The Antebellum Period and My Latest Novel "Unwilling Warrior"

The following article appeared on Romantic Times Daily Blog May 12, 2010
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I’ve been enthralled with the antebellum era ever since I was a girl in junior high. I toured the battlefields of Gettysburg and Vicksburg with my family – and my father, a Civil War enthusiast. I imagined myself a Southern young lady, hoping, praying that our soldiers would come back safely from battle. (I even wrote that last line with a Southern drawl in my head!) Southern chivalry enchanted me. Old fashioned, gentlemanly manners were something I never experienced, growing up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin during the 1960 and early 1970s.

It was during that same time in my life that my family and I visited friends in the New Orleans area. The memories of those trips will linger in my memory forever. We toured sprawling plantations. While I shunned the use of slavery and abhorred the abuse that many human beings suffered under their masters’ heavy hands, it didn’t stop me from appreciating the beauty of those majestic places. The wide lawns, tall oaks, weeping willows…and the verandahs. As an awkward pre-teen, I pictured myself all grown up, wearing a silk ball gown with its full hoop skirt, accepting the hand of a gallant young man. Together we’d waltz across the mansion’s polished ballroom floor.

And then I saw the movie Gone With The Wind (only about 49 times since) I knew I was in love with the antebellum period. Years later, being a writer, I naturally felt compelled to set a story in the Old South.

My novel Unwilling Warrior (Realms Fiction) is that book. The War Between the States has begun about six months prior to the story’s opening, and the heroine, Valerie Fontaine is frightened about her future. She never suspects she’ll be thrust into the middle of the conflict. Meanwhile the hero of the story, Benjamin McCabe, embraces a noble dream of photographing the Civil War – and he never expected to fall in love with a New Orleans socialite.

As a young mother, I read Kathleen E. Woodiwiss’s Ashes in the Wind. The novel is one of my favorite stories of all time. I fell in love with the handsome Yankee Army surgeon and sympathized with the deceitful Southern girl on a mission who blossomed into a beautiful woman. I knew I wanted to write a story just as powerful and beloved.

And yet, one that was very different from both GWTW and AITW.

In 1991, I gave my heart to Jesus Christ. Soon after, I realized I was call to write Christian romance. My world changed. My writing changed. But my desire to write a romance set during the Civil War remained.

In 1994 my first novel was published. A grand attempt. But due to word length constraints, the story was only a shadow of what I really had wanted to create.

Sixteen years later, I was given my chance to write the story that’s lurked in my heart for nearly four decades. Unwilling Warrior is the result.

In researching the antebellum period for my book I read A Diary of Dixie by Mary Chestnut and Sarah Morgan’s The Civil War Diary of a Southern Woman. I also studied books about photography and purchased Mathew Brady’s Civil War, a collection of photographs from the Civil War. I discovered that not everyone in New Orleans was a staunch Southerner back in 1862. My heroine Valerie Fontaine’s father is such a character. When he is arrested on charges of treason, Benjamin secures a way for her to leave the city and travel to his family’s home in Jericho Junction, Missouri where she’ll be safe.

Worlds collide in my book – the North and the South, of course, but also city life verses prairie life – as well as good and evil. My heroine, Valerie, has only known New Orleans’s high society. The soirees there were just as grand as anything in Scarlet O’Hara attended in Atlanta. But whereas Scarlet never left Georgia (and the Atlanta area), my character flees Louisiana and travels to a fictional town west of St. Louis called Jericho Junction. Valerie suffers the usual culture shock and then faces an adversary more chilling than Yankee or Confederate troops. Like Woodiwiss’s character Alaina MacGaren, my heroine adapts to a new land and a new life in order to hold fast to her new found love. There are similarities – and yet my novel is very, very different.

Unwilling Warrior is wrought from a childhood fantasy and encouraged by the classics and years of research. It captures the easy dignity of the antebellum era, the mayhem of the Civil War, and the simplicity of the prairie. But more, it’s an enduring love story of two people caught up somewhere in the middle.

Marketing Takes Time - Part II

Last week I did an Internet radio interview with Lori Twichell and now it's up on the Fiction Addict web site. Click here to listen to radio interview

The one thing that I can say for sure is I had fun! Lori made me feel at ease as we talked about one of my favorite subjects - writing -- as well as my new release Unwilling Warrior

Marketing isn't fun if there's too much pressure involved. So many times as writers we put too much stress on our shoulders as we paticipate in Internet interviews and guest appearances. I've learned that if I can releax and enjoy myself things go much smoother.

So how does one go about relaxing before appearing on TV or live radio or pod-casts?

Praying just before I go on helps a lot. I ask God to help me watch my words. I ask Him to keep me calm and attentive. I tend to chatter, so I ask the Lord to help me  be precise with my replies.

Other helps might include preparing for the interview or blog tour. If it's television, be sure to know what you're going to wear (right down to the accessories) the night before. If radio, write down a few talking points. You'll feel confident if you're prepared.

Stretching before the appearance is a good way to relax or listening to soft music during the ride to the TV station. Reading the Bible as you wait off stage or at home before the radio/blog interview. The Book of Psalms is marvelous for calming the nerves.

These are some to the tips I've gathered and in the next few months you can be sure I'll put them to use.

Marketing one's book takes time and I don't just mean time spent waiting for the end results. I'm referring to all the time spent during the day. Marketing is time-consuming. But there's a balance and at some point a writer has to say, "Okay, I've done all I can humanly do. The rest is up to God."

Then it's on to writing that next best-selling book!

Marketing Takes Time

It's weird when the book reviews begin surfacing on the Net. I always pray that I'll be able to handle the good, the bad, and the ugly. So far, the reviews I've seen for my novel Unwilling Warrior have been good -- even excellent. In fact last week received a 4-start review from the Romantic Times magazine. The good review made the RT Interviewer asked me to write something about the Antibellum era. If you'd like to read the post I wrote for RT and leave a comment, please click here

Others also have written reviews for me. In fact I was the "wildcard" pick on Monday. If you'd like to see this wonderful review See more, click here

This afternoon I did a radio show that's affiliated wtih Fiction Addicts. There's a super review from Lori Twichell. http://fictionaddict.com/category/book-reviews/romance/
Just click on the link and scroll down. My novel's review is just below Melody Carlson's book.

In the days and weeks to come I'll be posting more about this topic of marketing. It's more than getting good reviews and a lot of efforts done today won't be seen until months from now. Marketing does take time.