Can you share a little about your recent book? (Releasing in September 2020)
Like most of my historical novels, Something WorthDoing is based on the life of a real woman, Abigail Scott Duniway. She wasan early reformer as well as a wife, mother of 6, businesswoman, teacher, wrote22 novels, was a public speaker and owner of a newspaper for 16 years, all inthe 1800s when women were to be seen and not heard. Oh, and she was asuffragist for 40 years working on behalf of women’s rights. a remarkable womanwho is a metaphor for endurance.
Why do you write? Do you have a theme, message, orgoal for your books?
I’ve been intrigued by stories of historical womenwhose stories are often forgotten. Virginia Woolf wrote that “women’s historymust be invented…both uncovered and made up” and that’s why I moved fromnon-fiction or biography to fiction. My stories don’t have to have a happy ending,but I want them to have a hopeful ending. I’m asking a reader to choose time toread it when they might be doing something else, so I want to be respectful oftheir time and engagement in the story. Most of all, I’m answering a questionthat the story has posed, and it won’t let me go until I answer it. For example,when I visited an Oregon state park that a man had created for his wife in the1800s I wondered why there was no mention of her there — except that it hadbeen his gift. It was a mansion, formalgardens, on the Oregon coast, an incredible landscape. I kept asking “what kindof woman would inspire this and why doesn’t anyone talk about her?” That became A Gathering of Fincheswritten in 1997 and still in print and has been adapted for the stage.
How long have you been writing?
I wrote “wretched little poems” when I was very youngand always loved words and their sounds. My teachers said kind things about mywriting through the years. But it wasn’t until I left my job as a mental healthclinic director in 1982 and moved with my husband to a remote ranch (I calledit rattlesnake and rock ranch) that I began to write for others to read. I tooka creative writing class at the local community college and had magazinearticles published before we moved. My first published book was a memoir in1991 about that journey to the end of the world. The first novel came out in1995 and there have been one or two books each year since then.
And how long did it take you to get your first majorbook contract? Or are you published non-traditionally? How did that come about?
My books are traditionally published though when anon-fiction grief book went out-of-print, I did self-publish a new productionof A Simple Gift of Comfort. My first book, a memoir Homestead, wassold by a proposal. I read a book about how to write a proposal and proceededto treat it like a college term paper. It was 75 pages long! I don’t recommend that, but it included someof the essays I’d had published in regional magazines. I read dozens of memoirand read the acknowledgments and when I found one I particularly liked (AWalk Across America by Peter Jenkins) I sent my fat proposal to theirpublishers unsolicited. Also not recommended but this was 1988. After about ayear they called and said they were interested, and the rest is history. Thenovels were also all written by proposal and I ended up signing contracts forthem, usually three books at a time to come out yearly so I always had adeadline. The good news was I had convinced someone besides my mom that thiswas a great story. The bad news is thatI never know if I can write it!
Which of your books is your favorite?
The one I’m working on now.
Do you have a favorite character or scene in one ofyour books?
I have always liked the opening sentence of my firstnovel A Sweetness to the Soul because I know where I was when I wrote itand didn’t imagine it would be the opening to a story. I was sitting on ahillside watching our alfalfa field become flooded. It went from all green withlittle pools of water to all water with little pools of green. Here’s thesentence: “Like the slow rising of the river after an early snowmelt in themountains, he seeped into my life, unhurried, almost without notice until thestrength and breadth of him covered everything that had once been familiar,made it different, new over old.” It introduces the narrator of this story andspeaks of change in our lives and how it can happen so slowly we barely noticethe enormous change that results.
How long does it take you to write a book?
A lifetime really.Each of the stories began somewhere in my own experience even though I’mwriting about another woman from the past. But specifically, I block out June,July and August to write 8-10 hours a day, five-six days a week for a book dueSeptember 1. Then I begin researching the book that will be due the followingyear in September and I’m also promoting the book that has just come out inSeptember. So, while I’m promoting, I’m researching, and working on queriesfrom my editor for that book I just turned in and doing what I call “the workbefore the work.”
What’s yourwriting work schedule like?
See above. That’s kind of a picture given the scheduleof when manuscripts are due and when they are published. For three months ayear, I am getting up at 4 or 5 in the morning, taking a break around 8 forbreakfast, returning and writing until noon then back at it until 4 or 5 pm. In the evening, I’m researching, checking ontimelines etc. When I worked full time, which I did for most of the first 20books, I wrote for two hours in the morning from 5-7 am every day. You can geta lot of work done in two hours.
Do you have an interesting writing quirk? If so, whatis it?
Hmmm. I supposethe early morning thing. As I get closer and closer to finishing I get upearlier and earlier so sometimes I’m writing at 1:00 am after having gone tobed at 10:00 pm. I also answer threequestions (from Structuring Your Novel by Roberts and Fitzgerald) before I startwriting. What’s this story about? What do you feel deeply about? How do youhope a reader will be changed by reading this story?” I might write many pagesto answer them, but I get it down to one sentence each that I put on top of mycomputer screen in tiny font. So, when I get lost in the writing, wonder whyI’m doing this, and who will care I look up there and get inspired. The othernote I have up there is from Anne Lamont: “You don’t have time for that.”
What has been your greatest joy(s) in your writingcareer?
Being part of a panel with two authors I so admire andboth National Book Award winners, BarryLopez and Ivan Doig. It was at a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Associationtrade show and we were asked questions about writing and life. The othermoments of joy have come from readers who have written about how the books havetouched their lives. After 9/11 I had a signing which was a scary time forpeople. I didn’t expect a crowd, but we had close to 100. The last woman inline told me she had wondered what she could do for a Pakistani family who hadnot come out of their house since the tragedy.She told me she asked herself what she thought my characters would havedone and then she baked bread and took it to them and broke bread with these neighborswhom she had never spoken to before that time. That story and others has givenme great joy. Some of the best stories of my marriage have come from sharedresearch trips. And my husband has done the maps in my books. I love thatconnection.
What has been your darkest moment(s)?
Being told that a novel I’d written didn’t cut it.Rejection is the worst, isn’t it? But these women I write about have taught memuch about how to deal with rejection or much worse: despair, loss, grief, powerlessness etc. Ifind myself weaving their strength into my stories and my own life.
How many times in your career have you experiencedrejection? How did they shape you?
Ah, you were reading my mind! I’ve been blessed witheditors who did have to tell me the manuscript didn’t meet their expectationsbut could also tell me why and suggest how I could fix it. And then they gave me the opportunity torewrite the novel. One editor told me I had not answered the question: “whosestory is it, the mother or the daughter?”That was so helpful. Editors who can ask those questions always make thework better. Bad reviews. I have a book I read called Rotten Rejections.It includes rejections of greats like Hemingway and Faulkner. That makes mefeel better.
Where do you get your ideas?
Everywhere. It goes back to that unansweredquestion. My 2019 release, One MoreRiver to Cross grew from a footnoteI read while researching another book. It referred to “eight women, 17 childrenand James Miller” who had spent the winter of 1844-45 in the Sierras. What were they doing there? Who were they? I had to find out. Sometimes people bring story ideas to me andI must tell them that they are the keeper of that story and they shouldwrite it. But sometimes they wear me down and I am so glad they do becausethose have been wonderful women to spend time with. A Light in the Wilderness and TheMemory Weaver are books like that.
Who is your favorite author to read?
Oh gosh! Let me count them. There are many I sign upfor to be notified when they’ll have a new book. Donna Leon, Ivan Doig, Kathleen Ernst, C.J.Box, Louise Penny, Karen Zacharias, Michael Zimmer, Martin Walker, Bob Welch,Casey Donis, Robert Crais, Alan Bradley, Anne Lamott, Wendell Berry, ParkerPalmer, Mary Oliver, Kim Stafford. Should I go on?
What advice can you give aspiring writers that youwished you had gotten, or that you wished you would have heeded?
Listen to the story. Try not to write for the market,for what is “hot” at any given moment. Because then even if the story takes along time to find publication, you will have the satisfaction of knowing youlistened to the story finding its teller which is a privilege. When promotingit or pitching it, that’s when I try to identify the current market interest.For example, I don’t pitch historical novels because publishers say, “theydon’t sell.” I pitch the story of astrong woman who did x or y which is very much the struggle of women today. Or“It’s a story of how to endure in challenge not of one’s making.” I try to relate the story to contemporaryreaders.
What are common mistakes you see aspiring writer’s make?
Being unwilling to reach out to a freelance editor tohave a look at their work. Insisting that what they’ve written can’t be changedor improved. Believing they will make a lot of money :).
Where/How do you recommend writers try to break intothe market?
Look for where your strengths can be showcased. Contribute to newsletters of organizationsyou care about, for example. Pay attention to blogs and Writer’s Digest andother places that let you know about possible markets. Check out Linked in.Find a writer’s conference that brings editors/agents in and research themfinding those who match your story-telling strengths. Volunteer for such aconference that can connect you informally with agents and editors andpublished authors. I met with an editor at a conference who didn’t pick mymanuscript but over breakfast the next day when I told her about a novel I wasthinking of writing she spent an hour giving me great suggestions I ended upusing and that novel is my most awarded book. She was a big part of that.
Jane Kirkpatrick is the New York Times and CBA bestselling and award-winning author of more than thirty books, including One More River to Cross, Everything She Didn’t Say, All Together in One Place, A Light in the Wilderness, The Memory Weaver, This Road We Traveled, and A Sweetness to the Soul, which won the prestigious Wrangler Award from the Western Heritage Center. Her works have won the WILLA Literary Award, the Carol Award for Historical Fiction, and the 2016 Will Rogers Gold Medallion Award. Jane divides her time between Central Oregon and California with her husband, Jerry, and Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, Caesar. Learn more at www.jkbooks.com.
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