character my emotions to go with her actions. I think you will always find much emotion and experience of the author in any work of fiction, so to that extent, every novel is autobiographical. My sixth novel, I Think I Can, I Think I Can is almost totally autobiographical, or perhaps it is a memoir. It's hard to tell the difference these days. I found people writing me to ask how Kate and Phil (in Street Smart on a Dead End) got together and were able (or weird enough) to take in several additional children that no one wanted, kids who were in trouble. It finally seemed appropriate to come out with the true backstory, or the "prequel" to explain those questions. I find that anyone can go back in time much earlier than you think you can by trying to remember early influences you didn't realize you had been under. A Victorian guardian who implants her views of the sinfulness of the human body by forcing a young child to hide behind a screen, for instance, may be responsible for that child growing up with quite a few hang-ups. If you cross an abandoned kid, and an abused one, you may come up with a pair who will never be able to turn away a child. A child must learn to understand "what is" before he or she can forgive the mysteries of the past he tries to hide.. For me, the "trigger" if you will, was remembering the smell of a couple of people long dead who had a startling amount of influence over my growing up years. "Katie," my persona in this novel, is searching for a way to be accepted, and that is so appropriate to all of us who have ever just wanted to belong someplace with someone. Children of Depression and War make their own survival. It's a universal story, with a unique child's voice. |
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| Why did you choose to explore an elderly
person instead of more young or military
people? Actually, I think this problem does happen to military people as well as anyone else. It's a universal problem. I've been observing for awhile now, that many people my age have become the "sandwich generation," trying to take care of elderly parents while still dealing with a younger group of family members. It's a tough place to be, and no one knows when it is "time" to allow elderly parents to go into a retirement home, or live with grown children, or try to remain alone. This novel explores the ways in which a family can hurt each other and love each other, often over the same events. Entering the mind of a ninety-two year old woman is quite a challenge, but Martha teaches me as I go along. From her point of view, we can see ourselves twenty or forty years from now. What will be important to us then? How will our children and grandchildren respond to our little ideosyncracies? How will we see their attempts to choose for us? How do we face the end of life with grace? I've seen too many of us who don't have all the answers. I sure don't, but by elderly Martha may. |
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| What are you working on
now? I'm attempting to tell the story of prejudices we had in the America of the teens, twenties, and thirties of the 20th century. Most people don't realize that there was a time when county officials would take children away from their parents and put them in orphanages, if the parents were handicapped in some way. It's hard to believe today, but the types of crisis and pain during a time like that, when authorities thought they knew better what was right for you, seems fraught with drama. I'm struggling a bit though, because I wanted the deaf-mute father in this story to be the point of view character, until I tried to put in his feelings and found he could not respond to what he could neither hear nor ask about. I've re-written the opening from several points of view until I'm cross-eyed, but I still am trying to avoid going to an omniscient point of view...all knowing, all seeing. I want to see the story through his eyes, but there are some ticklish obstacles to doing that. It is a challenge, and I love challenges. It will be interesting to see how this battle comes out. |
| Should you have other questions,
please feel free to write me. |
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