Writing

The Last Step

Authors perform hundreds of small steps in the process of publishing a book—some of them enjoyable and some…not so much. The last step is one of my favorites, and this week I had a chance to do it.

Every novel I write begins as an idea—sometimes a grand one and sometimes just a tiny seed that needs to be nurtured. This involves brainstorming (alone and with my critique group), then researching (which is also an enjoyable step since it involves travel). Then I’m ready to start creating my characters. All of this takes about two months, and leads to the most time-consuming steps of all: writing drafts, and editing those drafts over and over and over for the next nine months until I’m happy with the result.

Somewhere along the way, (and long before the novel is finished), my publisher asks for a title and cover ideas, and I spend time collecting images and brainstorming titles. This is done ahead of time so the book can be listed in the sales catalogue. Sometimes my title and cover ideas are used…and sometimes they’re not. I’ll let you guess which makes me happier.

At last my book is finished. Well…not quite. Once I turn in my manuscript (hopefully by my deadline), my editor steps in. He and a team of in-house readers get to read it and comment on areas that might need more work. They give me about a month to “fix” these problems and make it a better book. Few authors want to hear that their “baby” isn’t perfect—including me. By now I’m weary of the manuscript and eager to start something new.

But I make the necessary changes and the book moves to the final editing and proof-reading stages. I’ll see the manuscript two more times, once to view the editor’s changes and make any last minute changes of my own, and again when the page proofs are all laid out in their final form so I can check them for errors. Then it goes to the printer and becomes a “real” book. It’s a great feeling to finally hold the fruit of all my labors in my hands. But that’s not the last step. The very last step—and one of my favorites—is sharing the new book with my readers.

On October 1st, I signed books at the Kregel Parable Christian Store in Grandville, Michigan and met these wonderful ladies who belong to a book club:

And on October 10, I made more new friends when I spoke at Providence Christian College in Pasadena, California. Meeting my readers reminds me why I’ve been working so hard this past year, alone in my office for hours and hours, glued to my chair. It’s for all for them! Each time I begin a new book I ask God to use my words to touch someone with His love and grace. And even if only one reader is blessed, my labor is never in vain. When I meet readers at events like these, their stories and words of encouragement assure me that God is answering my prayer.

Words are powerful things. I can’t begin to describe how a reader’s words of encouragement rejuvenate me. They motivate me to return to the work God has given me, and begin the year-long process of writing all over again. That’s why this last step is the best!

I’m sure you must have felt the power of an encouraging word in your life, too. If so, is there someone you can encourage in return today?

“Therefore encourage one another and build each other up”(1 Thess. 5:11)

The Half-way Point

Yesterday I reached the half-way point in the novel I’m writing. I figured that called for a celebration, so I went out to lunch with my sister-in-law. Now I confess that I’m a “seat of the pants” author who doesn’t lay out her plots ahead of time but who makes up the story as she goes along. So how do I know that I’m half finished? Simple. I know how many typewritten pages my last dozen novels were, so I calculated the average number of pages per book and divided it in half. Mathematically, I’ve now reached the half-way point—230 pages.

Never mind that I still don’t have a title for this book. And never mind that one of my characters has a heart-wrenching choice to make and I have no idea what she’ll decide. Or that another character has just agreed to marry a man she doesn’t love and I can’t talk her out of it. Never mind that I’ve killed off five of my favorite characters in various tragic ways (but for very necessary reasons), leaving me with a saddened and sorrowfully depleted cast to finish the story. I still thought it was appropriate to pause and celebrate the mythical, magical, mathematical half-way point.

An interesting phenomenon happens to me (and to other writers, so I’ve heard) when we reach the middle of a book. Like marathon runners, we sometimes “hit the wall.” We run out of steam. We lose momentum. The race has begun to feel like work and we want to play. When this happens to me, my mind starts spinning plot ideas for the next novel and the one after that instead of plodding forward with my current plot. I get excited about meeting new characters, and I long to ditch the indecisive, needy ones I already have. They’ve become a bunch of malcontents, whining about the plot twists that entangle them, and growing petulant and uncooperative. I’ve threatened to kill off a few more of them if they don’t cooperate but it’s a bluff. I can’t risk running out of people before I run out of pages.

But all these wonderful, new characters! Ah! They’re dancing through my mind like the cast of a Broadway musical, bursting with laughter and fun and intrigue. “Come out and play,” they sing. Who cares about that woman who’s about to marry the wrong man? It serves her right if she ruins her life. And the indecisive one? Tell her to toss a coin and get it over with. There’s a new story to be written, a new game to play.

Some writers say it’s best to go where your creativity leads and lay aside the half-finished book. Take time to develop all these great, new people and ideas while they’re fresh in your mind. Believe me, it’s tempting. But I know what will happen if I do. Sooner or later I’ll reach the half-way point in that book, and my once-energetic characters will start to slow down and sag and whine just like the last bunch. They’ll refuse to come out and play. The Broadway musical will close down. Meanwhile, I’ll have a deadline that has to be met. I need to type “The End” at the end of my half-finished book on January 15—a mere six months from now.

So I’ll enjoy my leisurely lunch—and then I’ll encourage myself to get back to work with these words: “Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58).

Come on, all you shiftless, lethargic characters! On your feet! On with the show! You’re only half-way to the finish line!

They say the hardest thing in a writer’s life is the chair.

Pursuing a Story

I’ve found inspiration for my books in some pretty strange places. Take A Proper Pursuit, for instance. That idea started when my book club read the popular book, The Devil and the White City by Erik Larson. I have to admit that I skipped the “devil” parts (much too gruesome!) but the story of the White City—the 1893 World Columbian Exposition held in Chicago—fascinated me. I lived in a Chicago suburb at the time so I began reading every book I could find about the White City. I studied photographs of the dazzling buildings and maps of the landscaped grounds until I started dreaming about them.

Next I took a trip to downtown Chicago to see the only building that remains from the exposition. It’s now the Museum of Science and Industry. Most of the White City’s structures were flimsily built and were never intended to last. But the present museum was the exception because it was the Fine Arts building at the time and housed great works of art on display from around the world.

On my trips downtown I also researched some of the other exciting things going on in the city at that time. For instance, the world-famous evangelist Dwight L. Moody was very active in preaching the gospel. The ahead-of-her-time social reformer Jane Addams founded Hull House to help ease the plight of immigrants streaming to Chicago. And the Woman Suffrage Movement was working hard to win equal rights for women. For the first time ever, women were given the opportunity to create and host a pavilion at the Columbian Exposition to showcase their achievements.

Now I needed some characters, and I confess that the inspiration for my main character, Violet, came from a source very close to home—my daughter and her friends. These dynamic young women were just starting college at the time and the field of possible careers was wide open to them. They could be anything they wanted to be. But what if that wasn’t true? What if they lived in Chicago in 1893 and were bound by all the strict rules and mores of the Victorian era? Just imagining how they might have rebelled made me laugh! And so Violet was born.

Then there was this photograph, which was the inspiration for Violet’s Grandmother and Great Aunts: Mathilda (Matt), Agnes, Florence and Bertha (Birdie). You’ll have to read the book to guess which one is which. I found the picture in a box of old photographs that my sister-in-law gave me. They belonged to a deceased relative, and no one remembered who any of them were! I decided to bring them back to life in A Proper Pursuit. Grandma Florence became a social reformer with Jane Addams and D.L. Moody. Aunt Matt is a suffragette. Aunt Agnes is part of Chicago’s high society, and Aunt Birdie, who never quite recovered from her husband’s death in the Civil War 30 years earlier, spreads love wherever she goes.

All of these events and people became ingredients for my novel. Add in a few dashing (and not-so-dashing) love interests for Violet, and a mystery for her to solve . . . and A Proper Pursuit was one of the most fun novels I’ve written.

On the Research Trail

Researching my books is one of my favorite parts of the writing process, and last week I got to do just that. My musician husband, Ken, was performing in New York City, so I flew there with him for a short, five-day trip. Since his concert was in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, we stayed in a hotel just a few blocks from the historic Brooklyn Bridge (completed in 1883 and still used by commuters to Manhattan Island). A nice stroll or drive across that famous bridge offers great views of the city skyline, the new World Trade tower, and even the statue of Liberty.

I grew up in a small town in the Mid-Hudson Valley just north of New York City, so the trip also gave me a chance to visit my sister Peggy, who drove down to spend the day with me while Ken rehearsed. We decided to take the subway to Manhattan to visit the Tenement Museum on the Lower East Side and research the American immigrant experience for a future book. Wow! The museum turned out to be a treasure trove of information and experiences, and definitely worth a visit. (www.tenement.org)

The museum is housed in a tenement that was home to more than 7,000 people from over 20 nations between 1863 and 1935. The guided tours through the building and its recreated apartments and shops include a range of topics such as Hard Times, Sweatshop Workers, Shop Life, and Foods of the Lower East Side. Peggy and I had time for only one tour, so we’ll definitely be returning for a second visit.

My sister had accompanied me on an earlier research trip to Ellis Island a few years ago when I was writing Until We Reach Home, and we were amazed by what our great-grandparents must have endured when they emigrated from Germany in the 1870s. We even found the record of their landing on Ellis Island. This time, the tour of the Tenement Museum gave us the next chapter of their story. The Lower East Side was known as “Little Germany” and this tenement building became a home away from home for new German immigrants, a place where they could eat familiar foods, talk with their fellow countrymen, and network for job opportunities.

My great-grandparents must have been relieved to find a German-speaking community to help them adjust to their new country. They eventually moved to rural Pennsylvania where my great-grandfather farmed and worked as a carpenter. But for the immigrants who stayed in New York to live in the tenements and work in factories and sweatshops, life was depressingly difficult. The fact that so many stuck it out and made new lives for themselves and their families is a tribute to their hearty spirits and determination.

I still don’t know when or how my experiences at the Tenement Museum will make their way into a future book—but they will! In the meantime, I’d love to hear your ancestors’ stories of coming to America. You can go to my website, www.lynnaustin.org to share them with me. When my friend Maggie shared her Swedish great-grandmother’s experiences I used some of them in my novel Until We Reach Home. So who knows—your family’s story just might make it into one of my future books, too.

Into the Past

A huge part of a writer’s job is to create word pictures. We try to describe a room or a house or a village in such vivid detail that readers can see them, too. We transport you there, so you can smell the dirty socks in the bedroom or the aroma of bread baking inside the house; you’re tempted to sneeze as you inhale the dirt on the dusty village street. Whenever I research a story I take plenty of notes and photographs to help me recall what I’ve experienced and recreate it in word pictures.

But I’ve faced a big challenge in writing my latest series of books, The Restoration Chronicles. These three novels take place 500 years before Christ—and I don’t have a time machine to see what life was like back then! I did make several trips to Israel so I could describe the lush, rolling green hills around Jerusalem; the stark beauty of the Judean wilderness; the distant snow-covered peak of Mt. Hermon. But what did the houses look like? The villages? How did people cook—and for that matter, what did they eat?

One of the places I discovered while researching in Israel was the excavated village of Katzrin in the Golan Heights. This typical Jewish town has been partially reconstructed for modern visitors and outfitted with the household items and farm implements that people would have used every day. It was inhabited during a slightly later time period than my books, but it still offers a peek into what everyday life might have been like for my characters.

These are of the remains of the village synagogue. It was the place where people gathered together, studied scripture and prayed. Like most synagogues of this time, it was built facing Jerusalem.

One of the main storylines in The Restoration Chronicles is how God’s people labored to rebuild Jerusalem and God’s temple. This example of an ancient house under construction shows the tools and methods my characters would have used.

This picture was taken inside a typical home and shows the main room, used for living, dining, and sleeping. That platform hanging from the ceiling is where people put their food so the mice couldn’t get it. (And maybe it discouraged midnight snacking?)

This is my son Benjamin climbing down the ladder from the loft where the parents might have slept for privacy.

And this is the hearth where the women cooked the meals. I’m feeling grateful for my stove and microwave, aren’t you?

Benjamin, my mother, and I are demonstrating an olive press, squeezing the oil out of the olives to use for cooking and lamplight.

So, do any of you want to go back in time and live in Katzrin? I admit I’m grateful for all my modern gadgets. By the way, if you want to read my word pictures describing daily life in 500 B.C., the second book in my Restoration Chronicles series will be out this month. It’s called Keepers of the Covenant. I hope you enjoy it.