Barbara Warren ~ Author Interview

Barbara Warren lives on a farm in the beautiful Ozarks. She is a writer, editor, and Sunday school teacher. Her hobbies are reading and raising flowers. The Gathering Storm, her first novel, will be released from Jireh Publishers in September.

Plug time. What book or project is coming out or has come out that you’d like to tell us about?

My mystery novel, The Gathering Storm will be released in September this year. It’s set in the Ozarks where I live, close to the Missouri-Arkansas border. Stephanie Walker, the heroine had always felt rejected by her famous songwriter father, Marty Walker. When Marty is killed Stephanie becomes the main suspect and tries to solve the crime herself with the help of Brad Wilson, ex-con. The book deals with rejection, love and forgiveness, with a healthy dose of mystery.

Tell us about your journey to publication. How long had you been writing before you got the call you had a contract, how you heard and what went through your head.

It’s been a long road. I can’t remember when I first started writing. Even as a child I took a writing tablet on family trips and wrote. But then I married Charlie and I had a job and somehow writing got pushed aside. One day a local group held a writers conference in my hometown. I attended and won the humor contest and all of a sudden I had to write. I called some of the people who were at the conference and we started a writing group, which is still active. I started sending out stories and articles and sold several. Then I started working again, wrote off and on until I retired, but stopped sending anything out. Then after I quit work I finally I got serious about writing.

When I received the news that Jireh wanted to publish my manuscript I had a hard time believing it. A letter arrived in the mail saying they would send a contract in a few days.

I have enough rejection slips to paper my office. So it was very exciting.

The Gathering Storm is my first published novel, but Jireh is looking at the second in the series and I have a new project that I love. It’s a mystery about a group of women my age who talk like me and act like me. They’re bored and they decide to start a club solving murders as soon as they find one. It’s called Murder and the Sisters of the Do-Right All Faith Church. I’m having a wonderful time with it.

Do you still experience self-doubts regarding your work?

Yes. I think everyone does. Writers are a strange blend of arrogance (we believe people want to read what we write) and inferiority (we are sure no one will ever want to read what we write) When I have doubts they usually come at night when I’m tired. Then I’m sure I’ll never be able to write another word. I’m wasting my time. A real no one loves me, I’m going off and eat worms kind of mood. Then in the morning I turn on my computer and get started again. The problem is our writing is so much a part of us that we would have a hard time stopping.

What mistakes have you made while seeking publication?

I wasn’t persistent enough about marketing. You have to keep sending stuff out, keep studying to learn the craft. Accept the rejection slips as part of the business and keep trying. I love writing. I don’t love marketing, so I get lazy and that has hurt me. I’d do it differently if I had a chance to go back and start over.

What’s the best advice you’ve heard on writing/publication?

Study the markets. Get a Sally Stuart Christian Market Guide or a Writer’s Digest Market Guide, or both and study them. Look for publishers who handle the type of writing you do and target them. And I’d like to add, don’t be afraid of the small publishers who don’t pay advances. Get your foot in the door and keep trying.

What’s the worst piece of writing advice you’ve heard?

I was at a local writing conference and a brash young man was speaking. He told us to keep our group as a close community. Not open our writing groups to everyone, otherwise we’d have a lot of little old ladies in tennis shoes showing up and driving everyone crazy. Well, it doesn’t matter how old you are or how young you are, if you have the ability to write, then write and let God decide how He will use it. I’ve learned something from almost everyone I’ve met, regardless of age.
And I’d like to introduce myself. I am a “little old lady in tennis shoes.”

What’s something you wish you’d known earlier that might have saved you some time/frustration in the publishing business?

I wish I’d known more about how the publishing business actually works. All too often writers learn about the business of writing but neglect learning about the writing business, two entirely different things. We need to know both.

Do you have a scripture or quote that has been speaking to you lately?

There are so many scripture passages, which comfort me and speak to me, but the one on my editing brochure is a favorite. “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31 KJV. Those times when I have doubts I remember the Lord has promised I will fly like an eagle.

Is there a particularly difficult set back that you’ve gone through in your writing career you are willing to share?

Other than all of those rejections you mean? The funny thing about rejections, the more you get the less you mind them. They’re just a part of the writing life. When I took time off from writing to go back to work I had a difficult job, managing a deli in a grocery chain. I worked nine hours a day, but I had limited work hours to use with my employees, so if they didn’t show up I usually ended up working their shift too. By the end of the day I was too tired to write. After I quit work and started writing again and it was very difficult to pick up where I had left off. It was like starting over from the beginning. Since then I’ve tried to write something every day. Our writing muscles are like the rest of our muscles, they grow slack when we don’t use them.

What are a few of your favorite books?

I’m a great fan of the late Ann George. Her Southern Sisters mysteries like Murder Carries the Torch, Murder on a Bad Hair Day, Murder on a Girls’ Night Out, and Murder Boogies with Elvis, were the inspiration for my own Do-Right Sisters. Her books may be out of print now but I think they’re still available on Amazon.

I like Tony Hillerman’s Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn mysteries.

Anything by Hannah Alexander and Lori Copeland. And since I’ve started doing book reviews I’ve discovered so many great Christian writers. I’ve particularly enjoyed Judith Miller’s Freedom’s Path series and Kacy Barnett Gramckow The Genesis Trilogy. I could list a ton of others. All of the books I’ve reviewed were good and I enjoyed them very much. Christian Fiction has come a long way the last few years. I buy very few secular books anymore, and those are writers I’m familiar with and like.

What piece of writing have you done that you’re particularly proud of and why?

This is going to sound rather strange. But I used to do Children’s Church on Sunday morning and I wrote my own lessons. They are very simple, but I enjoyed them and the children I taught really seemed to like them. Those lessons used to teach godly principles to young children stands out as something special and important to me. They never earned me a cent and never will, but I believe God used them in His own way. I put the lessons in book form and handed them out to the Sunday school teachers in my church and they are still using them today.

Do you have a pet peeve having to do with this biz?

Okay, this is going to sound very petty. Sometimes, because we’re writing for the Christian market, we can get the feeling that our stories came straight from God wrapped up in tissue paper and tied with a red ribbon. That attitude can affect our growth as writers. God gave the talent and it’s our job to learn all we can about writing, to constantly grow as writers. We should never stop striving to be better with every thing we write. It’s not glorifying God to do bad writing in his name.

I have an editing business, Blue Mountain Editorial Service, and ever time I get a manuscript with the words that “God gave me this. It practically flowed and I know it is inspired.” I cringe, because I know I’m in trouble. Any correction I make will offend. Because you see the writer didn’t write that. God did. And who am I to critique God’s writing. At a writer’s conference, an editor from Guideposts addressed this problem. She quoted from a reply she got from a rejection letter. “How dare you reject my manuscript? God dictated that. Don’t you recognize His writing?”

Funny, but a warning to each of us. If we write for the Christian market, we need to do the very best we can at that point in our writing career, but never be satisfied with our best. Keep learning, keep growing, and keep on getting better. God will bless our efforts.

Can you give us a view into a typical day of your writing life?

I start by checking my e-mail right after breakfast. Then if I have a free morning, which doesn’t come all that often, I’m at my computer, writing or editing until eleven. I try to be back at the computer by one thirty and work on my manuscript, or some one else’s, or on my newsletter, until six. Then after dinner I sit at the kitchen table and do editing or work on my own manuscript using my Alpha Smart, or read books to be reviewed. I know that’s more than most writers can manage, but I’m retired, have no children, live on a farm, and hate to shop. So I have more time than most. Also I read fast and can write fast and that helps.

If you could choose to have one strength of another writer, what would it be and from whom?

Oh my. I need so much. Could I just have a smorgasbord, take a little here and a bit more there? I think every writer I read helps me in some way. I get an idea for a story of my own, I learn a bit more about characterization, or how to develop a scene. I really believe we learn more from reading other writers than we do from reading books on writing. So I’m not sure I can answer that question by naming one writer. So many people have helped me in so many ways.

Do you have a dream for the future of your writing, something you would love to accomplish?

Well again, this is off the wall. I have a humor/ inspirational book, non-fiction, I’d like to see published. I’ve sent it out and people like it very much but it doesn’t fit their list. I teach a woman’s Sunday school class, and the book has most of the principles I’ve taught over the years, linked with funny stories about real people. I’d like to see it published. But God knows about it and if He wants it published, He’ll open up a way.

Was there ever a time in your writing career you thought of quitting?

No. I get discouraged, but I don’t think I could quit. My head is too full of stories and ideas. No matter how much I might want to quit, I think I’d still have to pick up a pen and put words on paper.

What is your favorite and least favorite part of being a writer?

My favorite part is rewriting. Once the story is down on paper I enjoy reading through it and making changes. That’s when the story really comes alive. My least favorite part? I suppose sending proposals out and waiting to hear. I got a rejection on a story the other day that had been out so long I had forgotten sending it out.

How much marketing do you do? Any advice in this area?

I’m a newbie at marketing. I’ve read everything I can find about marketing and it seems to me that the most important part, other than getting stores to handle your book, is name recognition. I know when I go to a bookstore, the names I recognize jump off the shelf at me, and those are the ones I reach for first. All we can do to get our names out there helps. Interviews like this one gives us a chance to show people what we’re like and maybe they’ll remember. Another thing I’ve learned is to thank everyone for everything they do for me. The other day I did an edit of a proposal for a writer. It didn’t take long. A few days later a lovely bouquet of flowers was delivered to my door. You can bet I’ll remember that writer’s name. But I also remember the ones who thank me for doing book reviews or putting their news in my newsletter. That’s one thing we can all do and it doesn’t cost a thing.

Parting words?

I really want to thank you for interviewing me. People like you do so much to promote others and I really appreciate it. And I’d like to say, never get discouraged if you don’t seem to be going anywhere. Just keep writing, keep learning, keep entering contests and sending stuff out. Never give up. There are more quitters than failures in this business. Do your best and God will do the rest.