Jennifer Slattery: Hometown Healing
Tell us about Hometown Healing:
This story is about a writer who gets laid off from her dream job writing features for Chicago’s premier fashion magazines and is forced back home to Sage Creek. To live with her mother. It’s not that she has anything against her mom. In fact, she loves her dearly and is grateful for the time they’ll get to spend together. It’s just … sitting in her mom’s driveway with all of her belongings crammed into a u-haul trailer attached to the back of her car feels like the opposite of adulting.
She feels defeated and worries she might not have what it takes to be a writer. What if her layoff is proof of that? Just as she’s about to step from her car, she encounters her first love and the man who once broke her heart. She knew she’s encounter him eventually. After all, his grandmother is her mother’s neighbor. But she was hoping she’d be a bit more put together first.
Meanwhile, Jed is doing all he can to help save his grandparents’ dinner theater, and he needs Paige’s help. But first he’ll has to figure out how to repair the friendship he’d shattered, without falling in love all over again.
How did your interest in writing originate?
I’ve often attributed my interaction with my father to much of my love for words. When I was young, he and I would play word games together while walking through the neighborhood. (He normally would skip rather than walk.) We’d rhyme, or he’d use alliteration type activities to increase my memory. He also read—or maybe I should say, sang—a particular story book to me often titled “I’m Mister Bun.” Those were fond memories that helped me associate books and language with relational interaction.
I’ve always enjoyed writing and reading, and used journaling and poetry to process thoughts and emotions as a kid, but I didn’t consider writing as a real pursuit until my adult years, when I began serving in various ministries. At first, I wrote when I felt there was a need, and I produced a wide range of material from dramas for outreach programs, curriculum, parent newsletters, and more.
One day, the children’s direction asked me to write a short story for a children’s program she was planning, and as I was brainstorming how to present the story, it struck me how deeply I enjoyed the brainstorming process. That was when I first considered writing just for the sake of writing. Two to three years later, I sensed a clear and definite call that this was something God wanted me to intentionally pursue.
What does your writing process look like?
This is changing to some extent. I initially wrote as ideas came, but then I hit some major timeline and plot issues, so I started plotting my stories out. I refused to start writing until I knew the basic idea or problem for each scene. With the book I just wrote a proposal on, however, I went back to more free flowing. I started with scene outlines but veered off track, then plotted some more scenes …
I still plot, to an extent, because I want to know, before I pitch a book or get too far in, that I have enough to carry a story. But I’ve been enjoying following wherever my muse takes me.
What are you working on now? What is your next project?
I always have numerous projects going at once. I’m finishing up Bible study material for my ministry’s next study, which I’m excited about. It’s on unshakable, unbreakable joy. I’m also researching my next Love Inspired idea—this one centered on a ranch.
What do you find yourself reading when you are not writing?
Um … everything? I have such eclectic reading taste! Right now I’m reading a lot of nonfiction, specifically on ranching, hay crops, you know, exciting stuff. 😉 I have numerous titles on my bed stand table that I purchased at a recent leadership summit I’m excited to dig into! So many books so little time, right?
Do you have a book/movie/song/scripture that inspires you when writer’s block occurs?
When writers block hits, it usually comes more from my desire to write well than that I’m out of ideas. When that happens, I know only God can re-center me and remind me of my role vs. His. My role is to obey. To show up, sit behind my computer, and type. His role is to perfect that which concerns me, birth creativity inside me, and work out the results however He deems best.
Other times, my temporary halt of ideas comes from a lack of story-related knowledge and indicate I need to pause to research more. As I do, more plot or scene ideas arise.
As to music, I need complete silence when I’m being creative.
She’s
home again, but not for long…
Unless this cowboy recaptures her heart
Returning home with a baby in tow, Paige
Cordell’s determined her stay is only temporary. But to earn enough money to
leave, she needs a job—and her only option is working at her first love’s
dinner theater. With attraction once again unfurling between her and Jed
Gilbertson, can the man who once broke her heart convince her to stay for good?
Buy it HERE.
Jennifer Slattery is a writer and international speaker who has addressed women’s groups, church groups, Bible studies, and other writers across the nation. She maintains a devotional blog found at Jennifer Slattery Lives Out Loud and on Crosswalk. She has a passion for helping women discover, embrace, and live out who they are in Christ. As the founder of Wholly Love Ministries, she and her team partner with churches to facilitate events designed to help women rest in their true worth and live with maximum impact. Connect with her on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. When not writing, reading, or editing, Jennifer loves going on mall dates with her adult daughter and coffee dates with her hilariously fun husband. Contact her HERE to book her for your next women’s event.
