Ask the Author: Lee Carver
Answered Questions (7)
Lee Carver
Yes, my husband took early retirement from Citibank in Brazil, and we served for 6 1/2 years in the Brazilian Amazon. We'd been praying for a clear mandate for about ten years, and then everything came together perfectly. You can read the story in the nonprofit book, "Flying for Jesus." We re-retired when his parents needed our help at the ends of their lives. Hope you enjoy "Love Takes Flight." It's totally fiction, but based on real life.
Lee Carver
Writing began as recreation. Just a fun thing to do. It still is, but a few years of studying the craft and assuming the discipline to work takes writing out of the hobby category. I have too much invested now not to write. The inspiration to sit down and get the job done happens when I know the next step in the plot. If the words don't come, I need to go for a walk and talk to myself about the story.
Lee Carver
I enjoy letting my imagination out of its cage and playing with words like a never-ending puzzle of an infinite number of pieces. Creating characters is a fun part of that as well. Soon to be released is a novella (in a set with five other authors) in which my main female character is Nikki Waldrup. Her name is almost--but not quite--the name of the fifth grade girl I mentor with Kid's Hope. I can hardly wait to give her a copy of the book. A simpler example is naming the owner of a clothing store for ladies Agnes Smith, who with her husband owned the finest clothing store in my hometown. Agnes' daughter, with whom I went to school in Atmore, Alabama, gladly gave her permission.
Lee Carver
I'm having great fun on a contemporary novel set in a small town west of Fort Worth, Texas. Like every other novel I've written, it's inspirational romance, clean and uplifting with a satisfying ending. Ashley has been abandoned by her husband, who impregnated his junior college student and pressures Ashley for a divorce. She goes to help her grandmother through chemo treatment--thus the working title "Retreat to Shelter Creek"--and get her life back together. Though wounded, she reveals her strength and the will to persevere. She will be aided in that pursuit by Austin Chism, whom she remembers from teenage summer visits. He's now a widower with quite a few challenges of his own. With the addition of his son Tyler and a pig named Pearl, the story warms up to an engaging romance.
Lee Carver
Writers write. They keep writing. Christian writers have a tremendous resource in ACFW: the support and instant information from other writers, free monthly online courses and the archives of every course ever given through ACFW, annual conferences, contests and critique groups, and genre FaceBook groups just to highlight a few. So while studying the craft, aspiring writers learn to do by doing. We read about how many publishers a certain author had to solicit before getting a book published, but one book isn't the end of the road. Start the next one, putting into practice everything learned on the first. Keep writing, and don't give up your day job. Very few authors, percentage-wise, make enough to live on. It's not about the money.
Lee Carver
Writer's block hasn't been a problem for me, perhaps because I'm a decisive person. If words don't come for the novel, it's probably because I'm not sure of my plot and/or subplots. I don't sit and stare at the blinking cursor. It's time to take a walk without music playing or brainstorm with another writer or my husband, who has become a super brainstormer. Maybe the text needs to be flipped to the POV of another major character or the development of a subplot. If I know where I'm going, I can write myself there.
Lee Carver
"Love Takes Flight" is the book of my heart. My husband and I lived in Brazil for 12 years, over half as volunteer missionaries following his early retirement in Sao Paulo. I wanted to illustrate in this novel that missionaries are real people--dedicated to service for God and yet imperfect like all of us. Another theme, which I hope didn't receive a soap-box delivery, was how a Christian can recognize God's call to some special service, like missionary life. How can you be sure enough to step out on that feeling and make it a conviction? All this is wrapped in fiction and sweetened with romance. Deep dark secret: the blue-eyed pilot is inspired by my husband, without whose knowledge of the amphibious Cessna Caravan and its jungle missions the book could never have been written.
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