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Tag: train trip

Tracking Happiness: Chapter 21

(After a brief hiatus while my website was updated, we are back rolling on down the line with the deep background on TRACKING HAPPINESS: A SOUTHERN CHICKEN ADVENTURE) This is CHAPTER 21 in our series offering gossip, novel backstory, and personal confessions about TRACKING HAPPINESS: A SOUTHERN CHICKEN ADVENTURE. We’re working our way through...

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As It Is Written

I have failed, utterly and totally. Yet I feel irrationally exhilarated. The agent I’ve been trying to please with a rewrite for the last year and a half (!), just sent me a final rejection, door shut, not even opened a crack. Instead of feeling stomped on, I feel relief. This is so strange. As a result of the revision process she triggered,...

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A Treat Rejected

The entire time I’ve been slogging through the revision of Train Trip, I’ve been holding out the treat of reading a James Lee Burke novel. It’s a Hackberry Holland mystery, not Dave Robicheaux because I’ve read all the Louisiana novels. James Lee Burke is one of my favorites, with his lush language and “haunting of the past” themes. But I’ve...

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(d) Whatever

I’ve found a rhythm. While my editor in Oregon has Train Trip, I’m working on another novel. The first round, I was in Memphis and I revised Bone Trench, a Christian fantasy novel set in Memphis. Second round, I was down in New Orleans so I finished (!) Jazzy, a Katrina novel. This round—hopefully the last—I’m revising A Model...

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Chicken Musings

“I have written a novel about the commercial abuse of chickens.” Every time this statement comes out of my mouth, I think, that is the strangest thing. Yet, it’s true. Train Trip pivots on a drug scandal made possible by our “modern” methods of chicken raising and processing. The theme has grown in importance as...

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