We are beyond happy to have Valerie join us once more.
Valerie is the recipient of the
prestigious Lieutenant Governor’s Award for high achievements in the Arts. 2024
Literary Arts Awards Laureate.
Her dedication to the art of writing
is an inspiration for all of us.
If you missed her previous visit, please go HERE.
She is visiting today to share the
SBTS of her newest novel.
Read on my friends.
I’ve been writing books for young people for a couple dozen years now. I
started writing seriously in my early forties, though I’d always wanted to create
books. Having worked with young people for years, it was a natural choice to
write for children and teens. I enjoy producing work for all ages, from picture
books for young children, to young adult for teens, but my ‘sweet spot’ is
middle grade. To date I’ve had 34 books published. I chose the traditional
publishing route as that felt like the best path for me, and I’ve been happy
with the results.
This year, I was thrilled to be honoured with this province’s Lieutenant
Governor Award for High Achievement in Literary Arts.
Today I’m introducing my latest young adult novel – about which Kirkus
reviews says: ““[The] first-person narration will ensnare readers immediately,
sustaining their interest as this compact, strongly paced story navigates red
herrings and subplots. … A fast-paced page-turner that explores moral gray
areas.”
Title: An Unbalanced Force
Synopsis:
Ethan
Granger isn’t sure what his father does for work, just that it’s lucrative
enough to support their family’s privileged lifestyle, and that it often
requires him to go out of town for business.
When
Ethan catches his dad in a lie, it raises unsettling questions he can’t
ignore. Before long, this seemingly
small fib reveals a clandestine and potentially illegal operation he’s been
keeping from the family. Ironically, Ethan uses all the deceitful tricks his
father taught him to find out the truth.
Hiring
a private eye, sneaking into his father’s office, following him on his
“business trips” — how far will Ethan go to expose his dad’s lies? What if the
truth forces Ethan to make a choice that could throw his whole world off
balance?
The Story Behind the Story:
This
is one of my novels that grew from an idea for a title. Taken from Isaac
Newton’s first law of motion, the phrase An Unbalanced Force drew me. While it
generally relates to objects, I thought it would be interesting if applied to
situations. In this story, the main character is faced with a decision that
could create an unbalanced force that impacts his whole world.
Website: please go HERE.
Link to Valerie’s Arts NB Award.
Please go HERE.
A question before you go, Valerie:
Scribbler: What is the ideal spot for you when
you write your stories? Music in the background or quiet. Coffee or tequila?
Messy or neat?
Valerie: I do most of my writing in my office – a small and somewhat
crowded room off the kitchen. I prefer coffee and quiet while I write but
welcome the sights and sounds that come from a bird feeder that hangs just
outside my window. It’s a cozy arrangement, except for one thing!
My desk possesses a magnetic force for attracting clutter. This force is
powerful enough to overcome all efforts to keep it tidy. I often come into my
office in the morning expecting a nice, organized workspace, only to find
there’s been an overnight accumulation of chaos.
Excerpt from An Unbalanced Force:
Chapter One: Ten Years Ago
When I was seven years old, my father
saved me from certain death.
That is a truth that lives in me. It forms
itself into the shapes and colors of my world, and rises with me every morning,
as faithful as the sun.
I am here today, and not reduced to what
is politely referred to as “remains” because of my dad.
For a number of years after that day, I
had a great need to hear the details again and again. Often, I coaxed the story
from my mother while she cooked dinner or folded clothes or when the two of us
were running errands in the car.
There was something about hearing it told
to me—something about the story itself that seemed strangely solid, as though
it was a trophy I could display on a shelf. How or why words formed themselves
into a kind of possession I can’t explain. They just did.
“You had just turned seven,” my mother would
begin. And then, without fail, she would pause.
I wonder, looking back, what those pauses
meant. It may be that she was giving me time to transport myself to that day in
memory. Or, perhaps those few seconds were for her—a chance to steel herself
against the emotions she was about to relive.
“We were living in the south end of the
city,” she would say when she was ready to continue. “You remember the place,
Ethan—the beige two-story house with white shutters at the windows. Your room
was blue with beautiful white clouds painted around the top of the walls. The
previous tenants left it that way and you never wanted us to change it.”
I have vivid memories of those clouds. As
night fell, they seemed to swell and billow in the dancing shadows cast by a
nearby streetlight. They weren’t part of the story, but Mom had her own way of
telling it, and I never tried to hurry her.
“You weren’t supposed to leave the yard by
yourself. Not ever.”
Sometimes Mom would look at me then. Look
right into my eyes, as if she needed to reassure herself that I was actually
there, that my disobedience hadn’t stolen me from her. Other times, she’d hurry
on to the next part.
“And of all the places you could have
wandered off to, you decided to make your way to the only empty house on the
block.”
That big old empty house was like a
seven-year-old-boy magnet. I’d discovered the place not long after we’d moved
to that neighborhood and had already been there more times than I could
remember.
“I don’t know what could have possessed
you to do such a thing, but you actually went into the house!”
Reproach has crept into her voice at this
point of the story and I’m not one hundred percent sure it’s all for me. Has
Mom really never considered that I had probably been on the vacated property
lots of other times?
Maybe not. To get there, she’d have to
admit she was a stay-at-home mother who often had no idea where her kid was.
And then she’d tell the rest of the
story—as she knew it. Mom’s version was soft and gentle, free of the terror of
that afternoon. I wrapped it around mine like a bandage.
But half accounts will not do today.
The empty house was faded brick, a tired
looking place. In the heat of the summer it had a stillness that other
homes—homes that are lived in, did not. That stillness gave it an air of
mystery. It summoned me with its breathless, heavy silence.
It drew me in.
The windows on the lower levels were
loosely boarded up, with spider-webs and bits of leaves and such in between the
wooden slats that had been hammered in place. Whoever had nailed the boards on
hadn’t taken many pains at the job. Otherwise, it’s doubtful the fingers of a
seven-year-old boy could have pried off the single slat of wood that
half-heartedly covered a small basement window at the back of the house.
Brushing aside the detritus I pushed my
face close to the pane of glass and squinted through the film of grime that
covered it. Except for a hulking shape I later discovered was the furnace, the
basement was nothing more than a dark haze from where I squatted.
Oh, but it promised more if I could get
myself onto the other side of that pane of glass.
The window was an old aluminum slider,
seized up with dirt and inactivity. It moved an inch or two in response to my
tugs and then refused to budge any further. I pulled and strained to no avail
and was close to giving up a few times but the prize of getting into the house
kept me going.
And then, quite to my surprise, the window
yielded with a sideways jerk. Seconds later, with my heart nearly bursting, I
had dropped to the floor inside and was tiptoeing through the deep grey
shadows. The air smelled like dirty socks and swamp water and something sharp I
couldn’t identify.
A quick scan of the room told me there was
nothing worth exploring down there so I made my way up to the main floor,
relieved to find the door at the top of the steps unlocked. There wasn’t much
more on that level than there’d been downstairs—an old sideboard and a tall
child’s chair with fold-out steps, which saved the day when I was ready to
leave and found I needed something to climb on to reach the window I’d come in.
The final object downstairs was a cracked mirror leaning against a wall in an
open hallway closet.
I went from room to room. I walked around
the perimeter of each one. As I moved about, a peculiar feeling grew in me
which I can only describe as a sense of ownership. This feeling gained strength
and seemed more real with each subsequent visit. I reveled in the thrill that I
was alone and no one knew where I was.
I was in my house.
On the day of the incident—which happened
after at least half a dozen visits there, I discovered the purpose of a pole
that had been left in an upstairs bedroom closet. It was a plain wooden pole
except for a metal hook on one end and I’d taken to carrying it with me,
sometimes thumping it on the floor as I walked around, other times brandishing
it like a sword.
On this particular foray I’d been
exploring upstairs when I noticed, for the first time, a framed rectangle on
the ceiling of the second floor hallway. I knew it had to be a passage to the
attic and quickly realized the pole was the key to opening it. I fetched it and
spent the next few minutes poking the pole’s hook at a metal loop until,
suddenly, it took hold and a drop-down ladder descended.
For several seconds I could do nothing but
stand and stare, trying to take in the incredible luck of finding a way to
expand my explorations.
Then I climbed up and into the attic.
There wasn’t the slightest chance that I could have done anything else.
We wish you continued success with
your writing.
And another HUGE thank you to all our
visitors and readers.
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