So Ann, welcome to my blog and to the UK, I have lots of questions for you today. Let's go!
What
was the inspiration/motivation behind the book?
As a young person, I dreamed of living as a
hermit on the coast of North Carolina—which I had never seen—and writing. Instead
I married and had four kids—and wrote. The hermit thing was a product of how I
had been warped by a difficult childhood. The life I got oh-so-much-better
suited me.
I’ve spent part of every year at camp for
most my life—a natural setting for my book.
Who
is this book written for?
Kicking
Eternity is written for women 15-30.
How
many years did your family live on the sailboat? Why did they?
My father spent
several years building a forty-foot sailboat in our backyard. We launched it in
the Miami River and lived aboard at Dinner Key
Marina when I was eleven until I turned thirteen. At the time I didn’t realize
how unusual it was to live on a boat and ride my bicycle down the dock each
morning to attend school. All my friends at the marina did the same. After
school every day, I tossed my books onto my bunk, shimmied into a swim suit,
and jumped overboard.
Sailboats show up in all my
books thus far. In addition to Kicking Eternity, The Art of My Lifedebuted in
September, Avra’s God will launch in December, and Tattered Innocence next
March.
Did
you spend time in a convent?
I attended St. Hugh’s Catholic school in
Miami, Florida, as a child, and was invited for a sleepover, along with my best
friend, Jody, by our favorite bicycle-riding nun, Sister Sheila.
We had not quite recovered from the shock
of discovering Sister Sheila had hair when the invitation came. The nuns had
recently traded in their voluminous purple habits which covered all but their
faces for scaled-back white outfits that, in Sister Sheila’s case, revealed two
inches of mouse-brown hair threaded with silver.
Now we would find out if the nuns slept on
boards and blocks of wood as we suspected, wore PJ’s, ate the host for dessert,
or intoned the Gregorian chants for fun.
When we arrived, Sister Sheila whisked us
into the inner sanctum of the convent, her sandals clicking across the terrazzo
floor. A few minutes later, Jody and I gulped a breath and poked our heads into
Sister Sheila’s white-walled bedroom. A crucifix hung over the dresser, but my
eyes fastened on the twin bed draped in white chenille like the too-familiar
spread on my mother’s bed.
At dinner the nuns, to our disappointment,
talked and laughed like normal people. No hosts or communion wine appeared at
table. No chants were uttered. Tucked into makeshift beds on chaise lounge
cushions on the enclosed porch that night, we groused about not having spotted
a single nun in her jammies. We plotted to take vows—once we got out of eighth
grade, of course.
Though I gave entering the church five
minutes serious consideration in my late teens, I had “boys” tattooed across my
pupils. Jody became a business woman. Neither of us ever found out what nuns
wear to bed.
Why
did Sister Sheila’s hair jolt you into becoming a writer?
Discovering that Sister Sheila had hair the
year she taught me fifth grade English somehow gelled in my mind with all her
positive comments on my papers. My parents’ marriage was in meltdown, and
encouragement was a rare thing at home. Sister Sheila made me believe I could
write. A dream was born.
What
do you hope your readers take away from Kicking
Eternity?
I hope my readers are encouraged to figure
out their dreams, then courageously step into them.
Back Cover:
Kicking Eternity—First Place Long Contemporary 2009
Romance Writers of America Faith, Hope, and Love Contest
Stuck in
sleepy New Smyrna Beach one last summer, Raine socks away her camp pay checks,
worries about her druggy brother, and ignores trouble: Cal Koomer. She’s a
plane ticket away from teaching orphans in Africa, and not even Cal’s surfer
six-pack and the chinks she spies in his rebel armor will derail her.
The artist in Cal begs to paint Raine’s ivory skin, high cheek bones, and internal sparklers behind her eyes, but falling for her would caterwaul him into his parents’ life. No thanks. The girl was self-righteous waiting to happen. Mom served sanctimony like vegetables, three servings a day, and he had a gut full.
Rec Director Drew taunts her with “Rainey” and calls her an enabler. He is so infernally there like a horsefly—till he buzzes back to his ex.
Raine’s brother tweaks. Her dream of Africa dies small deaths. Will she figure out what to fight for and what to free before it’s too late?
For anyone who’s ever wrestled with her dreams.
The artist in Cal begs to paint Raine’s ivory skin, high cheek bones, and internal sparklers behind her eyes, but falling for her would caterwaul him into his parents’ life. No thanks. The girl was self-righteous waiting to happen. Mom served sanctimony like vegetables, three servings a day, and he had a gut full.
Rec Director Drew taunts her with “Rainey” and calls her an enabler. He is so infernally there like a horsefly—till he buzzes back to his ex.
Raine’s brother tweaks. Her dream of Africa dies small deaths. Will she figure out what to fight for and what to free before it’s too late?
For anyone who’s ever wrestled with her dreams.
“Ann Lee Miller writes stories straight from the heart with
characters who'll become friends, remaining with you long after you turn that
final page. You won't want to miss Kicking
Eternity!”
Jenny B. Jones, Author of the Katie
Parker Production Series from Think and The
Charmed Life Series, and other single titles from Thomas Nelson.
Ann Lee Miller
earned a BA in creative writing from Ashland (OH) University and writes
full-time in Phoenix, but left her heart in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, where
she grew up. She loves speaking to young adults and guest lectures on writing
at several Arizona colleges. When she isn’t writing or muddling through some
crisis—real or imagined—you’ll find her hiking in the Superstition Mountains
with her husband or meddling in her kids’ lives.
Blog: http://the-art-of-my-life.blogspot.com/
Twitter:
@AnnLeeMiller
Buy
Links:
http://www.amazon.com/Kicking-Eternity-ebook/dp/B0082GF8CE/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1347896437&sr=1-1&keywords=ann+lee+miller 
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