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Kim will be on tour November 19 – December 3 with her novel Down at the Golden Coin.
How would your life change if you met your Messiah at the laundromat?
During the horrible recession, DOWN AT THE GOLDEN COIN’s main character, former airline pilot Annie Mullard, feels she has sunk to new low when she is forced to go to a run-down laundromat, The Golden Coin, after her washing machine breaks, but it’s here she meets a messiah named Violet. Even though she can read minds, send Annie into past lives and levitate Tide with Bleach Alternative, Violet isn’t anyone’s idea of a messiah. But Violet is equipped with the wisdom, love and humor to help Annie find a way to a more authentic life, one in which Annie’s free to create her own reality and where money is not the key to happiness.
I smash a load of jeans down into a washing
machine at the Golden Coin Wash and Spin and vow I will not
burst into tears. I take a deep breath and instead of crying, gently close the
lid.
Thankfully, nobody
else is in here. Then again, it’s this same desolation that makes it creepy to
be here at all, despite the morning sun blazing through the front windows,
which only seems to accentuate how run down this place is.
My hands grip the edge
of my machine as it fills with water. I close my eyes. I’m trying hard not to
feel like a lunatic, almost shedding tears over a washing machine.
Please God, I
think, please just let things get better. It feels like I’m asking
for a miracle.
“You praying? Worshipping the Whirlpool?”
I nearly screw myself
into the ceiling at the sound of her voice. How she got in here, so fast,
without me hearing, I don’t know. Maybe the rush of water filling up my four
machines drowned out the sound of her arrival, but the door has one of those
little bells that jingle when you walk through. When I came in ten minutes ago,
I’d thought it was silly. Who were they trying to alert? The dryers? There’s
no attendant here. At the Golden Coin Wash and Spin, you’re on
your own.
She looks to be in her
early twenties and, from what I know, totally goth. Or maybe emo. Probably emo.
Goth is out. Actually, both goth and emo are out. I think. I’m not sure. I have
three children, two of them teenagers, but they can’t be bothered to explain these
things to me anymore.
Short black hair falls
long over her right eye and it has electric blue streaks down the
front. She’s a tiny little thing in a slightly too large white tank top. A
wife-beater-T is what we used to call them. A black bra strap has slipped out
fashionably on one side. Even though it’s ninety-five humid degrees outside,
and not much better, if not worse, in here, she’s wearing pencil thin black
jeans and bulky Doc Martens. Her nose has a small piercing, one round diamond
in one nostril. It’s tasteful, like something I might have done in my twenties, if I’d thought any of
the airlines I was just dying to work for at the time would have
allowed it.
And she’s already
measuring out her detergent, which brings me to another thing I find strange
about her. This place is pretty big and all the rest of the machines are empty
and she’s chosen the one right next to mine.
Her Angelina lips are
pursed in concentration as she stares at the measuring cup, holding it up at
eye level. She pours a little detergent back into the bottle: Trader Joe’s Next
to Godliness, which has me guiltily looking at my Tide with Bleach Alternative.
I watch her. It’s like she’s performing a science experiment, the way she’s
eyeing the little plastic cup.
I’m grateful for the
distraction of her though, and to not be alone in here anymore. She catches me
watching her and smiles before looking down to pour the detergent
over her clothes.
I like her, I decide.
The way she smiled. It was nice. “I was praying,” I say. She gives me another
smile, which I take for encouragement. “But I don’t think my prayer is getting
answered.” I pause for what I hope is comedic effect. “Because I’m still here.”
Kim Strickland lives in Chicago with her husband, three children, two cats and one dog. She also blogs as A City Mom at ChicagoNow. Down at the Golden Coin is her second novel. When she’s not being a mom or a writer, she flies jets for a major airline, which means, every once in a while, she gets to eat an entire meal sitting down.
Connect with Kim!
Website: http://www.kimstrickland.com/
Q. What inspires your writing? I take it we’re
working under the assumption my writing is inspired ? My kids, I think, inspire
me the most. Maybe it’s nothing more than looking at them and seeing my own
mortality, but they make me want to set an example, to show them dreams can be
made real.
Also, I get some pretty good ideas in the shower.
Q. What is your favorite thing about being an author? In the words of
Dorothy Parker, “I like having written,” at least in terms of
that first draft, which is always hard for me. Later drafts tend to flow more
easily. Another thing I like about being an author is that I can work in my
pajamas, or in a coffee shop. But usually not both at the same time.
Q. What is the toughest part of being an author? Finding the time
for the day to day of it, the agony of the middle part of the story—beginnings
and ends are much easier. And the marketing. Oh God, it’s so hard to market and
sell yourself, at least for me. I always feel like I’m bothering everybody. And
yet it’s so necessary in this business, because unless you’re one of the very
fortunate few, no one else is going to do it for you.
Q. If you could not be author, what would you do/be? A psychic reader
and advisor. Or maybe a mime. Oh, just kidding. I already have my “other” job;
I fly jets for a major airline.
Q. What would the story of your life be entitled? “To Be Continued…Hopefully”
Q. Can you tell me a little about the inspiration behind your
book cover(s)? Working with a small press like Eckhartz was awesome in that I
had full control over the cover for Down at the Golden Coin.
Although I loved the cover for my first novel,Wish Club, which was with
a large publisher, Three Rivers Press. It was the first cover they
showed me and I still think it’s awesome. And as a bonus, it wasn’t pink.
For the cover of Down at the Golden Coin, my
graphic designer, Beth Tomas, and I were really on the same page. She thought
of the brick background and I added the graffiti-like text. When she asked me
to brace myself and to be open—because she imagined a gold coin bursting
out of a front-loading washing machine—I knew that would be the design, because
all along, that was the exact vision I’d always had for it!
Q. What is your favorite book of all time? “A Prayer for Owen
Meany” by John Irving
Q. Which part of your book(s) was the easiest to write? The scenes when
Annie goes to see her possible future, where she meets her children as they might
be five years later. It was like writing a best case scenario for how I would
want my kids to turn out.
Q. Which part of your book(s) was the hardest to write? The philosophy
and spiritual messages from Violet. Basically I was putting words in “God’s”
mouth. I tried very hard to not sound preachy or sanctimonious, because while
most of what Violet says is what I believe, it’s just my faith.
In the end, I really don’t know that it’s the truth
or not, and probably won’t until, well, the end I guess.
Q. Which character from any book are you most like? Wow, this is a
hard one. I don’t know. Do you think people would believe me if I said Scarlett
O’Hara?
Q. What is your favorite season? Baseball season!
Q. Tell me something funny that happened while on a book
tour or while promoting your book(s). Whenever I’m selling books at a
book fair or similar venue, I always promote them by saying, “The book is free,
if you purchase my autograph for ten-dollars.” It’s silly, but I crack myself
up. (Unfortunately, I also probably annoy the hell out of anyone else near me
selling their books!) But it’s fun to see the varied reactions from potential
customers. Most of them get it and smile; some think I’m actually giving away
free books. Sometimes I’ll even add that they’re “two for twenty-dollars,” just
to see who’s quick at math.
Q. Are you working on something new? Always!
Q. Anything you want to say to followers of this blog or
those that are just stopping by? Thank you for taking the time out
of your busy life to read about little old me. I hope I made you smile. And
please buy my book.
Over the course of my writing career, I have accumulated
my fair share of rejection letters. It's a badge of honor of sorts and we
writers love to lament our collections. Having a pile of your own is
practically a requirement for admission to the world-of-being-a-professional-writer
club. So, after so many years of being on the receiving end of the dreaded
rejection letter, imagine my astonishment at finding myself having to write
them.
And I'm pretty good at it, IMHO. Having received
every sort of written rejection imaginable, I know how I like
to be rejected. Not the way a certain unnamed literary agent did so, with a one
sentence reply: “I am not interested in your project
at this time.” Ouch. And not with the
impersonal, Xeroxed form letter, either, which is a little passé these days anyway, since most of the querying world is now
electronic. In my rejection letters, I borrow all the tried and true phrases,
usually apologizing and using their name and trying to offer an appropriate
amount of gratitude for contacting me, and encouragement that my opinion is
only one of many, etc. But you know what? It still sucks. A lot. And it's
harder than you think. Especially when it comes to rejecting those other
writers, because I know exactly what they're going through.
I know they will see my email address in their
inbox, and they might, like me when I see a reply to one of my queries, stare
at it for a while, alternately hopeful and full of worry, running an internal
conversation through their heads, like the one that goes through mine: "Should
I open it? Will it be good news or bad? If it's bad news, do I want to hear it
right now, before yoga? Will it ruin my day? But what if it's good news? It
could be good news you know. You shouldn't be so negative. And why are you
having this conversation anyway, when you know you are going to open it in
within thirty seconds anyway?"
And please don't get me wrong, it's not like I
fool myself into thinking that getting accepted as a guest blogger at A
City Mom is considered the writing thrill of a lifetime or anything,
but still. Rejection is rejection and it hurts. I thought somehow being on the
giving end, being the one to hand out the rejection, would be better, easier.
But not so much. Writing these letters myself makes me feel a little more
sympathy for all those agents and publishers who've rejected me and my writing.
Well, everyone except for maybe that one certain unnamed agent, that is.
Thank you for sharing!
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