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…

It is very hot down here in AR.  Went out for a jog this morning (well, actually a wog, which is a combination of walking and jogging).  At 6AM it was 80 degrees outside with 80 percent relative humidity.  For a guy from Oregon where there isn’t really any humidity except in the form of rain this is HOT. Needless to say, there was not a lot of jog in my  wog this morning.

As I proceeded on my sweaty way the yellow school buses were picking up loads of students, reminding me that school has started in a lot of places across the country.  So… HAVE A GREAT SCHOOL YEAR!  And don’t forget to READ A BUNCH of BOOKS!

especially my grandchildren’s birthdays. It’s a beautiful day for a party.

In spite of the festivities I managed to get a little work in this morning on the third Cryptid Hunter (no title yet) installment. I’m still in the research stage, but my work on this book will be put on hold tomorrow because I received the edits for the first book in the “Storm Runners” series today. There will be three books in the series eventually. The first will published Spring 2011…not that far away…so I have some long revision hours to put in.

I’m still excited about the publication of “I,Q Book Two: The White House” And I hope you are tooPlease help me spread the word. If you received a newsletter announcement, forward it to people you know. Watch my YouTube video and forward it to your friends. (You can find the video on my Home page). If you read the book post a review on the Amazon or Barnes and Noble webpages.

Thank you for letting everyone know that “I,Q Book Two: The White House” is finally out!

We’re on our way up to the Seattle area this morning to celebrate Jack’s (grandson #3) birthday. We got him a pair of nice binoculars (all 6 year olds should have good pair of binoculars). Quit trip. We’ll be back tomorrow with Jack and his younger brother, Ethan, in tow, and their new puppy Peaches, for
a few days at the farm.

Last night I finished my re-read of Cryptid Hunters and Tentacles. It took longer than I thought it would (as it always does), but it yielded 10 pages if notes for the 3rd and 4th books in the series. I’m just about ready to start the draft, which I’m pretty excited about. If I can squeeze in even half of what I want to in the next installment it will be one heck of a book.

Finally, yesterday I got a copy of I,Q2 sent by overnight mail. It’s not officially out yet, but the fact that I have one in hand means you’ll be able to read it too in a matter of days. Stay tuned. I will announce the real publication date as soon as I’ve verified that it’s readily available in bookstores across the country.

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.

IQ2 update… I got my editor’s edits yesterday and went over them as I flew east and early this morning before I left for Clearlake. Tonight I will hole up in my hotel room and continue my edits to my editor’s edits. When I finish I will send the manuscript back to her. This is just about my last chance to make changes. My editor will go over my changes, then send IQ2 to the publisher…

We’re gettting close, but of course you want to know: WHEN IS IQ2 COMING OUT?

Answer: I don’t know the exact date, but it will be soon. This June…I think. As soon as it’s out I will post it here, on my Face Book Fan Page, Twitter, etc. You will be the first to know.

Flight out of PDX is delayed because of a battery problem. What’s interesting to me is that when they make the announcement no one sitting here waiting to board reacts at all. We are so used this we barely let out a sigh over the fact that we are going to miss our connecting flights, and some of us may not get to where we’re going at all.

I’ve been asked hundreds of times to write an autobiography or memoir and today seemed as good a time as any to start one. At this point I can’t promise that I’ll actually finish it, or how long it will take, or when it will be out, although I have November 30th, 2011 in mind as that will be my 60th birthday and I can’t think of a better way to celebrate this personal milestone than to have a book come out describing the path I’ve traveled to reach the six decade mark.

And I just happen to have a blank Moleskine journal in my bag begging for me to fill it up with words. The nice thing about this personal journey, whether it ever turns into a book or not, is that it will still serve a purpose as it will help me to clarify all those years. And I’m relatively certain my family will be interested on my take on my own life. There will be some things in the story that not even they know about me.

Moving walkway duster at PDX:

I spoke at Westbrook Intermediate in Friendswood, TX this morning, and Clear Lake Intermediate in Houston, TX this afternoon.

Westwood did a “read it forward” program with I,Q1 and the students were curious to know when I,Q2 is coming out. I still don’t know the exact day, or even the month, but it will be soon…and I still have finish it of course. There were a number of McDonalds origami cranes perched in the library, which were to see. And there were Tasty Cakes (from IQ1), which were fun to eat.

The Clear Lake students read Peak.  They had a climbing montage playing on the screen before I spoke to the sound what I think was the theme for Top Gun.  It was very cool.

Yesterday after packing, or I should say re-packing, I spent the rest of the day transcribing what I had scratched into the Moleskine the previous week into my laptop. To my horror I discovered several pages that did not need to go into I,Q2. There was nothing wrong with the words except they weren’t necessary. They didn’t move the story forward. I’m not sure what I was thinking when I put them down, but I’m pretty sure the mornings I wrote those words I must have had a bout of “my readers won’t understand!” Lack of faith in your readers can ruin a story, causing the writer to overwrite and over explain. Anything that doesn’t move the story forward, doesn’t just stop the story, it moves the story backwards. It’s been years since I’ve done this. I must have been tired.

The bottom line is that I wasted a couple short days of writing that I couldn’t afford to wasite.  But you just have to throw those words away and move on.

On the bright side…  There’s a point in every novel where it comes together.  This is usually happens towards the end of the first draft.  You can’t force it.  You just show up everyday and write and hope that it knocks on your door.  I’ve been waiting about a month for this and on the flight to Houston it came to me.  It’s like getting a glimpse of  a detailed map with every turn carefully drawn out, then the map disappears, but it’s so vivid you can redraw it from memory.

But what happens in the end of a story affects almost everything that happens before it.  I got to my hotel room and started rewriting the “before” in anticipation of the end.  It will be a late night, but I don’t mind because it’s getting very close now.  I’m not done, but hang with me.  The end is near.

I promised my editor that I would send her the pages that I have tonight so she can start getting a sense of the story and start doing some  edits.  It’s a bit premature, but because we want to have this book out in the next couple of months she needs to get a head start.  Stay tuned!

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