When Did You First Become Interested in Writing?

I've been interviewed several times since my first novel, Where Love Once Lived, was published and one of the questions often asked was "When did you first become interested in writing?"

My earliest memory of writing is when my sister, Barbara Cagle, decided we would publish  a neighborhood magazine. We were living on Pete's Path in Austin at the time, so I had to be about twelve years old. She had written and produced some neighborhood plays several years before this when we lived on Josephine Street in South Austin.

But, my involvement as a writer didn't occur until the magazine phase. By publish, keep in mind that the magazine was handwritten and each copy was handwritten as well. So there wasn't a wide distribution and the magazine only last for a summer. When school started we were too busy to continue it. But I remember getting to write and I remember the encouragement from Barbara.

She also told me I had to keep a journal of all the movies I went to see. We included movie reviews in the magazine as well as news about our neighbors. I remember getting a spiral notebook and on one side I pasted the ad for the movie clipped from the newspaper. On the other side was the movie review itself. I wish I still had that spiral notebook. It was lost in a heavy rain that flooded my basement bedroom years later while I was away in the Marine Corps. I lost all my precious books in that storm, but that's a story for another time.

I had the writing bug from then on. Aptitude tests showed an interest in creative writing, but my school counselors said I should think of it as a hobby since few people made a living from writing. So, I ended up majoring in computer science and wrote for the fun of it, including a novel written about my time in the marines that was never finished.

I also wrote short stories. Only one was published, but it was a thrill to see it in print. Much of the writing I did was as a part of my jobs as a computer programmer and systems analyst. I was called on to do the reports, or apply for grants, and I learned my writing gave me a way of persuading others that I couldn't do face to face.

I published one computer book, Automated Law Office Systems, but it was short lived due to the rapid changes in computers.

I realize this would be too long an answer to the question posed at the beginning, but there you have it. And, by the way, my sister is still writing. She had a funny article published in the Sunday magazine of a Houston paper and she has placed in writing contests as well.

Thank you, Barbara.

Book Signing: Clarksville Family Fun Fest

In Where Love Once Lived the male protagonist is white and his best friend is black. I'm not sure how that happened, but it made the story more interesting by providing thoughts about race relations.

In the following excerpt Brian is the white friend, Mr. McCullough, who is black, is the seventy-eight year old father of Brian's best friend and Cindy is Mr. McCullough's granddaughter who is about to announce her engagement to a white man:

"It's called historical, now," Mr. McCullough said holding a fork in the air. "It use' to be a ghetto, you know." He glanced at Brian. "I don't guess Cindy told you that. Most of the Negroes lived east of Austin, but there was a colony here in Clarksville."

Mr. McCullough continued. "When I was growin' up, there were boundaries, you see. We couldn't jus' live anywhere we wanted. Ever'one knew where the lines were. Our street here was as far south as we could live."

He shook his head. "Today, it doesn't matter. No one's shocked when black and white marry, even." He locked eyes with Brian, then moved his gaze to Cindy.

"When was this neighborhood a ghetto, Grandpa?" Cindy asked. "I've heard the story, but I think Brian would like to hear about it, too."

"Let's see." He touched a thumb to his fingers. "I'd say up until sometime in the 1950s." He pointed south. "Over at Mathews School, on 9 ½ Street, that was white. Our lot touched up to a white family's back yard." He laughed. "I'd forgotten about that. Fact is, back in the 1930's or 40's, I use' to play with the little kid who lived there. Well, not play, really. We mos'ly jus' talked through the chicken wire. My Mama and Daddy told me not to, but I did anyway."

In real life, I'm the one in his seventies who lived in the Clarksville area at the time. These are my memories. The difference is I lived on the white side of the border.

It's different there now. Sunday, April 17, 2011, I was invited to set up a booth in the artisans area at the annual Clarksville Family Fun Fest to sell books. I took a map showing the five places where I lived between 1936 and 1945 to show my credibility to be there. The map only brought up exclamations of how young I look.

I left only two books there. One I donated to the Silent Auction sold for $8.00, and the other I donated to the pastor of the Sweet Home Missionary Baptist Church.

Rev. Steve Manning, the pastor of the church had stopped by to talk about the book and the history of Clarksville. When he returned later with his checkbook, I told him I wanted to donate the book to him for the church. He let me know he was prepared to pay for the book, but I told him I had donated copies of the book to other churches in Austin and Georgetown and it only seemed right to donate one to the church in the area where several scenes of the book take place.  He promised to read the book and let me know his thoughts about it.

After the Clarksville Family Fun Fest was over I drove by each of the places I had lived. I was flooded with memories, not just of the segregation that existed then, but I remembered World War II, going to school for the first time, the Confederate Home that abutted up to the end of the street, my childhood friends I biked with, my sister Barbara who took me school, my cousins who visited, the chickens and ducks we raised in the back yard, the time spent with my father, the birth of my sister Patty. So many wonderful memories of the time.

A few negative experiences popped into my head as well, such as cutting my arm on a broken coffee jar in the vacant lot playing soldier with Billy T. Nitschke, cutting my hair, eating an April Fool's Day sandwich filled with cotton made by my sister Barbara, falling on a sidewalk while running to meet my dad when he got home from work.

The memories of the time I lived in the area were good for me, but the Clarksville of today is not the same as it was when I lived there. People of all races without an apparent notice of the fact played side by side. The woman at the church's booth displayed historical photos showing an all-black church membership, but the church today stressed that it is a church for everyone in the area.

Rev. Manning is a 58-year old black man born in Louisiana and brought up in Lockhart, Texas, with a year in Oakland, California, just long enough to become an A's fan, a fact that was advertised on the shirt he wore. His degree is in biology, but he had a calling to preach. He said it was not the clear spoken calling some get, but it was a quiet, definite one. He is the type of person I could be friends with in an instant because of his openness and warmth.

While writing Where Love Once Lived, I thought about visiting the church in Clarksville, but never did. After meeting Rev. Manning, I'm planning to visit there soon.

Find the Perfect Name for a Fictional Character Part 2

My sister, Barbara Cagle, could have been the mayor in my book, Where Love Once Lived, but she declined. In an early draft, I used her real name for the fictional mayor of the city. I thought she might get a kick out of it. But no, she wasn't too thrilled at all. It's a good thing she was one of my pre-publication readers because there's no telling what might have happened if the book had gone to print with her name in it and me thinking that was a good thing.

Here's why she didn't particularly care for the honor. I tend to give my secondary characters traits that are a bit exaggerated while the main characters are the beautiful people. I got in trouble with some manuscript contest judges for this a few times, especially when I talked about how Liz, my librarian was so big and fat the whole bookmobile shook when she walked through. I took that out, but Liz is still a plus size.

So, why did my sister object to being the mayor of Austin, Texas?

Simple. My mayor is short, fat and rude. My sister is slim, shapely and lovable. And, as Barbara reminded me, she worked hard to maintain her figure.

Is it a good idea to use real people's names? Probably not, but I've done it.

The male protagonist in Where Love Once Lived is named after Brian Donelson, a good friend of mine. But I didn't set out to do so. Here's what happened. When I started the book I knew I would need a perfect name for this character and didn't yet know what that name should be. So, as I wrote I referred to him as BD which for me stood for bookmobile driver. In fact I wrote three or four chapters calling him BD. About that time, the real Brian Donelson and I found each other on the Internet after losing contact with one another for about thirty years.

What about you? Do you ever use the names of real people for fictional characters? Have you ever had a problem because of it? How do you select the perfect name?

My Next Book is on My Mind Today

Yesterday, Celeste asked about my new novel after I told her I worked on it between classes. Then, today, when I talked to my sister, Barbara, she asked about the new book. So, I've been thinking about it a lot lately.

I told them both about the new publishing company looking for manuscripts ready to go for 2011. The neat thing about Harbourlight Books is that they are affiliated with White Rose Publishing, the company that almost published Where Love Once Lived, until they discovered it wasn't really a romance and all they publish are Christian romance.

Harbourlight Books, on the other hand, will publish only Christian fiction books that are NOT romance. So, my thinking is that both my novel will be a perfect match for Harbourlight.

All I need to do to finish Vengeance In Mine is write two more scenes, scenes I've already outlined, and then edit the whole book for the upteenth time and the manuscript will be ready. All the publisher wants initially is a synopsis and the first chapter, but they want to know that the book is complete. If they like the synopsis and first chapter and ask for the whole thing, I want to be prepared.

It's not that I'm unhappy with the approach I'm using for Where Love Once Lived, that is, using CreateSpace and the print on demand method, but it would certainly simplify everything to have a publisher take care of the details.

Besides, I love what White Rose is producing and I think Harbourlight will be under the same management. White Rose produces great covers and ebooks. They have an appealing website, dedicated writers, and supportive editors. It would be fun to be part of the group.

My thought is that if Harbourlight contracts my new book, and if the sales of the current book are satisfactory, they may want to publish it as well.

What do you think?

On Becoming a Writer

I think about being interviewed after Where Love Once Lived comes out and one of the questions sometimes asked is "When did you first become interested in writing?"

My earliest memory of writing is when my sister, Barbara Cagle, decided we would publish a neighborhood magazine. We were living on Pete's Path in Austin at the time, so I had to be about twelve years old. She had written and produced some neighborhood plays several years before this when we lived on Josephine Street in South Austin.

But, my involvement as a writer didn't occur until the magazine phase. By publish, keep in mind that the magazine was handwritten and each copy was handwritten as well. So there wasn't a wide distribution and the magazine only last for a summer. When school started we were too busy to continue it. But I remember getting to write and I remember the encouragement from Barbara.

She also told me I had to keep a journal of all the movies I went to see. We included movie reviews in the magazine as well as news about our neighbors. I remember getting a spiral notebook and on one side I pasted the ad for the movie clipped from the newspaper. On the other side was the movie review itself. I wish I still had that spiral notebook. It was lost in a heavy rain that flooded my basement bedroom years later while I was away in the Marine Corps. I lost all my precious books in that storm, but that's a story for another time.

I had the writing bug from then on. Aptitude tests showed an interest in creative writing, but my school counselors said I should think of it as a hobby since few people made a living from writing. So, I ended up majoring in computer science and wrote for the fun of it, including a novel written about my time in the marines that was never finished.

I also wrote short stories. Only one was published, but it was a thrill to see it in print. Much of the writing I did was as a part of my jobs as a computer programmer and systems analyst. I was called on to do the reports, or apply for grants, and I learned my writing gave me a way of persuading others that I couldn't do face to face.

I published one computer book, Automated Law Office Systems, but it was short lived due to the rapid changes in computers.

I realize this would be too long an answer to the question posed at the beginning, but there you have it. And, by the way, my sister is still writing. She had a funny article published in the Sunday magazine of a Houston paper and she has placed in writing contests as well.

Thank you, Barbara.