Writing Without a Kit, by Dorothy Love

“When you write your books, do you make them up all by yourself or do you use a kit?”

This question from a third grader during my years of writing for young readers still makes me smile.  If only there were a kit!  Writing is the hardest job I’ve ever had. Harder than newspapering and working retail during my undergrad days, harder than being a public school administrator, harder than being a college professor.  And despite the lack of a kit to make it easier, it’s the one I love the most.  For the past twenty years I’ve been lucky enough to get to do it full time, first as an author of novels for preteens and young adults at Simon and Schuster and Random House, and more recently as an author of historical fiction for adult readers. 

“What do you do all day?” wondered the third grader’s freckled faced pal.  That question is one I got almost every time I visited a school.

My answer is that no two days are exactly the same, which is why this job is so much fun.

This was my schedule on October 22^nd, a typical day:

5:00am 

Alarm goes off. I get up, throw on some clothes, take Jake outside, bring him in and feed him, start the coffee.  While my husband is in the shower, I make breakfast and pack his lunch.

6:00am

Breakfast, coffee and the newspaper.

7:00am 

Husband leaves for office. I shower, dress and pour my second cup of coffee. Up the stairs to my office. Fire up the computer.       

7:00-9:00am    

Answer e-mail. Carolina Gold, my new novel, is launching in two months, and today there are a couple of e-mails from my publisher and one from my publicist, personal e-mails from friends and family, letters from readers (I love that part!) and the daily poem from The Writers Almanac. Garrison Keillor, a most talented writer and radio personality, chooses a poem to share with subscribers every day.  Sometimes it’s an old classic, sometimes it’s work by a poet who is new to me, sometimes it’s a poem by one of my favorites such as Robert Frost, Donald Hall or Mary Oliver.  I take a few minutes to savor the poet’s words, to ponder their meaning, to revel in the language.

9:00am-12 noon

I have just turned in the manuscript for my next book due out in 2014 so today I am doing background reading and researching the next book I will begin writing in a few weeks, preparing a story summary to share with my publishing team at meetings in Nashville next month. 

12:00-1:00pm

Break for lunch. The weather is nice so I take Jake for a short walk around the neighborhood. We’ve had a lot of rain lately. The back yard is too wet for his usual game of Frisbee, so the walk is his consolation prize. Sightings: Cats 3, squirrels 2, other dogs 1. He is supremely happy.

1:00-2:00pm

I’m writing a series of blog posts like this one to be posted when Carolina Gold releases in early December. I finish a couple of those and then return to a magazine article I am writing due next month for December publication.

2:00-3:00pm    

Phone call with my publisher, Daisy Hutton. We discuss  a couple of new projects that recently went to contract, titling options for the book I’ve just turned in, endorsement opportunities for the new book, and possible approaches to the book I must start writing soon for publication in 2015.

3:00-4:00pm    

Return to the magazine article. Finish the draft and start looking through my photo files to choose pictures to accompany the article. Remember that I failed to take something out of the freezer for dinner. E-mail hubby that we will be eating out tonight.

6:00pm 

We head for Sushihaha, our favorite Japanese restaurant. The food is fabulous, but I love going there as much for the excellent service and the tranquil atmosphere as for the food. Inside the restaurant is a soothing little waterfall and outside are dozens of potted plants we can admire from our favorite table by the windows.  We share an order of California rolls, and then order dinner, saving room for a few bites of gingered ice cream over chocolate fudge for dessert.

7:30pm

Home.  Let Jake outside, bring him in and settle in to watch Turner Classic Movies or read a book.

10:00pm    

Watch the evening news, let Jake out again before bed.  Sweet dreams!

Dorothy Love is the author of numerous books for adults, preteens and young adults. Her popular

Hickory Ridge series, set in her native Tennessee, marked her return to her writing roots in historical fiction and introduced readers to her trademark blend of history, mystery and romance. She lives in Texas with her husband and their golden retriever and welcomes readers at www.DorothyLovebooks.com and at www.facebook.com/dorothylovebooks.  

Don't forget to stop by tomorrow for a chance to win a free copy of Dorothy's latest release, Carolina Gold!

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Notes from the Beach by Author Dorothy Love

Though I’ve lived most of my life in landlocked states—the exception being the years I lived in Southern California—I have always been a beach girl. My perfect day begins with a pre-dawn walk on the beach, hands wrapped around my coffee mug, my eyes on the frothy swirl and retreat of the tide as I look for whelks, angels’ wings and other gifts from the sea. Then the awe-inspiring first seam of fiery light on the horizon as the sun comes up, sending a shimmer of pink and gold light across the water. 

It’s a little slice of heaven right here on earth and one that I’ve recreated in my new novel, Carolina Gold.  Set in and around Georgetown, South Carolina and on Pawleys Island, Carolina Gold is inspired by the life of Elizabeth Allston Pringle. After the Civil War, Mrs. Pringle returned to Chicora Wood, her family’s sprawling rice plantation on the Pee Dee River to resume cultivating the superior strain of rice called Carolina Gold. In the two books she wrote about her life and work, she describes in detail the necessary annual move from Chicora Wood to the family’s beach cottage on Pawleys Island to avoid yellow fever, which the planters called the “country fever.”

Yellow fever was the scourge of the South in the 19^th century; every summer, port cities such as Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, Memphis, and New Orleans braced for the onslaught. In some years the death toll soared into the thousands. Families who could afford to get out of town for the summer did so, either to the beach, to Europe, or to the resorts of Saratoga, New York.  

Each year, sometime in May or June, the rice planters on the Pee Dee and Waccamaw rivers loaded their household furnishings, livestock, and personal belongings onto flatboats and made the journey to Pawleys Island.  There they remained until the first “black frost”—a hard killing frost that got rid of the mosquitoes and made it safe to return inland.  As one of the Allstons wrote:  “To remain in the country during the summer would be suicide.”

The distance from Chicora Wood to the family’s home on Pawleys Island was only four miles as the crow flies, but to get there required a seven mile trip by boat and another four miles by land. 

For Elizabeth, called Bessie, the trip was worth all the planning and time it required.

“I was born at the seaside,” she wrote, “and from that time until I was eighteen, the move from the plantation to the sea beach at the end of May, and the return home to the plantation the first week in November were great events and a perfect joy...To me, it has always been intoxicating; that first view each year of the waves rolling, rolling, and the smell of the sea, and the brilliant blue expanse: but then I was born there and it is like a renewal of birth.”

Bessie’s words served as the perfect metaphor for the life journey of my fictional character Charlotte Fraser in Carolina Gold.  Like the real-life Bessie, my Charlotte returns to her family’s plantation after the war, virtually penniless but determined to keep the promise made to her father: to restore the plantation to its former glory and resume growing rice. But the house is in ruins thanks to the Yankees, the slaves are free, and everything of value has been stolen, right down to the bed linens. When summer comes, Charlotte makes the journey to her family’s cottage on Pawleys Island.  It is there that she experiences a renewal of her own and regains her perspective on the events that have altered her world forever, and it is there that she finds love with Dr. Nicholas Betancourt, who is harboring deep wounds of his own. 

I look forward to my annual trip to the South Carolina sea islands. They are indeed intoxicating. I loved writing about the haunting beauty of the Lowcountry, its convoluted and tortured past, the endless mysteries of the sea and the simple pleasures it affords. I hope readers enjoy their virtual “beach time” in the pages of Carolina Gold. 

Dorothy Love is the award-winning author of numerous

books for adults, preteens and young adults. Her popular Hickory Ridge series, set in her native Tennessee marked her return to her writing roots in historical fiction and introduced readers to her trademark blend of history, mystery and romance. Love’s latest release, out this month, is Carolina Gold. Her next book, a romantic mystery set in antebellum Savannah, will be published in 2014. She lives in Texas with her husband and their golden retriever and welcomes readers at www.DorothyLovebooks.com and at www.facebook.com/dorothylovebooks.  

Come back Friday for a chance to win a copy of Dorothy's newest release, Carolina Gold!

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Fact Into Fiction: Tips and Techniques for Writing the Historical Novel by Dorothy Love

In addition to the usual concerns about characterization, story structure, theme, plot, setting, and dialogue, authors of historical fiction must undertake considerable research and make some additional choices in storytelling. Here are some tips and techniques to consider:

Accuracy matters. The authenticity of an historical novel depends upon the author’s knowledge of, and judicious use of accurate details. Readers must be able to hear, smell, feel, taste, and touch the world into which they’ve been invited. If your protagonist is on a train trip from Boston to Nashville, what rail lines are in use? What are the routes? What foods are available on board? Is there a sleeping car? What do the stations along the way look like? The hotels? Who are the other passengers? All of this, just to put her on the train!  Don’t depend on movies or Wikipedia. Search out university web sites, or sites run by state historical societies. Read the best books you can find on the subject. Interview the authors of those books, if available.  Search out copies of the magazines of the day. Some can be found online. Reading these magazines, as well as old catalogs, will give you a sense of the language and of the concerns and opinions of the people about whom you are writing. 

Don’t overwrite. Knowing which details to leave out is as important as knowing which to include. . Esoteric facts, no matter how fascinating, should be left out if they don’t advance the plot or reveal something important about your characters. The art of writing historical fiction requires the wise selection of the right detail to achieve the desired effect.  Historical details might entice readers into your novel, but it’s the characters that keep them there. Never substitute solid character development for more detail. 

Be true to your characters and to their times. If you are writing about actual historical persons, treat them fairly. They aren’t here to defend themselves. Don’t give your fictional historical characters a 21^st century sensibility. Let them be bigoted, provincial, ignorant, prejudiced if that is what your story requires. 

 Be judicious with backstory, especially at the beginning of your novel. Tell only    as much as is necessary to set the story in motion. Let the rest of it come out gradually after your readers are invested in the story. The old advice to begin on 

the day that is different, on the day when your protagonist is called to adventure,          has survived  since the days of oral storytelling because it works. 

Expect a long process. Often, you won’t  know what it is you need to know until you are into the story. Expect to stop to look up what you need to know. If your goal is to write fast, if you don’t enjoy this process of unearthing the past, chances are, you won’t  enjoy writing historical fiction, for it’s a bit like setting out on a long journey with very little information about your destination and about what you’ll need to make the trip. But when you finally arrive…wow! 

Read voraciously. Here are a few of my favorite writers of historical novels. Some write inspirational fiction. Others write for the general market. Read to see how these authors begin stories, how they incorporate backstory and how they weave their research into the narrative. 

Lynn Austin, eight time Christy winner, author of All Things New, Wonderland Creek, and many others. I discovered her work with Though Waters Roar and became an instant fan.  

Rosslyn Elliott’s Sadlers Legacy series are outstanding examples of incorporating historical figures into fiction.

Phillipa Gregory, author of the Wideacre series, plus The Other Boleyn Girl, The Red Queen and many others.  

Lawrence Hill, Someone Knows My Name

Kelly O’Connor McNees. Kelly is a new author whose two books, The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott and In Need of a Good Wife, blew me away.  

Susan Meissner’s The Shape of Mercy. Robin Olivera, also a new author, My Name is Mary Sutter. 

Catherine Richmond’s Through Rushing Water and her debut novel, Spring for Susannah are very well researched and beautifully written. 

Dorothy Love is an award-winning author of seventeen novels for adults and young adults published at Random House, Simon and Schuster, and HarperCollins/Thomas Nelson.  Her work has been honored by the American Library Association, the New York Public Library, and many others. She is a past winner of the Friends of American Writers Fiction Prize and the Teddy Prize for juvenile fiction. She makes her home in the Texas hill country with her husband and two golden retrievers. Her next novel, CAROLINA GOLD will be published this fall at Thomas Nelson. 

SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS: 

Author website: www.DorothyLoveBooks.com   

Facebook: www.facebook.com/dorothylovebooks  

Twitter: writerDorothy

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