Author Interview ~ Linda Hargrove

For ten years, Linda Leigh Hargrove co-led racial reconciliation discussion groups and conducted panels on racism in the church. The former environmental engineer currently resides in North Carolina with her husband and three sons where she occasionally designs a web site. Visit her online.











What new book or project would you like to tell us about?


I’d like to tell you about my first novel, The Making of Isaac Hunt, due out this June (through Moody Publishers’ Lift Every Voice)







Tell us about your publishing journey. How long had you been writing before you got a contract? How did you find out and what went through your mind?

Seems like I’d been writing forever on this one novel, but it was only ten years. I got ‘the news’ through my agent last summer. He’d emailed me. Being a work-at-home mom with three sons, I was knee deep in little boys when his email came that day. I scanned the email while literally being pulled out the door by my kids. They were so eager to get outside and play and I was in a state of horrified shock. Like, ‘what have I gone and done now?’ I didn’t know whether to crawl up in a ball or jump for joy. My agent assured me that this was a time for jumping. It’s taken me several months but I think I’ve figured out how to do a little joy-filled jumping.

Do you still have self-doubts about your writing?

I do have serious doubts about my writing, about the way people perceive me as a writer. I’m not as confident as I would like. It seems the less I write, the more I doubt; the more I doubt, the less I write. An ugly cycle.

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

I’m not sure I can say I have a writing career yet. Web design takes up most of my work time these days. I toy with the idea of quitting that every day but it’s my bread and butter right now.

What mistakes did you make while seeking a publisher or agent?

Once upon a time I had an agent that did nothing. And since he was a new agent (who praised my writing generously every time I called him), I felt sorry for him and stayed with him for over a year while my manuscript gathered dust on his desk. In time, I wrote him a nice letter bidding him farewell and we both lived happily ever after. The End.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve heard?

Read your writing out loud.

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

Good honest criticism is hard to come by. I honestly do value someone who is able to tell me (with the love of God in their heart) ‘your writing is kind of weak right here and way too sloppy over there.’ I don’t need to be put on a pedestal and told how I glow and sparkle. I know I don’t glow and sparkle in every sentence. Tell me where I don’t and we can be friends otherwise we’re just like office acquaintances that say nice things to each other.

What do you wish you’d known early in your career that might have saved you some time and/or frustration in writing? In publishing?

I wish I’d known how to connect with other Christian writers online and in person. It wasn’t until 2000 that I knew about CBA and that there were Christian fiction writers’ conferences and online forums where I could connect with other writers. For about three years before that, I’d been trying to connect with non-Christian groups locally and had come away a little ragged and discouraged.

What are a few of your favorite books?

The Good Earth (Pearl Buck); All of the Sam Keaton Series (Sigmund Brouwer), Bride Most Begrudging (Deeanne Gist), Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned (Walter Mosley), and any of Dame Marsh’s Inspector Alleyn or Sally Wright’s Ben Reese.

What work have you done that you’re especially proud of and why?

There are a few web sites that I stick out my chest whenever someone notices, but I can’t say I have the same reaction with my writing.

Do you have a scripture or quote that has spoken to you lately in regards to your writing?

There’s one verse that speaks to me, helps me through uncertain times while writing or designing. It is 1 Corinthians 2:9. Truly I can say that I could have never conceived where God has me now. Being a web designing, adoptive mother, writer was not on my radar screen ten years ago when I started writing.

Can you give us a look into a typical day for you?

What exactly is a typical day? Okay, I’ll try to give you an example of my typical day when I get to write.

I rise by 5 am. Have time with God. Turn on the computer. Check Email. Open Word and write until 6:30 am. I wake up oldest son and go back to writing while son eats breakfast, etc. etc. Then around 7:09 am, I kiss and hug the still groggy child and shove him out the door. (We have a very prompt bus driver who comes at 7:10 am, without fail). Then I return to my office to try to squeeze in a little more writing. But by this time very hungry hubby and at least one of the other two boys are up so all writing is off until ‘quiet rest time.’

Now rest time is a golden span of time in which I get to write while the sun shines through my office window. I do my best creating in the daylight. But since I have three boys and a web design business I don’t have the luxury of watching a story develop across a sunlit computer monitor too often.

After the kids get to bed (around 8:30 pm), I’m back at the computer. It’s usually been a crazy day of running errands, washing clothes, cooking, cleaning, working web clients around the kids’ schedules, you name it. So I don’t have a creative literary thought left in me by the time the sun sets. So I rarely write at night. Nighttime works best for designing web sites (since the sun literally washes out my computer screen during the day). I do a little reading (for pleasure and research) before bed and call it a day around 11:30 pm.

I don’t do caffeine so it’s practically suicide to keep up this schedule for too long. And my family thanks me for it.

Do you have a word or page goal you set for each day?

When I participate in National Novel Writers Month (NaNoWriMo), I set my word daily goal at 1,700. I can usually exceed it. I’ve done NaNoWriMo twice. I’m like a zombie and I try not to operate heavy machinery (read: minivan) at night during the month of November. And I give myself permission to take the occasional daytime nap.

Are you an SOTP (seat of the pants) writer or a plotter?

I’m the plotter type. I plot in my head. I plot on napkins. I plot on church bulletins. I plot everywhere until it all comes together. Then I type it all out.

What author do you especially admire and why?

I admire Sigmund Brouwer. He has a wonderful range. From YA to mystery novel to historical. I really like his style. If a person could make me want to be a hockey fan, they deserve more than a little applause. Thanks, Sigmund.

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

Favorite: using words to motivate and inspire and challenge
Least Favorite: marketing

How much marketing do you do? What's your favorite part of marketing?

I’m not the marketing type, but that doesn’t exclude me from marketing. I have a writer web site and I put the URL for that on just about everything that pertains to writing.

My web clients know about my writing and my writing clients know about my web business. I think that counts as cross-marketing. I had magnets and cards made up for my new book. I plan to go on a short book tour this summer. Some of it will be with the family but most of it will be solo.

The only thing I can say that I like about marketing is that it occasionally gets me out of the house by myself, and on the road alone. And for a WAHM that’s golden.

Do you have any parting words of advice?

Turn off that useless television show and write. Then stop making excuses about not having time to write. Discipline yourself to read about writing at least 30 minutes a day and write something, anything, for 15 minutes a day. Feed your creative side. We all need to create something each day. It’s a part of us that reflects the Creator; the part that wants so much to flourish.