Category: Writing
The True Story of General Patton’s New Boots
My last blog explained the process of expanding and fictionalizing the true stories Herman told me. This imagining and expanding of Herman’s memories was great creative fun. Far more difficult, but equally important, was culling redundant or irrelevant sections so the novel maintained a momentum to keep the reader engaged. …
Truth vs Fiction: A Book Group Question about Immigrant Soldier
When I am speaking with book clubs who have read Immigrant Soldier, one of the questions I am most often asked is: “What parts are true and what bits are totally from the author’s imagination?” Naturally in the limited time we usually have, and in the limited space of a blog post, I cannot go through the…
Meg Waite Clayton – A World War II “Nut.”
I recently had the honor of hosting best-selling author Meg Waite Clayton for a weekend in my home. She had come to Laguna Beach in order to speak at the annual fund-raising Literary Luncheon for an organization dear to my heart .* Earlier I had been asked by the organization to write a short piece about…
Did That Really Happen?
Readers of Immigrant Soldier often ask me how much of the novel actually happened and how much was born from my imagination. The earliest finished manuscript, with the somewhat deceptive title of Becoming an American, was written as nonfiction for young adults. When I decided to rewrite it as a novel for adults, I wanted it to remain…
Faction—What Is It?
Since the publication of Immigrant Soldier in February of this year, I have been actively marketing it to museum gift shops. I am proud that through these efforts, the novel is now available at quite a few Holocaust and World War II museums across the country. However, several important museums let me know that their…
Molly Speaks on Love and War
In Immigrant Soldier, the Story of a Ritchie Boy, Molly is Herman’s first love. She is based on a real young woman, though I have changed her name and added details too private for Herman to tell me. I thought it would be interesting to look into Molly’s heart. How did she feel about her brief…
A Grueling Search for Tiny Things – Careful Proofreading matters
The proofreading is finished! It was a grueling and worthwhile task. My team of 3 (my editor, my eagle-eyed friend, Barbara, and myself) have combed proof copies of Immigrant Soldier. My editor used a time honored method for checking a final proof of material seen too often—she read it backward. My friend read it for the…
Using Family Stories—or Not
From the very beginning, I was fascinated by the stories my uncle told of his experiences during WWII. But, as I began to write Immigrant Soldier, I wanted the book to be more than just a war story. I wanted to write about the forces, both political and personal, that changed him from a frustrated teenager…
A Book in My Hand—A Baby Past Due
What a journey this has been! More than 15 years gestation and birth is just around the corner. It has been an exciting two weeks as my editor, my designers, and I send a flurry of emails back and forth. But we have accomplished our goal. Immigrant Soldier was uploaded to the publication arm of Amazon (CreateSpace)…
Crossing the T’s and Dotting the I’s
When I sent what I believed to be a clean, mistake-free copy of my manuscript to a Ritchie Boy who had promised to write me a review, I was amazed when he found not only some German language that needed correction, but a few other small errors. I conveyed my distress to my editor, and…