Need Your Opinion

My wonderful agent is asking for the tagline for my newest manuscript. What is a tagline? A short sentence which, as my agent describes it, serves somewhat as a subtitle, but with a hook.

The one I like best so far:

TITLE: Undiscovered
TAGLINE: Dying to forget; living to forgive.

Can you tell from those two pieces of information what I write? Are you interested at all? Does this sound more sure of itself: “Die to forget; live to forgive?” If you don’t like it, want to share why?

I posted this on a writer's blog and got a very valuable response. I'd like to see what you, my esteemed blogees, think.

Progress

Even though this will post on Saturday, since I'm typing at the end of my day (2 A.M.) on Friday, I'm considering "today" yesterday. ;-)

Today's been a day of amazing progress. Only the second day of summer and my son has already learned how to ride his bike. Last night, as I was watering the flowers, he pulled up beside me on his bike and announced, "Mom, it's time! To take the training wheels off!" So I did, and he managed about one revolution of the pedal before he'd start to fall. Today, he jumped right on and rode in wide circles.

This sudden improvement might have something to do with our new point system. We've introduced a new tool to our repertoire meant to fight off the Stagnancy of Summer. Various actions earn various points.

Saying thank you without being prompted: 1
Brushing and flossing teeth: 2
Making bed: 5
Learning to ride bike: 101

He's a genius, I tell you. Jumped right to the big ticket item on the list.

Almost every positive or negative behavior/action has a point value assigned to it. The things we're really trying to promote on a daily basis--Bible story, reading, self-control--have higher earnings.

So far we've only had to use the corner once over the last three days because the Removal of a Point is corrective enough to halt any unattractive behavior. No fuss, no repeating, no frustration. Remind me to update you at the end of the summer.

There's also been progress around the house. The feeling I've had--okay, it's more than a feeling: it's a conviction--that my intense focus on my writing was shortchanging my family led me to come up with a new plan of attack. First, I set a home/family-related goal. Then, after I accomplish it, I tackle my next writing goal. Back and forth, so on and so on. Hopefully, I'll make strong progress in both arenas and not feel as behind in either.

On the computer front, I've reinstalled almost every program I normally use. I've yet to save all my documents onto the new hard drive, but I will when that's my next writing-related goal. And, after more than two years of slogging along with dial-up, we found a great deal for satellite internet! (For some reason, the only page the new system doesn't like is this page. It has loaded every other site I've typed in, but it won't load what you're reading. Anyone have a theory of why or how I can fix this? Is it a satellite problem or a blogger problem?)

I did find a few days here and there to spend time on medical research needed to clean up certain scenes in my current manuscript. So progress on this book...and the hope of the other book, co-written with Mom, moving forward. Our two favorite editors are in the process of discussing On the Threshold and we might have news to share soon.

Interview with Robin Lee Hatcher

Return to Me

Robin Lee Hatcher’s Return to Me puts a twist on the parable of the prodigal by making the returning child and the sibling female and by dropping the story into contemporary times. Roxy Burke left for Nashville seven years ago determined to make it big. Now she’s returning to her family and her hometown feeling smaller than a worm. Her father receives her with open arms and celebrates her arrival.

Her sister, Elena, doesn’t really see anything worth celebrating. It’s obvious to everyone that Roxy made very poor choices with her life, right? Why should she be rewarded with a job, a place to stay, and a chance for salvation? Shouldn’t Roxy be punished for her past? Elena’s done everything right. Worked her way up in the family company. Gotten a college degree. Supported herself financially and made wise investments. Even kept herself pure for her future husband—who just happens to be Roxy’s old fiancé, Wyatt. So why the big fuss over Roxy? Is it because everyone, Wyatt included, loves Roxy more?

Read the rest of my review...Amazon review of Return to Me or CBD review of Return to Me

Robin, extremely gracious person that she is, joins us for an interview:

Robin, how did you get the idea for this novel?

I was in Illinois, awaiting a visit to a Christian television station for an interview, when Roxy Burke entered my mind with these lines:

There exists a strange moment between sleep and wakefulness when dreams cease and realism remains at bay. That was when Roxy’s heart spoke to her.

It’s time to go home.

Roxanne Burke had given Nashville seven years to discover her. She’d offered her voice, her face, her fortune—and eventually, her body—but despite her desperate grasps at the brass ring, country music and stardom didn’t want her.

Roxy was worse than a has-been. She was a never-was.

I was completely taken with the story from that moment on.

This book made me reconsider my relationship with my brother and how our family life looked from his perspective. Do you have any siblings?

I have an older brother, Rick. He lives across the country from me, so we don’t see each other very often. He talks to my mom every week, but he and I are more apt to exchange emails. The last time I saw him was for our mom’s 90th birthday bash. He and his daughters and grandkids came to Boise for that, as did all of our cousins. It was a grand time.

Which sister do you identify with the most? Elena or Roxy?

I probably identify most with Roxy and yet I have great empathy for Elena.

Did Roxy first appear to you as a character--like others you've created--or as the prodigal? Or was she both instantly?

I knew very early on that this was a story of the prodigal and her sister. I can’t tell you if it was that very first day I envisioned Roxy or not, but if not, it was soon thereafter.

Was it difficult to craft a unique story around such a well-known Biblical parable? After all, the majority of your audience knows where the story is heading.

No, that part wasn’t hard for me. The biblical story is well known, but it is actually very brief so there was a lot more beneath the surface to be explored. I read the parable of the prodigal in many different versions of the Bible and then just let Roxy and her family’s story play out.

All three of the younger characters—Roxy, Elena, and Wyatt—must surrender their dreams at some point during the story. Do you think this is a necessary step to finding peace?

One of my major life lessons of this past decade has been to “surrender all.” It is absolutely necessary for Christians to surrender everything to Jesus, and we must do so on a daily basis. Surrender brings great freedom and perfect peace, but there is often a great battle that occurs before we stubborn human beings drop to our knees at the foot of the cross. But if we are His and we believe He loves us and is in control, how can we fear surrendering to His will? That’s a question I ask myself whenever I’m struggling with life (life as it is and not as I would have it).

Roxy fails to succeed in Nashville for a variety of reasons. When you wrote Return to Me, were you consciously thinking of all the careers that might parallel her story? i.e., unpublished authors slaving away in obscurity for years? ;-)

No, I really didn’t think of other careers that might parallel. Roxy was so real to me that I truly only thought about her and the singing career she wanted — but not enough to keep her from making so many poor choices.

A deeply spiritual experience occurs in a very unlikely place. Without giving too much away, how did this scene come about? What does this show us about the Lord and the way He works?

That scene was one of those wonderful Ah-ha moments that writers get to experience — all too infrequently, as far as I’m concerned. It simply popped into my mind, and I knew it was perfect. As for your second question, I believe those of us who have been followers of Christ for many years are often guilty of putting God in a box. We expect Him to always do things the way we expect Him to do things. But He is so much bigger than the box, and He can reach us anywhere we go. As Betsy ten Boom said, “There is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still.” God’s love is there, even in the pit.

Roxy and Elena sure have a lot of issues between them to deal with. What steps might estranged siblings take to develop a better relationship?

True reconciliation can only happen when its more important to reconcile/forgive/be forgiven than it is to be right.

Anything else you’d like to say?

Thanks for allowing me to visit your blog. I’m delighted you enjoyed Return to Me.

Thank you for writing an entertaining, applicable-to-real-life allegory…and for visiting me here at Posting With Purpose!

Make sure to stop by Robin's website or blog and mention you came from here. :-)

Up and Running

Whew! After one week without a computer, I'm now limping my way back to being fully connected. As of today, the computer whiz had been unable to retrieve any data, though he has one more trick to try.

So what if I never get that information back? The largest, most important pieces of my writing are securely backed up. Maybe I needed to let go of those half-written articles, those saved letters. Maybe I needed to be freed from the mental drain and clutter those files caused. Don't I trust the Lord enough to believe He will restore the files I need and burn away the ones that pulled me down, held me back?

I'm free!

But I'm way behind of my humanly-set schedule. Tomorrow's going to be a busy day of catch up.

And today? Let's see: broken lawn mower, hours spent reinstalling everything on a new hard drive, euthanizing a cancerous pet rat, massive headache, lots of cuddling with Joshua, a thrown together dinner ending up being delicious, painting Andrea's nails because she broke her bad habit of peeling them, researching medical stuff for my current book, paying bills...pretty much ran the gamut.

I'm hoping to blog more often and I've got pages of ideas of what to write. Gotta find the time. Using dial-up and with the kids getting out of school in less than a week, I can't guarantee you'll see much improvement.

Until September. I'm forecasting a M-F posting schedule for the month of September!

A Special Day!

Happy birthday, Mom! As Joshua says, "You're only 10. You have two fives. 5 + 5 = 10."

But this can be a special day for you, Dear Blog Reader, too! :-) We're getting our next newsletter edition ready. Subscribe to the Ashberry Lane Newsletter to be entered in a contest for an MP3 player or free autographed books for life!

If you're reading this and aren't subscribed yet, shame on you. Don't you have compassion for poor, unknown authors trying to reach the world? Don't you want to have a part in changing life as we know it? Well, we can't promise that, but we can promise this: we'll try to make you smile.

The Ashberry Lane Newsletter is almost an e-zine, it's so chock full of interesting stuff. (What are chocks, anyway?) We share our rejections, possibilities on the publishing horizon, and a few tips we've learned the hard way.

Come sign up!

Sometimes It Rains...

and sometimes it--well, that would be getting ahead of myself. Yesterday started with hours on the phone with tech support only to hear that my hard drive was fried and I needed to take it in for data recovery. I did my homework and found a local computer doc who only charges $99 to recover lost data. Much better than the $2700 a national service quoted me.

I try to keep all my projects backed up on my desktop, laptop, and USB, but doing it all manually every day has grown tiresome. I've been lax. Now I'm paying for it. Literally. I'm not worried about my digital pictures because I have them all backed up on http://www.winkflash.com/. The main thing is the latest versions of my books and some articles I've been working on.

So if you don't see much of me around here, that means I still don't have a computer.

The kids and I headed to a nearby town after school to drop off the computer tower and buy summer sandals for Joshua. A beautiful, sunny--I love getting into a stifling hot car and letting the warmth seep into my bones--day with my kids. They were in fine moods, which made the whole jaunt fun. We were walking toward the car across the parking lot of a shopping mall when I heard a sound. Kind of a puffy, blowing out sound. And in the next second, stuff was hitting all over my body.

(All in slo-mo.) Still holding both kids' hands, I spun around to see what was happening: no cars driving by, no people walking along the store front...in fact, no movement at all. I spun a couple more times before the smell hit me. The aroma of "dairy air" or a sewage plant wafted up. I looked down. Black goo spattered the three of us, some even right next to Joshua's eye.

Dazed, I walked the kids back into the store and went up to the clerk. "Someone. Out there. I don't know what happened but we're covered in something gross."

She sent us back to the bathroom and ran out the door. Still smelling, but slightly cleaner, we emerged from the back.

"Did you see anything?" I asked her.

She shrugged. "Must have been someone up on the roof."

I'm still trying to believe it. Apparently someone hid behind the false front of the store and shot/squirted liquefied fecal matter on us. A young mom and little kids! I don't get it.

The day that starts with the news that my computer can't be saved ends with me filing a police report while covered in some unknown waste product. The kids' end-of-the-year school program was last night, so we hurried home, scrubbed off in the shower, stuffed some grub in our mouths, and went to school.

My husband informed me the police speak for what happened is "assault."

My little family was assaulted with poop. Did anyone have a stranger day?