On the Second Day of Christmas

by Gary Fearon, Creative Director, Southern Writers Magazine

If "my true love gave to me" has already popped into your head, congratulations!  Your musical memory is alive and well, even though we've heard "The Twelve Days of Christmas" for the last time this year. Technically, however, today is the second day of Christmas, so in that spirit I thought we'd take a second look at Christmas past.

I can get a little nostalgic thinking about Southern Writers' first Christmas, in 2011.  It was an exciting time of promise, adventure, and new friendships with authors and each other.  One thing I remember fondly was that, for the month of December, every day on this Suite T blog was devoted to a different "gift".

These classic posts are a little hard to find, unless you go looking for them.  So I went looking for them.

The Gift of a Writing Partner by Kelli Zaniel
The Gift of a Reader by Shannon Milholland
The Gift of Counting the Cost by Doyne Phillips
The Gift of a Time Out by Gary Fearon
The Gift of Time by Susan Reichert
The Gift of Humor by Jenny B. Jones
The Gift of Great Food by Shannon Milholland (includes recipes by authors and the SW staff!)
The Gift of a New Beginning by Doyne Phillips
The Gift of Gab by Gary Fearon
The Gift You Get When You Give by Susan Reichert
The Gift of Mystery by Sandra Balzo
The Gift of...Gifts by Shannon Milholland
The Gift of Great Art by Doyne Phillips
The Gift of Music by Gary Fearon
The Gift of Poetry by Susan Reichert
The Gift of a Family Heritage by Renee Rowell
The Gift of Leadership by Londa Hayden
The Gift of Hope Deferred by Doyne Phillips
The Gift of Goals by Gary Fearon
The Gift of a New Year by Susan Reichert
The Gift of a Rich Childhood by Sarah Loudin Thomas
The Gift of FREE Marketing by Jessica Ferguson

Maybe one or more of those "gifts" will resonate with you on this second day of Christmas, which, by the way, is immortalized in another yuletide chestnut.  December 26 is the "Feast of Stephen" mentioned in the song "Good King Wenceslas".  I hope you'll "feast" on the joys of the season still to come, and will continue to celebrate all the way up to that twelfth day of Christmas, on January 5th.

Now that it's stuck in your head, feel free to hum "Good King Wencelas" today. (If you know the words, I'm impressed.)

How to Cheat When Writing Historical Fiction

By Sarah Loudin Thomas

I write historical fiction . . . but I cheat.

I only just realized this as my third novel was about to release in August 2016. I’ve long struggled with genre and fitting what I write into a specific slot. Maybe it’s historical. Maybe it’s romance. Maybe it’s historical romance. OR it just might be women’s fiction.

Regardless of my dithering, my novels are often characterized as historical fiction. Which is fine with me. But then I realized something . . . I don’t work nearly as hard as most other authors of historical fiction do.

I really enjoy the genre and often read it. Right now I’m enjoying Leaving Independence by Leanne W. Smith. It’s about a woman traveling the Oregon Trail with her four children in pursuit of a footloose husband. I love the descriptions of places and clothing and social customs. It all feels very real to me—like Leanne did excellent research.

Which brings me to cheating. I research very little. Oh, I look up timelines and newspaper headlines for context, but I’m not exactly immersing myself in the westward movement of the 1860s. I don’t have to research what the wagons were like. I don’t have to wonder about clothing and food. And if I read someone’s diary, it’s just because I want to.

All I’ve really needed to do is listen and ask questions.

The furthest back my novels have traveled is 1948. My father was born in 1941 and he remembers a good bit from those days. As did my grandmother who shared many a story before she passed. If I want to know what kind of stove someone would have cooked on in rural Appalachia in 1954, I call Dad and ask him.

It’s as though I’ve been researching all my life. I’m from West Virginia and one of our primary forms of entertainment is telling stories. This drives my husband nutty. He’ll look at me as Dad launches into that story about a dog named Sloomer and mouth, “We’ve heard this one.”

Yes, we have. And hearing it again will only drive it a bit deeper into my psyche and make it that much more real when I weave it into a story.

Turns out there’s more than one-way to skin a cat. Digging deep into research—becoming an expert on a specific time period—is wonderful. I have deep respect for writers who spend as much or more time researching as they do writing.

But when I took a notion to write historical fiction (not realizing that’s what it was), all I had to do was dredge up the stories I heard at my father’s knee. Stories he’s still happy to tell sitting on the porch of an evening.

Some folks say if you want to write, write what you know and that’s how I’ve managed to cheat at research. I write what I know from a lifetime of listening.  

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Sarah Loudin Thomas grew up on a 100-acre farm in French Creek, WV, the seventh generation to live there. Her Christian fiction is set in West Virginia and celebrates the people, the land, and the heritage of Appalachia. Her first novel, Miracle in a Dry Season, released August 2014 through Bethany House. Book #2, Until the Harvest,released May 2015. Sarah and her husband Jim live in the mountains of Western North Carolina with Thistle–the canine equivalent to a personal trainer pushing them to hike, run, and throw sticks. Sarah is active in her local church and enjoys cooking and–you guessed it–reading. Her social media links are: www.SarahLoudinThomas.com   www.facebook.com/SarahLoudinThomas  @SarahAnneThomas   www.pinterest.com/sarahlthomas

Writer or Not

By Sarah Loudin Thomas

I recently came to the halfway point on my fourth novel (four and a half counting the novella). The book isn't contracted and may never see the light of day, but early on I learned it's much easier to sell something than nothing.

But I’ve found a funny thing happens around the midpoint of a book—something I suspect quite a few authors’ experience. This is the place where:

1.      I can't imagine how there could possibly be another half of a book to go. Oh my goodness--I've run out of all words except "the end!"

2.      I wonder how I got this far to begin with. I can't even remember what happened two chapters ago (which is why I write a chapter-by-chapter synopsis as I go--seriously--I don't remember).

3.      I begin to think there's no tension and no plot, it's just a Seinfeld episode where nothing happens.

4.      I’m pretty sure there's no moral center to the story. What did I think it was about? Forgiveness? Faith? Love? Then why didn't I write that stuff in?!?

5.      I have the niggling feeling there was a really cool idea for the second half that I didn't write down and so have forgotten completely.

This is the point at which I have to decide, for the umpteenth time, if I'm going to be a writer or not. Writers, I have concluded, are assailed by doubts but keep writing anyway. Non-writers are assailed by doubts and go eat some ice cream and watch a few episodes of Blue Bloods, marveling at the intricacies of the plots. (Okay, writers, do that too, but afterwards they keep

writing anyway.)

This is the advantage of having completed several manuscripts. I know this moment is coming. I expect it. And now I realize that if I just keep writing past it, I'll get a book in the end. One that someone might read. And perhaps, enjoy.

So, for as long as it takes after I reach the midpoint, I'll write. Because I'm a writer—really I am.

And anyway, I’m curious to know what happens next . . .

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Sarah Loudin Thomas grew up on a 100-acre farm in French Creek, WV, the seventh generation to live there. Her Christian fiction is set in West Virginia and celebrates the people, the land, and the heritage of Appalachia. Her first novel, Miracle in a Dry Season, released August 2014 through Bethany House. Book #2, Until the Harvest,released May 2015. Her novella, Appalachian Serenade is FREE today on Amazon. Sarah and her husband Jim live in the mountains of Western North Carolina with Thistle–the canine equivalent to a personal trainer pushing them to hike, run, and throw sticks. Sarah is active in her local church and enjoys cooking and–you guessed it–reading. She can be found at www.SarahLoudinThomas.com  www.facebook.com/SarahLoudinThomas @SarahAnneThomas   www.pinterest.com/sarahlthomas