By: Kelvin Oliver
T4JYM: Can you share a short testimony with our readers?
LW: Call me Jonah. After having 16 books published by Kensington Publishers, NY in the secular market, I did not want to go to Nineva/write Christian fiction. I had several apprehensions. I was happy where I was.
I’d read a few CBA books and they were boring with goody-two-shoes characters who had no hormones. God had other ideas. After four years of backstroking in the belly of the whale, I finally decided to give it a try after reading Francine Rivers. Wow. My first romantic comedy, HI HONEY I’M HOME came out with Multnomah Publishers in 1999 and eight books later, I’ve not looked back.
T4JYM: What is the main focus of your books? Why did you decide up on this as a focus?
LW:My main focus is to give the LIFT of Laughter while addressing some of life’s tough issues. After all, laughter IS the best medicine. In this day and time we have more than enough books with a heavy-handed treatment of issues. Laughter spells relief.
T4JYM: Do you ever get criticized for your work?
LW:I’ve had one critical response to the many, many positive ones. People give my books to the depressed, the terminally ill, or anyone who needs a good laugh and a spiritual lift as well.
T4JYM: Are you involved in your own home church? What role do you have there?
LW:Yes, I have a music ministry with my husband–we used to have an old Rock and Roll/Country band–and a lay speaking ministry.
T4JYM: How has this book been received by the general public? Has there been positive feedback? Any negative feedback?
LW: Because the spiritual issues in my novels are universal dilemmas/conflicts that readers can relate to, I’ve been blessed that my books have a cross-market appeal that has won them recognition in both inspirational and secular competitions.
Again, I’ve had only one complaint among the many positive letters–unless one counts the complaint that, while reading IT HAD TO BE YOU, one reader had to keep wiping her glasses with Kleenex because she was laughing so hard.
T4JYM: What are your next plans for writing? Do you plan to do any more books along the same lines as this book? Will you move on to new writing?
LW:Coming in January 2005 is book one of my MOONSTRUCK Romantic Comedy Trilogy titled PAPER MOON for Westbow Press, a division of Thomas Nelson Publishing. It’s about two mismatched single parents who are chaperoning their teenaged daughters’ class trip across Mexico and find love in the midst of the chaos–until the teens inadvertently become involved with an inept smuggling ring. The issue? Single parenting and love the second time around.
For July 2005, I just finished Book Two, FIESTA MOON, where a prim social worker and a prodigal, who is appropriately dogged by a precocious pig, stumble on more than ghosts as they struggle to turn a haunted hacienda into an orphanage on Mexican time, which is always mañana. And now, after squeezing in an Irish romantic comedy novella for Barbour’s Brides o’ the Emerald Isle Anthology in the last two weeks, I am ready to start on Book Three of the MOONSTRUCK trilogy due out January 2006. In BLUE MOON, the last of the series three siblings, a marine archeologist, meets her match during the excavation of a sunken ship, even if, to her horror, he doesn’t look much better than his rustbucket of a boat. But on a beggar budget, she can’t be a chooser–especially when someone is out to find the Blue Moon first.
T4JYM: How much editing was involved? Did you do it all alone or did you send it to people to edit?
LW: After I edited it (two processes) and turned it in, my editor did a content edit which required me to do some revisions. She edited my revisions and sent it on to a to a copy editor. Once it was typeset, I read through the galleys once more for minor edits.
T4JYM: How many times did you have to re-edit your works? Were they rejected by publishers?
LW: Usually I edited chapter by chapter on hard copy. Then, when the manuscript was finished, I went through the entire thing in a grand sweep, making the physical changes from my chapter by chapter edit. I was lucky enough to sell my first two manuscripts, but only after many rejections.
Today I can break down my personal editing process into three major steps. I always read what I wrote the previous day and tweak it before moving on with new pages. Then, due to time constraints, I hire someone to edit my chapters as I finish them, saving me the chapter by chapter process. I still have to go over their edits and approve/reject them, which I usually incorporated in my beginning to end look at the novel. I do everything on the computer now, without hardcopy.
T4JYM: How do you find time to write? Life is busy and time management is hard to do sometimes. When do you do your best writing and where?
LW: I write five days a week, 4-6 hours a day. It is a job. Sometimes deadlines make participating in family life a little more difficult, so I manage my time carefully. My office is in the center of the house, so that I can keep track of what is going on–a carryover from when my kids were smaller. However, I have incredible focusing abilities that allow me to do this. My most productive time is in the morning.
T4JYM: What advice would you give to someone who wants to pursue a career in writing?
LW: Read, read, read…not just the genre you wish to write, but others as well. Study their styles, pacing, plot devices. Dissect novels if you must. Unfortunately, this sometimes takes the pleasure out of reading. And the more one writes, the more one tends to edit their fun reads. It’s exasperating.
T4JYM: What advice would you give to someone interested in publishing their works?
LW: Join writers organizations, attend writing workshops and learn the business of writing as well as the craft. Participating in contests usually result in valuable feedback on your work by published authors or editors. Attending conferences provide opportunities to meet editors and agents face to face and pitch your work. Being a successful writer requires more than producing a good book. Even the most published writers can always learn more.
American Christian Fiction Writers is an excellent organization with online classes and topics related to writing on all levels. It may still be listed on the internet as American Christian Romance Writers, but due to the varied genres represented in the group and the number of male authors who have joined, the name was just changed.
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