You asked about the first book that
inspired me to write and why.
I wasn’t inspired to write. I was
writing from the time I was 6 years old and could put two sentences together.
I have always maintained that at our
cradles, the legendary Godmothers visit each one of us and leave a gift. The one who might have given me the voice of
an angel was out of town. The one who
might have made me dance like Ginger Rogers did not show up. I have absolutely no ability to thread a
needle or sew a button. My daughters
remind me that the hems of their school uniforms were scotch taped and they
were entirely accurate.
I raised and fed five children and not one
of them was malnourished but no one ever begged an invitation to my dinner
table.
The one Godmother who showed up whispered –
“I give you the gift of being a storyteller.”
I am so happy she came that evening.
From the time I was six I was in love with
reading as well as writing. I loved
mysteries. I started with Nancy Drew and
Judy Bolton and moved on to Agatha Christie, Mignon Eberhardt and Josephine
Tey, to name a few.
Even as a child I wanted desperately to be
the first reader to know ‘who done it’.
I did not realize I was teaching myself to write suspense. “This is a clue I would tell myself – this
doesn’t mean anything but sounds like a clue.” That was why, after my first
book, Mount Vernon Love Story, an
historical novel about George and Martha Washington, was published in 1969 to
good reviews and no sales, I looked over the shelves of my library and realized
that my favorite reading was in the suspense field. I decided that I could understand why the
authors I just named were so successful, and why I had to struggle through the
books by other authors because I didn’t care if the butler did it. He usually did.
I took a short story writing course when I
was 22 years old right after I was married because I was desperate to learn how
to be a successful writer. The professor
said, “Take a real life story that has fascinated you – maybe it’s a family
secret; maybe something you read in a newspaper or magazine. Ask yourself two questions – ‘suppose’ and
‘what if’ and turn into fiction that true incident”. I have written 42 books with that structure
as a building block. I added one question
of my own - ‘why’. Because if three or
four people might have had the opportunity and motive to commit a crime, only
one would have gone over the edge and taken another one’s life. His or her motive was the strongest and most
compelling.
The
Lost Years was initially a great challenge. My editor of 37 years, Michael Korda,
suggested that I write a book with a biblical background – a letter that Christ
may have written to someone. My response
was, “Michael that could be considered irreverent, if not sacrilegious.” A letter from Christ against the background
of a murder seemed crazy, but I found I was drawn to the concept.
Christ was a religious Jewish boy who went
to the temple three times a day to study.
At age 12 he was teaching the elders in the temple of Jerusalem
over Passover and astounded them with his wisdom of the scriptures. Obviously he could both read and write. Another example is when he traced names in
the dirt and saved the life of the adulteress.
Then I asked myself – “To whom would he have written this parchment?”
On Palm Sunday one of the Psalms gave me
the answer. ‘Then Joseph of Arimathea, a
good and just man and a secret disciple of Christ had the courage to go to
Pontius Pilate and ask for the body of the crucified Christ to lay in his own
tomb.’ I thought it not unlikely that
Christ, foreseeing his death, may have written to Joseph and that is how the
story began.
I am in the final pages of Daddy’s Gone-A-Hunting as I write this
on December 18, 2012. I will be turning
the final chapter in within the next few days.
I thoroughly enjoyed writing the book but it is always the same. I know who did it and why but the journey,
from the first page to the last, is one I undertake with the reader.
My chapters are not neatly laid out with
what is going to happen in them. Only
the main characters have identified themselves to me. We walk through a narrow path in the forest
together and have a lot of fun in the process.
Toward the end of the time when it is completed,
my publisher is calling every day – waiting for those final pages. Well, they’re ready now and I hope you do
enjoy Daddy’s Gone-A-Hunting.
