Grace Buchanan Audiobooks — Let's Build Bridges Together — renovating

written by Ronda K. Reed

Thank you again for the opportunity, Grace Buchanan. As I said, blogging is new to me and this is my first blog tour. Meet My Main Character Blog Tours are similar to radio interviews: tune in now to questions posed to me, and July 8, 2014 for answers to the same questions posed to other authors. This tour asks the authors of works-in-progress to answer questions about the main characters of their fictional novels. Grace is working currently on a historical fiction. She describes her main character, Polly, as “how she sees her grandmother’s grandmother “. Grace’s genealogical research is not only rendering invaluable information about her familial roots, but also is providing a solid historical background from the 1800’s full of hardships and conflicts for Polly. I find this fascinating and look forward to reading her book.

Nostalgia, is something Grace and I have in common when we write. Bringing the past back to life and breathing new words and life into our characters gives great satisfaction to not only us, as writers, but hopefully, to our readers as well. My work is historical and leans a bit toward literary with magic realism.

Now, for the questions and answers about my fictional novel-in-progress:

1. What is the name of your character? Is he/she fictional or historical? Ella’s full name is unusual, like she is. She is of mixed blood: Native American, Hispanic, and Caucasian. Her full name is MarcellaAwinita Bennett.Awinita means “fawn” in Cherokee. Ella is purely fictional, as are her friends Carolyn, or “Carly” Rose, and Dawn Davidson. The secondary characters play huge roles in the story. In fact, I thought about three Main Characters but decided against it.
2. When and Where is the story set? The story begins in the early 1960’s in a fictional small southern town in Texas. This town is mostly a farming community, but new industry is nudging its way in.  What is fascinating, is what is nestling on one side of the town. It is many acres of a heavily wooded closed-down-for-decades State Park, called Break Ridge Falls Park. Ella’s family resides on a gravelled farm-to-market road on the outskirts of town. Their property acreage ends at the edge of the woods.
   
3. What should we know about her?  Ella, along with having mixed blood, is also adopted. By sheer luck, a kind middle-aged childless white couple adopted her, taking her in when Ella was two, rescuing her from a bad situation which left Ella scarred badly on her left arm.  Ella thankfully remembers little of that time, while being coddled by her new loving parents. While the large scar on the inside of her arm is physical, the internal scars begin surfacing during her school years.
4. What is the main conflict? What messes up his/her life? The main conflict is the problems that are always present  and confusing in a coming of age story: peer pressures, dealing with the opposite sex, and bullies. Adding to this mixed bag are racial slurs, and one character in particular that hands out misery throughout two decades to these three girlfriends. Also conflicting in theory is the discovery that these three young girls make of the mysterious and somewhat scary Break Ridge Falls Walking Bridge in the thick woods. It is an urban legend to the town, well-speculated and gossiped about. Not many have found the bridge and lived to tell about it, but once the bridge finds you, it brings magic realism.
5.  What is the personal goal of the character? Ella’s goal is self-acceptance; to love herself, discover her past and make peace with it, and to believe and protect true friendship no matter what, all while finding out the truth about the walking bridge.
6. Is there a working title for this novel, and can we read more about it? The title is The Walking Bridge and you can read more about it at my blog.
7. When can we expect the book to be published? Hopefully, it will go through the editing process this year and be ready by the first of next year. Hopefully. 🙂

On Tuesday, July 8, 2014   I will be featuring some up-and-coming writers whom I met through the community Saturday Scenes at Google+.

Challa Fletcher
Sarah Brown
Samantha Dunaway Bryant

Thank you, Grace for this opportunity and sharing my love of writing.