Finding Grace follows a young girl, Judith Lee, who grew up with her very poor grandmother, Grace, and grandfather, Virgil, in Nashville. She is bullied and mocked in school, but she is smart. She goes on full scholarship to Vanderbilt and upon graduation, moves to California, eventually starting her own tech company which becomes extraordinarily successful. Grace calls Judith with a dying wish…for Judith to travel from Los Angeles to Nashville to come visit her. But there’s a catch...Judith must make the journey by bus.
Each day of Judith’s journey becomes a story on its own, as the people she meets and places she visits along the way challenge her to rethink her life. Finding Grace is about Judith’s transformation back into the real world during this journey as a result of the people she meets on the bus, how she deals with the imminent passing of her grandmother, and how all this changes her life’s future plans.
You can learn more in this Q&A.
What do you think makes a good story?
A plotline that is strongly character-driven. People are interested in other people’s stories, both happy and sad. A good story has a balance of tears of laughter along with tears of emotion based on a connection with the characters or their situations.
What inspired your story?
An old Chinese proverb says, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” That was how Finding Grace came to be. With a single step. Unfortunately, the cause of that step was the passing of my wife of 45 years, Sharee, from leukemia. Thus began a long winding road of dealing with loss and finding an outlet for my grief. I don’t believe in coincidence, and there were an extraordinary number of occurrences which could have been attributed to coincidence. I know that sometimes we have an angel (or angels) on our shoulder which lead us do
Is there a message/theme in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
Absolutely. It’s actually the subtitle of Finding Grace. “In a world that sometimes seems out of control, we are each on our own journey in hope of finding grace.”. That, along with what really matters in life is not material possessions, but our connection with people who we love and who love us in return.
Absolutely. It’s actually the subtitle of Finding Grace. “In a world that sometimes seems out of control, we are each on our own journey in hope of finding grace.”. That, along with what really matters in life is not material possessions, but our connection with people who we love and who love us in return.
What was your greatest challenge in writing this book?
Working through my grief of losing Sharee during the writing process. I first wrote the screenplay for Finding Grace, but quickly learned that it was MUCH more work writing a novel as compared to a screenplay or script. A screenplay is primarily the dialogue between the characters with some minimal detail about the day and location of the scene. In a novel, you must create a living, breathing world, researching every detail and nuance to bring that world and the characters in it to life. Those details and how they are woven into the story are critically important. An example was Judith’s bus trip from Barstow to Nashville on I-40E. I planned on making that bus trip myself but then COVID-19 hit. My solution came thanks to YouTube. I searched and found video recorded from each city to the next along Judith’s journey that was taken by truck drivers, students, and retirees driving their RVs. I was able to experience every mile virtually and while it certainly wasn’t the same as being there, it helped tremendously.
What do you really want your readers to know about your book?
I’m proud of the numerous characters Judith meets during her bus trip back home to Nashville, with each having their own personality and speech pattern based on their life experience and background. As I wrote, each became real to me, as I cared about them, their backstory, and the journey that lay ahead for them after leaving Judith.
The characters in Finding Grace are generally composites of many different people who have crossed my path during my lifetime. My goal was to create truly interesting characters with backstories that every reader could relate to on some level. As I wrote, some made me laugh and some made my eyes leak.
There is a strong component of St. Jude’s Children Research Hospital in part of Finding Grace. Sharee and I knew that cures for all forms of leukemia, including hers, would eventually come from the research teams at St. Jude. Three months after her passing, I spent a day with an executive at St. Jude which included a full tour of their facilities. It was an emotional day for me. I paid close attention to every detail during my tour and worked hard to convey details accurately for my readers. Those “angels in disguise” at St. Jude certainly deserve our support.
The title, Finding Grace, was the only title possible for this book. With Grace as one of the two primary characters, along with all other character’s search, in one form or another, of finding their own grace, the title came easily. Who is Grace? Her wisdom and values shared in the book were my best efforts to meld those of my late mother (Sarah), Sharee, and, to some extent, myself.
If they decide to read Finding Grace, I hope they enjoy the journey with Judith, and recognize themselves in some of the pages as they go along. Spoiler alert! If they like happy endings; they are going to LOVE Finding Grace.
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