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Passion, then Panic

I grew up literally crossing off the days till summer when we’d head to my Mee-maw’s farm in Armuchee, Georgia. All of us cousins would ride horses bare-back through the fields and across the pond, bale hay, shuck sweet corn, pluck blackberries, and hunt arrowheads along the banks of the Oostenaula River. In the evenings I’d sit very still and listen to the kinfolk indulging in that wonderful southern tradition of oral storytelling. Their stories were bizarre and fabulous, truly stranger than fiction. At the same time my jaw was hanging open in amazement, I was also frantic. Would I ever be able to remember them? It felt as if they could fly away with the dawning of the next day. I didn’t know it then, but I was collecting memories like lightning bugs. Yep, years later when I was scribbling those memories down on index cards or in my journal, I was doing like Momma does when she’s canning hot-off-the-vine tomatoes for us to eat in the dead of winter - putting things by for the time to come when I’d need them.

My Geeky School Days

My family likes to remind me that as soon as I was able to string words together, I was telling my own stories, and in grammar school I began writing them down into little books crudely fashioned from stapled together construction paper. All my English teachers would put encouraging notes on my report cards, and for me, a particularly nerdy child (all knees, elbows, eyeglasses, and braces) it was a way to shine. To hold my head up a tiny bit even if I was picked last for teams at recess and P.E. In middle school I lived with a library book in my hand. Basically anxious and uncomfortable in social situations, one of my favorite things was to crawl off into a private nook and immerse myself in fabulous adventures, where there were no risks other than the hours flying by and my math homework left undone. A natural off-shoot of this voracious appetite and my love of story telling, I began to write even more, filling reams of lined paper with poems, haikus, and short stories. In high school (Cedar Shoals High in Athens, Georgia, class of ‘80) I became a contributor to a school sponsored literary magazine. One reason I had all that extra time to sit around writing was because no one ever asked me out on a date. I’m fairly certain that my social life was not enhanced by the fact that in addition to all my ceaseless writing, I raised chickens, and sheep, and showed 4-H beef steers (Perhaps had manure wedged up in the tread of my Pumas as I stepped into my classrooms). Still, I was a little sad that I turned no heads.

"Don’t worry, Julie," I consoled myself, "just follow your dreams. When you get out of here, you can write books for a living." But then, for one of those reasons that is never quite clear, except to say that I was a good little southern girl who listened when folks told her you couldn’t make a living writing books, I entered the University of Georgia’s Journalism school to earn a degree in advertising.

Writing Furtively

After graduation I landed in a string of torturous sales jobs, but still, I was a closet writer, capturing my ragged bits of history long-hand on clipboards full of notebook paper and then stashing them underneath the bed in Rubbermaid gift-wrap containers. Years passed and I married, and within three years the first two kids came along. There were many part time jobs, with money and time always a scarce commodity, but perhaps the hardest thing was that my insatiable and desperate need to create stories did not subside.

So I began to steal little "pockets of time" between chasing toddlers and dust balls to write. I wrote children’s books, as well as a novel. Impassioned and impatient, I began sending things off willy-nilly to publishers.

Beat Down Again

The first time I got a fat manila SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope) back in the mail with a rejection form letter, I was just sure that there had been some mistake. I told myself that obviously the editor had failed to read the manuscript enclosed, that probably she was on some strong type of allergy medicine when my package landed on her desk and would later regret her error when my work was accepted at the next publishing house. I did not yet realize that there is a lot of homework to be done before you submit anything, both on the writing itself and on researching the publishing houses. So, after this happened four separate times, "the wind was out of my sails" as Momma puts it, and my literary dreams faded once again.

Finally -Some Cold Hard Cash!

Life went on and I continued to write and ferret my stories away, and then, in October of 1998, my husband noticed an ad in a local entertainment magazine for a short story contest. It was co-sponsored by a small publishing house and had a cash prize. I fished a story out from my vast reservoir, dusted it off, and carried it in. One sunny morning not long after that, the phone rang. I picked it up, settled it on my shoulder, following my third and last baby as he crawled around the house, and listening as the enthusiastic male voice on the other end of the line told me that my story was "head and shoulders above" the other 60-something entries. The first thing I thought of was the hundred bucks. I’d never received a penny for my writing! He proceeded to ask me for some personal information to print along with my story and I said I was writing this particular novel. What I actually had on paper from it was one scene about an older woman, a widow, who was on a man-hunt, just months after her beloved husband was laid to rest. I had her cruising the frozen foods aisle of the super Kroger, looking for bachelors filling up their buggies with Hungry Man Dinners.

My idea was to break this poor woman’s heart again and again, and finally let her find consolation and healing outside in her vegetable garden. I pictured the farm in Armuchee as I wrote the story. My Mee-maw had been an avid gardener who worked out a lot of life’s troubles out there in the dirt. I thought of the garden as the "southern gentile’s therapist," and I was calling this novel Truelove & Homegrown Tomatoes.

Exhuming Bones with Hope & Faith

Soon after they printed my winning short story along with the little bio, I ran into the president of Hill Street Press, co-sponsor of the contest. "Bring us that novel you mentioned, Julie," he said. "We’d like to take a look at it."

"Fine. I sure will," I said calmly. But inside I was screaming "WOW! Here’s my chance!" I flew home and with the memories literally screaming through my veins, I spent every spare minute I could find in one corner of our tiny kitchen, writing Truelove & Homegrown Tomatoes out in long-hand. With each stroke of that Bic, I sought to enlarge my scene to novel proportions, and I scoured my journals and memories to find the right details: I recalled touching incidents, what was blooming or fading in the garden at the certain seasons. I smelled crushed tomato leaves mixed with warm marigolds. I let my heroine, Imogene, see the spiritual side of composting, which is that life springs from death. I figured that would cheer her up and give her hope, and so the seasons in the garden and her passage from grief to wholeness wove themselves together, and even I was startled by the insights I received.

This was all well and good, but I did not want a serious, grief-riddled book. I also wanted to make people laugh. Imo’s man-hunt was fun and I also added a conversation between the ladies of the Garden Club about Viagra and I put in the ghost of a dead wife to interfere with one of her romances.

The Miracle Finally Happens

Happily, Hill Street Press published Truelove & Homegrown Tomatoes in the spring of 2001. It became a southern best seller and they then sold the paperback rights to Simon & Schuster, who released that in August of 2003. Simon & Schuster also bought all the rights to my second novel, ‘Mater Biscuit, which became book #2 in what Simon & Schuster calls the Homegrown series. ‘Mater Biscuit hit the book shelves in April of 2004, and eager to preserve my recollections of a way of life that’s quickly evaporating, I sat down and wrote book #3, Those Pearly Gates, released in September 2005.  The Homegrown series has become for me a celebration of the gifts of my rural southern heritage. 

Moving On

My fourth novel to be published, a stand-alone tale called The Romance Readers' Book Club, Penguin-Plume, December 18, 2007, is actually the second novel I started. It was tucked safely away while I wrote the second and third novels in the Homegrown series. Currently I am finishing up my fifth novel, tentatively titled Judas That I Was. My first literary journey "off the farm", it is set in my childhood hometown of Athens, Georgia.  

Not Really Nirvana - 

More Real Truths About The Path To Publication

As you can see, not all of the highways and byways of my writing journey have been smooth. Even publication itself was not some totally fulfilling and apocalyptic experience. I wasn’t miraculously transformed. Instead, the very first time I held one of my novels, I was filled with gratitude and humility at the thought of the mountains of support from my friends and family that such a venture required, most especially my long-suffering husband, Tom. There were many times I would have thrown in the towel were it not for his belief in me.

Also, there were lots of things I did not realize were in an author’s job description. I’m happy to say that I managed to work my way through the particularly tough affliction of Laliaphobia (fear of public speaking) to go on and become a willing, eager, and competent public speaker and entertainer. Because of this I was invited to join a group of southern women writers who tour together, the Dixie Divas. Even more gratifying was when I received a red feather boa and sparkling tiara as I was crowned Tomato Queen at Georgia’s Stone Mountain Park. Guess I’ll have to wear it to my 30^th high school reunion!

Creating Worlds

I’m often asked about where my story ideas come from and generally I tell them what I told you at the top of this story. But that is not the full answer. It is a very mysterious process, even to me, when something gets transformed from an idea or thought into a story. I firmly believe the aptitude to write is a gift and entrustment from God and I take very seriously the commitment to co-create stories He won’t be ashamed of. I love country music and I once read a comment from country great Merle Haggard about his music that struck me as how I feel about my writing. He said, "Music is a positive vibration that we all need. It comes through me and I believe it comes from God. The Lord is just using me as an instrument and I’m just doing the best I can to respond to what He wants."

When I sit down to write, the story is the first thing on my agenda, but somehow my plots always seem to interweave themselves with spiritual themes - with many different angles of "the human condition" as it pertains to that mystical relationship between the Creator and the individual. I believe that I am seeking to find out truths myself as I write.