Author Maureen Lang & Loneliness

My guest today is Author Maureen Lang who writes about something that most authors and stay-at-home moms deal with, loneliness. Here's Mauree:

"Have you ever felt like an outside in your own hometown? Maybe all of us have, to some extent or at various times in our lives. Between my writing career and being mom to a handicapped child, isolation seems to be a natural byproduct. I’ve always joked that the two factors go hand-in-hand, that writing requires me to stay home but that’s just where I need to be anyway, with a son nearby who needs extra attention. While it’s convenient for me to stay at home, it’s not always wise to stay home as much as I do.

I learned my lesson earlier in the year at a school event where parents were invited to see their kids in a holiday parade. I made sure the event was on my calendar so I’d be there, and off I went. Once I arrived, I realized my lack of foresight. The occasion wasn’t just to see our children, it was also a social event for the parents. Parents who knew each other. So there I stood, off to the side by myself, observing various clusters of people who seemed to be the best of friends. That may not be the saddest moment of my life, but it was certainly a memorable one. It served to remind me that community doesn’t just happen. It must be cultivated. Without time devoted to others, isolation follows us even into the crowd.

I guess that memory helped me to write several of the early scenes of my newest book, set in France during World War One. In Look To The East, my heroine Julitte is an outsider in her own hometown. Part of the problem for her is the dynamics of the town itself: a feud has been going on for generations, making half the town practically an enemy to her anyway. But even those on her family’s side of the feud are sometimes cool toward her, and it’s because she’s perceived as “different.” Her differences are unlike my differences.

In my case I have a child with special needs, but nowadays that only means I have another community into which I can connect if I devoted more time to the matter. Julitte was born around the year 1900, on the Greek island of Lepers and adopted away when she was found free of the disease. Between her heritage and her faith, Julitte is considered different. Her only friend is a girl who was cast out of polite society, too.


When a world war breaks out, the first of its kind, Julitte uses her isolation to benefit a straggler caught behind enemy lines. Few people suspect she’s hiding someone from the occupying army—someone she’s fallen in love with.

While the source of my social isolation may be different from my characters’, the solution is the same. Depend on God; follow His example of community by serving others.

Take the time to enjoy the company of others. Limit the time spent in isolation, and use it to grow closer to our Creator (not farther away from people). Community may not be the answer to all of our problems, but it can make many of the problems we do face easier to bear.

Recipe: Fruit Salsa (from my friend JoAnn Nishimoto)
1/2 honeydew mellow, diced
1/2 cantaloupe, diced
1 papaya or mango, diced (this is optional, but delicious and adds a lot of flavor)
2 med. tomatoes, seeded and diced
1 med. cucumber, seeded and diced
1 cup Pace Picante Sauce, mild or medium
2 tablespoons sugar
Refrigerate 2 hours to mingle flavors, then drain the juices a bit for the salsa to be less watery. Enjoy!"--Maureen

Visit Maureen's website and blog for more info about her and her books. She has graciously offered to send a book for a drawing of those who comment this week.
So leave her a comment and you may be the fortunate one! Thanks so much, Maureen."--Lyn

Love Inspired Author Anna Schmidt & Her Love of History

Today a fellow Wisconsin author, Anna Schmidt, tells about her mother's heritage.

"My love of history came down to me from my parents -- especially my Mom. I truly think she would have been happy to have lived in an earlier time! At any rate although she had less than a high school education, she was an avid reader and loved (as I do) puttering around in antique shops and looking at items with an eye to who might have held them and used them before. She taught me that if we pay attention to what has gone before we can avoid repeating the same mistakes.

Clearly we are two generations of cock-eyed optimists!

But writing GIFT FROM THE SEA (my latest novel for Steeple Hill and the sequel to SEASIDE CINDERELLA) was a pure labor of love. The idea was to bring two people together who would have been natural enemies in the years of WWI -- an American nurse and a German seaman caught my heart.

Believe me, my hero and heroine totally took over once I brought them onstage and the exploration of the question of forgiveness became the focus for the story and their ability to find love.

Disagreements between nations are really (IMHO) disagreements between governments. When we are brought face to face with another individual whose ideals, traditions and even faith differs from our own, each of us must decide -- do I respect and value this person even thought his or her values and beliefs may differ from my own? And if I do then how to begin a dialogue that will lead to understanding and acceptance and true peace on earth. Blessings to you all."--Anna Schmidt
PS: Hope you will watch my website www.booksbyanna.com "Stories of Challenges Met with Courage, Faith and Healing" for some exciting new opportunities to win free stuff coming later this summer!!!

Thanks, Anna, my own mother always stopped at any little town museum we passed through and I did the same for my children who also became lovers of history.
Anna has already sent me signed copies of both her books--SEASIDE CINDERELLA and its sequel GIFT FROM THE SEA--which will be included in my MEGA May gift basket drawing.--Lyn

Maureen Lang and Bess

Today I have the pleasure of hosting Maureen Lang, a great Tyndale author who lives in my home county in Illinois, Lake County which on the east borders Lake Michigan. I had the opportunity to endorse Maureen's outstanding story, Oak Leaves.
A memorable and compelling story.

Please welcome Maureen Lang as she tells her story of a Strong Woman!


When Lyn presented the idea to post an article about a strong woman, I thought it would be so easy to introduce readers to one of the heroines from my books. After all, they’re supposed to be strong. If they don’t start out that way, hopefully by the end of the story they’ve grown into someone who’s faced and conquered more than they ever thought they could endure.

But instead I’d like to tell you about my grandmother—a real person rather than one of the make-believe people performing scenes in my head. Do you know what makes a person strong? As the Bible says, it’s testing by fire.

My grandmother came from good American stock. When I was young she told me her family had left Ireland so many years ago one ancestor or another had fought in the Revolutionary War. She also said one of her forebears had been a mail-order bride from Scotland, another story I’d like to explore some day.

My grandmother Elizabeth (Bess as she was called) was born in 1894. The first fire Bess faced was at the young age of seven. Her mother became sick with TB, and one day Bess’s father, a country pastor, dressed in his preaching suit even though it wasn’t Sunday. He told Bess to comb her hair and put on her best dress, too, so she could say good-by properly to her mother. After doing that (combing her hair the best her seven-year old hands could do), her father pressed two silver dollars into her little palm and then took Bess to her mother. She was already gone on to Heaven. It was Bess who put the coins on her eyes, to hold down the eyelids she was told.

Bess’s sixteen year old sister helped to care for her until a few months later when she, too, became ill with TB and died, leaving Bess with her father and brother. Not long after that, two women from her father’s church came for a grim visit: they told him it wasn’t proper for a young girl to be raised in a household of only men, and they’d found a school that would take in girls. And so at seven years old Bess was sent away, to be raised by Episcopalian nuns. She was to see her father and brother only on Sundays for family day.

Bess was well educated there and grew up to marry. As a young woman she lived through the Great War and the Great Depression, bore two boys and a girl. When her daughter was six years old she woke up to another day only to become ill in a matter of hours. My frantic grandmother took her little girl to the local hospital and after waiting and waiting for help, the doctor finally saw them. But Bess was told there was nothing they could do. Her daughter died soon after the doctors examined her, a victim of what she was told to be 7-hour pneumonia. Bess continued to hold her daughter, and the staff was so busy they left her there for many hours, until she cried herself to sleep. As the family story goes, that’s when my grandmother’s dark brown hair turned the pure white she had for the rest of her life.

Bess gave birth to a third son not long after that, but when a woman brought a paternity suit against Bess’s husband demanding he support her and his child, Bess divorced him despite social condemnation. She raised three rambunctious boys on her own, all of whom became hardworking and honest, responsible members of society. Each of them entered the armed forces and she watched them march off to fight in the Second World War. By then Bess had a choice of two men who wanted to marry her, and she chose a First World War veteran who worked as a fine tool blacksmith. But before they could be married he was recruited by Uncle Sam to go to the Panama Canal Zone to work on everything from medical to ship equipment aboard warships passing through the Canal. He reported for duty immediately and Bess soon followed—after a series of nasty shots and medical precautions against malaria. They were married by an American judge in Panama City. For four years they lived there, while one of her sons, my father, was taken Prisoner of War by the Japanese in the Philippines. Bess was given only scant knowledge of what he went through after that initial death march for the three and a half years of his captivity until the end of the war.

Bess and her husband made it back to the Midwest just in time to welcome him home after the camp he’d been held at in Mukden, Manchuria was liberated.

By the time I came along my grandmother was quite settled, still happily married to her retired blacksmith, and living near her three sons. Thinking back on my childhood I have few regrets, but one of them was that I never sat still long enough to listen to more of her stories. She died at age 89, having lived a full and interesting life, tested by the fires that made her strong.

Maureen

Maureen Lang is the author of several novels, including Pieces of Silver (a Christy Finalist) and The Oak Leaves (a Holt Award of Merit recipient). Her books are both historical and contemporary and always include an element of romance with the promise of a happy ending. Her newest book is titled My Sister Dilly, the story of two sisters who survive mistakes and guilt and find redemption after one sister makes a terrible mistake that sends her to prison. Readers can see a trailer about the book at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5impgRmCNCk

Maureen Lang www.maureenlang.com
http://maureenlang.blogspot.com/
Latest release: My Sister Dilly, Tyndale