All tagged being a write

“NO MORE DAMN COMIC BOOKS!”

Sara Stratton
being an author

I thought of my dad yelling at me, “No more of these damn comic books!” when I read the opinion piece, “The death of serious reading among teens,” by high school and college social science teacher, Jeremy Adams (Los Angeles Times, August 23, 2019). Having published four novels and with a fifth soon to be published, I’ve yet to find a young person who has expressed interest in reading my stories, even though they’re “coming-of-age” romances, and are set in West Texas cowboy country—an exotic region, which I thought would excite young folks. It turns out that it’s the older crowd—well over thirty—who are reading my Once Upon a Time in the Texas Panhandle series.

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A good love story is timeless and “place-less”

Sara Stratton
historical fiction, being an author

I was surprised when the public librarian in a small town in Virginia rejected the idea of placing my novels in her library, saying, “They’re too regional—they’re all set in the Texas Panhandle. I don’t think my patrons here in Northern Virginia are interested in stories that take place out West. They want stories set in their part of the country.”

I can’t say that she was wrong about her patrons. Maybe they really are that limited in what they will read. But she certainly was wrong in saying that a story can be “too regional,” and for that reason would not be of interest to anyone who is not from wherever the story takes place.

Good stories are timeless and “place-less.”

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Using Pain to Inspire Writing

Sara Stratton
being an author

My novels are about pain—pain as an obstacle to love. But here is the paradox: While it is true that pain is an obstacle to love, love is the only true remedy for pain.

My stories include many kinds of pain: physical as well as emotional; grief from loss of loved ones as well as self-hatred for causing grief by killing the loved ones of others; depression from PTSD as well as despair from alcoholism; and more. All of these pains are obstacles to love—obstacles to finding love, to falling in love, to staying in love and to giving love. But in each case, the only true remedy to the obstacle is love, which is paradoxical.

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