Once you have been on the water, sailed its moods, breathed its secrets, and felt its power, you cannot return to the shore unchanged. The sea captured my heart as a young girl and I've been drawn to it ever since. And although life's circumstances have often taken me far from its moist touch and saline scent, the sea has always been with me.
So when I began writing my first novel, Sins of Silence, I knew intuitively that the sea would figure prominently in the story. This knowledge did not come easily. I had always heard that you should write about what you know. I thought this was good advice, but it made me nervous because I didn't think I knew anything worth writing about. For years this notion stalled my progress like a sloop caught in a windless sea. It wasn't until I had almost reached the half-century mark in life that I finally understood that the best writing like living, is that which comes from the heart.
I chose to write a mystery because that is what I like to read. That isn't all I read, but the mystery genre has always held a special fascination for me. Like most girls of my generation, I grew up reading Nancy Drew. Later on, I read every Agatha Christie novel I could get my hands on. So it seemed only right that my first published novel should be a mystery. My husband and I were living aboard our forty-foot sloop, Tuesday's Child, when I began writing the manuscript that would later become Sins of Silence, the first novel in the Kellie Montgomery sailing mystery series.
The idea for the novel began with a simple "what if" question. It was early morning and I was aboard Tuesday's Child by myself. As I drank a leisurely cup of tea before beginning my day, a gull's noisy squawk drew my attention to the massive rock wall that protected the marina from the surging currents on Elliott Bay. The question that I asked was, "what if a boat was spotted adrift and about to crash into the breakwater?" That led to a second question, "what if there were two dead bodies aboard the boat?" From there, the story set sail and before long, I had a full cast of characters and a plot line that incorporated what I knew and loved about the sea and boating.
Authors are sometimes reluctant to admit that the characters they create have any resemblance to themselves. This is understandable, as there is a certain vulnerability already built into the writing process. After all, it takes a fair amount of courage to put your thoughts down on paper for the world to read and judge. But I don't believe that it is possible to distance yourself from the characters you create if you are writing from the heart. So it is not surprising that my protagonist Kellie and I share many things in common--motherhood, a love of the sea and boating, and a career that allows us the freedom to create the kind of life for ourselves that others can only dream about. In Kellie's case, though, she is younger, prettier, funnier, and a lot more willing to take on challenges that I would find much too dangerous. And why not? It is fiction. But as Pat Mora, the American poet and writer, said, "I write because I am curious. I am curious about me." Kellie offers me the chance to find out about myself.
In Sins of Silence, I write about the often conflicting and emotion-charged issues surrounding adoption searches and reunions. As the mother of three adopted daughters, I was interested in exploring the question of rights, specifically whose rights should take precedence--the adoptee's right to know who she is and where she came from, the birth parents' right to their privacy and anonymity, or the adoptive parents' right to raise their child without interference? The questions became particularly relevant when, during the course of writing the novel, all three of my daughters located and met their birth mothers. Not coincidentally, Kellie must also deal with her adopted daughter's decision to search for her birth mother.
After we had sold our sailboat and moved ashore, I met a woman who said that we had been living her husband's dream. She went on to explain that he had always wanted to know how to sail. His dream in life was to live aboard a sailboat and sail to the San Juan Islands. So one year on his birthday she surprised him by arranging for a charter trip to the San Juans. "How did he like it?" I asked.
"He never went," she said. When I asked why, she said that her husband thought the money was better spent on bills. He promised that he'd go next year for sure.
"And did he?" I asked.
She shook her head sadly. "No, he died of a heart attack three months after his birthday."
I often think about her husband and his unfulfilled dream when I meet people who tell me that they've always wanted to write a novel. "Why don't you?" I ask. The answser is always the same, "Oh, you know, it's so hard to find the time. But some day I will. Just as soon as I (fill in the blank)." I smile and offer some encouragement even though their some day will most likely never come. For writing from the heart is like living from the heart. You must, as the saying goes, "just do it."
Following your dream is not easy. The obstacles and sacrifices are many. As a novelist, I've had my share of self-doubts and discouragement. But whenever I feel myself longing for a life without uncertainty and the fear of failure, I think of how much worse it would be to die without having tried. Just as a sailboat depends upon the wind to fill out her sails so that her hull can thrust through the sea, writing from the heart depends upon the courage to let go, to climb the wind and soar.
So when I began writing my first novel, Sins of Silence, I knew intuitively that the sea would figure prominently in the story. This knowledge did not come easily. I had always heard that you should write about what you know. I thought this was good advice, but it made me nervous because I didn't think I knew anything worth writing about. For years this notion stalled my progress like a sloop caught in a windless sea. It wasn't until I had almost reached the half-century mark in life that I finally understood that the best writing like living, is that which comes from the heart.
I chose to write a mystery because that is what I like to read. That isn't all I read, but the mystery genre has always held a special fascination for me. Like most girls of my generation, I grew up reading Nancy Drew. Later on, I read every Agatha Christie novel I could get my hands on. So it seemed only right that my first published novel should be a mystery. My husband and I were living aboard our forty-foot sloop, Tuesday's Child, when I began writing the manuscript that would later become Sins of Silence, the first novel in the Kellie Montgomery sailing mystery series.
The idea for the novel began with a simple "what if" question. It was early morning and I was aboard Tuesday's Child by myself. As I drank a leisurely cup of tea before beginning my day, a gull's noisy squawk drew my attention to the massive rock wall that protected the marina from the surging currents on Elliott Bay. The question that I asked was, "what if a boat was spotted adrift and about to crash into the breakwater?" That led to a second question, "what if there were two dead bodies aboard the boat?" From there, the story set sail and before long, I had a full cast of characters and a plot line that incorporated what I knew and loved about the sea and boating.
Authors are sometimes reluctant to admit that the characters they create have any resemblance to themselves. This is understandable, as there is a certain vulnerability already built into the writing process. After all, it takes a fair amount of courage to put your thoughts down on paper for the world to read and judge. But I don't believe that it is possible to distance yourself from the characters you create if you are writing from the heart. So it is not surprising that my protagonist Kellie and I share many things in common--motherhood, a love of the sea and boating, and a career that allows us the freedom to create the kind of life for ourselves that others can only dream about. In Kellie's case, though, she is younger, prettier, funnier, and a lot more willing to take on challenges that I would find much too dangerous. And why not? It is fiction. But as Pat Mora, the American poet and writer, said, "I write because I am curious. I am curious about me." Kellie offers me the chance to find out about myself.
In Sins of Silence, I write about the often conflicting and emotion-charged issues surrounding adoption searches and reunions. As the mother of three adopted daughters, I was interested in exploring the question of rights, specifically whose rights should take precedence--the adoptee's right to know who she is and where she came from, the birth parents' right to their privacy and anonymity, or the adoptive parents' right to raise their child without interference? The questions became particularly relevant when, during the course of writing the novel, all three of my daughters located and met their birth mothers. Not coincidentally, Kellie must also deal with her adopted daughter's decision to search for her birth mother.
After we had sold our sailboat and moved ashore, I met a woman who said that we had been living her husband's dream. She went on to explain that he had always wanted to know how to sail. His dream in life was to live aboard a sailboat and sail to the San Juan Islands. So one year on his birthday she surprised him by arranging for a charter trip to the San Juans. "How did he like it?" I asked.
"He never went," she said. When I asked why, she said that her husband thought the money was better spent on bills. He promised that he'd go next year for sure.
"And did he?" I asked.
She shook her head sadly. "No, he died of a heart attack three months after his birthday."
I often think about her husband and his unfulfilled dream when I meet people who tell me that they've always wanted to write a novel. "Why don't you?" I ask. The answser is always the same, "Oh, you know, it's so hard to find the time. But some day I will. Just as soon as I (fill in the blank)." I smile and offer some encouragement even though their some day will most likely never come. For writing from the heart is like living from the heart. You must, as the saying goes, "just do it."
Following your dream is not easy. The obstacles and sacrifices are many. As a novelist, I've had my share of self-doubts and discouragement. But whenever I feel myself longing for a life without uncertainty and the fear of failure, I think of how much worse it would be to die without having tried. Just as a sailboat depends upon the wind to fill out her sails so that her hull can thrust through the sea, writing from the heart depends upon the courage to let go, to climb the wind and soar.
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