by Katherine Reay, @Katherine_Reay
Last week Awful Beautiful Life launched. It is an extraordinary story and I hope you’ll read the description below to learn more — you won’t be disappointed. Awful Beautiful Life was also my first nonfiction book. I have written eight novels and each feels daunting at the beginning, but approaching this project terrified me.
When I was first asked to write this story, I baulked…
“I don’t write nonfiction.”
“I can’t!”
“I wouldn’t know how…”
While number one and three were true, to a degree, number two surprised me. I can’t???
In the couple of months from being told about the story, to the moment I had to commit, a small quiet voice deep within me questioned, “Why can’t you? Why not you?”
In the end, as you can surmise from this post, I took on the challenge and wrote my first nonfiction book. It was not an easy task, but it was incredibly rewarding. One challenge about nonfiction for a novelist is… You can’t make ANYTHING up. You can’t shift scene, characters (they are real and said real stuff and will check your words), emotions, events…Nothing.
So you have to get creative.
Stories fall along an arc of rising tension, moments of rest and peaks of conflict. This arc does not exist because we writers like it this way, the arc exists because it is how we humans take in stories and process them. But in a nonfiction work — the beats are where the beats are. And if they don’t fall properly, which most did not, I had to press deeper to find a true kernel to draw out to keep the tension and storyline going strong. Not only that, if it’s someone else’s story — as this one is — they have final say on all that digging into world and every word you created from it.
Awful Beautiful Life was my “stretch”, my challenge — such a project may not be yours. But there is one out there. There is a scene you must right that takes you deeper than you want to go, an entire story that’s been dancing around in your heart, or a blog post or a letter you’ve been pushing aside.
Tackle it. Listen to that voice urging you forward. That small quiet voice often brings risk, change, and uncertainty. It can also lead you to bigger stories and stretch your craft, and grow you. Creatively, we are not meant to stay static. Artists stretch, create and explore, and we writers are artists — we simply use a different medium than is conventionally recognized.
Above all — Have fun with your writing and enjoy the creative process!
And thank you for spending time with me today.
Katherine
Here’s a little more about Awful Beautiful Life and please visit our website if you’d like even more information: www.awfulbeautifullifethebook.com
A gripping story of grace, faith, and triumph for a woman whose world shattered hours after her husband’s suicide.
Becky Powell faced the unthinkable on May 16, 2013. Her husband Mark called and said, “I’ve done something terrible.” Within hours, she learned that he had taken his own life and, over a period of several years, millions of dollars from friends and colleagues. Everything she believed to be true, the very fiber of her marriage, was called into question. Within a week, rather than planning carpool runs and volunteer fundraisers, she owed almost one hundred creditors millions of dollars and had her own team of ten lawyers. She was also the subject of open FBI, SEC and DOJ investigations-and faced potential criminal charges. And, although she instantly denounced every cent of Mark’s $15M in life insurance and promised to repay every penny taken, her lawyers knew that in reality she faced years of court battles and lawsuits, and possible jail time.
Yet from that first horrific moment, God was there. He showed up in his Word, in Becky’s friends, in her lawyers and in the generosity of those around her. He worked miracles. CNBC, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes and others covered the first moment, but what about the last? What about the story in which God gives your next breath because you can’t find it on your own? What about the story of a mom and three kids trying to make sense of their pasts, present and future while living under a microscope?
AWFUL BEAUTIFUL LIFE is Becky’s journey through the two years surrounding Mark’s death and how she overcame. It came down to a loving God who surrounded her, a present and dedicated family, and friends, who made her life, offered her sanctuary and showed up for her and her kids in tangible ways. This is a story of remarkable grit, strength and what the Body of Christ in action looks like.
The Printed Letter Bookshop
Love, friendship, and family find a home at the Printed Letter Bookshop.
Katherine Reay is a national bestselling and award-winning author of several novels, including Dear Mr. Knightley and the upcoming The Printed Letter Bookshop. She has enjoyed a lifelong affair with books and brings that love to her contemporary stories. Her first full-length nonfiction work will release in December 2019. Katherine holds a BA and MS from Northwestern University. She currently writes full time and lives outside Chicago, IL with her husband and three children. You can meet Katherine at www.katherinereay.com or on Facebook: KatherineReayBooks, Twitter: @katherine_reay and Instagram: @katherinereay.