Thank you so much to everyone who sent in comments to my new website. I so appreciate the kind words and thoughts and I'm delighted to hear so many people are looking forward to the arrival of The Third Angel.
Sometimes, when I'm at work on a book I forget anyone will ever read it. I've often wondered if that's what allows me the freedom to write - a detachment from the future of the book at the time I'm working on it. The idea of publishing and being public with what has been created in private can stop writers from going forward. I knew a woman who couldn't finish her novel because she was afraid of what her mother would think. This writer decided she would have to wait for her mother to die before she could publish. Good luck or bad - the novel died long before the writer's mother ever did.
The novel becomes the world that I live in. The creation of that other world -- and the characters who live there--is very personal and very private. I don't discuss my work when I'm writing. I know too many people who have "talked out" a book, confused themselves with other people's perceptions during that delicate time when it's all too easy to throw a novel away.
Once a book is finished, there it goes, into the real world where it will mean different things to different people. Many thanks for all the support, kindness, and messages that have meant so much to me.
More about the secrets inside the new novel next time.
----- with gratitude,
Alice
10 years ago my youngest child started preschool and it was a rainy day and there was a library next door. I was scanning shelves and the title "illumination nights" caught my eye. I sat down and began to read, and the words caught my mind, my heart, and my imagination. But more than that, i felt a buried voice inside my soul take flight. I felt that every word you spoke, you spoke to me. I have read every word of yours that I can find. You have touched my soul and given me many hours of joy in a chair with a wonderful book. I look forward to new releases as I look forward to my children holding me close. Thank you for every layer you have added to my life.
I am a fourth grade teacher and our final writing assigment this year was for the students to imagine themselves back at school for a twentieth reunion of their fourth grade class. The writing included high school, college, future family and career. One child wrote about wanting to be a veterinarian because "animals cannot speak for themselves, we have to speak for them". Reading your book The Story Sisters gave me such a chill on page 5 when Elv says, "If we don't take care of the creatures who have no voice, then who will?" Your writings have always touched me and now more than ever.