Grace-filled Tuesdays (Book Club "Meeting" #14): First of a Four-Part Series

Back in 2013, long before I decided to start an on-line book club, I wrote a four-part series called "When Real Life and Fiction Intersect," wherein I discussed different aspects of my first novel, Finding Grace.  Since it's Fat Tuesday today, and I plan to spend most of my free time preparing a special dinner feast for my husband and myself, I thought I'd resort to re-posting the first segment of that series today.

WHERE REAL LIFE AND FICTION INTERSECT (PART I)

(Originally posted in July of 2013, about a year after Finding Grace was published.)

An author e-friend of mine named Amy M. Bennett* (who was kind enough to leave an endorsement of Finding Grace on my Amazon page) recently posted the above quote on her Facebook page, and I just had to share it here.  It's so true! Although there can't help but be some autobiographical elements in works of fiction (particularly in an author's first novel), my main character, Grace Kelly, is definitely not me, and her story is not my story.  I'd tell you one glaring difference in the way our stories turned out right now, but that might spoil the book for those of you who haven't read it yet.(Hey, if you haven't read it and you'd like to get your hands on a copy, e-mail me and we'll talk.  I can send you a signed copy for lower than the Amazon price and I'd love to hear from you!)

Anyhoo--

I thought it might be kind of fun to do a little series here on the blog, outlining the characters who were inspired in part by people I actually know or knew, but over the course of the four-and-a-half-year writing process completely took on a life of their own, as well as the places, events, and other elements in the book that come from true experiences I've had, versus the things that are completely made up (as well as the things that sort of happened, but were tweaked and used in a different way to fit my story).

It can be like one of those "The Making of" extras that come with DVD's sometimes--those short films that give the viewer a better idea of the process the writer, director, actors, and producers went through to create the movie.  It will be a "The Making of Finding Grace" blogumentary (is that a word?), in installments, for those of you who are interested

Would you like to keep reading?  If so, click here for the full post.