Genealogists like to live in the past. When I was writing From Pie Stand to Icon three years ago, I couldn’t help wondering: what was it like to live in the little village of Beulah in Northern Michigan 100 years ago? Soon after came the thought, what was it like to do genealogical research in the days before internet and DNA?
I’ve been a reader from a very early age, and over the years I’ve come to recognize the elements of books I love. Give me a cottage on a lake, a mysterious bequest, a search for answers in historic records, good friends and good food, and I’m hooked. After fifteen years of working as a professional genealogist and working with hundreds of clients, and writing six non-fiction genealogy / history books, I was ready to branch out into fiction.
The first problem I faced was my inexperience with creating fiction. I was not used to making things up, and doing so required some practice. I started writing “Home to Beulah” using beloved locations and people I remembered from countless visits to Michigan, as a child and as an adult. The Dorsch home in Detroit started out as the 3-story red-brick house my mother grew up in, and then I changed it to a smaller bungalow. My mother’s father Arnold Stoelt was the son of German immigrants, and his mother’s name was Caroline Dorsch.
The character of Richard Boucher in North to Naubinway was modeled after my late husband Richard, even to the extent that we’re introduced to him as he’s lying underneath a car, swearing at it, with a noisy gas-powered air compressor working nearby.
I found that I was writing about scenes I visualized. One of the first scenes was of the Dorsch family at dinner, complete with spilled milk and the sound of a doorbell. I intended that to be the opening scene; instead, it’s in chapter 2. I also found that I don’t write in a straight line: I wrote the Prologue in one sitting, with very little revising, when I was halfway through Home to Beulah. In writing North to Naubinway, I wrote the chapter “Reunion” before I wrote about Grace’s interaction with the Chippewas in the Upper Peninsula.
I also found that I’m using my life experiences (both in the distant past and fairly recent) to add to the story. This past June I had the privilege to visit friends and family in Beulah, and two scenes at the end of North to Naubinway speak to that: the atmosphere inside the Cherry Hut as the friends celebrate the reunion, and the singing of the hymn “Beulah Land” around the campfire.
I’m also using ancestor stories. The death of Grace’s mother Charlotte was closely modeled after the death of my maternal grandmother Bessie Randall Stoelt, when my mother was only five months old.
I consider Home to Beulah to be a trial run. Having finished two mysteries, I’m now well on my way to writing the third, which has a working title of The Ghost of Lizzie Jones. I’m definitely a planner when it comes to writing fiction; for this next book (partially set in Merritt Island, Florida) I have 14 pages of outline, detailing plot, setting and characters. If you’d like to be part of my private Facebook group of beta readers, let me know!
I’ve been a reader from a very early age, and over the years I’ve come to recognize the elements of books I love. Give me a cottage on a lake, a mysterious bequest, a search for answers in historic records, good friends and good food, and I’m hooked. After fifteen years of working as a professional genealogist and working with hundreds of clients, and writing six non-fiction genealogy / history books, I was ready to branch out into fiction.
The first problem I faced was my inexperience with creating fiction. I was not used to making things up, and doing so required some practice. I started writing “Home to Beulah” using beloved locations and people I remembered from countless visits to Michigan, as a child and as an adult. The Dorsch home in Detroit started out as the 3-story red-brick house my mother grew up in, and then I changed it to a smaller bungalow. My mother’s father Arnold Stoelt was the son of German immigrants, and his mother’s name was Caroline Dorsch.
The character of Richard Boucher in North to Naubinway was modeled after my late husband Richard, even to the extent that we’re introduced to him as he’s lying underneath a car, swearing at it, with a noisy gas-powered air compressor working nearby.
I found that I was writing about scenes I visualized. One of the first scenes was of the Dorsch family at dinner, complete with spilled milk and the sound of a doorbell. I intended that to be the opening scene; instead, it’s in chapter 2. I also found that I don’t write in a straight line: I wrote the Prologue in one sitting, with very little revising, when I was halfway through Home to Beulah. In writing North to Naubinway, I wrote the chapter “Reunion” before I wrote about Grace’s interaction with the Chippewas in the Upper Peninsula.
I also found that I’m using my life experiences (both in the distant past and fairly recent) to add to the story. This past June I had the privilege to visit friends and family in Beulah, and two scenes at the end of North to Naubinway speak to that: the atmosphere inside the Cherry Hut as the friends celebrate the reunion, and the singing of the hymn “Beulah Land” around the campfire.
I’m also using ancestor stories. The death of Grace’s mother Charlotte was closely modeled after the death of my maternal grandmother Bessie Randall Stoelt, when my mother was only five months old.
I consider Home to Beulah to be a trial run. Having finished two mysteries, I’m now well on my way to writing the third, which has a working title of The Ghost of Lizzie Jones. I’m definitely a planner when it comes to writing fiction; for this next book (partially set in Merritt Island, Florida) I have 14 pages of outline, detailing plot, setting and characters. If you’d like to be part of my private Facebook group of beta readers, let me know!
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