Guest Post - Author Christine Lemmon

I am thrilled to welcome Christine Lemmon to A Novel Source! She wrote Sand In My Eyes of which I have included a few sites for your enjoyment:

Christine Lemmon's website
Christine Lemmon's blog
Sanibel Island - setting of book & Ms. Lemmon's homeplace
My Review
My Teaser Tuesday including first line from Sand In My Eyes

Ms. Lemmon was asked to discuss the characters of Sand In My Eyes. I hope you enjoy the extra insight she brings to her beautiful book. Enjoy!

Anna Hott is a woman so overwhelmed by her crumbling marriage, demanding children, hectic life and yearning to write a novel that no longer is she seeing the beauty around her. It’s as if she is walking around with sand in her eyes. Before writing the book, I had started to notice that everyone around me, it seemed, was overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle of life—some more than others—and I wondered whether a person overwhelmed for too long becomes miserable, or can they make changes in their life or state-of-mind and no longer exist in that constant state of being overwhelmed. I created the characters of Anna, Fedelina and Cora mostly to play with this idea.

In some ways, I relate to Anna. I wrote Sand in My Eyes when my children were small, my house a mess and my greatest accomplishment had been getting us all dressed and out the door each day. I remember going into my messy kitchen, forgetting why I had gone in there in the first place, spinning like a top, responding to the demands of three little ones, and feeling more like a chicken with its head cut off than the logical, upbeat, ambitious, organized woman I once was. And I used to beg and plead with the sun to go down so my house would be quiet and I could think my own thoughts, and like Anna, write!

I created the character of Fedelina to help pull me through this phase of life, but she did more! She helped me spot the wildflowers hidden within the weeds—beauty in the midst of chaos! At times I felt as if Fedelina was the older me talking to the younger me telling me one day your house will be clean and quiet but your children will be grown and gone and you would do anything to have that messy house and your children back.

And when there were months at a time when I was feeling unproductive, writing less than what I wanted to be writing due to morning sickness, a cluster of headaches, a broken laptop, or changes in my children’s sleep habits (me on a coffee high and watching The Wiggles with my three-year-old instead of writing before sunrise), Fedelina would come up with lines like, “women, like roses need rest—non-productive periods in order to prepare for their next bloom.” I changed the way I looked at the ‘stops’ in my life and rather than frustrations, saw them as times of rest that were preparing me for my next burst of productivity.

Cora is a very dear character to me. I created her after my mom was diagnosed with cancer and I found myself waking in the middle of the night stricken with worry-filled insomnia. As Anna was finding herself awake all night twisting and turning through the fiery forest of resentful thoughts due to her husband’s affair, I was awake and worrying about my mom, but then Cora came up with an idea to try when unable to sleep at night and crazy as it sounds, because I wrote it, I then tried it and it truly did work. It is a meditation and prayer that had me handing it all over to God in the middle of the night so I no longer lose sleep over things.

Cora lent me a sense of the significance of motherhood, that what we are doing when our children is small is working on the underground roots, those things not seen but vital below the Earth, and she said things like, it doesn’t matter that a rose was watered yesterday; it needs to be watered today. In other words, it doesn’t matter that a mother had a second to herself yesterday. She needs another second to herself today. She is only as good as her last break.

When Anna was wondering whether she should hang her writing out to dry until a different stage of life, when she has more time, Cora gives tips on how to free up one’s life so there is time to pursue passions. She also encourages the passions a mother has on the side, saying, “Ideas will remain ideas if you never pursue them. They’ll be like seeds in a packet that never get opened.”

The character of Cora helped me through a time when I felt my story was going nowhere, when I considered giving it up. I would take walks around Sanibel Island where I live and spot the flowers and could hear my character saying things like, “how should you be talking to yourself when you’re feeling down and out? The same as you would to a flower when wanting it to bloom,” and “holding onto your disappointments will result in loss of energy. Holding onto spent blossoms takes from the flower the energy it needs to stay alive. Trimming these away helps the flower to channel its energy to healthy parts.” I hurried home and scribbled all of this down and continued onward with my story!

While writing Sand in My Eyes I felt as if the older me was talking to the present me, telling me it all will pass—that the stages a woman goes through in her life are brief and once we go through them our lives are over, so why hurry? Why allow ourselves to live in constant states of stress? How sad to be walking around with sand in our eyes, unable to see all the beauty around us.

WOW, how profound! I love that image "walking around with sand in our eyes..." We must find joy in our life in some way, even if its the small things. Thank you Ms. Lemmon for reminding us that beauty is all around us, we just have to open our eyes to it. You are truly an amazing author!