Debut Novelist Julie Lessman ~ Interviewed

Julie Lessman is a debut author who has already garnered writing acclaim, including ten Romance Writers of America awards. She is a commercial writer for Maritz Travel, a published poet and a Golden Heart Finalist. Julie has a heart to write “Mainstream Inspirational,” reaching the 21st-century woman with compelling love stories laced with God’s precepts. She resides in Missouri with her husband and their golden retriever, and has two grown children and a daughter-in-law. Her first book, A Passion Most Pure, will be in stores January 2008. Visit her Web site.

Click here for a review of Passion.

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

How long? Uh … four years, six months, 1 week, 4 hours and 16 minutes … or thereabout. (grin)

The “call” was almost surreal because I was in the middle of praying with my prayer partners when my cell phone rang. It was my agent, Natasha Kern, telling me wonderful things about how my book had kept several of the editors on the pub board up until the wee hours of the morning because they couldn’t put it down. I started crying and repeating everything she said so my prayer partners could hear. They were screaming and jumping in the background. I felt dazed and humbled and delirious with gratitude for God’s hand in my life.

Believe me, after 42 rejections and another publisher giving me a slice-n-dice rejection the week before, this phone call was balm to my battered soul.

What mistakes have you made while seeking publication? Or to narrow it down further, what’s something you wish you’d known earlier that might have saved you some time/frustration in the publishing business?

I wish, wish, WISH I had tried for an agent first instead of spending two years of my life trying to query on my own! Thirty-seven of the 42 rejections I received came BEFORE I signed with Natasha. In fact, I had actually pitched A Passion Most Pure (then A Chasing After the Wind) to my current editor at a conference two years prior, which, by the way, she didn’t remember! It was my agent’s reputation for excellence that finally got my manuscript a serious look.

What are a few of your favorite books?

Some of my favorites are Francine Rivers’ Redeeming Love and her Mark of the Lion series—both awesome! I absolutely love Liz Curtis Higgs’ Scottish trilogy, Fair is the Rose, Thorn in My Heart and Whence Comes a Prince, as well as Kathleen Morgan’s These Highland Hills series and Daughter of Joy. And Kristin Heitzmann’s Diamond of the Rockies series is another favorite.

Newer authors that I particularly like are Tamara Alexander, Deeanne Gist and … tada … my “Seeker” sisters, Mary Connealy, Janet Dean, Deb Giusti, Sandra Leesmith, Camy Tang, Missy Tippens and Cheryl Wyatt. The Seekers are a group of 15 contest winners who butted heads in contests SO much that we decided to form our own group for contest junkies—. All of these woman are award-winning writers, the best of the best. When we started our group two years ago, two of the 15 were newly contracted. Now, half are published/contracted, and I am quite certain the other half are close behind.

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

That would be the third book in the Daughters of Boston series, (working title A Passion Denied). It was difficult to write for a number of reasons. First of all, I hit the wall on this book because I was reading another author whose incredible talent made me feel like I wanted to puke on my keyboard whenever I read my own writing. J And secondly, because I was attempting not only to tell a very complicated and dark love story about the third daughter, but also weaving in second-tier stories about the parents and each of the other daughters.

Whenever I read a first book in a series, I generally fall in love with the hero and heroine and don’t want to say goodbye to them. So in my Daughters of Boston series, each book continues to grow and becomes more complicated and layered. As a result, I worried that book 3 would end up seeming like a bunch of disjointed stories, but everyone who has read it so far (quick prayer here!) says it’s seamless and the best of the three books. So I’m very proud of that accomplishment.

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

Well, since we are talking about “dreams” here (grin), and since more and more Inspy novels are finding their way into the movies these days, I would LOVE to see A Passion Most Pure made into a film. But more realistically speaking, I eventually hope to write a “slice-of-life” biographical fiction based on my own Catholic family of nine sisters and three brothers. I also would like to do some public speaking because God has done so much in my life based on application of Scripture, that I have a heart to spread the word (and because I’m a bit of ham (grin ).

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

Favorite part: Writing dramatic, breathless and compelling love scenes. Sigh.

Least favorite: Trying to get published. Yuck!

What is the first thing you do when you begin a new book?

Oh, without question, I write the first few lines—over and over if I have to, but that jumpstarts me into the story. You see, I’m a first-line freak, so I believe the first lines should not only hook the reader, but the writer as well, giving a glimpse at what the book is about. For instance, A Passion Most Pure is a love triangle between two sisters and the bad boy they both love, so the first line is: Sisters are overrated, she decided. Not all of them, of course, only the beautiful ones who never let you forget it.

Writing rituals, i.e. Space, location, etc.?

Yes. My tiny computer room that my artist husband and I share. It has a big window that lets in gobs of light and lots of fun distractions like chipmunks and deer (we live in a woodsy area). It’s a pretty small room, though, so most of the time, we are back to back, which is kind of nice because I like to lean back and kiss him after I put lip gloss on, which is OFTEN! Also, I always have a candle lit next to a favorite picture of us before we were married. How’s that for romantic inspiration?

(Grin) It sure works for me!

Plot, seat of pants or combination?

Oh, seat of the pants, all the way! A first line seduces me in my head, and then look out—I’m off and running!

Have you received a particularly memorable reader response?

Yes, I have, and it brought tears to my eyes! One woman who had fallen away from an intimate relationship with God read my book and told me she found herself wondering what the heroine, Faith O’Connor, would do in a given situation. She said she had never developed the habit of praying with her six-year-old boy until she read A Passion Most Pure and saw how interacting with God was as natural as breathing for the heroine. So she prayed one day with her little boy over something, and at bedtime he told her he wanted to pray some more! That’s what it’s all about for me—creating intimate relationships with God through my writing … uh, that and ROMANCE!! (grin)

Parting words?

Well, first I want to thank Novel Journey for allowing me this time to connect with your readers. In closing, I’d like to share a really cool quote that I found that some people say is attributed to Maya Angelou: “A woman’s heart should be so hidden in Christ that a man should have to seek Him first to find her.” I absolutely LOVE this quote because it is the total essence of what my debut novel, A Passion Most Pure, is all about, and I hope and pray this message will resonate with every person who picks up my book. God bless!