Patty Froese Ntihemuka - Author Interview

Novels:
Mary: Call Me Blessed
Mary and Martha
The Woman at the Well

Website: http://pattyfroese.com

> What made you want to be a writer?

I've always wanted to be a writer. It doesn't make financial sense to write. You get paid is little chunks that are never enough to cover the bills, it seems, and you certainly can't count on a regular pay cheque! But I have to write. It's a need I have. If I don't write, it feels like a gear in my head starts to grind, and I need to express myself creatively in order to get back to normal. I've heard it said that writers don't retire, they die, and I think I can understand that. I'll keep writing, even after I stop making sense! It's not about "the job" so much as "the need."

> In the books you’ve written, who is you favourite character and why?

I think my favorite character so far is Nilloufar from "The Woman at the Well." She is the woman who meets Jesus at the well. She had five husbands and is living with a man. In Biblical times, this was horrific. She was really fun to write because she is such a survivor! She might go through men, but she doesn't let them ruin her. She isn't "good" or virtuous in any way, but she doesn't just get run under, either. She does what she needs to do to keep going. Getting into her head was really cathartic because I could experience her passion and drive without having to tame her down to keep her "good" in the cultural view. I loved that!

> If you could, would you change places with any of your characters?

Not a chance! I do horrible things to my characters. I break their hearts, I mess with their love lives, I dash their hopes, I marry them off to inappropriate people... No, I would never change places with them! Drama is great to read about, safely in a book. I wouldn't want that kind of drama in my real life!

> What was the first novel (published or unpublished) that you wrote and how long did it take to write it?

The first novel I wrote was called "Love on the Links." It was a romance novel, and it was truly terrible. As you might have guessed, it remains (thankfully) unpublished. It took me about six weeks to write it. While it was a terrible piece of work, it taught me a lot about planning a novel and writing it. I was also very proud of myself to have finished an entire novel. It was an achievement!

> What was the hardest scene for you to write?

The crucifixion of Jesus. I hate violence, and the Romans were some pretty brutal people when it came to executions. Having to focus on the torture was difficult for me. In fact, I almost abandoned the book I was writing because of it. I ended up finishing the book, but it didn't get accepted. It might have been that the readers could feel my discomfort with the topic. I'll certainly never attempt that scene again! There are too many ways to get around it...

> Share an interesting fan story.

The only time I have ever received fan mail, it was a package that someone sent to my publisher and asked that they redirect to me. In this package, the person had photocopied pieces of articles that someone else had written, and they highlighted the highly racist parts, in essense telling me that I was a bad person for having married a person of a different race from me. I was really shaken by the experience. It still makes my heart pound a little bit to think about it!

> If you still have one, what’s your day job? If you don’t, how long did it take before you could support yourself only on your writing?

I have worked all sorts of different day jobs. I tended to work part time so that I could focus on my writing. I've worked retail, worked as a bank teller, managed a retail store, and worked as an interior decor consultant. When I had my son, I quit working outside the home to be a mom and write whenever I could squeeze the time in. At this point, I probably make the same amount of money I did at a part time job. However, I'm pretty confident that I can get that up to a full time income with freelance work once my son is in school.

> What is your university degree in?

English Lit.

> Any tips against writers block?

Nope. Sometimes, if I have a deadline coming up, I don't have the luxury of writer's block. Other times, I watch entire seasons of TV shows, episode after episode, until I either finish the entire show, or feel guilty enough to get back to work and produce something that will make me some money!

> How many rejection letters did you get for your fist novel or story?

I actually don't approach things in a traditional way. I picked a market (for me the Christian market) and then picked a publisher and researched what they wanted. My options were limited, since most publishers want an agent. Then I just kept writing piece after piece until they finally accepted something. I think I sort of battered them down, after a while! It worked for me... What can I say?

Writing

Yesterday's determination to start writing daily stayed with me. So, this morning I sat myself down at my computer - and though a few things tried to distract me - I managed to stay in my chair and write/revise chapter 1 of my novel!

It's a great feeling, knowing I'm working towards my goals again! Here's to keeping up the good work! ^_^

Procrastinating Again

An author friend of mine recently recontacted me. She asked how writing was going and I wrote back all sorts of excuses as to why I wasn't writing. Good excuses. Logical excuses. But excuses all the same. It's time I buck up and start writing again.

So I took a walk. I used to walk everywhere in Toronto, and since I knew where I was going this gave my mind time to wander, to go over problems in my novel, work out plot points, characterization and even craft entire scenes. I lost that. First by getting a bicycle and then by getting an MP3 player. I lost my thinking/planning time. It's time to get that back. So I went for a walk. It was supposed to be a quick walk, from which I'd come back invigorated and ready to work. It turned into a 2 hour walk and I got back exhausted (but with 2 cheap but nice shirts!). Wow, procrastination strikes again.

I did buy a calendar which I intend to use the plastic holder for making a daily schedule. I've wanted to get back into this habit and it hasn't happened. The idea is to plan out your day, hour by hour to show that you have time to both write and get all the other work done you need to. Yes, it means less websurfing and doing all those things that make hours vanish. But writing happens - and that's the important thing because writing gives me a great sense of accomplishment and makes me happy the rest of the day. What I need to do now is find a good new writing time. Writing in the morning doesn't work for me anymore. I used to work at night but with my husband coming home then that won't work either. The late afternoon is when I tend to feel tired so... That's why I went to mornings. But somewhere in the day is enough time to write 100, 250, 1000 words. And I need to find and use that time.

So my new goal is to make a writing schedule. If I have to juggle things from day to day until I find the time that's best for my writing that's ok. So long as I get some writing done, every weekday, in the meantime. The only way to be a writer is to write!

Kristine Kathryn Rusch has a 'Freelancer's Guide', that I stumbled across today in which she has a lot of great information. I'd highly recommend the posts on discipline and priorities.

Her husband, Dean Wesley Smith, has some excellent posts about writing as well. Time, and how much is needed per day to write a novel if you want to get technical. And his post on setting goals.

Time management for writers

A few years ago I went to Ad Astra and heard what was probably the best writing advice for someone like me (by which I mean someone with a lot of time but also a lot of 'projects', housework, etc with which to occupy myself). That ideas was: planning your time.

The speaker showed how if you plan your week - writing down all the chores, work, your writing time and actually allotting time for other projects, you can see how much time you have and GET EVERYTHING DONE. I tried it when completing my chick lit. Up until then I had the idea that chores should be done first, while realizing that by the time my chores were done I was too tired to write and ended up reading and doing other things with the rest of my day. By scheduling chore time into the day I could see that I had the time to write - when I was most awake and excited - AND time to do chores and other things. As an 'achiever', someone who needs to check things off my to do list in order to feel like I'm accomplishing something, it made writing time something I could schedule in as a necessity rather than a hobby. It became work - and work to be done before all my other work. I also learned I didn't need to rush myself when writing. I could spend an hour or more before moving onto daily chores because THE TIME WAS THERE.

I've been trying to get back into the habit of scheduling my time again. Not only did I waste less of it by surfing the internet or watching TV, I also get a lot more writing done.

Writer's Block

I've always assumed that writer's block only referred to that time when you sit down at your computer and stare at the white page in front of you. You want to write. You just can't seem to get started.

But writer's block can also be that time when you have no motivation to write at all. When you feel that novel you want to write weighing on you. I read once that a project like a novel is so large that it takes your brain a while to accept that you're actually going to try it. Until it can accept that fact, it simply stares blankly at the screen, waiting for something to happen.

I recently went through a period of this. I think in some way it's a good thing. It clears your mind. Allows you to do other work that might distract you once you get the 'inspiration' you're looking for. I've noticed in my own writing there are times when I feel the NEED to write - when the story WANTS to be told and I have to work on that novel every day in order to get it out of my system and into the world. That's when I do my best writing. When I know where the story is going and how to get there. If I'm not in one of those 'phases' writing is a chore. It's dull and uninspired. It's boring - both to write and read. I've found it's best to wait out those 'dry' periods while my brain works itself around whatever issue with the story is causing problems and start writing when my brain clicks back into knowing what to do and how to do it.

In the mean time, there's lots of other things to keep me occupied.

Show Don't Tell

This is the advice given to most writers when it comes to, well, everything. Telling your audience that the protagonist likes to eat pizza on the weekend isn't as effective as having the person simply order the pizza and enjoy eating it while watching TV.

I just read a post by Paperback Writer, where she relates a story that happened to her in a restaurant. She'd recently had surgery and her eye was affected by it. Her waitress believed - due to the 'shown' information, that her husband had hit her and treated the couple accordingly. Paperback Writer concludes with the moniker that we need to be aware that our readers may not see our hints the way we intend, and that sometimes we need to tell to get the right message across.

This actually brings up a different question for me. How much of stereotypes, how much misinformation about people, races, cultures, religions is due to literature showing rather than telling? We've been trained to take a few pieces of often disjointed information and pull together a so called composite picture from that.

If you saw a woman, sitting with her back to the room at a restaurant, wearing sun glasses that - once removed - prove she's sporting a black eye, what conclusion would you jump to?

What about the black man standing in line behind you, one hand in his coat pocket, obviously covering something? Would your first thought be that he's holding his wallet because it's a bad neighbourhood? Or would you think it was a gun - because that's the stereotype we've been trained to assume is the truth?

How about the Muslim woman wearing the hajib. Do believe she's wearing it because her husband is forcing her to or because she's a pious woman who honestly prefers it?

And why are we too afraid and ashamed to ask and discover the truth?

I'll never forget reading Black Like Me by John Griffin. I shook my head at a lot of the racist slurs being perpetrated against the African American population as described in his book. Growing up in Canada, born after the civil rights movement ended, I had never heard these things before. Nor had I realized how many people believed such slurs to be the truth. Or how many people continue to perpetuate such insidious lies rather than discover - or accept - the truth. The truth that people are inherently all the same. We have the same needs: food, shelter, heat and love, the same wants: to provide for our families, be successful and find happiness.

Maybe we need to discover a better way of writing. One that doesn't require jumping to conclusions. Or perhaps we need to realize that jumping to conclusions about characters in a novel is harmless - while doing the same with real people can be devastating.

Book Expo America 2009

I just came back from BEA in New York City. It's a forum for new ideas, mixing publishers, booksellers and more in conference sessions and a trade show. And boy, did it ever give me ideas. I'll be busy with my scififanletter blog over the next few weeks, but I intend to start planning and writing my novel in conjunction with that, so stay tuned for what I hope will become regular posts.