Writing and Editing RAINTREE

New Years Eve, 2009
I'm editing a finished novel, RAINTREE, women's Southern fiction. The protagonist is forty-three-year old widow, struggling to run a Georgia Bed & Breakfast, when she recues Katrina evacuees: a mother and three children.

When I began this novel I was leaning toward the comedic/ self-discovery theme of Wouk's DON'T STOP THE CARNIVAL, but the tension of dealing with abandoned children brought me to a new level. When one identifies with traumatized kids, a childless woman will often find a connection to her own problematic youth. And so I went from there.

Here is the opening paragraph in CHAPTER ONE
A malevolent force besides bad weather has a foothold in Oconee County. This storm is different. The sky turns the color of pewter, then a deluge of rain forms a dense curtain, and becomes a surreal world. River birch trees barely visible bend to its vicious gusts. The inn's air condition unit vibrates up through the old wide plank floors to her bare feet as the antebellum manor protests nature's wild intrusion. Even the wrought iron sign on the lawn, RAINTREE INN, BED & BREAKFAST, SPECIAL EVENTS, bangs like an anvil against its post.