Friday, April 12, 2013
Hello book fans--
I am sitting here on my back deck, under gray Pacific Northwest skies, trying to get everything ready for my upcoming book tour and the release of FLY AWAY on April 23rd, and I have to say, man the job of writing has become so much bigger in these wired-in, dialed-up, tuned-in social media days. I remember when all I had to do was write a book and pretty much walk away. :) Now, it seems that there's always more to do. I need a Kristin Hannah clone to do all the promotional duties that I am no good at. All of this t is my way of saying I'm sorry I've been gone for a while, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate you waiting for me. As a little treat, here's a copy of a scrapbook I made and narrated that tells you a little bit about the new book--and the book that started it all, Firefly Lane. What do you think? Are the places what you imagined?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XrBC2pGvOA&feature=share&list=UUUamFyjQIKBzPwXpPyBBmNw
But I
always knew there was more to the story.
It’s the first and only time I’ve ever felt that way after finishing a
novel. Usually, when I come to the final edit, I am ready to let the characters
go into their happy endings world.
Firefly Lane was different. Tully
and Cloud, in particular, haunted my thoughts, tugged at me. I couldn’t quite let them go, even when I
went on to write other novels.
One
day, I just knew it was time to go back to Firefly Lane and check in. You’d think it would be easy to step back
into a world you’d created, but it was surprisingly difficult to find my way
back to this story and these characters. I should have seen the troubles
coming. We all know how tough it can be
to come home after years away, and that’s what I found when I began Fly
Away. There were too many stories to
tell, too many ways for the characters’ lives to go. It really threw me off my game. I tried draft after draft, story after
story. I wrote so many versions of Tully
and Cloud and Marah and Johnny that my head couldn’t hold them all. I felt lost in the forest of too many
choices. Every road I chose ended up
leading me in the wrong direction. And
then I realized what was missing:
Kate. I simply couldn’t write
about these characters without Kate. In
her life, she had been the glue that held them all together; without her, there
was no way I could revisit her world. Of
course, that presented a bit of a problem, since she died in Firefly Lane.
Fortunately,
I am a spiritual person and I believe in much more than what I can see. So, once I realized what was wrong, I knew
how to fix it. Even if it was a
little…unorthodox, even if it asked my readers to accompany me on an extraordinary
journey. In that moment, Fly Away took
shape in my mind. It became a novel
about what happens when the one person who matters to you—the person who holds
a whole family together—is lost. The
funny thing is that I should have known it all along. After all, I wrote Firefly Lane as a tribute
to my mom, who died of breast cancer when I was young. In Kate, I found a way to remember my
mom. So, of course, I should have known
that the sequel was about how you go on when the one you love is lost. When I found that theme, and the structure
that accompanied it, I was able to do what I really wanted to do: write an
emotionally powerful novel about familiar characters that stands on its own as
opposed to a pure sequel. I don’t think
you have to read Firefly Lane first, but if you do, I think Fly Away is that
much richer and more compelling.
To be honest, the biggest challenge in Fly Away came because of you, my readers. I have been blown away by your support of Kate and Tully and the world I created on Firefly Lane. I thought of you all the time while writing this book. It was so important to me that I not disappoint you--and I also needed to write a novel that would completely stand on it's own. I look forward to your comments about the book. It's always fun to hear what you think. That's the best thing about all this social media. It's great to get know my readers. We always have so much in common.
Here is a link to the Fly Away tab on my Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/AuthorKristinHannah/app_465047440203515
You can find my tour information there. I hope to see some of you next month. Until then, please come onto my facebook page and keep in touch! I try to answer as many of the comments as I possibly can.
And have a great summer!
Aloha,
Kristin
I am sitting here on my back deck, under gray Pacific Northwest skies, trying to get everything ready for my upcoming book tour and the release of FLY AWAY on April 23rd, and I have to say, man the job of writing has become so much bigger in these wired-in, dialed-up, tuned-in social media days. I remember when all I had to do was write a book and pretty much walk away. :) Now, it seems that there's always more to do. I need a Kristin Hannah clone to do all the promotional duties that I am no good at. All of this t is my way of saying I'm sorry I've been gone for a while, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate you waiting for me. As a little treat, here's a copy of a scrapbook I made and narrated that tells you a little bit about the new book--and the book that started it all, Firefly Lane. What do you think? Are the places what you imagined?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XrBC2pGvOA&feature=share&list=UUUamFyjQIKBzPwXpPyBBmNw
As many of you know, Firefly Lane is the book that changed my career. Before it, I had
already written eighteen novels, and really, I thought I knew who I was as a
novelist. Then along came Tully and
Kate. Following their story changed the
way I saw my work. For the first time, I
wrote a novel that spanned decades and touched on popular culture and delved
into the relationship between best friends.
The only viewpoints in the novel were the women. Sure, there was a love story in Firefly, but
that was secondary. The real heart of
Firefly Lane was the friendship between the women. The story incorporated a huge amount of my
own life and my own history. It took me
several years to write the novel, and when I finally finished, I was honestly
exhausted.
