I have a new post over at Women’s Fiction Writers, and I have to tell you that when I first approached Amy Sue Nathan with the post, I was a little bit nervous about how transparent… More
Random Ramblings (Blog)
How My Garden Grows and Ideas Germinate
I’ve had prettier pictures of my garden than the one above, but the shabbiness of this one is really more representative of my garden than one worth framing. This year has not been good for my garden. I always love traveling from my home in Wyoming down to visit my family in the South, but my garden has paid the price more this year than ever. You just can’t leave a Wyoming garden to fend for itself.
My writing has suffered a smiliar lot as my garden. I’ve been spending so much time traveling that I haven’t been tending my pages. I managed to work the promotion of my new releases, Nashville by Heart and The Real Thing, into my travels, especially when I was visiting Nashville, but I didn’t write regularly. Like my garden, I let it go, all except for a few ventures through the gate to see what might still be surviving.
Good news! There were survivors in my garden! Mostly in pots on my back porch. I have tomatoes and herbs. And the perennial flowers made a beautiful show despite the neglect of travel and life that caused me to all but abandon them. And glory be, the same thing has happened with my writing. I haven’t sat down and written a new novel yet, but I’m peeking in through the weeds to see what’s still growing in there.
You know what? There are some ideas that germinated and survived the neglect as I ran off and abandoned fiction world to live my real life. I’ve spotted some new characters growing among the weeds and they’re just waiting for me to pluck them up and put them in a story.
(Whoa. I just got a creepy picture in my head of little people growing among the weeds. THAT is not the kind of books I write.)
I’m constantly amazed at how my garden manages to grow something even when life gets away from me. If I leave it be, it’ll still have its own kind of beauty. Even so, I’m going to have to get out there and pull all those weeds if I want my tomatoes to survive. I guess I’ll go rescue all those little people too.
Happy Reading & Writing!
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Bonds that Break, Ties that Bind
Back when I started writing my fourth novel, The Real Thing, I had already been in a blended family for several years. I’ve written about blended families, I’ve talked about blended families, and a common theme that runs through my novels, no matter the setting or plot, always deals in some way with the breaking and re-tying of family bonds. I’ve talked a lot about how The Real Thing has a cowboy in the story, how part of it is set on the rodeo circuit, and of course the romantic element. Those discussions have all been fun and exciting, but the truth is, despite the fun part, The Real Thing is a Women’s Fiction novel about a family in crisis and the effort it takes to lasso it back together again. I know just what it’s like to be in that situation and even though I’m far enough to have gained enough perspective to write a novel about it, I’m still on the journey. My focus as a mom and a stepmom will always be to keep my children tied into our family, which I try to explain a little bit in this post.
“Whether a reaction is endothermic or exothermic depends on the difference between the energy needed to break bonds and the energy released when new bonds form. If more heat energy is released when making the bonds than was taken in when they broke, the reaction is exothermic.” — Definition from the BBC Website
It hurts when bonds break and it can even hurt when we make new ones. There seems to be no other way.
I did a quick Google search on “bonds that break” and the above definition showed up at the top of the list. I know it’s a scientific definition, but immediately I was struck by how easily it translates to real life. Breaking bonds, whether it’s the loss of a marriage, a friendship, or a death is a process that takes energy. I should know. I have gone through a divorce. Personally speaking, it was the hardest thing I’d ever been through at that time. Not even the loss of my Grandma, which broke my heart, caused that much pain. Probably because the loss of my Grandma could not be helped, but a divorce requires severing a bond. I remember a constant feeling of stress in my body, my heart, and my soul. Bonds hurt when they break.
And then came the man I’ve been married to for almost twelve years. The terrible energy I had been holding inside, the pain and sadness, began to release as we formed a new bond. At first it was all joy and the reaction in our lives was that of elation. We were happy. All previous sadness evaporated, or so we thought. As happens in every second marriage, and in every marriage, period, we had to go through stuff. Apparently some of the hurt and pain we’d stored up inside of ourselves was still there, and we had to release it in order for our bond to grow.
My husband and I had been on similar journeys, so we understood each other. Binding our lives together wasn’t impossible. In fact, it was amazing, but marriage is real, right? Nothing is static. Nothing stays smooth. It’s like a million little exothermic reactions happening at once, especially when you have kids. I don’t really understand the scientific-speak of the definition for bonding, but in this case, it sounds like a good comparison to me.
So much more was going on in our new marriage than our friends could have imagined. We weren’t the only people in our messy, beautiful family that had been holding in all that painful energy. Our children had been too, so while we worked to reform new bonds in our lives and marriage, we also had to help guide our children to do the same. Their bonds with their other parents were not severed, thank God, but the family links had been broken and it took a huge amount of energy to reform those ties in a healthy way.
We did our best and we thought we covered all the bases, but we aren’t God. There is no way to fix everything for these beautiful kids ourselves. At some point it became a journey that each of our children and God have had to go on together. They have to choose how they feel about their family and their place in it before they can accept the crappy side of a blended family and embrace the happiness of being in one. Some kids come to it gently, others fight against it, and sometimes the ones who struggle the most are the ones we thought were okay. Their world is still exploding in reactions that we can’t see.
Blending a family is hard. We’ve been at it for twelve years now. We’ve been to that place where nothing we do is right because they wanted the other parent to be in that moment with them instead of one of us. We’ve been to that place where a child struggles with acceptance even after years of affirmations. We’ve walked roads with them that we never dreamed of for them when we first decided to bring them into the world. We’ve walked beside them even when they thought they didn’t want us to. We moved over a little bit to give them some space, but we have never ever left them.
It’s not easy, but it takes so much energy to break old bonds and to make new ones that the last thing we wanted to do is cause more breaking of their bonds, let alone our own. I used to say people shouldn’t stay together just for the kids, but I’m not so sure about that anymore. Maybe we should at least try.
Children in blended families benefit if their families stay together, even their blended ones. My husband and I were never headed to divorce court, of course. He is my Superman, but our kids have definitely made us try harder. As stepparents, we get out of the way, but we never go away.
Just let me repeat that mantra, because I’ve said it to myself over and over through the years: As stepparents, we get out of the way, but we never go away.
I’m not writing this to judge if you have had to go away, because every family situation is different. The energy is different. The breaking and binding happen differently, but oh man oh man, woman oh woman, if you can stop the bonds from breaking again, if you can stay and help your kids bind those ties, you become part of a whole that the kids can rely on forever. You find real love in all its messy glory.
And love is worth it.
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Ruby Among Us – #1 Amazon Best Seller
Recently my 2008 debut novel, Ruby Among Us, became a #1 Amazon Best Seller in digital during the first week of July. This was a complete surprise to me, as I was focused on the release of Nashville by Heart, which came out July 5th of this year. I haven’t even had time to share the good news, so here I am sharing it now in case you want to add it to your reading list. Thank you to everyone who downloaded the novel! I am so grateful.
A fun fact about Ruby Among Us is that when I was preparing for a publisher presentation where important Random House people were waiting to meet me, I broke my toe. I showed up at the meeting carrying one of my high heels in one hand. True story!
Another fun fact is that Ruby Among Us was kindly endorsed by singer Jordin Sparks. Celebrity endorsements don’t usually turn a book into a bestseller like you might think, but I thought it was nice of her to take time to read the book and provide some kind words. And who knows? Maybe her words did help it become an Amazon Best Seller. It could be true. Anyway, this is what she said:
“Reading is a passion of mine, and when I find myself identifying with the characters, anxious to get to the next page to find answers to my questions, I know I’m into a good book! The daughter-mother-grandmother theme in Ruby Among Us pulled me in. Wonderful story-telling.”–Jordin Sparks
One more time, if you are one of the readers who downloaded Ruby Among Us and helped it hit #1 on Amazon, thank you! You might be interested to know there is a book two called Rose House, just in case you want to add it to your list, as well.
I hope you all are having a great Summer.
Happy Reading!
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I Believe in Nashville (Nashville by Heart!)
My sister and I were having a great time running around Nashville to promote my latest novel, Nashville by Heart. Cheri, who lives in Tennessee and worked in Nashville for a decade before taking a quieter job to benefit her childrens’ schedule, took me around town and to see the I Believe in Nashville mural in 12South. It’s impossible not to feel affection for Nashville when you see it, not to mention patriotic. The mural is by street artist Adrien Saporiti and you can read about him in this article in The Tennessean. His work has been highlighted basically everywhere, including The Wall Street Journal and GQ.
Directly across from the I Believe in Nashville mural was this pretty blue and white striped wall we thought was great for a selfie. My sister has her own amazing Nashville story and while it might not be the easy reading happily ever after story in Nashville by Heart, it’s beautiful and full of hardwork, love, and motherhood. She’s my hero and I have her to thank for my being an author because she introduced my first novel to an agent almost ten years ago. You can read about that in this months Southern Writer’s Magazine if you’d like.
And here is the book! I’ve had the most fun with this one from the writing to the promoting of it. Now, the reading of it is up to you.
With Love,
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Visiting Lower Broadway to Celebrate Nashville by Heart
The reason I wrote Nashville by Heart in the first place is because my sister used to live and work in Nashville where the book is set. Every time I visited her, we played in Nashville (We were younger than we are now!) and I fell in love with city. A few weeks ago I dropped in to visit her in Tennessee where she still lives and we made a day of it in Nashville to celebrate my book’s release. We had some great sister time! We even made a bunch of videos that we are in the process of posting on You Tube (Tina & Cheri) and Facebook (Tina’s Author Page) if you want to check them out.
Don’t forget to add Nashville by Heart to your reading list!
Happy Reading,
