This week I’m hosting Arlene James with A Familiar Love Song (3 copies worldwide). If you want to enter the drawing for the book, please leave a comment on your post 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 (August 30th) evening.
Interview with the heroine from A Familiar Love Song by Arlene James
1. Maggs Marko, tell me the most interesting thing about you.
The most interesting thing about me… Hmmm, I suppose it’s my occupation. I’m a producer and promoter in the music industry. I put on shows for people, big ones like the Battle of the Bands down in Fayetteville, with multiple categories and thousands of fans attending to hear a dozen or more bands I produce small shows, too, the kind we do at my private venue in Missouri. I call it the Milking Barn because the building used to be part of an old dairy farm.
2. What do you do for fun?
Believe it or not, a quiet evening at home in front of the fire is my idea of a good time. I guess I get enough of the party atmosphere at work. Don’t misunderstand. I love the music and the frenetic energy of a well-timed performance, but at the end of that, just to be able to sit quietly with a book and a cup of tea…well, that’s sweet.
3. What do you put off doing because you dread it?
I guess we all have our demons, memories of events in our past that we don’t want to think about or deal with or even acknowledge. Sometimes, though, the more we ignore them, the larger and more fearsome they become. Still, I’m bad about putting off facing those ugly memories, and I have too many of them.
4. What are you afraid of most in life?
I’m afraid of losing those I love. Everyone is, I suppose. It’s a primal fear. Once you’ve lost those nearest and dearest to you––in my case, my parents and sister––you can’t ever convince yourself that it won’t happen again. You know how easily your idyll can change, how quickly the lives of your loved ones can be snuffed out. You live expecting it to happen. It colors every relationship going forward. Learning to risk loss again can be very difficult. The fear of losing those you love can become so intense that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
5. What do you want out of life?
Everyone wants the same thing, don’t they? To be loved. When you’ve messed up as badly as I have, though, you need more than that. You want, need, to be forgiven, to make up for your mistakes. That’s what I want most of all, the chance to make up for my mistakes.
6. What is the most important thing to you?
Once, if you’d asked me this, I’ve have answered without hesitation that the most important thing to me was my career. That hasn’t been the case for a long time now, though, not since I met Jesus. Now, all I want is the chance to undo some of the harm I’ve done. I just want the people I love to be okay.
7. Do you read? If so, what is your favorite type of book to read?
I read when I have the time: Bible, history, mystery, poetry…I’m a sucker for happy endings, though, so naturally I read romance.
8. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I’m such a coward, so very weak. I know, I know. I come off like this iron maiden, the warrior queen of the music industry, but it’s not true. I’ve cratered, seriously cratered, twice. Just shut down. Couldn’t cope. Oh, I’m tough as nails when it comes to business, but my personal life is a complete shambles, and I have no one to blame but myself.
9. Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet?
No pets. Who has time for pets? It would be sweet to have a little kitty cat, though. Maybe some day…
10. If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why?
Oh, that’s so easy. I’d go back twenty-five years to Texas and stay. I wouldn’t walk out on my marriage. I’d make Wyatt Ogilvie grow up and toe the line. I’d haul his handsome carcass to church and I’d throw Jesus Christ at him day and night until they stuck together like glue. I’d have his babies and raise them and help him make his music and be wildly famous. It would be all our old dreams come true––or one of us would truly die in the trying. God forgive me for making all the wrong choices.
