Writer’s Window: Patty Smith Hall
Joining us today for Writer’s Window is historical-romance author Patty Smith Hall.
One lucky commenter* will win a signed copy of Patty’s debut novel, Hearts in Flight. Deadline for leaving a comment to enter the drawing is Friday. To enter the drawing, you must answer the question posed by Patty at the end of the interview. Only one comment per person will count toward the drawing. Please do not include your e-mail address in the body of your comment—just make sure it’s correct when you sign in to leave your comment. The winning name will be drawn next weekend and the winner will be notified via e-mail.
*U.S. residents only, void where prohibited. If you win the drawing, you will be ineligible for the next three drawings, though hopefully you will still come back and join in the discussion.
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Serving her country as one of the Women’s Army Special Pilots is Maggie Daniels’s dearest wish. But there are obstacles to overcome above and beyond the enemies in the Pacific, including her overprotective family, skeptical fellow pilots—and handsome, distant squadron leader Wesley Hicks. Whatever it takes, Maggie will prove herself to Wesley, until she succeeds in winning his admiration . . . and love.
Wesley can see that Maggie’s a first-class pilot. She’s also too fearless by half. The war has cost Wesley so much already. Can he let go of his guilt for a chance at happiness—and can he learn to trust in God . . . and Maggie . . . enough to believe in love for a lifetime?
Welcome, Patty!
What do you like best about being a writer?
- I love finding pieces of history that most people don’t know about and building interesting characters with that information. Raising daughters, I’ve always thought it important that my girls understand the important part women played in building this country so I love it when I discover a unique piece of history like the Women’s Army Service Pilots.
What do you like least about being a writer?
- A blank page! That first page is always the toughest, but when I get passed it, I’m just fine.
Pop, Soda, or Coke? What do you call it, and what’s your favorite variety?
- COKE!!! And I drink the real thing—no diet or caffeine for this southern girl!
What’s your favorite dessert?
- My momma’s German Chocolate Cake—there is absolutely nothing to compare to it.
What’s the most fun/interesting/crazy/scary/unique hands-on research you’ve done for a book?
- Hmmm. I’m one for lots of hands-on research. But I’d have to say the most interesting research I’ve done it to actually climb into the cockpit of a P-51 and have a D-Day bombing pilot teach me how to take off and land that plane.
What’s your favorite movie from childhood?
- The live version of Cinderella with Leslie Ann Warren. I still remember all the songs and can sing along!
If you were to write a novel about what your life would have been like if you’d become what you wanted to be at eight years old, what kind of character would the story be about?
- She’d be sitting in the Oval Office, dealing with the economic crisis and mess over in the Mid-East. Yep, I wanted to be the president. But I outgrew that, thank the Lord!
What makes you happy?
- A good book, a full belly and a Sunday afternoon stretched out in front of me. Everyone at my house takes afternoon naps so it’s a time for me just to read.
What makes you nervous?
- Deadlines! I’m such a perfectionist that it’s hard for me to let go of anything until I feel like it’s ready and deadlines aren’t good for that. But I’m learning.
What’s your biggest dream for the future?
- That my daughters have happy, healthy lives that have purpose. That my husband finds his passion. And that I serve the Lord through my writing for a long time.
Tell us about your newest release and what you’re working on now.
- Hearts in Flight is the story of Maggie Daniels, a member of the Women’s Army Service Pilots who is ferrying B-29s much to Captain Wesley Hicks dismay. Maggie is determined to prove herself, to her family who lives nearby, to the men in her squadron but most of all to Wesley, who fears losing someone else he loves.
I’ve just finished the second book in my WWII series which features my favorite hero I’ve ever created. Then I’ve got a book I wrote during novel track last year that needs editing—it’s based in the Georgia gold rush of 1828.
Where can people find out more about you/connect with you online?
- Readers can find me at www.pattysmithhall.com or https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/patty.s.hall
What question do you want to ask the commenters to answer?
- What is one of the most interesting historical tidbits you’ve ever heard?
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A romantic at heart, Patty Smith Hall is an award winning, multi-published author. Her stories of encouragement and hope can be found in Guideposts, Journey, and Chicken Soup for the Nurse’s Soul. Her Genesis award–winning novel, Hearts in Flight, was just released by Love Inspired Historical in July 2011. Patty resides in Georgia along with Dan, her husband of twenty-eight years, two daughters, and a Yorkie who loves to cuddle.
RQ Winners 7/8/11
Congratulations to
Leigha
and
Michelle Howerton
whose names were drawn as winners of signed copies of Ransome’s Quest from the comments on the 7/8/11 blog post. More winners will be chosen from comments on this coming Friday’s blog post, so be sure to come by, find out more about RQ, and leave a comment to enter the drawing.
Reminder: Only comments on the FRIDAY blog post will be entered in the drawing. Comments must be posted before 10 p.m. on Sunday to be included in the drawing.
RANSOME’S QUEST–Character Introductions
Don’t forget your comments—but only comments related to today’s post!!!—earn you entries in the drawing for one of two signed copies of Ransome’s Quest. (So no “please enter me!” types of posts. Please make your comment relevant to what’s being discussed today—I’ve even given some suggestions with questions at the end of the post. Also, please do not put your e-mail address in your comment. Just make sure it’s correct when you sign in to post your comment.)
If you’ve been keeping up with this series, and with the posts about the previous two books, you’ve already met most of the main characters. Here they are as a reminder:
Julia Witherington Ransome (Anna Friel); Commodore William Ransome (Paul McGann); Charlotte Ransome (Natalie Portman); Acting-Captain Ned Cochrane (Ewan McGregor)
Character-casting from Ransome’s Honor
The Crews of HMS Alexandra and HMS Audacious (both of which do undergo a bit of change in both Ransome’s Crossing and Ransome’s Quest, but the important ones are still there)
New Characters
There are a few characters mentioned in Book 1 who show up near the end of Book 2—but I never got around to introducing them . . .
Jeremiah and Jerusha Goodland
Jeremiah Goodland (Tony Todd) and Jerusha Goodland (Margaret Avery)
Jeremiah and Jerusha were slaves at Tierra Dulce before Julia’s father purchased the plantation. Julia was instrumental in convincing her father to free their slaves, and the Goodlands stayed on at TD as the Foreman and Housekeeper—and in more ways than one, they’ve been more of a father and mother figure to Julia than her own biological parents.
Henry Winchester
Henry Winchester (Philip Winchester)
The irony of this little piece of casting is that I’d already chosen the surname Winchester for Charlotte’s secret fiancé before I ever set about casting him. But this casting worked out perfectly, in more ways than one! (But you’ll have to read the book to figure that part out!)
In Ransome’s Quest there are two new and very important characters who come on the scene—our pirates!—and a third character who’d been mentioned in the past but surprised even me when he showed up.
Captain El Slavador de los Esclavos
Captain Salvador (Rand Gamble)
This is the first time in my life I ever cast a character from someone I’d never seen in motion—in other words, I’d only ever seen a few photos of him. But the first time I saw him (um . . . I can’t even remember how I found him, it’s been so long ago), I knew he would be perfect for Salvador. Salvador has been at sea since he was a child, and pirating since he was fifteen years old. At the age of twenty, he broke with the pirate who’d taught him everything because he didn’t agree with his methods. So he struck out on his own—liberating slave ships, either before they’d dropped off their cargo (then turning the ship over to the slaves to take it wherever they wanted) or after they’d been paid for their cargo (confiscating the gold). He’s also been known to raid ships from Tierra Dulce from time to time.
- Crew of Salvador’s Ship, the frigate Vengeance
Because Salvador has a small ship, he has fewer crew than William or Ned. And, as is fitting for the Robin Hood of the Caribbean, he has surrounded himself with a band of “Merry Men”:
Declan, First Mate (Kevin Durand); Picaro, Second Mate (Simon Baker); Lau, Boatswain (Tony Lee);
Jean Baptiste, Sailing Master (Lance Riddick); Suresh, Salvador’s Steward (Sendhil Ramamurthy)
Declan, who hails from from Philadelphia, is Salvador’s best friend, and the person he trusts most in the world. Picaro is something of a question mark for Salvador. The Irishman (Simon Donnelly) took on a Spanish name (Picaro, which translates to rogue in English) when he was ousted from the Royal Navy and turned pirate. Salvador isn’t certain he trusts him—and he and Declan don’t really get along very well. Lau, the bosun (that’s the naval shorthand for boatswain, the man in charge of managing the crew of the ship), is from “the Orient.” He’s quiet and observant, and deadly when he needs to be. Jean Baptiste, the sailing master, grew up in New Orleans as a freeman, but had to flee the city—the country—when slavers threatened to abduct him and sell him into slavery. And last, but not least, is Suresh, Salvador’s steward. (Yes, I borrowed the name Suresh from the character Sendhil Ramamurthy played on Heroes.) Suresh is from India. I’ll let you find out how he came to be in the Caribbean and on a pirate ship as he reveals his story in the book.
Captain James Ransome
Captain James Ransome (Dominic Keating)
We get to meet another one of William’s family members in RQ: James, the middle brother, who happens to be captain of a ship assigned to the Caribbean under a different commodore. And when William and James meet . . . well, I’ll let you experience that firsthand when you read the book.
And now, for the most important new character of all . . .
Shaw
We’ve been hearing about him for two books, but now we finally get to meet him.
Shaw (Josh Holloway)
Since I don’t want to give away anything about the book or about this character, I’ll explain a little about the casting. When I first came up with the idea of Shaw, I’d just started watching LOST; and in the first couple of seasons of that show, Sawyer—the character played by Josh Holloway—was still a jerk. He hadn’t yet turned around to become one of my favorite characters. Of course, by the time I wrote Ransome’s Quest, LOST had ended and Sawyer had turned into a likable, sympathetic character. So I had to pull out seasons 1 through 3 to re-watch Sawyer’s scenes to get that appropriate pirate attitude back in line with this character. I think it worked. You’ll have to tell me what you think of Shaw after you finish reading the book.
So, there they are—the important new characters in Ransome’s Quest.
What questions do you have about the characters—or about the casting process—that I can try to answer for you? (I won’t give any spoilers!) What are you hoping to find out about characters from the previous books? Who’s your favorite character so far?
Thursday Thought Provoker
How much time do you “waste” when searching for books to read?
One of the pitfalls of Christian publishers’ offering their books for free on e-readers is that the authors have to take a lot of crap in the reviews from people who automatically download everything free. When they read it and discover to their horror that the book has Christian themes/characters/content, they feel it incumbent upon themselves to post nasty, cutting, derogatory, sometimes downright degrading reviews.
Because I may be facing this soon, I clicked over and read some of the one-star reviews and subsequent comments on a friend’s book that is currently up for free on Amazon. Most of them were the standard, This stuff should be labeled—we need to be warned that these are Christian fiction (read that aloud with a snide tone of voice to get the full effect). And don’t even get me started on the reviewers who claim that Christian romance is more poorly written than general-market romance, because I read both and I know better. They’re just ticked off they didn’t get any s*x scenes (and that they might have been made to feel guilty through the spiritual message of the book).
But then I saw this statement in one of the comments on a review:
I don’t want to waste time reading an author’s bio when searching for a book, nor do I want to memorize the list of christian publishers.
Um . . . waste time reading an author’s bio when searching for a book? Do you mean you don’t want to waste time reading anything
about the book? Because the editorial review blurbs for this particular book include the words/prhases “faith,” “grow spiritually,” and “Christian fiction”—the reviewer didn’t even have to look at the author’s bio to find these clues that the book has Christian content.
So that leads me to ask: How much time do you “waste” when searching for books to read? Do you waste time reading the editorial reviews and product description posted right under the image and purchasing information? Do you actually waste the time to read the reader reviews? What information will you “waste” your time looking for before making the decision to read a book?
The Write Quotes
I mentioned a couple of weeks ago about the new writing books I picked up and that I’d found a bunch of really good quotes from one of them (The 101 Habits of Highly Successful Novelists) which I’ve been Tweeting regularly. I thought I’d share with you the ones that I’ve already Tweeted, for those who either don’t follow me on Twitter or who’ve missed them, and then some that are too long for Twitter’s 140-character limit.
“The art of art, the glory of expression, and the sunshine of the light of letters is simplicity.” ~Walt Whitman
“A fiction writer is never entirely alone. Her characters are constantly whispering in her ear.” ~Cinda Williams Chima
“Writing a novel is a lot like poking out your own eyes with a flaming stick.” ~Bruce Balfour
“Writing is the hardest way of earning a living, with the possible exception of wrestling alligators.”~Olin Miller
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” ~Walt Disney
“Story is the strongest element in writing.” ~William Link
“The small things are the ingredients that transform a good story into a great story.” ~TM Murphy
“There is a big difference between being lonely and being alone. I am alone when I write, but I am rarely lonely.”~Andrew McAleer
“There’s way too much pain in this business for anyone who doesn’t HAVE to write.” ~RA Salvatore
“If you don’t believe in yourself and your story, no one else will.” ~TJ Perkins
“You write, therefore you are a writer. Keep at it and be proud.” ~Carly Phillips
“The man who has no imagination has no wings.” ~Muhammad Ali
“Your passion for words & sentence structure should equal a painter’s passion for color & brushstroke.”~Andrew McAleer
“Like a true artist, never be satisfied that your writing cannot be improved.” ~Andrew McAleer
“Passion for storytelling…gives us our purpose, drives us to learn, and keeps us working…to master our craft.” Joann Ross
“Never believe that the fiction writing life makes sense…. It’s insanity by definition.” ~Jo Beverly
“Being committed to a career and not just one novel is crucial to becoming a successful writer.” ~Kat Martin
“Writing takes over your life. If you’re lucky, it takes over your soul.” ~Kit Ehrman
“Live it up so you can write it down.” ~Ernest Hemingway
“If you don’t have a burning passion for writing, how can you expect anyone else to be moved by what you write?” ~Joann Ross
“The biggest downside to being a novelist is writing the novel.” ~Jill Barnett
“If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can’t, you’re right.” ~Mary Kay Ash
“One of the reasons writers are never satisfied with their work is because they’re always striving to do better.” ~Joann Ross
And here are a couple that were too long to share via Twitter:
“You can never know too much about writing. If you think you know everything, you’re not leaving yourself open to learn. . . . The best writers are always learning, exploring, and trying to improve.” ~Sabrina Jeffries
“Most of the writers I know have somehow managed to stay in touch with that inner child who’s never heard of such a thing as an internal editor.” ~Joann Ross
“If you want to be a writer, you must be in love with the process of writing, whether you achieve financial success or not.” ~Cindy Williams Chima
“I’ve always found ideas everywhere, but my favorite place is Nordstrom, because of their liberal return policies for those ideas that don’t work out.” ~Joann Ross
“Trends come and go, and if you try to latch onto a trend it will likely be passé by the time you have completed your manuscript.” ~Andrew McAleer
“The best time to write is when your life is in the toilet. Writing offers an escape from your problems, so if you force yourself to write when you’re in the doldrums, it will have the perverse effect of cheering you up. At the very least, it allows you to inflict your pain on your characters, which has the dual effect of giving them more depth while relieving your own tension.” ~Sabrina Jeffries
“When one door closes, another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the ones which open for us.” ~Alexander Graham Bell
RQ Winners 7/1/11
Congratulations to
Maygan Nicole Cheatham
and
Brandy Tucker
whose names were drawn as winners of signed copies of Ransome’s Quest from the comments on the 7/1/11 blog post. More winners will be chosen from comments on this coming Friday’s blog post, so be sure to come by, find out more about RQ, and leave a comment to enter the drawing.
Reminder: Only comments on the FRIDAY blog post will be entered in the drawing. Comments must be posted before 10 p.m. on Sunday to be included in the drawing.
Coming Soon . . . RANSOME’S QUEST
It’s almost here! Just one more month until the release of the third and final installment in the Ransome Trilogy:
Ransome’s Quest
Beginning today and continuing for the remaining four Fridays in July (yes, July has five Fridays!), I’ll be featuring different aspects of the background, characters, settings, and story inspiration behind Ransome’s Quest—and drawing two names from the comments on each of those posts to win a signed copy of Ransome’s Quest. (So there will be ten books given away—be sure to comment early and often!) Comments must be posted before 10 p.m. Central time on Sunday evening to be eligible for that week’s drawing.
A couple of months ago, I posted the prologue and first chapter of Ransome’s Quest as a sneak-peek, which you can read here:
Fun Friday–Sneak Peek at RANSOME’S QUEST
Now, while I do have some new characters and settings to introduce to you, I want to know: What are your burning questions about Ransome’s Quest and/or The Ransome Trilogy which I can answer for you over the next month?
Before we get started with any new information, let’s take a journey to the past with the background posts on the previous two books:
Ransome’s Honor
The Original (deleted) First Scene of Ransome’s Honor
An Unused Ransome Prologue
RANSOME’S HONOR: The Inspiration & Road to Publication
RANSOME’S HONOR: The Character Casting Process
RANSOME’S HONOR: Settings
RANSOME’S HONOR: The Research
RANSOME’S HONOR: A Regency Dinner Party
MENU and RANSOME Questions Answered
…
Ransome’s Crossing
#KissingDayBlogFest Entry: A Kissing Scene from RANSOME’S CROSSING
RANSOME’S CROSSING–Character Introductions
RANSOME’S CROSSING–The Settings
RANSOME’S CROSSING–Life Aboard Ship
RANSOME’S CROSSING–Officer Ranks and Uniforms
RC & LR Questions Answered
…
Don’t forget . . . I’ll be drawing two winners from the comments left on today’s post (drawing will be at 10 p.m. Central time on Sunday 7/3, so post your comments before then).
Thursday Thought Provoker
Fun Friday: My REAL Summer Vacation–Part 1
Okay, so really it’s more of a working vacation—the only reason I took this trip (instead of heading to Oxford, Mississippi, this weekend for the McLellan family reunion) is because I’m teaching two workshops at a writing retreat at my graduate alma mater, Seton Hill University, in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. And because Greensburg is only about a two-and-a-half- to three-hour drive from Uhrichsville, Ohio, where Barbour Publishing’s office is located, I couldn’t come up to this area without paying them a visit—and they got a few book signings set up for me, too. So, since I’ve been posting pictures of the places I dream about going, I thought I’d post pictures of the places I’ve actually been this week!
And before anyone objects, no, I was not endangering myself or anyone else taking these photos from the car. I was not looking at the camera, but just clicking, clicking, clicking as I drove past things and deleting tons of blurred images, or those that ended up being of the car’s window frame once I downloaded the images to my computer.
I’ve posted links to the first image in each set instead of the slideshow so that you can actually see the title/description of the image before clicking through to the next one. As always, click on the image to view the set in a new tab/window.
Monday 6/20—Driving from Nashville to Dover, Ohio
Tuesday 6/21—Uhrichsville and Canton, OH
I only took a few pictures. Sorry.
Wednesday 6/22—Berlin, Sugarcreek, and Canton, OH
Thursday 6/23—Driving from Dover, OH, to Greensburg, PA
And because I love it so much, here’s the drive up the hill onto the Seton Hill University campus (sorry it’s so shaky):
KayeDacus.com 