Looking Back

I wrote this a while back, but never got to post it until now:

I'm beginning work on chapter 33. When I first started out writing this book, I didn't take into consideration the emotional stamina it would take to write it. These last few chapters have a lot of sadness and I've had to muster a lot of strength in order to get through them. My story does have a happy ending, but my characters have to wade through their challenges, sadness and sorrow before they can come through to resolution and eventual happiness. And then there's one of my characters that I had hoped would grow and change in the course of the story, but I have found that she is one of those types of people that refuses to change, which is one of the saddest things of all.

Looking back after publishing my book, that last emotional push it took to finish writing the hard stuff at the end is very memorable. It was some of the hardest writing I've ever had to do and I procrastinated a lot. It might have been because after writing my characters on their journeys, I'd become really close to them. It might have been because I was writing about some really emotional things, and I had to dig deep to do it. (That's really hard to do when you've got wife, mom, homeschooling, church, and house duties pulling at you too!) Or maybe it was because I just couldn't bring myself to write another fight scene, to put my characters through even more hard things, to bring troubled relationships to a head. I have to admit that writing those last difficult scenes made me cry.

I read once that if the writer doesn't laugh, the reader doesn't laugh. If the writer doesn't cry, the reader doesn't cry. How you feel as you write seeps into your writing.

I remember writing this one Harry Potter fan fiction years ago, called Ronald the Great. I had so much fun writing it. Every night after work, I couldn't wait to get back to my computer to work on it. It was such a fun adventure, and I think it comes through in the story. It's a good lesson to remember.

"The War Between Us" Review

JoLee over at the book review blog "Intellectual Recreation" has just put up a very nice review of my book, The War Between Us. You can check it out here, and while you're there, check out JoLee's other really great posts about all things books!

Americans in Korean Dramas

Kim Soo Hyun from
"My Love From Another Star"
wikipedia

You  may not know this about me yet, but I love watching Korean dramas.

You might be wondering what the heck they are, or you may be lucky and have already seen a few! My first reaction when I learned a friend of mine watched them while exercising was, "Weird!" In my mind, I pictured her on the treadmill watching something akin to kung-fu fighter movies or something. When I finally got around to watching one, I was not prepared for how awesome it was. No kung-fu either! (though quite a few have some great fight scenes in them!)

That first one I saw, "Master's Sun", launched me into an ongoing love affair with TV that was other than American. It was so refreshing! Less sex, less drugs, not necessarily less violence, but less WOW factor that Hollywood is known for, and more emphasis on developing a story. The unique thing about these dramas is that they run like a mini-series. They have a set number of episodes and they're done. No dragging on into endless seasons without any promise of a resolution. *ahem* Once Upon a Time!

I've watched, um... 45 dramas in 2 1/2 years. Yeah, I know it's a lot, but I've learned quite a lot of things from watching these shows--like how amazing Korean food looks, common Korean expressions & words, and elements of the honorific system in the culture and language.

The one thing that I've found really fascinating is the portrayal of different nationalities in one country's media. Take America for example and our portrayal of Asian men. Most of the time they are either side-kicks, the smart-guys, or the bad-guys. Women are a little bit different, but they usually don't stick out. Well, it's only fair to go to the flip side. How do Koreans portray Americans? As the side-side-kicks, the nefarious bad guys, or the unstable ally. They're also obnoxious, sly, and sometimes the smart-guys. It's pretty amusing, actually. But what really gets me is who plays the Americans: Australians or Russians with really bad accents. Rarely does an American actually play an American and even then, they're awkward and stiff. That's okay, I guess. It's when the drama is set in California and the "side-kick" American is the most amazingly terrible actor you've ever seen and the most annoying druggie beach bum is where I have to draw the line! (Heirs. Don't watch it!)

A recent drama, "Oh My Venus," got me really, really excited. One of the characters was a Korean-American which I don't think I've ever seen. And the amazing thing was that his accent actually sounded like he was a Korean American! (The actor, Henry Lau, is actually Canadian whose native language is English, but close enough, right?) His character was one of my favorites of all time. Sure he was a bit over the top, called women "Ma'am!", and was really huggy and loud - are Americans really like that?? But he used this awesome fusion of English and Korean, was funny, and could actually act. Kudos to the people who did the casting on that one. Henry, you're totally cool!

This last drama has left me with some hope. Maybe the Korean TV industry is picking up on how many Americans watch and love their shows. And that there are Americans (or native English speakers) who can actually act. Hopefully we'll be seeing more of that in the future, because it made watching the show that much more fun. I definitely felt more of an affinity with the show, because I felt that they'd made the effort to draw Americans in with a character they could better relate with.

We'll see what the future holds for Americans in Korean TV. In the meantime, check out my Korean Drama tab to see what I've watched and which dramas I've totally loved.  It might sound weird, but you'll have to give them a try to see what I mean!

Published!

I finally published my book December 14, 2015! 

You can check it out on Amazon and on Goodreads!

My eBook just went live too. You can buy a copy here!

First Draft is Done!

Well, I finally finished the first draft of my WWII historical fiction novel! I was like a crazy person by the end, because I was so close and I kept getting all these interruptions and I just had to finish already!!! Man, that last stretch is brutal sometimes.

I started my book in August of 2014, and considering I'm a homeschooling mom with church duties, book group, writer's group, and other stuff - it's amazing that I got it done in 9 months! I feel incredibly grateful and humbled, because I know it came at the sacrifice of other things in my life. My family is so wonderful and supportive! And my awesome cheerleader and fellow writer besty, Mairi, really helped see me through with all her enthusiasm, encouragement, and feedback.

I wish I could say more about the book itself, but I feel it's truly a unique story and want to wait until I have it published to talk about it. What I can say is that it's set in a fictional town in Indiana, my beautiful home state. I've always wanted to set a book in Indiana, so this makes me really happy! Indiana had a great role in WWII! One of the most fascinating things I discovered in my research is that recently some Nazi airplanes were discovered buried at Freeman Airfield near Seymour, IN. What an amazing find, and it makes you wonder what Nazi planes were doing all the way out in Indiana! You can read the article about it here.

There is still a lot of research to continue doing as I smooth out this first draft before sending it to my awesome beta readers. And then I can launch into the 2nd draft. Hopefully, I'll only need to have a 2nd draft and not a 3rd or 4th! :-p

Wish me luck!

Historical Research & Some Helpful Links

One thing that I really love is doing historical research. To me, it's so much fun to go on the hunt for specific information buried somewhere in historical documents. There are so many rich resources out there - newspapers, magazines, first-hand accounts, photographs, journals, radio transcripts, paintings, recipes. . . the list goes on.

Currently I'm writing an historical fiction novel set during WWII on the American homefront in Indiana (where I'm from!). I have found a few websites invaluable in my research - a few of them that I go back to time and again for reference. I thought I'd share them with you here.

Keep in mind that while many of these links are specific to the 1940s, you can apply similar research ideas to whatever time period you're researching. The 1940s calendar website is useful, because it's a general calendar site where you can look up whatever calendar for as far back as the website allows. That's pretty great! I hope these links give you some good ideas for your own research.

Social Security Popular Baby Names By Decade - This is my go-to website for names for my American characters. If you want to have authentic names from a certain time period dating as far back as the 1880s, then this is the site for you!

Top-Grossing Movies By Year - I stumbled on this website very recently, and I have loved it! Strangely, it is very difficult to find when movies were released by year and month, which is vital to my story and important for being as accurate as I can. This is the first website that has movies listed by what month in the year they came out. Awesome!

WWII Timeline - There are quite a few timelines out there, but this one by National Geographic is nice since it divides the timeline between the two main theaters of war - Pacific and Europe.

1940s Slang - I've found a few lists of '40s slang, but this list seemed the most comprehensive.

1940s Calendars - There was one part in my book where I needed to know what day of the week a certain event in the war took place, and this site was really helpful!

Government Acts and Executive Orders - This is one of those few times where I approve of wikipedia for research. It's nice to be able to find a concise description and explanation of one of many government acts out there. The above link leads to the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, i.e. the Draft.

Government websites - Many state government websites (like archives) offer histories of their states relating to main historical time periods. This link leads to a site that isn't very pretty to look at, but has a nice, detailed history of Indiana, including a lot of the homefront stuff that I'm looking for.

Ancestry.com - I'm a member of this paid subscription site, and being able to look at local newspapers from the 1940s from the comfort of my own home has been awesome! They have a lot of free information on their site too, and you can even join for free with limited use of some features of their site. The site is of course for doing genealogy work, but it's useful for many other aspects of research as well!

There are a lot more sites I could put on here, but I'll stop with these. Research can be fun, but you definitely need to look outside the box and think about the many aspects of your character's lives that you're writing about. Even little details like the period appropriate lipstick brand they're using or a tiny feature of the car they're driving makes a world of difference to your readers!

Welcome!

I've started out this author blog for myself to focus on writing and what I'm working on these days. To learn more about me, see the tab at the top.

If you'd like to read through my history blog you can check it out at http://history-preserved.blogspot.com. I recently completed a year long project where I cooked & baked my way through 52 WWII ration recipes, one for every week of the year. It was loads of fun and all the recipes I tried, good and bad, are on my history website!