Interviews with Elaine

Interview with Elaine Littau




1. The Nan’s Heritage series is set in Colorado. Have you lived there before?

When I was a small child, my dad took a job in Granby, Colorado to be a logger. He logged in an area called "The Never Summer Mountains." I was up there a few weeks ago and I believe that the place he logged turned out to be the Winter Park Ski area. My mother took me up to the mountain where he was logging. He had work horses that skidded the logs after he had cut the trees down and limbed them. Those horses were huge! There is nothing like the sound and smell of a tree coming down in a deep forest in the mountains. I was five years old and was in love with the forest. The job didn't last long and we were back at our little house in the panhandle of Texas working in the oil fields.

Have you always lived in Texas?

My dad was employed by J.M. Huber oil company as a driller. In the 1950s, the crews moved with the rigs. Mother and my siblings moved from Kansas to Colorado to Oklahoma to Texas to Wyoming and many spots in between within those states. When I was one year old my parents decided that enough was enough. We settled in Perryton, Texas. Except for a summer in Grandby, Colorado logging and a summer in Weatherford, Oklahoma driving a gravel truck in the construction of I-40 and a summer doing oil field work in Farmington, New Mexico; we have always lived in the same house in Perryton. My husband lived in the Oklahoma panhandle growing up and moved to Perryton after we married and we have been here every since.



2. Are any of your characters based on real people?

Each character is a mixture of people I know. In the Nan's Heritage Series, Fred and Nate are much like my husband. Elk is like my middle son, Marlin. Luke is like my youngest son, Mikey. Thomas, in the last book, looks like our oldest son, Stephen. The wives of each of these characters look like my sons' wives, but don't act like them. Purdy, aka Bonnie June, looks like Mikey's wife, but Cari is not a hillbilly like the character is.

The villians are made up. There are a couple of characters that are "revenge" characters, but I will not reveal their identities.

3. You’ve said before that you based the series on stories passed down within your family. What made you decide to turn those stories into books?

There are snippets of truth in relation to my family stories. If I wrote the complete truth, the story would be pretty boring and I might be tarred and feathered by my family. I take a bit of a story my mother or dad or sibling told me about a family member or friend and place that in the storyline. One story came from an old timer's interview on our local radio station. He told about how a dentist couldn't get a patient to go under with whiskey, so he put an iron kettle over his head and hit it with a hammer. The man was knocked out and he could pull several impacted teeth. Those were the days before the medicines we have.

4. What are people’s reactions to your series?

For the most part, people enjoy the books. Many have told me that they hadn't read a book since their school days, but they decided to read mine as a favor. They read each in one or two sittings! One lady was upset with me for what happened to a favorite character in Book II, Elk's Resolve. I am afraid I will get more of that as the series progresses. Men have purchased copies for their wives only to get started reading and make their wives wait! The books have been put on the Jr. High and High School reading lists in the Perryton school system so I have a lot of young readers too. One woman told me that her daughter handed both books to her boyfriend and told him that he had to read them or they would break up. Good thing the boy liked them.

5. When did you begin writing Nan’s Journey?

I started writing Nan's Journey in 1986 or so while my sons and husband slept. I lost confidence and put it away many times. It was only until I let a friend read what I had that I knew it was good. She pressured me to finish the manuscript. It took another two years because of working and having kids in high school. After I was an empty nester, I turned it in. I was fifty-two years old when my first book was released.

6. Can you relate to any of the characters in your books?

Nan's insecurities and struggles with forgiveness mirror my own. I learned a lot about those issues within me as I wrote.



7. Have you always loved to write?

I was a lonely child. My brothers and sisters were twenty years older than me and were grown and had children when I arrived on the scene. Mom and Daddy told me their stories and my mind went wild. In Jr. High School when writing assignments were handed out, I secretly rejoiced! My classmates would have killed me if they knew how many times I prayed for writing assignments. I paid close attention to the critiques of my teachers and tried to implement the suggestions into my writing. The most rewarding thing to me was when one of my favorite English teachers contacted me to purchase my first book. She came to my table at a book signing and purchased the second and complemented me. It was so sweet. She gave me orders to make sure she got a copy of every book I released.

8. Did you have a degree in writing? From where?

No, I am a high school graduate. I attended a small Bible School for a term, but no formal training. I have read a bookcase full of writing books, so you might say, I am self-educated. I know I am not the best, but I give it my best.

9. Where did you go to school?

Perryton High School and The Apostolic Faith Bible College in Baxter Springs, Kansas. (I got my MRS. degree there - met my husband)

10. When will Luke’s Legacy be released?

I think the release date will be January/Feb of 2011. I hope to have the pre-release copies in my hands by Thanksgiving 2010.

Can you tell us a little bit about it?

Luke's Legacy is the stories of the younger brother and little sister, Luke and Ruby Young. Luke marries Purdy and joins a wagon train to California. Thirteen-year-old Ruby runs away with a cowboy and runs into tragedy. Each of them learn the fact that God has no grandchildren. Every person must make the decision on their own whether they will follow God or not. The friends and family who previewed this book, as well as my editor, said that this is my best book yet. I hope all my readers will agree. It was a very emotional process as I wrote it because I felt that it was important for it to mirror real life. We all have mountains we must climb and pains we carry. I wanted it to feel "real".

11. Do you have any other projects in the works?

Yes, the fourth book in the Series is Timothy's Home. It brings the series back to the first book. In Nan's Journey the step-mother sent a large trunk to Boston knowing that when it arrived, no one would claim it. The trunk is an important element in Timothy's Home.

After the Nan's Heritage Series, I have outlines for about eight books. Those first books focus on the young girls who were rescued by Ted, Elk, and Fred. I also have an outline for the story of a woman who was introduced in Luke's Legacy. I can hardly wait to get to it.

12. You created the Tate author group on Facebook and have helped so many authors through the publishing process. Why do you do it?

I was discouraged and wanted to connect with the other authors. All of them have helped me more than I have helped them. Whenever I feel down, I go to that group site and someone has posted something I needed. My hope is that it has helped the others as much as it has helped me.

13. How does it feel knowing that so many authors look to you for help?

At first, I think that some of the authors thought that I worked for the publisher. I tried to make it plain that I am an author just like them. I have studied a lot of blogs, books, posts and everything else I can get my hands on for writing and marketing. I hope that the others can glean from what I have learned. I am happy to help. My health and time have complicated the time I put in with authors individually. I love to take the ones who contact my in hand. The only way I could think of to keep the margins of my life intact was to put a page or two on my website for the authors to use. I have 50 free tips that they can download, I have a detailed list that they can purchase and download, and they can look at the site and see how the layout is. Everything I have on there has come from what I have learned in marketing with a website. Once in a while I make a video montage of book covers as a service to the authors who send me their jpeg and ask to be included in it. This is a free service. There are samples on the group page video tab. To preserve my health, the private consulting has to be done by appointment and I have to limit the session to 3 hours. I also do author journey to publication video montages for those who would like to participate. I have a coaching program in place with daily emails to guide the authors into what they can do each day in marketing their books. I want to offer a book marketing workshop, but the economy has been hard on all of us. I may attempt to do a teleseminar or webinar if enough authors are interested. I have to see what the costs of those things are before I am able to price how much it would cost the authors. I have made a book brochure with 8 participating authors on it for all of us that participated in it to hand out at our book events. The last five or so things I offer are services that the authors pay for. I use the money to fund book events and all the things that have to be done to promote my books. How it feels???? Sometimes I am overwhelmed. I only hope that some of what I try to do for them encourages them to dream their dream and keep with their writing ministry.

14. Do you have any events coming up (in September or later)?

I have a whole bunch on my website. It took all morning to type them in so just click on http://elainelittau.com and look it over. There may be some events you want to google and get in on.

15. Anything else you would like to say or comment on?

You have been so kind to do this interview. Thank you so much. As you see I am very wordy. Thank you for your patience.





Okay, time for random questions…



1. How tall are you? 5'5" (Don't argue with me Terry Littau!)

2. Favorite food? Terry's steaks...yum

3. Sum yourself up in one word. Dedicated

4. Favorite music group? The Judds (I know they were in the 80s but I loved those girls!)

5. If you found a genie and could have 3 wishes, what would they be? Health, Impact on the souls of people (that they would respond to the Salvation message in my books), & lose weight. (I know I should have said "world peace" but I think I could effect world peace if I were a size 8...right?)

6. Dogs or cats? Both...outside roaming the acreage though.