Laurie Beach Talks Plains, Parenthood, and Publication
Via After the Plains podcast. Many thanks to Auburn University student, Ellie Morgan.
Laurie’s Visit To Nan Reinhardt’s Blog
You know, I adore Southern fiction and discovering debut Tule Publishing author Laurie Beach feels like a gift from the universe. I’m full of joy to welcome Laurie to the Author Spotlight today.
Laurie Beach is a former news reporter, advertising producer, and political press secretary who, after raising four children, is parlaying her love of reading and writing into a career as an author. She is a sucker for elderly people, grumpy animals, and happy endings. Having grown up in Alabama, she loves novels set in the South. Laurie now lives in California with her husband and their spoiled old dog.
Click here for Nan's blog!
N: Welcome to the blog, Laurie. I’m so delighted to have you with us today. So, opening question, what comes first—characters or plot?
A: Thank you so much, Nan! I’m thrilled to be here, and I am a big fan of yours. Okay, characters or plot? For me, it’s neither, really. I tend to begin with the setting, (I’m in love with the South Carolina Low Country), and from there I begin to conjure up a story, and usually, the characters come last.
N: Your new novel, The Firefly Jar just released on April 27. Tell us how that story came about.
A: The Firefly Jar began with a location. My freshman year of college, I visited the Tom Yawkey Wildlife Preserve off the coast of Georgetown in South Carolina. That visit changed my life. I fell in love with an alligator named Grover, loggerhead sea turtles, Spanish moss dripping from centuries-old oaks, and the shrimping, crabbing, rich-with-history, down-home lifestyle of the sea islands. I knew I wanted to write something set there, but wasn’t sure how. I had the idea that there were similarities between the Regency era as portrayed in Jane Austen’s books, and the old societal rules of the deep South. So, I deconstructed Pride and Prejudice into an outline and used that to begin. From there, the book took on a life of its own.
N: What is the most surprising thing you discovered about yourself while writing The Firefly Jar?
A: That I am actually capable of completing a novel! I didn’t begin with a wish to be published, I merely wanted to see if I had it in me to get it done. The Firefly Jar was my first novel, and the one I revised a gazillion times as I used it to learn and improve through online writing groups, coaching, and classes.
N: Can you speak to the whole concept of Southern fiction because it really is a genre unto itself.
A: Southern fiction is either set in the South or written by someone from the South, and it typically includes the dialect and cultural references. I was raised in Alabama (from second grade through college) and my books are set in South Carolina, so I guess that means my books qualify twice! I have always been drawn to Southern fiction because it tends to emphasize strong family ties and an appreciation for the outdoors. My three favorite works of Southern fiction are To Kill A Mockingbird, The Help, and Where The Crawdads Sing.
N: Give me three words to describe your heroine Charlotte Sinclair and three to describe your hero Will Rushton.
A: Charlotte: smart, hardworking, wounded
Will: family-oriented, ambitious, compassionate
N: What do you hope your readers will take away from this book?
A: I hope my readers enjoy the story and are subtly reminded to reach out and include others, especially people who are new to town. It only takes one person to make a big difference in someone’s sense of belonging and community. We need each other.
N: What is the most difficult part about writing for you?
A: Getting started! Once I’m in “the flow,” it’s easy. I need to learn to write first instead of looking at social media, because I end up getting sucked in and waste way too much time!
N: In your life, you were a reporter, an advertising producer, and a political press secretary. How do those previous careers influence your writing.
A: Those careers were heavy with writing, but in a way that required a person to be succinct. It was really good practice for me.
N: Writing can be an emotional, stressful pursuit. Any tips for aspiring writers?
A: In a word: perseverance. It has been more than fifteen years since I wrote The Firefly Jar, and I received at least fifty rejections from agents along the way. In the meantime, I tried writing in various genres. I’ve written historical fiction, middle grade magical realism, and several other women’s fiction novels that I haven’t attempted to get published yet. All of that practice helped so much with the novels that come after The Firefly Jar in the Crickley Creek Series.
N: What did you want to be when you grew up?
A: A mother. And it is still the most difficult and most rewarding job I’ve ever been blessed enough to undertake.
N: Favorite book when you were a kid?
A: I loved I Had Trouble In Getting To Solla Sollew by Dr. Suess so much that my dad made a cassette recording of himself reading it for me. Later, I couldn’t get enough of the Laura Ingalls Wilder series, and every Judy Blume book ever written. In high school, I was first in line for each new Danielle Steel novel. In later years, I fell in love with Pat Conroy and Nicholas Sparks. Now, I enjoy reading every author in the Southern women’s fiction genre.
N: And here is my signature question that everyone loves: If you could choose three people, living or dead, to invite to a dinner party, who would they be and why?
A: This question is impossible to answer. There are so many living people I would love to meet! But, if I’m going to stick to the rules, I would choose my deceased mother, my deceased brother, and Jesus. I have a feeling we would have a lovely dinner party and there would certainly be hugs, questions, and tears. Maybe wine, too.
Book Notions Q&A
Q&A With Laurie Lokken Reese
Today’s Q&A is with Laurie Lokken Reese who writes under the name Laurie Beach. I was connected through Laurie through Jane Porter who I recently did a Q&A with. Laurie is the author of The Crickley Creek series. The first novel in the series is The Firefly Jar, followed by Blink Twice If You Love Me, and Christmas in Crickley Creek is book 3.
Q: What made you want to write women’s fiction? When in your life did you realize your calling was to be an author?
A: I love these questions! I can answer both of them with a brief story.
When my twins began kindergarten, my husband gave me what might be the best advice I’ve ever received. He said, “You are being given the gift of time. Do something with it that you’ve always wanted to do.”
What did I want to do? Did I have a calling outside of being a mother? I wasn’t sure. But my mind immediately went to an experience I had my freshman year of college–one that lit up my imagination and stuck with me through the years. Whatever my calling was, it had to do with a small island preserve off the coast of Georgetown, South Carolina, that I’d visited when I was eighteen. I wanted to live there–not literally, but in my mind. I’d just lost my mother to breast cancer, and I craved a beautiful escape, a place where I had complete control–a place where alligators had names and shrimp dinners were a net-cast away.
So, I had the setting, but I needed characters and a plot. At the time, I was obsessed with Jane Austen. I’d read all of her books and many of the spin-offs. I deconstructed Pride and Prejudice into an outline and filled it in with my own characters. That framework got me started on The Firefly Jar, but the story quickly took on a life of its own. It was the first time I truly experienced the delicious, inexplicable magic of writing. Now, I don’t want to live without it.
Q: What is your advice to anyone who wants to write a series and on how to keep it going? How do you deal with writers block and what advice do you give to anyone who deals with the same problem?
A: I feel fortunate that Tule Publishing asked for a series with a different protagonist in each book. I don’t know for sure, since I haven’t done it before, but I feel like writing three books starring the same character might be more difficult. I was able to pull a secondary character from my first novel and write a completely new story from that person’s perspective. The old characters still play roles, the books are set in the same place, but there is also a whole new batch of characters to meet. It is so much fun to pluck a character from the background and create a big, interesting life for them.
As far as writer’s block, I have two tricks that I use to spark ideas. First, whenever something strikes me as interesting, I write it in the Notes app on my phone. I’ll give you some examples of what I’ve added recently:
*He chews on toothpicks all the time
*His password is her name
*Like a true Southern girl, serenely smiling while panicking on the inside
*Woman wearing white in a movie will be shot
If I’m struggling with where to go with a scene, usually I can pull up my Notes app and find some little detail that will help keep it going. If that doesn’t work, I resort to my second trick: put the manuscript away and pick up another author’s book. Reading books written by others is infinitely inspiring. In a way, all authors are thieves. If everything has truly been done before, why not take something old and rework it to be fresh and new again? Most of the time, all a writer needs is the smallest detail to get the work back on the track and running full-out to the finish line.
Q: Is it fair to say that the characters in your series are based off of anyone you know in real life? I love it when authors create characters and places based off of places they’ve been and people they know.
A: Absolutely! In my opinion, taking pieces of personality traits from people I know, or putting my characters in situations that I have personally experienced, is not just fun, but cathartic. Most of the names a reader finds in my books are those of people I know and love. The scene in The Firefly Jar where Charlotte recounts the death of her mother is taken directly from my own experience. In the second book, Blink Twice If You Love Me, the personality of Johnny strongly resembles my husband’s.
In the end, though, all of the characters are an amalgam of people I know mixed with movie or book characters that appealed to me in some way. There are some mean and wretched figures I’ve written that I’m grateful to say are not actually a part of my life!
Q: Does Hollywood have the rights to any of your novels?
A: I’m just beginning my journey as an author. The Firefly Jar is my debut novel. Thanks to my editor at Tule, I have heard a rumor that there is Hollywood interest in book three, my Christmas book, but nothing has come of it at this point. Fingers crossed!
Q: What’s your advice to anyone who is a new writer dealing with negative feedback whether it’s from bad reviews, online trolls and family and friends who are unsupportive of their writing goals?
A: Honestly, I’m the one who is about to need advice on this subject! I know that my books won’t be appreciated by everyone. I know there will be bad reviews, haters, and trolls. When my book launches on April 27, I expect I will learn on the fly how to deal with them. I hope that I will be able to keep the hate in perspective by remembering that the important people in my life are my friends and family. If someone I don’t know is simply spewing hate, I intend to ignore it. If someone has criticism that is useful, I plan to use that to continue to improve both myself and my writing. So far, my friends and family have been incredibly, fantastically supportive. If they ever stop being that way, I will have to take an honest look at what I’m doing because I trust and value their opinions.
My stories tend to be generally positive with good lessons learned and satisfying endings. I’m counting on the majority of readers finding them uplifting and entertaining. Still, I should probably work on growing that proverbial thick skin between now and my launch date!
Where to Begin
My husband hasn’t read any of my books. He would have if I’d let him. But it has taken me years to cultivate that one little thing that makes all the difference: confidence. I didn’t want him to think I had no talent, or that all the time I spent writing was a waste.
If I could go back and tell myself one thing, it would be this: Just because you fear your writing isn’t good, doesn’t mean it’s bad. Write anyway.
Here’s how I began:
I tried to write a story based on Scout from To Kill A Mockingbird. It was terrible. I decided to never try again. Then, a teacher told me I was a good writer.
I tried again.
I attempted to write a romance. It was embarrassing. I told myself I’d never write again. Then, I made a speech at my little brother’s funeral and the pastor asked me if I was a writer.
I wrote again.
I needed to know if I had it in me to write a whole book, and told myself that even if it was terrible, at least I would know that I could do it. I wrote when time and children allowed, oftentimes having to go back and reread my own story to remember the details.
I wrote the book.
It wasn’t enough.
Once the book was written, I wanted it to be good. I joined writing clubs, took online classes, and shared my books with other writers—I critiqued their work and they critiqued mine. I hired a writing coach. In my spare time, I read books on writing, I read books in the genre I enjoyed, and I obsessively learned the craft of writing. You must learn point of view, tense, character development, and so much more. If you think you don’t have time to obsessively learn something, let me add a caveat: I learned when I had the time. I was raising children. Months would go by when I didn’t have the time or energy to do anything for myself. But the desire remained. I subscribed to Writer’s Digest magazine and it would often take me until the next issue to get through it. I learned in fits and spurts. I wasn’t waking up at 5am and writing every day. I was doing what I could within the parameters of my responsibilities and emotional bandwidth. I simply kept at it.
Finally, the book was good.
That still wasn’t enough.
Now I had a good book, but sending the manuscript to friends and family via email or printed out and tied together with ribbons wasn’t fulfilling. I needed to know if I could actually get published.
I sent hundreds of query letters to literary agents, and received hundreds of rejections. I attended conferences and pitched agents in person. I got a few requests for the entire manuscript, and ultimately, more rejections. I learned that there are many reasons for an agent to pass, and it isn’t always the quality of your work. First, their list might be full. Second, they may have a book like yours already. Third, they may have a standard “the book must make me cry twice” rule, or some such thing. Fourth, there are as many reasons for passing on a book as there are reasons to refuse a second date with that guy who is really great, just not your type. Most often, the agent never even looks at the manuscript.
So, how did I find my publisher? A friend. I’ve been letting friends read my books for years. This particular friend had a high school buddy who began a small traditional publishing house years ago. This friend of a friend had her editors read my manuscript and made me an offer. A three-book offer!
We’ve all heard the saying that it’s about who you know, and that has been proven true in this case. But it’s also true that perseverance pays off. I’ve been working at this for more than 13 years, and am just now seeing some success.
So, where to begin? Start writing. And, then? Get feedback, share your work, and never, ever give up.
The Best Advice
It was a summer day in Bakersfield. Red and purple drops of melted Otter Pops dotted my patio, inviting ants. My three grumpy, sweaty kids clamored to walk down to the pool again, to splash around for the second time on that sweltering day. I suggested an indoor craft project, willing to take on a sticky, glittery mess in order to stay inside with the air conditioning. One child was game, one insisted on swimming, and the other was in a fighting mood and fully prepared to loudly dash anyone’s plans, especially mine.
When my husband came home, in those days around 6:30pm, I forced myself to smile at him. It wasn’t easy. All I wanted was for him to see on my face how hard the day had been, how exhausted I was. He changed clothes, and it was time for dinner and a show. There was always some sort of singing, dancing or shenanigans for our nightly entertainment, or exasperation, depending on how we looked at it.
Kindergarten was starting in the Fall, and with my twins in school, I would, for the first time in seven years, have time to myself during the day. I was looking forward to getting the grocery shopping done without little ones hungry for everything, and to taking a shower without worrying about what they were doing. I was about to fill those free hours with duties. But my husband saw the bigger picture. “You are being given the gift of time,” he said. “Do with it something that you’ve always wanted to do.”
I didn’t see the brilliance in his pronouncement at the time, but I do now. First, doing something for yourself is self-care. Moms need to incorporate this into their busy lives. It’s important. Second, having an artistic outlet is really good for our mental health. And third, by creating something and using one of my gifts, I found an identity outside of being a wife and mother. I was a writer. I needed that.
Thanks to my husband, my writing journey began 13 years ago. Today, just weeks before my twins graduate from high school, I signed my first publishing deal. My advice to you is: Find the time to do something you love. Make your creative self a priority. Who knows what will happen when you do something you’ve always dreamt of doing? Maybe something great. Maybe something life-changing. Definitely something worthwhile.