This week I’m hosting Merrillee Whren with Hometown Dad, Kay Marshall Strom with The Triumph of Grace, and Naomi Musch with The Green Veil (an ebook). If you want to enter the drawings, please leave a comment on one of the post during the week with your email address. I will not enter you without an email address (my way to contact you if you win). If you don’t want to leave an email address, another way you can enter is to email me at margaretdaley@gmail.com. The drawings end Sunday (February 13th) evening.
Interview with Naomi Musch:
What made you start writing? Tell us about the book you have out right now.
I grew up as a country kid near the majestic Wisconsin River in central Wisconsin. I had a sort of Tom Sawyer-ish, idyllic childhood, I think. At any rate, those growing up years felt pretty adventurous and whispered to my imagination. By 4th grade I knew that I wanted to be a writer.
The images and impressions I grew up with, along with life’s natural evolution of experiences provoked fictional questions that mostly seemed to involve by-gone eras. For instance: What if a girl left her home and the true love of her youth to set off with her family into the vast Wisconsin wilderness of the 1840s? What if she grew to learn about the riches of the logging empires springing up around her? And what if she hastily married a much older man, a lumber baron of dubious character? Then, what if, after it was too late, the lost love of her youth found her again? How would decisions of the heart affect her character and her faith? I had to tell a story that would answer these questions, so I wrote The Green Veil, a new release from Desert Breeze Publishing. It’s the first in a 3-book, generational Empire in Pine series.
What are you working on right now?
I love, love, LOVE historical fiction, especially if it’s multi-layered and complex. I challenge myself to write stories that have a satisfying, yet unpredictable outcome. Some of my favorite Christian authors, whom I consider my mentors in this area, are Angela Hunt, Bodie Thoene, and Laura Frantz (my latest fave!).
I’m in the editing phases of book 2, The Red Fury, right now, and getting words down on paper for book 3, The Black Rose.
What themes do you like to write about? How important is faith in your books?
I write from a Christian world view in which I explore themes of faithlessness as well as faith. That’s pretty broad. You could say I like to write about things like trust, worth, and peace, but also doubt, deception, and betrayal. I believe that people can be encouraged though fiction without being preached at, or without the writing sounding corny and canned. We find hope in stories all the time. Sometimes we even find direction. But rather than be preachy in my stories, I try to show the ways in which we humans — even Christians — tend to get all tangled up in sin and either find redemption or keep fighting God. I try to craft my characters as real people. Real people stumble… a lot.
Do you put yourself into your books / characters?
I don’t put myself into my books, per se, but as any writer will tell you, we write what we know. So if I write about regret, it’s because I know what it means to regret. If I write about temptation, it’s because I fight temptation. If I write about love, it’s because I love and am loved. It’s all good. I do have to admit that, in book two, The Red Fury, which comes out in October, 2011, I find myself identifying a lot with the protagonist. She’s headstrong, opinionated, and tends to build walls around her heart. Hmmm… Not sure I should admit that.
What is your writing schedule like?
My writing schedule is all over the place. I work as a part time school assistant and I’m still homeschooling my youngest daughter. I have to grab writing time in snippets. But I’m extremely thankful to have a supportive husband, and a family that tends to chucklejavascript:void(0) at my “zoning out” when I’m reading or writing.
The Green Veil is available as an e-book from Desert Breeze Publishing, or through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Christian Book Distributors.
