A couple days ago I received this wonderful email from Ruth Sellers from Indiana about my novel Thunder Cave (a story that will always be dear to my heart because it was my first novel).  Apparently, Ruth’s daughter wrote to Oprah about the book.  No, Oprah did not contact me, but the letter proves that stories are powerful, and that their influence sometimes reaches far beyond the story itself.

Thunder Cave has been in print since 1995 and I’m very happy to hear that it’s still being enjoyed.

Here’s Ruth’s email:

Thanks for the email and I certainly understand the auto-reply.  I taught from your book Thunder Cave about eight years ago now.  I’m sure you receive many positive responses about your books, but I want you to know about the way the book has changed my life.  What follows is part of a letter my daughter wrote to Oprah.

My parents are Bruce and Ruth Sellers.  They live in a modest home in Goshen, Indiana, where my father works as a computer programmer and my mother as an elementary teacher.  They live a similar life to most people in their late fifties, but there is something that sets them apart from many, helps to give their lives purpose, and has made me proud of them as parents and people.  They are relationship makers and givers.

Several years ago my mother contacted Goshen College, to see if an African student might be available to speak with her fourth grade students after they read the book Thunder Cave.   Thunder Cave includes a character from the Maasai Tribe of Kenya.  By coincidence, or perhaps something greater, Elijah, a Maasai student, came to present to her school children.  That experience exposed my parents to a culture an ocean away, a culture in great need of education, financial resources, and advancements in medical care.

Since “Thunder Cave” many Maasai and other East African people have been supported through the generosity of my parents, their church, and community members surrounding them.  Several of Elijah’s family and friends have graduated from Goshen College to become nurses.

Other  Kenyan  Massai friends my parents have learned to know  are Sitatian Kaelo, Agnes Kainet, Kisai, and Evelyn Nashipae, three incredible young Maassai women who graduated with honors from Chicago State University in May 2008, all of them pre-med students.   USAID, the organization sponsoring them, originally planned to send them to graduate school to become doctors.  Sitatian had already been accepted in a program for a Masters Degree in Clinical Laboratories at Rush University in Chicago, and the other girls where making plans to attend medical school, when they found out late last summer that all funding was being stopped and that USAID will no longer support them.

Their story is incredible beyond words.   These women have grown up walking miles to collect water for their families, cooking each meal on an open fire, and sleeping on stretched animal hide.  Despite their circumstances, they have worked hard for their education and wish to use that education to give back to their communities.   In our current economic crisis, it is an impossibility to raise the funds needed for them to finish graduate school from those in the Goshen community who have given much already. There was a  news story about them upon their graduation from Chicago State University, before they knew that USAID was no longer offering support.  For more information, review the story on the local ABC channel in Chicago.

For your information, the three young women are back in school, two in medical school and the other one in nursing school in the college in our town.  (And we never did hear from Oprah.)

Three years ago my husband and I were privileged to travel to Kenya and Tanzania and we stayed out in a Maasai village for several days with the families we had gotten to know over the years.  What a life changing experience!

I hope this letter will give you inspiration to keep writing.

Ruth Sellers

This is very inspiring, Ruth!  Thank you for sending it along.  Roland…

I will list the names of those who won here on the blog later today, or early tomorrow.

For those who didn’t win, keep checking in here. I’ll do this again next time I receive some extra books. It was fun giving them away and even better hearing from my friends!

Kids if you want a free signed copy of one of my books go to my webpage and enter a contest. I’m running a contest right now. The address is: http://rolandsmith.com

Good luck!

My answer has always been:  “One.”

This summer I’m going to change that up.  I have several books under contract, and I’m going to work on four of them simultaneously.  I’ve already started two of the books, and in the next couple weeks, all four will be rolling.

I don’t recommend this to someone who’s writing their first or second novel.  The chances are that you will eventually have a pile of unfinished books stuffed in drawers.  When the writing gets tough (which it does everyday BTW… forever) new writers are tempted to switch their attention to a new story, and if they do, somehow they never get back to the previous attempt.

So why am I trying this?  I’ve written over a dozen novels and I know how to finish a novel.  (In fact, one of the differences between an “author” and a “writer” is that an author finishes what he or she is working on).   Writing doesn’t get easier (In fact, I think it gets harder because your standards and expectations increase).  But one thing you do get better at, with experience, is keeping story lines separate in your head.   This includes your various character’s voices and their Point of View within that story.

When I’m on the road, with hotels, airplanes, speaking, and meeting people, it’s all I can do to keep one book going.  At home, the only thing I really have to do is find my office, sit down, and write.

I tend to “fiddle” with stories, even when I’m only working on one story.  I take it out and correct a sentence, or a word here or there while I’m in the middle of doing other things like hanging out with the grandsons, or watching a movie on TV.

I’ll have four books to fiddle with over the summer and I’ll keep all of you up to date on this bold experiment as it progresses.

That taken care of, and the donut consumed, I’m in the bedroom working on I,Q 2, while Marie is in the courtyard scrubbing bricks (I’m not kidding) so she can put sealer on them.  I definitely have the better of the two jobs today…

Aside from the donut there were a couple other minor distractions.  Marie’s earring came apart and got sucked up into the shop vac.  Amazingly we found the five tiny silver pieces and I got the earring back together good as new.  The kitchen cabinets arrived…well enough of them so the tile guy can start laying counter tile on Monday. And we discovered that the way they level ovens down here is with Coke caps.  (The ovens don’t have adjustable feet).  The caps actually work quite well.  Oh…and we’re almost out of water.  No showers until the waterman shows up and fills the tank.  We’re hoping he comes today.

Three steps forward, one step back.  On further consideration I cut out a major plot twist in IQ2 today.  I hate doing that, but there wasn’t much choice.  It was just a tad too much.  If I’d left the scenes in it would have been very difficult to resolve the conflict.  The scenes were affecting the characters reaction, or lack of reaction to the events.  Sorry to be so obtuse.  It’s not easy writing about how I’m writing a story without giving the story away.  Some day after you’ve read the book (and if I ever meet you) make sure you ask me about this and I’ll tell you exactly what happened here.

When you’re writing a novel, or a story, everything you add and take away affects everything else in the story.  It means you have to go back and consider what affect the cut or addition has on what you’ve already written.

Ahh… Marie is able to sense this author’s troubled  mind.  She just brought in a plate  of rice, avocado, cucumbers, and couple of quesadillas, which goes a long way in making up for the sections I just had to cut out of the story.  The food had a good affect on me.

“Where can one find the world’s largest mounted African elephant? Or the world’s largest blue diamond?  Why, at the world’s largest museum complex and research organization, of course! In S is for Smithsonian® readers can take an armchair tour of the incredible exhibitions and collections found in the Smithsonian Museum. When it opened in 1855, no one could have imagined that the Smithsonian Museum would grow to include: 19 museums, nine research centers, or over 130 million objects, artworks, and specimens collected from all over the world. With over 25 million visitors a year, the Smithsonian truly is the world’s largest museum! See the airplane Amelia Earhart flew on her solo Atlantic flight. Admire diamond earrings that once belonged to Marie Antoinette. From A-Z, S is for Smithsonian® explores the amazing objects and memorable displays that are part of this remarkable museum.”

Dear Mr. Smith,
Thank you for all the great books you have written. I wanted to share a painting my 12 year old son, Samuel did for a book report on Elephant Run this past month. As an audiovisual for his report he decided to do a picture of Jackson and Nick Freestone, Mya, and Hilltop on Hannibal. He worked quite hard on it and included so much detail. The result was a beautiful painting that I love and hope you will enjoy as well. Your book was truly inspiring! If you are ever in Kentucky for any reason we would love to meet you. We are great fans!

Just to clarify TENTACLES is the sequel to CRYPTID HUNTERS.

Can you read the novels out of order? Yes, but it would be better to read them in order.

TENTACLES begins almost immediately after Marty and Grace return from The Congo in Central Africa.

Will there be a 3rd book in the series? The short answer is yes (and probably several more). The longer answer can be found by scrolling through these blog entries to “Will there be a sequel to Cryptid Hunters and Tentacles?”

I’m delighted so many of you are enjoying Tentacles. If you haven’t read Cryptid Hunters I’m certain you’ll like it just as well Tentacles.