Category Archives: Burden of Breath

Who Was She?

Posted on by under Ann Minnett, Burden of Breath, Domestic Suspense, Fiction Writing, Fifteen Years of Lies, historical fiction, Montana, Montana Women Writers, research, Serita's Shelf Life, Uncategorized

By Ann Minnett

A black hole blocks me from the real story of my paternal third great grandmother (ggggrandma). Every other line in my family tree can be traced further back, mostly thanks to fastidious recordkeeping by Quaker ancestors.

But not ggggrandma Merritt or Merrett or Merett or Marat as it was sometimes spelled. I am obsessed with what little we know about her and who my ggggrandfather might have been. If you have plotted your own family tree, you know how difficult it can be to locate and follow the women who came before.

Here’s what we know about her:

·       Born in SC in 1810

·       Two sons born in north GA, 1832 & 1835

·       Listed as head of household 1840 – north GA 

·       Married a Mr. Lankton in 1844 – north GA

·       Widowed in 1868 and moved to Missouri to live with her son

Possible scenarios:

·       She was a Merritt and had two boys out of wedlock

·       She had two illegitimate sons by a man named Merritt but they never married

·       She married a Merritt, had two sons, was soon widowed, and remarried 

I would like to settle on one of the above and just let ggggrandma be, but I also feel honor-bound to get her story right. So, guess who is not writing or marketing her novels? Who has conducted endless Google searches and purchased reference books on daily life and customs in Antebellum Georgia? Who has lost days reading about The Indian Wars between Georgia pioneer militias and tribes that resulted in forced westward migrations of native populations? 

I’ve learned a lot. Perhaps what’s keeping me from writing domestic suspense will lead to my first novel of historical fiction.

 

Complex Lives of Local Characters

Posted on by under Ann Minnett, Book clubs, Burden of Breath, Domestic Suspense, Fiction Writing, Glacier National Park, Montana, Montana Women Writers, mystery, psychology, Serita's Shelf Life, writers

By Ann Minnett

I live in the mountains of NW Montana, twenty miles from a tourist town. My small town used to be known for logging and then became a railroad town, but the impact of those industries has waned. Our economy relies upon visitors, mostly in winter and summer, who come to enjoy our great outdoors. Construction, service industries, restaurants and bars, outdoor exploration, and retail shops keep this valley buzzing.

best sunshine 3 orange and pink

Sunrise in the Last Best Place

Thirty years ago, I was one of those tourists. I fell in love with this area and returned for vacations at least once every year for two decades. We bought property early on, finally built a house in 2009, and followed through on a promise to ourselves to live here fulltime.

 

 

 

We’ve lived here year-round for eight

31517h

Courtesy: Whitefish Convention & Visitors Bureau

years. We love sharing Montana with friends and family and have no thoughts of leaving. While dreams do come true, I’ve thought a lot about the differences between visiting a place and residing there. In all those years of playing outdoors and eating hearty meals and shopping for souvenirs, I paid scant attention to the lives of everyday residents.

 

The ‘locals’ in my picturesque hometown—those with complicated, embedded lives–are the rich characters I write about. I’ve come to know them through writing groups (everyone has a book or a poem in them), advocacy for abused and neglected children, drug/alcohol recovery in this valley, and toe-in-the-water political activism. The hairdressers, shopkeepers, wait staff, once existed to tend to the Tourist Me. Now I see them juggle childcare and work, try to find affordable housing while earning minimum wage, work one or two seasonal jobs, find time to play, and cling to the values of their grandparents, all while rubbing shoulders with billionaires or just the moderately rich.

Fifteen Years of Lies FINAL EBOOK COVERMy third novel, Fifteen Years of Lies, recounts the story of three local friends—a housekeeper, hairdresser, and owner of an auto repair shop—and the wealthy stranger who comes to town to threaten their lives. My forthcoming fourth novel, tentatively entitled Me Between Them, also takes place here. Long story short: A middle-aged widow fights to keep her family together and her grandchildren safe from domestic violence despite a daughter-in-law’s vicious lies and her husband’s revelations from the grave.

I hope you’ll visit NW Montana. If and when you do, enjoy! but notice the locals you meet. Sometimes they have the most remarkable lives.

~ Ann

Ann Minnett MWW photo

Thinking About CASA

Posted on by under Ann Minnett, Burden of Breath, CASA, Domestic Suspense, Fiction Writing, Montana, Montana Women Writers, Serita's Shelf Life, Uncategorized

By Ann Minnett

I’m a CASA/GAL (Court Appointed Special Advocate/guardian ad litem).

Background about CASA:

  • Nearly 700,00 children experience abuse every year.
  • Over 1,000 CASA programs train and support 76,756 CASA volunteers. Volunteers get to know the child by talking with everyone in that child’s life: parents and relatives, foster parents, teachers, medical professionals, attorneys, social workers and others. They use the information they gather to inform judges and others of what the child needs and what will be the best permanent home for them.
  • 250,323 abused and neglected children had a CASA volunteer speaking up for their interests in the last year. (452,000 are waiting for a volunteer empowered to find them a safe, permanent home)
  • Go to casaforchildren.org/ for information about how you could make a difference in children’s lives.

What does this have to do with writing?

Fellow CASA volunteers read my first book, Burden of Breath, because it deals with the long-lasting effects of childhood abuse. Our local executive director’s reaction to my writing surprised me. She said, “Lucky you, you can make up a happy ending.” She meant that my writing might ease my own concerns because child abuse cases, the courts, the foster care system, all of it, are often messy and sometimes end with us wondering… Were the children’s best interests served?

I set out to do just that—bend events into a happy resolution–in my manuscript inspired by the question, What if the estranged parent comes back? I concocted a gripping story with an end in mind. My critique group read the final twenty pages last week, and they would have none of it (the ending, that is). My main character behaved one way, but the all the secondary characters and my wise critique pals believed the main character would behave very differently.

I will change it.

The truth is that I can’t make a happy ending or a la-la-la outcome when the story doesn’t lead me there. This strange writing process is not to be controlled. Rather, I start by asking a question, apply my experiences, and hang on in amazement at what happens on the page.

Recently released Fifteen Years of Lies has nothing to do with CASA, but you might like it!

 

 

 

Self-Expression in Photography & Writing

Posted on by under Ann Minnett, Burden of Breath, Domestic Suspense, Inspiring Places, Montana, Montana Women Writers, mystery, new novel release, Photographs, Serita's Shelf Life, Uncategorized

By Ann Minnett

Have I mentioned what a joy it is to live in Montana? You’re likely tired of hearing it from me, if not from all of us in Montana Women Writers. It goes without saying, and today is no exception.

For the past week, my husband and I have witnessed a red-tailed hawk teach her fledgling to fly and hunt. The nest is in a dead tree trunk about a hundred yards from where I write from my porch most summer days. We try not to bother their progress, but here you see mom is not pleased.

Red-tail hawk

It’s becoming difficult to distinguish mother from child, and we expect they’ll soon move on.

A more relevant joy of living here is the feeling of peace and serenity that allows for self-expression and creativity–in my husband’s photography and my writing. I recently published a third novel, Fifteen Years of Lies (excerpted below), and anticipate the release of a fourth book in early 2018. I’ve been an author in search of a niche and finally found it in Domestic Suspense.

Fifteen Years of Lies FINAL EBOOK COVER

Two police cruisers pulled away from the lakeside mansion, leaving an insurance agent’s car alone on the circular drive. Lark reached for a cigarette but thought better of it, shifted into second gear, and lurched to the right and around back to the servant’s entrance. 

In the service vestibule, Lark kicked off her boots and dropped her bag inside the laundry room door. Upstairs in the kitchen, Jan Hensen and husband Jack vied for the agent’s attention. She padded toward the stairs, stocking feet sinking into the rec room’s plush carpet. She dreaded going up there.

Who’s the first person suspected of theft? The housekeeper, that’s who…

~ Ann

Burden of Breath Revised Cover 5-21-17

Burden of Breath (210 reviews, 4.3 stars) will be available for free download on July 29th!

 

This Really Happened

Posted on by under Ann Minnett, Burden of Breath, Domestic Suspense, Fiction Writing, Montana Women Writers, Serita's Shelf Life, Uncategorized

Ann Minnett MWW photoBy Ann Minnett

twitter-facebook-together-exchange-of-informationI have two Twitter accounts—one for the exchange of writing-related information
(@ann_minnett) and a new account I use to vent about politics and controversial topics with like-minded tweeters. I won’t share the name of the second for obvious reasons, but I swear I’m not too mean and rarely malign a part of someone’s anatomy, for example, or post mocking photos. Just saying.

A woman I admire and follow on the political account BLOCKED me over the weekend, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why. The woman has thousands of followers while my political followers number in the double digits. She and I share beliefs, vocabularies, and passions, so why did she block me? Was it something I tweeted? I created the political account precisely not to annoy others but simply to express myself. I went back through my recent tweets to determine what I said to offend her. I found nothing. Next, I schemed ways to ask her why. I felt jilted.

Bottom line, she hurt my feelings.

It occurs to me (and you’re likely way ahead of me) that my thin-skinned sensitivities aren’t meant to be shared on social media. There’s a saying among my friends: Your opinion of me is none of my business, but my opinion of you could kill me.

twitter poster

Fine. To the woman who blocked me: I forgive your lapse in judgment about me, and I’m letting go of you and political Twitter to save my sanity. The fiery love affair between politics and social media is not for me.

I deleted my political rant twitter account today, but please follow me @ann_minnett, and I’ll return the follow.