The Biblio Blogazine

Don’t let the sedateness of the photo fool you. This woman is anything but black and white and shades of gray.

Her personality is as I had hoped: Lively, colorful, intelligent, and with a sharp sense of humor that many would envy. For those of you who have read her debut novel, The Sinful Life of Lucy Burns, this same wit is easily recognizable in her main character.

At the end of the interview, I asked Elizabeth to sign my copy. In it she wrote: “Thanks so much for reading – Lucy would certainly enjoy your company.”

The feeling is mutual, toward Lucy and her creator.

To make a confession, Elizabeth and I had such a great time chatting between signings, that I never did get to ask her the questions I’d prepared. Thankfully, she was gracious enough to take a printed copy so she could respond by email.

Please don’t get the impression  we never talked about her book, or the process of writing and publishing it. We most certainly did. However, she is so personable from the outset, we found ourselves letting the conversation grow and change organically.

Let’s put it this way. This interview took place a number of weeks ago, yet I remember the experience clearly, warmly, and it still makes me smile. I look forward to Elizabeth’s future books. Soon. But no pressure, Zip. Really. [cough-cough]

I had put together a number of questions, but gave her the option of answering any or all. I hope you enjoy her answers as much as I do.

One of the issues in trying to get this book published, was because it didn’t seem to fit into any specific genre. Is this something you keep in mind now when writing, or do you simply write the story you want to write and remain confident it will find its place?

Perhaps I should care about the more commercial aspects of the finished product, but it doesn’t ever seem right to think about that kind of stuff too early in the process. I’m a purist, I guess. I believe that a good story ends up getting read one way or another, regardless of genre, timing, etc. I think I would end up writing total crap if practicality superseded real inspiration. On each of my three novels, there was one moment or event that prompted me to write the story; if I had been trying to write the perfect book in the perfect genre, none of my books would’ve been written.

A quote from The Sinful Live of Lucy Burns sticks with me: “A blank page is God’s way of showing you how hard it is to be God.” Where did this come from, and is this how you feel or have felt when writing?

This is a quote written by an anonymous source, and I’ve always liked it. I wouldn’t dare compare the act of writing to the daunting task of being God, but blank pages do freak me out. I avoid them by typing funny chapter titles and random musings at the beginning of any piece of writing so that the page isn’t technically blank when I begin. And a lot of my writing happens while I’m away from the dreaded blank page or computer screen. Most of my decent ideas have come while driving in the car (while following all traffic laws, of course) and while grocery shopping, so my purse is filled with a strange collection of writing on the backs of envelopes and any other paper products I might run across. My husband and children know to always check the backs of napkins before they throw them away!

I’ve never heard of “What Color is Your Parachute?” until reading your book, thus I felt a lot like Lucy in that it’s a book most people know about, but I don’t. Is this because Lucy never thought about what she would do if she could switch jobs because, well, she never thought she could?

“What Color Is Your Parachute” is a book my older (and more responsible) sister gave me when I was in college and had changed my major (and my mind) about ten times in four years. From what I remember, the book is a series of questionnaires that are supposed to steer you toward your ideal occupation. When mine eventually led me to “Elevator Inspector” as the best job fit for me, I decided it was bogus to think that a book could magically tell you what to do with your life. And just like Lucy’s transcript, my college transcript is unfortunately riddled with lots of “Withdrawals” from classes like Muscular-Skeletal Biology and Advanced Latin—both strange phases but important ones in determining what I wasn’t good at. Lucy didn’t have the luxury (in the beginning anyway) of choosing her job because it chose her, so it made me think of the parachute book and how irritated it would have made her. Nobody was going to rescue Lucy and she knew it—her parachute would have to be her own design.

In Lucy’s story, Hope is the true cleaning agent as it were. Coming clean involves honesty, faith, hope, and determination. Are these themes what you had in mind when developing Lucy and a way out of her predicament? Do you see redemption as having to have these same qualities?

Hope and redemption, for me, were major themes in this book. I enjoy stories—novels, films, short stories, whatever—that are a combination of both darkness and hope. Too much of either one tends to turn me off. Lucy’s predicament needed to be dismal in order for us to fear for her, but at the end of the day the hope that Lucy will find a way out, find peace in all areas of her life, is what makes readers keep reading. I think that’s what keeps all of us going: that no matter what we’ve done, tomorrow is always a new day. We can wallow in it and become a victim, or confront it and make a change.

Humor plays a major role in this book. From what I’ve read, you have a sharp wit too. Was it intentional then to give Lucy that same spark to her personality? Was this more important for the Lucy’s character or for the story – or both?

I am so glad that readers like Lucy and even sympathize with her. I worried a lot about this when writing her. I really loved her and understood that she was a decent human being underneath it all, but I wondered if I could get readers to like a woman who was both unnaturally beautiful and unnaturally caustic at times. Her character was actually my response to a writing prompt that asked, What job would you hate to have? My least-favorite jobs would include being a dental assistant or being someone who had to decide who got sent to Hell. Throughout the writing of Lucy, this second job proved to be WAY more fun than I thought it would be, but Lucy certainly evolved as the book evolved. In her very early stages (a short story in grad school) Lucy Burns was strictly a bad ass, busy being cool and smart and discarding super-sinners left and right. But somewhere during my sixth month of pregnancy, when I decided to turn the short story into a novel, I knew I needed to find a stronger, more vulnerable core underneath her diva side. So I wrote her back story, and decided that her real impetus for aligning with the devil came from wanting to help her sister. For me, that fact changed everything, and tempered all of her wrongdoing. Thinking back, I was, for the first time in my life, experiencing that new-mother protectiveness, and Lucy’s wanting to help someone she loved regardless of consequence made her real for me.

I see in the Q & A sent to me that you are working on your fourth novel. For my readers, and my own information, how close are we to seeing Black-Eyed Susan and The Understory out on the shelves?

Truthfully, I’m not sure how far away we are from seeing my other two novels in print, but I’m proud of them both and am eager to hear what readers think. In the meantime, I am working on a young adult novel about an irreverent teenage girl (shocker!) who has a very unique ability—no vampires, I promise—and another novel that takes place in the Midwest about a quirky teacher who needs to return to her hometown to repent for bad deeds and confront her past. Not autobiographical. Much.

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I’d like to thank Elizabeth for making time to meet with me, and wish her tons of success with those other novels that will be hopefully making an appearance soon.

I truly meant it though, when I said no pressure. I think the highest compliment I can pay this author is to say that how ever long it takes, is fine. She is worth the wait.