At the beginning of the story, Ana is a high-powered crisis
publicist, dealing with clients who are various degrees of unsavory to repair
their tarnished reputations. Every element of her life is scheduled from
morning to night, all planned to give her the most efficient, perfect day
possible. Of course, if you’re familiar with how these stories go, you know
that doesn’t last long . . . and it’s the crumbling of her seemingly
perfect life that helps launch her into the story (and, of course, into the
hero’s arms).
It was easy to write Ana because I knew those temptations all too well. I, too, had worked in a corporate discipline that was long on appearance but short on balance. I took that same mind-set into my writing career, packing more into a single day than was actually possible or healthy, especially considering I had small humans at home to keep alive. But over the last several years, I’d gotten that tendency under control. I was taking more time for myself. I was working less, spending more time with family, and focusing on my health. I was on the other side of those issues, which meant that I had the perfect vantage point to write the character.
Or so I thought.
The funny thing about being a writer, especially a Christian writer, is that you start a book thinking it’s for other people, and by the time you’re done, you realize it was mostly for yourself. As I brought the story to a close, I realized that like Ana, I might have eliminated much of the hustle from my daily schedule, but I hadn’t completely dealt with the reasons behind that need for hustle: the quest for excellence that really just represented the desire for control of my own life, the buried belief that my worth was mostly tied up in my accomplishments, the prideful lie that people around me were counting on me to be perfect. Oddly enough, it’s not the first time I’ve written this theme in a book, and yet somehow I still find myself surprised that it applies to me.
I’m praying that this time, the lessons that I learned through writing The Solid Grounds Coffee Company will stick. But I think I finally understand, as Ana comes to in the end, that there’s no shame in being a work in progress.
"...you start a book thinking it’s for other people, and by the time you’re done, you realize it was mostly for yourself." via @CarlaLaureano #SeriouslyWrite #amwriting
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Carla Laureano is the two-time RITA Award–winning author of Five Days in Skye, London Tides, and the Saturday Night Supper Club series. She is also the author of the Celtic fantasy series The Song of Seare (as C. E. Laureano). A graduate of Pepperdine University, she worked as a sales and marketing executive for nearly a decade before leaving corporate life behind to write fiction full-time. She currently lives in Denver with her husband and two sons.
