The Release!

Today the print edition of Valley of the Shadow officially releases! I’m delighted to finally get this installment of the story out to the readers I left hanging on a pretty steep precipice at the end of Crucible of War. The story is complex, the pace is tight, and there are a number of twists and turns that I suspect will keep you guessing. For those who have been following the adventures of Elizabeth Howard and Jonathan Carleton, I believe you’re going to gain a few deep new insights into these two compelling characters—and also into Charles Andrews’s story. Many clouds rise on the horizon for the Shawnee as well, portending a troubling future for the native peoples and for the new nation.

I couldn’t have completed this book if it hadn’t been for the encouraging feedback I received from many of my fans and the truly helpful advice of several people who took time out of their busy schedules to read the first draft of this volume. My deepest thanks go to Linda Allen, who corrected my faulty French translations; Lori Benton, whose critiques are always on target; Rachel Leigh Smith, who offered an astute assessment of the original ending and prodded me to find the right one; Louise Gouge, Jocelyn Green, Susan Craft, and Patricia Riddle Gaddis, who gave me lovely endorsements; Regina Fugitani and Amber Goos, whose comments and corrections helped me to root out a number of errors; and Beverly Duell-Moore, who is the bane of typos and other mistakes. I have an equal obligation to too many others to list, but you all know who you are, and I thank each of you with all my heart.

Most of all, I thank the Lord who continues to renew these characters in my imagination, add new chapters to their story, and enable me to capture on paper a shadow of the vision he provides. May he use this series to bless many readers for his glory!

Storyweaving

When creating a piece of fabric on a loom, the weaver interlaces threads to create a pattern, whether simple or complex. The threads that run longitudinally are called the warp, while those running laterally are called the weft. I’ve often thought that a story is very much like weaving. The warp is the structure, or plot, of the story. On it hangs the weft, which includes things like theme, characterization, and details of the time period and the characters’ lives that flesh out the plot and cause readers to care about what’s happening. Just as a weaver works back and forth across the loom, the storyteller works back and forth across the breadth and length of the story, weaving in the details that create a coherent and beautiful pattern.

Right now as I’m working back and forth at my story loom while writing Valley of the Shadow, I’m struggling with structural elements that are more complex than any I’ve written before, and I’m wondering how well they’re going to integrate. This installment of the series starts off with a perilous rescue, progresses through a wrenching aftermath, and transitions to the winter at Valley Forge, which includes a brief return to the Shawnee community. A desultory summer campaign follows, and the story concludes with the beginning of a new journey.

How to weave these disparate elements together without ending up with jarring transitions? I worry about that, but then I also wonder whether that’s necessarily a major problem. After all, aren’t unsettling changes a natural part of life? I’ve had them in mine, and I suspect you’ve had them in yours too. Life can turn on a dime, and the occasional jarring transition might add a dose of reality to the story world, just as Elizabeth’s capture in Crucible of War did. In that case there were numerous warnings of increasing danger, but she ignored them and suffered the consequences. How altogether human! Robert Fulghum illustrated that humorously in his book It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It.

Overall, of course, a story needs to hang together and transitions need to make sense in the context of what’s gone before. Too many abrupt changes are likely to give readers a sense that the story—and maybe the author—is out of control. We all want control, don’t we—if not in our own lives, then in the lives of fictional characters in a story? So I continue to wrestle with how to weave all the elements together in such a way that will keep readers flipping those pages and reading long into the night.

What unsettling transition have you had in your life that seemed jarring and out of control at the time? How well did you handle it? Are you still dealing with it, or are you able to look back on it now and see how God was weaving your life on His great loom?

Crucible of War Releases Today!

Today is the official release date for Crucible of War. New authors tend to have the feeling that something spectacular is going to happen on the day their book finally releases, so it can feel like an anticlimax when nothing much really does. Those of us who are in the industry or have had previous books published know it’s simply the date that the book is supposed to be available for purchase in the stores and online. It’s sort of a birth date, and it’s something for the author to celebrate!

In this case, of course, the ebook edition of Crucible has been available from Kindle, Nook, and Christianbook.com for several weeks. And now the print version should already be in stock and ship right away when ordered, though the major retailers’ websites are often slow to change over from preorder to regular order.

If you’re enjoying the American Patriot Series, I very much appreciate positive reviews on retailer sites such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Christianbook.com as well as on the social media such as Facebook. And if you’re not familiar with the series yet, I hope you’ll get a copy of Daughter of Liberty and see if you like it! If you do, then please tell others about it.

Sales are what keep any series going, and word of mouth is the most effective recommendation for any book. Please help me through these stories to continue to entertain, inspire, inform, and educate readers about the heroic generation that courageously opposed the most powerful nation in the world in their day . . . and won liberty for us and for those who follow us!

Last Drawing for the Series Set

Okay, everybody! It’s the very end of August, and this is the last drawing we’re going to get in this month. If you don’t have the entire series yet, or you only have some of the volumes and know somebody you can gift with the extras—a friend or relative who enjoys historical fiction, a public, school, or church library—jump in with a comment and you’ll be entered for autographed copies of the entire set . . . and this time, I’ll include Crucible of War too—books 1-4! In your comment be sure to include your email addy and whether you want the print or ebook version in either Kindle, Nook, or epub via Christianbook.com.

Crucible of War is set to release September 3, and during September I’ll be doing additional drawings for it. Be sure to watch for announcements here and on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and tell everyone you know about this series. I also very much appreciate reviews posted on sites like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Christianbook.com. I need readers in order to afford to write and produce the rest of the volumes, and I need your help to spread the word!

And the Winner Is ...

Ladette!! Your Kindle editions are on their way to you, and I hope you enjoy the series!

Nancee and Rick, be sure to check back again. I’m going to do one more drawing for this set, and then in September I’ll do some drawings for Book 4, Crucible of War. Actually, today through Friday I’m doing a drawing for Crucible on the Colonial Quills blog at colonialquills.blogspot.com, so you might want to drop by there and leave a comment. :-)

Additions and Improvements

I’ve been playing around with some ideas for improving this blog, including the general look and also adding content to the pages. Changing the look has been more frustrating than anything else. I like the colors and the header image, but I like to change out the image from time to time to freshen things up. Changing out the colors is a tedious process and blogger doesn’t provide many options, so I’m trying to avoid fiddling with that. So the problem is finding an image that not only can be cropped to the right size and shape, but is also compatible with the color scheme. I’m still working on that.

In the meantime, I’ve started adding interesting cultural tidbits on the 18th Century Culture, and I’ve replaced Quotes with Excerpt. Currently on the 18th Century Culture page I have a snippet from A Father’s Legacy to His Daughters, a very popular 18th Century book of manners. As I have time, I’ll add more interesting bits and pieces to the page from my extensive store of research.

I’ve also added a few historical sites to the Places page. I’ll continue to expand that with new sites and direct links to the Web pages. At least I’ve made a start.

You’ll find an excerpt from Chapter 1 of Crucible of War on the excerpts page. Because of potential plagiarism issues, I probably won’t add new material to it, but I’d love to have some feedback on this one as Chapter 1 is still in somewhat of a state of flux. So let me know if you like it or hate it or have suggestions to offer. I’d love to hear your opinions!

The Quest

A couple of weeks ago while I was struggling, yet again, to get a real handle on Crucible of War, I realized that my problem was plotting the story. I have a collection of scenes and notes, but weaving them together into a coherent whole wasn’t happening. I’ve lived with my characters long enough now that I know their souls quite well, though, of course, as is true with real people, they still surprise me from time to time. That’s what keeps things interesting. At this point in the series, however, the overarching story has become too complex for me to do my usual seat-of-the-pants plotting as I write each volume.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that there was nothing for it except to buckle down and—gasp—outline the plot! Although I generally resist being that organized, obviously I wasn’t going to make much progress until I did. Sooo I took the plunge. First I decided it would help tremendously to have the main characters’ inner and outer quests up at the top of the document where I can easily refer to them as I develop each act. It helped that I’d already outlined the specific goals, motivation, and conflict for each main character in this volume as well as for the book, which made this part a relative piece of cake. Here’s what I ended up with.

• General George Washington
  outer quest—keep his army together and strike a decisive blow against the British.
  inner quest—to earn the respect of friends and foes alike, to protect his reputation, and to return in triumph to the peaceful life of a Virginia planter.
• General William Howe
  outer quest—wear the Americans down through a series of blows that will finally force them to surrender.
  inner quest—build his reputation and maintain his position, all while indulging in gambling and the charms of his mistress as much as possible.
• Jonathan Carleton/White Eagle
  outer quest—to define his identity as Shawnee warrior/white officer, to help the Americans win independence, and to successfully advocate for his people .
  inner quest: to build a life with Elizabeth, to finally learn to trust her completely, to come to know the depths of her soul.
• Elizabeth Howard
  outer quest—to overcome Howe, defeat Britain, and help gain independence for the Americans.
  inner quest—to build a life with Carleton, to nurture his soul and heal his deepest wounds.
• Charles Andrews/Golden Elk
  outer quest—to help the Americans gain independence, and then go home to his adoptive people in peace.
  inner quest—to become a true Shawnee husband to Blue Sky, father to their children, and member of the tribe.

It’s a beginning. I’ll refine this and make it more specific to this volume as I develop the story. In my next post, I’ll go into the actual plot outline, which I’ve organized in 3 acts.

Head Banging

Okay, so I’ve been procrastinating. Writing a tight script for this video has turned out to be considerably more of a challenge than I anticipated. For some reason I’m having a really hard time getting it pared down to where it’ll move quickly and carry viewers right along. I’ve trimmed and tweaked and deleted and put back what I deleted, and I’m still not entirely satisfied.

Here’s what I have so far, numbered by sequence.

1. Eastertide 1775

2. British warships blockade Boston’s once-thriving port

3. while the Regulars occupy the city.

4. As conflict builds to a deadly confrontation

5. Elizabeth Howard plays a dangerous game

6. By day she flirts boldly with British officers

7. and by night, as the elusive courier Oriole,

8. she smuggles intelligence and weapons to the patriots

9. But with the arrival of Jonathan Carleton

10. an officer in the Seventeenth Light Dragoons

11. she must fight a war of wits and words

12. as he quickly becomes her most dangerous foe.

13. As the first blood is spilled at Lexington and Concord

14. and Elizabeth is drawn ever closer to the carnage of Bunker Hill

15. Carleton sacrifices his life to save hers

16. Now can she rescue him from the hangman’s noose

17. and her heart from his keeping?

18. The nation’s epic war for independence begins . . .

19. Book cover

20. Credits

I’m fairly happy with the beginning, but segments 9 through 15 are driving me crazy. Obviously I need to convey that information, but it has to be concise and flow naturally. Right now it feels awkward and clunky, and I’ve played with it to the point that I’m no longer objective.

Of course, a huge obstacle to writing this is knowing that I have to find images to illustrate each sequence. I’ve accumulated a number that work fine, including a couple of video clips. But for several of these lines, finding anything that’s even an approximation of what I need is going to be a major task. How do you illustrate fighting a war of wits and words, for pity’s sake? But I love that line. It captures the interaction between Jonathan and Elizabeth in this book perfectly in just a few words, so I don’t want to give it up.

Well, crumbs. I guess I’ll just have to set this project aside for the time being, mull it over, and pray the muse eventually comes up with a stroke of genius.

The good news is that I’ve made good progress on Crucible of War. I’ve gotten my characters across the Delaware with considerable travail, and now I’m adding research notes about the Battle of Trenton directly into the file. Once I have a moment-by-moment narrative of a battle in front of me, scenes develop vividly in my head and spill out on the page. So I’m eager to finish entering the dry narrative so I can use them as a springboard to create some exciting action.

By a fortuitous stroke, the latest issue of the DAR’s magazine, American Spirit, included an article about American prisoners of war during the Revolution that I found quite helpful for the development of my plotline at the end of Crucible and beginning of Valley of the Shadow. Lots of great detail there that will make its way into my story! When the stars all come into alignment like that, it keeps me forging onward.

Kindle Crisis

I was hoping I’d have better news by now, but we’re making progress, folks, really we are! I uploaded the Kindle version of both Daughter of Liberty and Native Son a couple of weeks ago. But because they were previously published by Zondervan, the good folks at Amazon, conscientious as the darlin’s are, dropped them into the dreaded—and apparently endless—review process.

Thanks to John McClure, our expert at Signalman Publishing who transforms our books into the Kindle format and who is the repository of all knowledge Kindlewise (thank you muchly, John!!), I obtained the highly guarded, eyes-only e-mail addy for the dtp support staff. I assured them I do indeed hold the publishing rights, and they responded with a request for Zondervan’s return of rights letter a short time ago. I immediately scanned the letter and sent it to them.

Hopefully we’re finally on track now to get those titles up and running on Kindle within the next few days. As soon as they’re available, I’ll post the direct links here.

In my next post, I promise to bring you up to date on my progress on Crucible of War. Alas, however, that’s going to have to wait until I get through the yearly tax travail. Sigh. If all goes well and I survive, I should have that mess off my desk sometime next week. Can you tell this is just my favorite time of the year?!

Living History

One of the best ways to learn about the colonial period is to attend reenactments. Nothing can give you the feel and look of a historical period the way breathing in campfire smoke and mingling with people dressed in authentic garb and living like people of the era can. So this past Saturday I checked out a local reenactor encampment, Daniel Smith Colonial Days at Historic Rock Castle in Hendersonville, Tennessee.

This is one of the few colonial-era reenactments in this region, where the Civil War is still very much an issue among Tennessee natives, so I wasn’t about to let this opportunity pass me by. As you can see from these photos, it was a fine day, and the event was very well attended, which is immensely encouraging. And I got some pretty good photos, which might come in handy for various projects. Of course, it’s hard getting good shots with so many folks in modern dress wandering around.

In spite of being buried in business affairs, I have made a bit more progress on Crucible of War, though I definitely need to make a lot more if this installment is going to make the release date. One thing that’s hampered me is having a case of writers block. Luckily, my Sheaf House partner, Joy DeKok, came for a visit to meet some of our business contacts, plan, and brainstorm. Joy just happens to be a certified author coach, and on her last day here she began casually asking a lot of what if questions and suggesting possible scenarios. In one session we outlined the central crisis of the volume, and from that developed my characters’ goals, motivation, and conflict.

I was so excited that after she left I wrote the entire last chapter in almost one sitting. And boy, is it diabolical!! Talk about a cliffhanger! I’m going to try to cover the major part of 1777 in this book. The year starts off with the Battles of Trenton and Princeton, which are pretty exciting to begin with and will require some intensive research and plotting. Then the French and Spanish came aboard as allies to the Americans, the pivotal battle of Saratoga followed, then Howe’s campaign to capture Philadelphia and Washington’s subsequent campaign to take it back again.

And of course, Elizabeth and Jonathan’s story is going to develop apace, as is Pieter Vander Groot’s and Andrews and Blue Sky’s. So readers are in for some hair-raising and heart-wrenching reading that ought to keep them flipping those pages. That’ my goal, anyway. Stay tuned.

Reader Feedback

I thought I’d share several recent reviews posted on Amazon.

“Being a Civil War buff, I wasn’t sure I’d like anything from the Revolution. But as the characters in Daughter of Liberty came to life with visceral detail and emotional investment, I could not turn my back on them. The tension between determined and independent Elizabeth Howard and the complex and delicious Jonathan Carleton turned the pages like bacon curling in the sear of a frying pan. Even minor characters’ depictions take on three dimensions and add a realism very difficult to achieve. The complexity of intrigue and historical developments keeps the pace between lively and riveting. The last quarter of the book was a true climax and resolution—one of the best I’ve ever read.

“I have been to Boston three times in my life, briefly, and I have to say that Ms. Hochstetler’s period recreation of the town and outlying geography is remarkable. The current labyrinth of man-made landmarks all but obliterates the topography, but she depicts it in such a convincing and authoritative way that time rewinds and the reader experiences the innocence of the country’s birthing.

“The author’s command of history goes beyond impressive. Events, names, places, military accoutrement, and even clothing saturate this read with authenticity. I MUST find out more about Jonathan Carleton. He made a deep impression on me as a reader and now, a fan. On to Native Son, the second one in the series!”

—Kathleen L. Maher

“J. M. Hochstetler is able to bring history to life with her exceptional prose and attention to detail. If you want a Last of the Mohicans type adventure with a hearty dose of romance and realism, buy these books! My only regret is that she doesn’t write fast enough and there aren’t enough books like hers! Wonderful, inspiring, educational reading! Bless you, J. M.! I use your books for my own research!”

—Laura Frantz

“J. M. Hochstetler takes us in her time machine and transforms poster-stamp names in history, such as George Washington, John Hancock or Samuel Adams, into real characters we can see, hear and at times even smell, like or dislike, depending on their moods or deeds. She helps readers reconnect to the “pluck” that built her nation’s love of freedom and independent enterprise. In these difficult economic times, Americans need to be reminded of the resourcefulness and courage of their forebears, of the united spirit that rescued them from poverty and tyranny, and to show them that once again they can rise to overcome oppressive conditions.

“This fictional trilogy set in the American Revolution is not only a thoroughly entertaining Five-Star read but also belongs in every library across the country, especially from middle schools to universities. As required reading, it would certainly make history the exciting study it truly is and give back to Americans pride in their heritage.”

—Bonnie Toews

I’m working hard to make this series not only accurate and authentic to the time, but also a great read. Receiving this kind of reader validation makes all the effort worthwhile. Thank you, ladies, for your kind comments! You keep me going!

My next post will be about constructing book 4 of the series, Crucible of War. I’m going to have plenty to share about that in the coming months since it’s scheduled for a fall 2011 release. Stay tuned!