Part II: Interview with Sarah Sundin
Sarah's first novel!
Here is part two of my interview with Sarah Sundin.
As noted in one of the comments to part one, you are big on accuracy. Why do you think accuracy so important in historical fiction?
Because inaccuracy totally bugs me. I’ll never forget a Little House on the Prairie episode where someone gave Laura a peanut butter sandwich. I had just read a biography about George Washington Carver and I knew peanut butter hadn’t been invented at that time. Things like that pull an informed reader out of the story-world you’ve worked hard immersing them in. However, the more I research, the more I realize I don’t know. Despite my best efforts, there will be errors, which makes me cringe, but it can’t be avoided. A deeper reason for accuracy is to enrich the story. Those details add vibrancy and make the reader feel like she’s right there.
Will you give me a quick synopsis of your books? When are the release dates?
The “Wings of Glory” series follows the three Novak brothers, B-17 bomber pilots with the US Eighth Air Force stationed in England during World War II.
A Distant Melody releases in March 2010. Never pretty enough to please her gorgeous mother, Allie will do anything to gain her approval—even marry a man she doesn’t love. Lt. Walter Novak—fearless in the cockpit but hopeless with women—takes his last furlough at home in California before being shipped overseas. Walt and Allie meet at a wedding and their love of music draws them together, prompting them to begin a correspondence that will change their lives. As letters fly between Walt’s muddy bomber base in England and Allie’s mansion in an orange grove, their friendship binds them together. But can they untangle the secrets, commitments, and expectations that keep them apart?
Under His Wings (working title) releases Fall 2010: Maj. Jack Novak has never failed to meet a challenge—until he meets Lt. Ruth Doherty, a striking nurse with a shameful secret. While Jack leads his squadron in the most savage air battles of the war, Ruth trains to become a flight nurse to better support her orphaned siblings. Can they confront their deepest sins, face their greatest fears, and learn to trust and to love?
Till Blue Skies Return (working title) releases Fall 2011. Lt. Raymond Novak prefers the pulpit to the cockpit, but his stateside job training B-17 pilots allows him to court Helen Carlisle, a widowed mother who conceals her pain under a frenzy of volunteer work. The sparks of their romance set a fire that flings them both into peril. Ray leaves to fly a combat mission at the peak of the air war over Europe, while Helen takes a job at a dangerous munitions yard and faces an even graver menace in her own home. Can they both find the courage to face their challenges?
What was the biggest struggle on the road to publication?
My biggest struggle was fighting discouragement in the years I received “good” rejection letters. For five years I heard, “We don’t want historicals. Do you have any chick lit?” I didn’t. I’m just not a pedicure/spa/$500 purse kind of girl.
I often wondered if I was wasting my time writing. I kept giving it back to God and asking for His direction, and He kept telling me to finish the series. Then at the 2008 Mount Hermon Christian Writers’ Conference, I heard, “Chick lit is dead. We need historicals.” There I was with two polished manuscripts and the third book completely outlined. I submitted to Vicki Crumpton at Revell, and in September they offered me a three-book contract.
What advice do you have for newbie authors?
Read MoreBe teachable and soak up all the good instruction you can. Read books on writing craft, and then read your favorite authors and analyze how they did it.
Join ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers)! Their e-zine, e-mail loop, and monthly courses are outstanding—like a mini-writers’ conference in your inbox every day.
Join a local writers’ group if available or an on-line critique group. Not only will your writing improve, but you’ll meet other writers. We’re an odd lot really. We work in solitude. We talk to our characters. We have strange interests (how many women do you know who get excited about B-17 manuals?). We need each other.
Don’t submit to agents and editors until you’re ready. That means a complete manuscript, positive feedback from experienced writers, and enough knowledge of the publishing industry to know how to submit properly. You want your first impression to be stellar.
Lastly, when you’re ready, submit and keep submitting. Keep polishing your craft, and keep praying for the Lord’s guidance.
Interview with Sarah Sundin
- Sarah Sundin
Sarah Sundin is a speaker and writer whose first novel, A Distant Melody, is set to be released in January 2010 by Revell. She has just submitted her second book and was kind enough to answer my questions. For more information, visit her website.
What town do you reside in?
Antioch, California. Yep, the Antioch made infamous by the Jaycee Dugard kidnapping. Honestly, it’s a nice, family-oriented suburb that still has a small-town feel.
When did you first start writing?
January 6, 2000. How’s that for exact? Growing up, I always made up stories, but I knew they weren’t any good. In 2000—after college, pharmacy school, and three babies—I woke one morning from a dream with characters who wouldn’t leave me alone. I played with their story while scrubbing toilets and changing diapers and realized I had to write their story. That book will never and should never be published, but it got me started.
Who are your major influences (in writing)?
That’s hard to pinpoint when you’ve read a lot. It may be cliché, but an author I keep coming back to is Jane Austen. She has it all—laugh-out-loud humor, snappy dialogue, well-drawn characters, and endings that make you feel all warm and gooey inside. Another thing I love about Austen is that the rogues turn out to be—well, rogues, while the heroes are quiet men of integrity. Most romances hold up the “bad boy” as hero, and I don’t think that’s healthy. Too many women follow that example and choose charm over character—and regret it.
What draws you to the World War II era?
Besides the cute clothes and men in uniform? First of all, there are so many dramatic stories and settings—a novelist’s dream. This was a time when ordinary men had to do extraordinary things, and when women first explored non-traditional roles—while remaining ladies. Plus, I’ve always been fond of that generation, my grandparents’ generation. As a pharmacy resident at a VA hospital, I had the honor of caring for many of these men. As a rule, they were cheerful, kind, and chivalrous, with the solid strength of someone who has been tested—and passed. What more could you want in a hero?
Sarah's first novel - read more about it in part two of her interview!
What do you enjoy most about writing historical fiction?
The creative, dreamy part of me loves to lose myself in the era, but the science nerd in me loves the research. I have to be careful not to get sucked into the research black hole. I need enough research to make the story accurate and realistic, but at some point, I have to stop and actually write the story.
70 Years Ago…
British recruitment poster.
September 3
On this day, Britain and France officially declared war against Germany in 1939. Germany invaded Poland on September 1st and through their “lightning” attack, reduced the country to rubble in a short time.
For the month of September, I will highlight World War II stories and more – including an interview with author Sarah Sundin, a World War II historical fiction writer.
Read MoreAn incredible journey…
Today, the bomber's nose is removed for restoration, but the landmark still makes a striking impression along highway 99 in Milwaukie, OR.
The story of how the infamous B-17 Bomber ended up off the highway in Milwaukie, Oregon…(excerpts from thebomber.com)
While Lacey’s retired war bird is a familiar landmark in Milwaukie, Oregon, few realize the incredible chain of events that actually landed it there. As a young flier and gasoline station owner, he had a vision of a novel combination of both. His subsequent quest for a retired war plane took him to the U.S. Air Force’s Altus Air Base in Oklahoma. The stranger from Oregon told them he wanted to buy the plane to be used as an advertising gimmick back home. Put it up over his gas station, he said. They questioned his sanity but sold it to him.
All of the planes had been in storage for two years. Art rounded up a crew of local farmhands to help him prepare the bird for flight. “We got it un-pickled and got the thing running.” Lacey remembered during a discussion at his home, located right behind the looming silver bird and gas station. Despite his inexperience behind the controls, Lacey was determined to fly the war plane. Base regulations, however, required a co-pilot on every flight. So one of his helpers snuck him an old mannequin. Lacey stuck it on the seat beside him, plopped a cap on its head and took off for a test run. “I was scared as hell”, he admits in retrospect, “and that’s no lie!” That practice flight was nearly Lacey’s last. It ended up in what Air Force officials have termed “a spectacular wheels-up crash landing.”
Considering Lacey’s entire bomber saga, it was just par for the course.
“I got her flying,” Lacey told the Review,” and then I couldn’t get its landing gear to go down.” He remembers talking to and even slapping the lifeless mannequin on the knee during those tense airborne moments. “I was talking to everything trying to get that gear down-I even had the ‘old man upstairs’ involved in that one.” The Milwaukian crash-landed the stubborn bird on its belly, crashing into a parked bomber in the process. He never even received so much as a scratch. “They wrote both those planes off as wind damage,” Lacey said of the aircraft he unintentionally destroyed.
Lacey said he lives by proverb. “You stick and stay and make it pay.” The same day of the crackup, he and the farmboys started depickling another plane-tail number 485790. It is roosted in the sky beside old Highway 99E today.
Two of Lacey’s friends, pilots from Portland, joined the determined man for what turned out to be its perilous flight to faraway Oregon.
“Before we left, I took my parachute and put it in a box and nailed it shut, I’d ride her all the way to the ground if something happened. I was broke, all my money was in that plane.” (He bought the bomber for $13,750.)
They refueled in Palm Springs and then headed for Klamath Falls “I followed the Sierra Nevada’s until we hit a blinding snowstorm”, he remembers, “the other guys were asleep. I kept dropping in altitude, trying to get below the storm. I was flying her by the seat of my pants.” He just missed crashing the plane broadside into a mountain, by inches.
He and his crew had no idea of where they were. During a break in the clouds, they finally spotted a tiny town.
“We buzzed that little town pretty closely,” Lacey shrugs. People are running out of their houses in nightgowns. They were afraid we were going to land on Main Street. But we were just trying to read the road signs.”
After some frightening sweeps, they spotted a building with Fall River Mills painted on its top. They located it on their map and found they were almost 100 miles off their course.
“We picked up a railroad track and I said, “Well, hell, lets follow it all the way to Klamath Falls under the storm-I’ll ride in the nose and if I see a tunnel coming up I’ll bang you on the toe!”
Somehow, flying level with the treetops, they made it to Klamath Falls where the weather had cleared, gassed up and took off again. Halfway to Bend, they encountered another bad snow storm. When we couldn’t pilot the shaking plane any higher over the storm, he dropped below it. “I took her all the way home at 800 feet,” he proudly claims.
Over Monmouth, Lacey made two swoops above a relative’s house to let his family know he and the B-17 were okay. They landed at Troutdale Airport.
The original nose art of the bomber.
Just getting the plane across town to Milwaukie almost proved to be a tougher chore than flying it cross-country.
“The flight went clear through the State Highway Department to then Governor Snell. I never did get a permit. I finally just loaded it up on our four trucks and moved it anyway.”
His only penalty for the illegal early Saturday morning haul (2:AM) was a $10 fine in Milwaukie for an over wide load. “It was an enormous load. We took up the whole road.” Lacey admitted. “We came upon a bus on Powell and he had to run up on the curb so we could get by.”
And so the story goes…Today. Art Lacey’s dream has come true. It stands as a symbol of the courage of the men and women who served so valiantly during WWII and as a salute to the era of the propeller driven airplanes.
http://www.thebomber.com/History.asp
http://www.b17wingsoffreedom.org/
Keep watch - next week, I will post my interview with author Sarah Sundin, who writes WWII fiction with an emphasis on B-17s! Do not miss it!
The cockpit, as displayed in the Wings of Freedom Interpretive center.
ACFW meeting last night…
Last night, I was reminded exactly why I work so hard to become a published author.
The Portland/Vancouver Chapter of the American Christian Fiction Writers group met yesterday and amongst other great news and camaraderie, one of the members, Christina Berry, is celebrating the release of her first book, The Familiar Stranger.
The pure joy on her face was priceless. This is a woman who worked on this novel for more than ten years, with more than 45 rejections. Now, the book, published by Moody, is a striking figure for any bookshelf. Congratulations, Christina! The hard work was well worth it!
In the writing group, there are writers of all stages of life and publishing. For me, the group is a source of networking and encouragement. It was through this group I discovered the Oregon Christian Writers, which led me to attend the wonderful Summer Conference! I met wonderful agents and editors and received helpful feedback on my manuscript.
Beyond the surface benefits, groups like the ACFW and OCW provide more to its members. This is a place where you can shout and scream in excitement about your upcoming book debut, and everyone understands why. We have all toiled over the computer, sent query after query to agents and editors, and faced the dreaded revisions and rewrites. There are few places where you can discuss killing someone (in your book) and no one will call the cops.
I recommend you all check out The Familiar Stranger, which is high on my list of books to read. For any aspiring writers out there, I further encourage you to look into organizations that will serve as a platform and educational tool. You may even discover a kinship beyond the love of the written word.
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