Do you have a favorite character? If so, who and why?
Let me preface the answer with the fact that a favorite character for this writer isn’t necessarily the lovable one with the kind heart, good teeth, and best intentions. Good characters ground a story and give us someone to worry about and cheer for. The reader in me never likes a book that doesn’t have characters I care about. In this book, Marris Jones is about as good a soul as you’ll ever find. But the ugly, blackhearted characters, those who manipulate and claw through life, are the most compelling to me as a writer. Prudence and Roy take the cake in that category. Two more self-serving and cruel people I’ll be hard-pressed to write about. When I found the courage to walk into the mind-set of these characters (yes, they scared me), their stories floated to the surface like greasy oil, and so did their vulnerabilities. That was the surprise—to discover pivotal moments in their development that formed their life’s dismal path and to ask the question: What would I have grown to be if faced with those obstacles?
You talk as if these characters are real, but they’re not, are they?
A good writer strives to make her characters complex and flawed and susceptible to all human foibles, and that’s what makes them real. But no, this book, the characters, and their settlement are a work of fiction pulled from someplace deep in my psyche and the soup of my life’s experiences. Only Preacher Eli Perkins resembles someone I knew, and that was my favorite uncle, who was a Baptist preacher. He could fire off jokes, one after the other, rivaling stand-up comics. He was my inspiration for Eli, but everyone and everything else is fabricated.
What is the most fun part of the writing process?
When the book is 90 percent complete, all the major pieces are in place, each character has a distinct voice, and the narrative arc is clear—then the fun begins. I call this part of the process “polishing the silver.” It is slow going but satisfying to fill in missing pieces and ponder every word to see what stays or goes for the sake of the story. I look for anything that bogs down the story line. Anything that doesn’t make sense to the character’s behavior or reaction. Then I wander deeper into their background and always discover something new and pertinent I didn’t know about them the day before. While it sounds odd, the characters do take on a life of their own—and I miss spending time with them when the story ends.
What is the most challenging part of writing?
For me, it was developing an accurate timeline for the story. I thought I had created one, but it was not tight enough when dealing with ten major characters. Some of my last cleanup efforts were spent fixing it. Until a timeline is clearly established, it is easy to have things happening before they should to people they shouldn’t. This part of the process takes patience, research, and copious notes about the time period and the events, large and small, in the lives of each character.
What is the one thing you know now that you wish you had known at the start of your writing career?
I wish I’d known I had to start at the beginning as a writer. Wishful thinking and my love for pretty words didn’t give me a shortcut to success. For a while, my ego held me back because I wanted to believe that what fell naturally on the page was good enough. It was when I took down that defensive wall and committed myself to learning this craft from the ground up that progress was made. I could have saved myself a lot of heartache if I’d just enrolled in Writing Kindergarten 101 and started, In the beginning—which is the place all good stories start, right?
What advice would you give aspiring writers?
Take to heart the confession above, and believe the world always has room for another good book.
Acknowledgments
Kudos and heartfelt thanks to my agent, Rebecca Gradinger, for her instant love for this book. She led with a delicate touch and a steady sense of partnership. Her savvy suggestions produced better pacing and greater depth to the characters. Shana Drehs’s eagle eye brought more edits and helped the book grow stronger legs. Publicist Lathea Williams came with creative ideas, a quick response, and thorough planning. This trio of professionals left no stone unturned in their quest to get this book out and into the hands of readers.
The idea for the novel’s format was born when Sharon McFarland Day, mon amie since high school, sent me a signed copy of Olive Kitteridge. Its unique short-story structure and the dark character of Olive inspired this book about richly flawed folks.
When If The Creek Don’t Rise was in a nebulous state, I attended the Roanoke Regional Writers Conference, where author Carrie Brown suggested I sign up for the Wildacres Writers Workshop in North Carolina. I was fortunate my first writing class was under the direction of Luke Whisnant, English professor, author, and poet at East Carolina University. Talented writers in that weeklong short-story class reviewed a shorter version of the Billy Barnhill chapter and challenged me to write more fearlessly and go deeper into his unsavory side. I left Wildacres with a clearer vision of where the book was headed.
The next year, between writing and my final year traditionally employed, I researched the history of Appalachia, ginseng, moonshine, healing herbs, Mother Jones, coal mining, the Peace Corps, and exorcisms. No detail was too small to bring authenticity to Baines Creek residents in 1970. For example, in my quest to understand better Preacher Eli Perkins’s education, I spoke to Adam Winters, the archivist at Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville, KY. He emailed me a copy of their 1937 catalog so I could see what courses Eli would have taken, how many men from North Carolina would have been in his class, and what the tuition cost was (free!).
When I was close to submitting the manuscript for an agent’s consideration, I had lunch with Marie Colligan, a published author and member of Lynchburg’s Hill City Writers. Marie asked to read a chapter, and I gave her one with the request to “bleed ink all over the pages.” I had worked in solitude for more than a year, and a fresh and critical eye was welcomed before I hit Send. Marie didn’t disappoint. Her editing skills and suggestions were a gift when I needed them most.