by Lehua Parker | Dec 22, 2013 | Blog Tours, Guest Posts, & Interviews
My friend and critique partner Christine Haggerty just published her debut novel with Fox Hollow Publications. Acquisitions, book 1 in the Plague Legacy, introduces Cam, a teenage orphan trying to survive in a world reshaped by a plague virus that renders people immune or mutant. When Cam’s swept up in a raid to provide more slaves for Salvation, he’ll have find ways to survive in a dog eat dog world. Readers of Legend, Lord of the Flies, Maze Runner, and The Hunger Games will find much to love in this new series.
Over a couple of Diet Cokes and email, this is what Christine told me about her newest project.
The Plague Legacy world is a rough one, Christine. Most modern comforts are gone, at least for people like Cam. Are there experiences in your life that you used to help readers understand what Cam’s life is like?
My early childhood was spent on a subsistence farm in northeastern Utah. We grew most of our own food, milked a goat, had an outhouse (I think we had indoor plumbing by the time I was in second grade), snared and skinned rabbits, and gathered and ate plants that many people would consider weeds. I imagine that if the apocalypse was due to a disease rather than a nuclear bomb, we’d be shoved back a few centuries and live like I did as a kid. That’s the life that Cam and the other orphans in the story had before they were collected and sold.
What’s the most important thing Cam needs to keep in mind in order to survive?
In the first book, Cam mostly needs to trust in himself in order to survive. He views himself as a victim, as someone who is restricted by the rules of humanity. However, the rest of his world does not necessarily play by those same rules, and Cam has to choose which to follow and which to break.
Which five books would you lug around in a backpack during an apocalypse?
Illusions by Richard Bach and four ‘how to’ survival guides.
Describe your typical writing day.
I send my kids off to school in the morning and then have about 2 ½ hours to write without interruptions before my kindergartener gets home. That’s ideal. There are always interruptions. I do best when I am in the rhythm of getting up at 5:30 a.m. to have my coffee and write for an hour before their alarms start going off. When I get stressed about a deadline (and I set word count deadlines for myself), my typical writing day can involve a lot of yelling and a lot more coffee…and chocolate chips.
Any teasers for book 2 you can share? Inquiring minds want to know!
I can say that The Plague Legacy: Assets will have arena games and fighting and a much more complex world that is an interesting mix of apocalyptic old and futuristic new. A lot more character backstories play into this book as Cam puts some puzzle pieces together in order to survive. Watch my website for scenes and artwork related to the world of Salvation.
The Plague Legacy: Acquisitions is published by Fox Hollow Publications and is available through Amazon.
Connect with Christine Haggerty
Website: www.christinehaggertyauthor.com
Wattpad: www.wattpad.com/ChristineHaggerty
Goodreads: www.goodreads.com/author/show/7468114.Christine_Haggerty
Fox Hollow Publications: www.foxhollowpublications.com
by Lehua Parker | Dec 18, 2013 | The Business of Writing
‘Twas the Night Before Deadline
(with apologies to Clement Clarke Moore)
‘Twas the night before deadline, when all through the den
Not a writer was writing, not even with pen!
The novel was due to reviewers with care
In hopes that sales stimulus soon would be there.
The words were not flowing, no dialogue said,
While visions of better books danced in my head.
And husband asked, “When?” And I said, “Don’t know.
I’ve got pages and chapters still left to go.”
When out in the kitchen there arose such a clatter
I sprang from my laptop to see what’s the matter.
Away to the counter I flew like a flash,
Tore open the wrappers and snarfed all the stash.
The moon on the beast of the new-fallen show
The depths of the bottom we writers will go.
When what to my thundering thighs should appear,
But six empty plates of neighborly cheer.
With a Diet Coke chaser, so icy and quick,
Came the illusion of writing so lively with wit.
More rabid than weasels the words how they came,
And I laughed as I wrote them—to my endless shame.
“Now Gaiman, now Meyers, now King, and Dean Koontz,
Gabaldon, Pattersen, you guys with the loot,
My books are on shelves and great reads to boot!
It’s time to move over, c’mon y’all—scoot!”
Like bad reviews before these wild words fly,
When they meet with reality, sugar crash is nigh.
So back to my laptop my fingers they flew
Enough with this poem—I’ve real writing to do!
by Lehua Parker | Dec 16, 2013 | Mainland Living
I have a favorite Sunday joke that goes, “A mother left church to look for her son and found him sitting on the curb in the parking lot. ‘You need to come back inside,’ she said. ‘But Mom, nobody likes me. Nobody talks to me or wants to sit by me. It’s boring going to meeting after meeting. I’d rather be outside enjoying the sunshine. Isn’t that a better way to feel God’s love?’ ‘Son, there are two reasons you need to come back inside,’ she said. ‘The first is that you made a commitment to God. The second is that you’re the Bishop.’
I often feel like that bishop.
Of course, you can change bishop to pastor or priest or rabbi or even Relief Society President or PTA Chair. The reason I like this joke is because at its heart it’s really about reluctant leadership and obligation. Even the most stalwart on the outside can have internal doubts.
There are many people in my church who would find that sentiment horrifically unsettling, but I consider it marvelously humanizing. I feel like I can lend a hand to a human. I can also forgive humans for making mistakes.
My husband and I team teach Sunday School to fourteen year olds. Some days it’s like trying to raise the dead. They constantly beg for treats and want to take naps instead of participate in discussions. It’s a lot like helping in the nursery but without diapers or Goldfish crackers.
One Sunday when I was teaching alone I walked out on them, saying I refused to believe they were truly as stupid as they were pretending to be when they insisted Catholics crucified Christ.
You don’t even have to be Christian to know that’s impossible.
But calling their bluff and storming out was probably not one of my more Christ-like moments. I even told them that if they didn’t want to learn, I’d wheel in a tv and play a video each week while I sat in a corner reading a book. Surely that would bring more Sunday peace to my life than struggling with these knuckleheads.
After stomping around the hallway and grinding my teeth to hold in the inappropriate words that bubbled up to the surface, I realized what I needed to tell them.
God only had one perfect person to do his work in the entire history of the world—and even Jesus had days where he wept in frustration. If our faith rests in the infallibility of a single person or group—bishop, scout leader, parent, Sunday School class—we’re guaranteed to be disappointed, possibly angry, and sitting on the curb while the meeting is going on. Our fragile, tempest-tossed faith has to be more resilient.
Faith is something that grows not because of all the good we’ve experienced, but in spite of the bad. It is the fervent belief that no matter now big or insignificant our contribution seems, no matter how little progress we seem to be making, faith is knowing the journey defines the destination.
After nine months of cajoling, badgering, challenging, and insisting that kids think beyond easy answers like prayer and reading scriptures when we ask them about how they will tackle life’s curve balls, I realize that I’m going to miss them when a brand new class takes their place in a couple of weeks. More surprising is that they say they’re going to miss us, the mean teachers who insisted their weekly treat was having us as teachers.
Evidence of God’s power and grace, if you ask me.
by Lehua Parker | Dec 6, 2013 | Adult Fiction, Book Reviews & Announcements
It’s been a long time since I laughed out loud while reading a book. Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple is spit your Diet Coke funny. I’ve lived slices of Bernadette’s life, right down to the passive-aggressive snooty private school politics and paralyzing life changes and completely related to her world.
It’s a witty read. The story is pieced together from emails, text messages, and letters that reveal an artistic and well, genius, woman who gives up everything for her daughter. By the time her daughter no longer needs her attention every moment, Bernadette is adrift in a life she no longer recognizes. At the beginning, we see Bernadette at such a low that she hires a virtual assistant in India to take care of everything from Thanksgiving reservations to planning a family cruise to the Arctic. To hide her dysfunction from her husband, she instructs her assistant to deduct her salary from her personal checking account, a grand total of $30 a week since she’s paying her 75¢ an hour. From there things head south in the worst way possible. It takes a remarkable series of events involving mudslides, the Russian mob, school fundraisers, and death by cruise ship for Bernadette to remember who she is and find pleasure and purpose in life as herself, rather than as an extension of her family.
Thoroughly entertaining and perfect for vacation or by the fireplace reading, Where’d You Go, Bernadette is highly recommended.
by Lehua Parker | Nov 21, 2013 | Mainland Living
When my son was eight years old, we made a deal that he would take piano lessons until he was sixteen or could play all the songs in a simplified hymnal, something I guessed would take three or four years at the most. By then I figured he’d love music and would want to continue to play.
Not so much.
I made the fatal rookie mom mistake of underestimating the power of the truly unmotivated. I once caught him practicing the piano while standing next to me in my office. He’d recorded himself practicing weeks ago and simply had the piano playback the tracks.
That was the first and only time I regretted buying a digital piano.
Now sixteen, a month ago he told me he was ready to quit. With a gun pointed at his head, I think he can manage a couple of hymns and a classical piece or two, but it’s obvious he’s not going to be tickling the ivories for pocket change at a piano bar or subbing for the church pianist anytime soon.
I was seriously bummed.
You see, I always wanted to learn to play the piano.
The closest I came was in fifth grade when a band teacher starting coming to our school twice a week. Only two kids from each 5th and 6th grade class could join the band. Since it met during regular school hours, teachers had to approve who could miss valuable class time. I begged my teacher Mrs. Goo to let me go. I said my parents insisted that I be in band. I promised to bang the erasers to rid them of chalk every day before lunch, that I would stay in from recess on band days to read and do extra math, and the kicker, I would never ever ask another question in class again. Eventually, a boy no one liked and I got chosen. I think Mrs. Goo was secretly relieved to be rid of us a couple of hours a week.
At the first band meeting the conductor said if we played the sax, clarinet, or oboe we had to buy reeds. If we played the trumpet or trombone we’d have to buy a mouthpiece. Drummers needed to provide their own drumsticks. I raised my hand.
“Is there an instrument that doesn’t cost anything to play?”
“The flute,” he laughed. “The school has a few you can use.”
Score! “I want to play the flute,” I said.
“Hell, no,” my father said.
“There’s no rental fee and band is during school so I don’t have to go early or stay late. I can still ride the city bus with Heidi.”
“Band? Like marching around on a field? What about uniforms? I’m not paying for that.”
“It’s free,” I said.
“Fine,” he said. “You want to look like an ass marching around in the rain, that’s up to you.”
To keep the peace I practiced before my parents came home from work and saved all my babysitting money for three years to buy my first flute, a crappy Artley that I was so proud of in eighth grade. I played all through high school, marching in the rain at football games and teaching at summer band camps. As a freshman, I earned a chair on a competition symphonic wind orchestra that traveled all over the United States performing at places like Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Rockefeller Center, the Rose Bowl, Disneyland, and the White House—all major multi-week adventures when you’re a bunch of teens traveling from Hawaii. Jazz, classical, baroque, pop, movie scores, ballads—I played them all, including ballroom waltzes and be-bop oldies for the Waikiki tea time crowd at a fancy hotel. By the time I was a high school senior, I could sight read and play just about anything a conductor threw at me.
But as a freshman in college, I psyched myself out and didn’t even audition. Since I wasn’t a music major I didn’t think there was a place for me to play. Life went on with less and less musical joy in it until I turned around and realized I hadn’t sung in a choir or played more than a token note on a flute in more than 25 years. It didn’t seem possible.
The lessons are already in the budget, I thought. But so what? I’m the boss of me now.
“Okay,” I told my son. “If you really don’t want to play, you don’t have to. But I’m talking to your teacher about taking your spot.”
“You can’t do that!” my thirteen year old daughter shrieked. “It’d be too embarrassing!”
“Oh, for me because I’m old?” I asked.
“No! For me because you’re old! Moms don’t take piano lessons! What about recitals? No way!”
Yes, way. With three lessons under my belt, I’m already tackling beginner’s Christmas music with simple three and four note chords that I fumble my way through. According to my teacher, it’s actually easier to teach an old dog new tricks, especially when the dog is used to pounding on a different kind of keyboard for hours on end and can already read music.
After all, somebody’s gonna have to play the piano when the kids are gone. Might as well be me.
My friend and critique partner Christine Haggerty just published her debut novel with Fox Hollow Publications. Acquisitions, book 1 in the Plague Legacy, introduces Cam, a teenage orphan trying to survive in a world reshaped by a plague virus that renders people immune or mutant. When Cam’s swept up in a raid to provide more slaves for Salvation, he’ll have find ways to survive in a dog eat dog world. Readers of Legend, Lord of the Flies, Maze Runner, and The Hunger Games will find much to love in this new series.
The Plague Legacy: Acquisitions is published by Fox Hollow Publications and is available through Amazon.
