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****Jamie Lisa Forbes’s UNBROKEN is #140 in the never-ending series called INSIDE THE EMOTION OF FICTION where the Chris Rice Cooper Blog (CRC) focuses on one specific excerpt from a fiction genre and how that fiction writer wrote that specific excerpt. All INSIDE THE EMOTION OF FICTION links are at the end of this piece.
Name of fiction work? And were there other names you considered that you would like to share with us? Unbroken. The original title of the novel was “Angel Band,” after the hymn which is sung at the end of the book.
Has this been published? And it is totally fine if the answer is no. If yes, what publisher and what publication date? Published by Pronghorn Press, May 2010.
What is the date you began writing this piece of fiction and the date when you completely finished the piece of fiction? The novel was begun in January 2001 and completed in 2008.
Where did you do most of your writing for this fiction work? And please describe in detail. I have a very cozy study that I write in.
What were your writing habits while writing this work- did you drink something as you wrote, listen to music, write in pen and paper, directly on laptop; specific time of day? I worked on this novel on the evenings and weekends. I concentrate very intently when I write, and I do not like any kind of noise or distraction. I want to live in the world I am writing about.
Please include just one excerpt and include page numbers as reference. This one excerpt can be as short or as long as you prefer. from Chapter 10: “Did she want to stay? She looked past the cottonwoods, stark in the bright fall sunlight, to the haystacks with bales stacked sky high. Looking at it now, you’d never imagine the wind driving snow across these meadows, the cattle huddled and shivering against the stacks, the Swans in their coveralls with their heads bowed against the wind. And the wind rattling her mobile home night after night. The dishes in the cupboard rattling from the gusts. At this moment, it was hard to imagine it could be that way.
This country would as soon kill a person. Yet how lovely it was just now.”
Why is this excerpt so emotional for you as a writer to write? And can you describe your own emotional experience of writing this specific excerpt? I grew up on a family ranch along the Little Laramie River in Albany County, Wyoming (Below). I went on to live there with my husband and children until I was nearly 40. The ranch was owned by my father and his sisters. They eventually sold it in 1993. This event was devastating to me. I had always been aware that my life on the ranch was uncertain due to the family situation, but I loved the place and the life very much. I couldn’t imagine myself doing anything else.
Why is this excerpt so emotional for you as a writer to write? And can you describe your own emotional experience of writing this specific excerpt? I grew up on a family ranch along the Little Laramie River in Albany County, Wyoming (Below). I went on to live there with my husband and children until I was nearly 40. The ranch was owned by my father and his sisters. They eventually sold it in 1993. This event was devastating to me. I had always been aware that my life on the ranch was uncertain due to the family situation, but I loved the place and the life very much. I couldn’t imagine myself doing anything else.
I moved to Greensboro, North Carolina and the remainder of the 1990’s were difficult as I tried to establish myself in a new community. When I entered law school in 1998, I began to think of a book I had always wanted to write about ranching. In 2001, I sat down and began it, but not with the idea that I would be writing a novel. I just wanted to write the story that had stuck in my head for years. So it began, a tale of two women: Meg, a single mother determined to make her own way in ranching without any family support and Gwen, a middle-aged ranch wife worn to the threads by the ranch, her children and her husband’s family.
In writing this novel, I got to travel home and it was wonderful to sit down and go home every time I worked on it.
Fall was one of my favorite times of year. It was the end of the ranching year where the hay had been put up, the cattle had brought home from their summer range and there was a lull of a few weeks between the end of a year’s worth of labor and the shipping season when the calves were shipped out.
The weather was normally spectacular. The sun was high and warm, though there was that chill at the fringes of the day that signaled the coming winter. The days were so quiet you could hear the river running from miles away. I loved to take out my wild fast horse on those afternoons and gallop around the meadow and at the far corner, when we would turn west toward home, there were our mountains in the distance all decked out in aspen gold.
The weather was normally spectacular. The sun was high and warm, though there was that chill at the fringes of the day that signaled the coming winter. The days were so quiet you could hear the river running from miles away. I loved to take out my wild fast horse on those afternoons and gallop around the meadow and at the far corner, when we would turn west toward home, there were our mountains in the distance all decked out in aspen gold.
At this point in the book, Meg’s employer has asked her to stay on for another year and in writing this passage, it was those wonderful falls days that I remembered so vividly. I could see Meg looking out, as I myself used to look out, on that beautiful wide open space.
Were there any deletions from this excerpt that you can share with us? Prior drafts and deletions. It’s been a long since I wrote this novel, but I don’t think there was any editing or deletions of this passage. It’s one of those rare passages that I write from time to time that just spin from my head and are perfect when they hit the page. Actually, very rare that that happens.
Other works you have published? My short story collection, The Widow Smalls & Other Stories, published by Pronghorn Press in 2014. My new novel will be coming out from Pronghorn Press next spring, hopefully.
Were there any deletions from this excerpt that you can share with us? Prior drafts and deletions. It’s been a long since I wrote this novel, but I don’t think there was any editing or deletions of this passage. It’s one of those rare passages that I write from time to time that just spin from my head and are perfect when they hit the page. Actually, very rare that that happens.
Other works you have published? My short story collection, The Widow Smalls & Other Stories, published by Pronghorn Press in 2014. My new novel will be coming out from Pronghorn Press next spring, hopefully.
Anything you would like to add? Both my books were award winners. Unbroken won the 2011 WILLA Award for contemporary fiction. The Widow Smalls & Other Stories won the High Plains Book Awards for a short story collection in 2015.
After finishing law school at the University of North Carolina in 2001, Jamie Lisa Forbes went on to practice law. Jamie still practices law in Greensboro. Jamie is getting ready to write her third novel about women in the early days of rodeo.
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