A Potential New Work in Progress

It's been quite a while since I've worked on any fiction, but I've had an idea percolating for the past few months that I have been doing some research on. I want to write a novel about St. Zelie Martin, the mother of St. Therese of Lisieux. I have read a few books about her, including The Extraordinary Parents of St. Therese.

It soon became apparent that the book I absolutely needed was the one of her letters: A Call to a Deeper Love. 

I ordered this book from Amazon at the end of December. The ship date was a few weeks later, but I could wait. The day before it was to be shipped, I received a notice saying the order was cancelled and that they had no idea when the book would be available. I started looking for other outlets. I found a convent bookstore that had it for sale. I hoped that they had one on their shelf they could ship out to me. Unfortunately, that was not the case. The book was nowhere to be found (at least not for a price under $100). The publisher had to print new copies. My copy finally came in yesterday.

To be honest, I have tons of other work on my plate and don't know when I'll get to it. There are definitely some challenges I'm trying to work out before I begin writing this story. St. Zelie is human, but she is also a saint and comes across as nearly perfect in biographies. Her flaws make most people's good points look bad. To make a compelling story, she needs to have some conflict and something that she wants. I want to be honest to her character, but also to write an interesting story.

In any event, I look forward to spending more time with her and seeing where this project leads. I've never written fiction about a historical person before so it is a new challenge. I have tentatively titled the book "The Lacemaker".

I plan to blog about the process here. I hope you enjoy the behind the scenes look at my writing endeavors.