Omnimystery News is pleased to welcome Julia Spencer-Fleming, whose mysteries are set in upstate New York and feature the Rev. Clare Fergusson and Police Chief Russ Van Alstyne. The next in the series, One Was a Soldier (Minotaur Books, April 2011 Hardcover, 978-0-312-33489-5), is published next month.
And she's also providing two of our readers with an opportunity to win an advanced reading copy of her book. Visit Mystery Book Contests, click on the "Julia Spencer-Fleming: One Was a Soldier" contest link, enter your name, e-mail address, and this code (6607) for a chance to win! (One entry per person; contest ends 03/22/2011.)
Today, Julia writes about what it's like to be an author and a mother.
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Photo provided courtesy of Julia Spencer-Fleming
What do you think is the number one question I get about being a writer? It's not, "Who's your agent?" or "Where do you get your ideas?" (I think the internet has started to scotch those two oldies.) If you guessed, "When are the hero and heroine of your series going to get it on?" you'd be partially correct — that's the most common question I hear about the books themselves. No, the most frequent question I hear is, "How do you write with three kids in the house?"
It's a good question. When most of us picture writers at work, we think of the solitary figure, hunched over a word processor, communing with the Muse — perhaps with a the help of a few Hemmingway-esque shots of whiskey. It's hard to reconcile this with a teenager who needs to tell you the details of his latest relationship drama RIGHT NOW. How do you get that Room of Your Own when your computer room has become the land of the Barbie Project Runway — and you can't get on the computer anyway, because your other child is busy looking up information for a five page report on mollusks that is due tomorrow. Did she forget to mention she needs a plastic cover?
In my early years as a writer, I was in about as ideal a situation as an author/mother can be. The success of my first two books enabled me to quite my law job and work from home full-time. My oldest two kids were in elementary school, with early bedtimes and almost no homework. My youngest was at a wonderful preschool a minute's drive from where my husband taught. I could work long hours during the day and stay up late in the evenings, answering the few pieces of reader email I got and reading others' mystery fiction for fun and edification (no one was asking be to blurb them in those days.)
Of course, as anyone who has them knows, the problem with kids is that they keep growing. All too soon, the oldest was in high school and her brother was a middle-schooler. She ran — cross country, indoor track, outdoor track. He ran the same seasons — but different dates and meets. She started acting. And hanging out at friends houses (always at least a half-hour drive away from our country home.) He began music lessons. In drumming. Drumming, by all that is holy! Then he started to play in a band. There was church youth group (his and hers), and play dates for the youngest, and trips to the library for research papers and family vacations. My writing time--so easy, so available I had never had to sacrifice anything for it--disappeared. My novel ground to a halt.
At one point I found myself at a dinner party describing my week. I realized I was spending most of my waking hours behind the wheel of a minivan.
Well, adversity is the mother of something. Maybe mothers. I realized that if I wanted my next book to be turned in during the same century as my last, I needed to Get Serious. I started rising at 4:30 every morning to write for an hour and a half before the day began. I went to bed at 8:00 evenings. I let my garden run to weed, unloaded at least a few of my volunteer commitments, and stopped going to the gym (okay, this last wasn't that much of a sacrifice.) I took to carrying my laptop everywhere, writing in university libraries and in the old choir loft of my church and in empty classrooms. Most importantly, I learned to compartmentalize my own reactions. When I was in writing mode, I wrote. I didn't think about the kids. I didn't worry about finding foam board for a class presentation or getting pants to replace the pairs my son had outgrown. A writer needs to be a little selfish and monomaniacal in order to bring that fictional world to life. Conversely, when I was in Mom mode, I tried to be there fully for the kids. It's true that my thoughts might drift into scene problems or characterization issues while putting still more miles on my long-suffering Town & Country, but by and large I was parenting, not plotting.
This past fall, we proudly drove our oldest girl to Northampton, MA and delivered her into the care of Smith College. One down, I thought. My life is going to get easier by a third.
Ha. That was before the youngest joined Garden club. And Rainbow girls. And the intramural basketball team. And our son, now in high school himself, started acting. And playing in the pep band. And taking more lessons.
"How do you do it?" people ask. And I answer honestly, "Hell if I know!"
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Julia Spencer-Fleming is the Agatha and Anthony Award-winning author of the Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne mystery series. Read more about the 7th book, One Was a Solider, below. You can visit her website at JuliaSpencerFleming.com, or find her on Facebook and on Twitter.
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About One Was a Soldier: At the Millers Kill Community Center, five veterans gather to work on adjusting to life after war. Reverend Clare Fergusson has returned from Iraq with a head full of bad memories she's using alcohol to wipe out. Dr. George Stillman is denying that the head wound he received has left him with something worse than simple migraines. Officer Eric McCrea is battling to keep his constant rage from affecting his life as a cop, and as a father.
High school track star Will Ellis is looking for some reason to keep on living after losing both legs to an IED. And down-on-her-luck Tally McNabb has brought home a secret — a fatal one. Police Chief Russ Van Alstyne just wants Clare to settle down and get married — to him. But when he rules Tally McNabb's death a suicide, Clare sides with the other vets against him. Russ and Clare's unorthodox investigation will uncover a trail of deceit that runs from their tiny Adirondack town to the upper ranks of the Army, and from the waters of the Millers Kill to the unforgiving streets of Baghdad.
One Was a Soldier is available to pre-order in Hardcover and Kindle edition from Amazon.com (see icons below book cover above) and from other major and independent booksellers. You can also download Letters to a Soldier, a free Kindle preview of One Was a Soldier, with letters and a special note from Julia Spencer-Fleming.
For a chance to win an advanced reading copy of One Was a Soldier, courtesy of the author, visit Mystery Book Contests, click on the "Julia Spencer-Fleming: One Was a Soldier" contest link, enter your name, e-mail address, and this code (6607) for a chance to win! (One entry per person; contest ends 03/22/2011.)
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