Ask the Author: Holly Michael
Answered Questions (6)
Holly Michael
Yes, there are and they can wear tiaras if they want. :-) I'm not able to get the Kansas City club going. Looking for members. If I get more members and can get the group started, I'll let you know. It's a national group.
Holly Michael
Crooked Lines was inspired from accounts of my husband and clergy friends who came of age in a religious order in India in the mid-1980s. Their tales as young seminarians (80s and into the 1990s and beyond) fascinated me—serving in the slums of India, meeting Mother Theresa, rescuing youth out of radical communist situations, working in orphanages, etc. I laughed along with them at their hilarious Community Day stories in their late twenties in the religious community. Of course, I fictionalized the stories (some less than others), but they give a good glimpse into a perspective of how life was in this time and place in Christian India. After hearing the fascinating stories about life in a religious community in India, I was inspired to write a novel portraying the similarities between people, even though they may live in totally different cultures. The emotions, feelings, and life situations of a 16 or 20 or 25 year old in India can certainly run parallel to a characters across the world from them.
Rebecca, the character from America struggles with guilt over her sister's tragic death. Though she's running from God and Sagai is running to God to become a priest, the two encounter similar experiences.
In Crooked Lines, Father Michael, who visits the US becomes a pen pal with Rebecca and connects the two together by first asking each to pray for the other. (Father Michael is based on a real life character (his real name).
Rebecca, the character from America struggles with guilt over her sister's tragic death. Though she's running from God and Sagai is running to God to become a priest, the two encounter similar experiences.
In Crooked Lines, Father Michael, who visits the US becomes a pen pal with Rebecca and connects the two together by first asking each to pray for the other. (Father Michael is based on a real life character (his real name).
Holly Michael
Basically, pray. Ask this inspiration to come from the Great Source of Inspiration, for me, the Holy Spirit. My journey into writing is one that began with a prayer when I went for a walk and told God I was quitting writing unless it was His Divine plan for me to continue and if that was the case, that He show me very clearly because I was done with writing. Too many rejections. A waste of my time. After my prayer, I returned home to discover my answering machine had a message from a major magazine editor who wanted to publish something I'd wrote. I took that as God's answer and at that time committed my writing to Him. I've been led through many twists and turns with my career since. Journalist, hired to create a magazine by a major corporation, reporter, features writer, and then into fiction. Always the inspiration comes from God.
Holly Michael
I'm in the process of having my second novel edited and completing a devotional that my son and I are working on together. My son, Jake, is a professional football player who has type one diabetes and we have a contract with Harvest House Publishers. I'm also planning a trip to India to complete a short book about ten years after the tsunami, following up with the orphans that we'd helped.
Holly Michael
Keep at it. Keep steady. I dilly-dallied for years until I made up my mind that I was a full time, committed writer, doing it for a living. Now, that didn't equate immediately to instant success, but that mind frame put me on a pathway to reaching my goals as a writer.
Holly Michael
I never allowed myself this option. But, when getting stuck with a scene, most times just getting up, taking a walk, and praying for guidance helped. I'm committed to full time writing, so I usually force myself to push on. I have a lot of ideas and projects in the works, so I haven't had a time where I didn't know what was next.
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