Melanie, describe yourself for our visitors.
I’m often referred to as a renaissance woman, since I do many different things with my time. The truth is, though, that I do so many different things with my time that I’m not that great at any of them, in my opinion. A better analogy would be a baseball analogy – the junkman. A junkman pitcher can’t throw a fast ball, but he’s got a lot of other pitches (maybe even a knuckle ball), so he can keep you guessing. That’s me. Except I’m a girl.
I grew up in a musical family, went to SMU on a music scholarship (I’m a fiddle player), majored in English, then went to seminary and got a masters degree there, followed by a masters in marriage and family therapy a few years later at a Catholic school in San Antonio. I get tired just thinking about all that. You couldn’t pay me enough to set foot in graduate school again. But in my current life – I own a counseling practice in Dallas (www.wefixbrains.com) which is known for its creativity and out of the box thinking. I’m the clinical director, so I train interns and also have a case load of my own. I write novels (obviously). And I still play my fiddle. I’m sitting in this weekend with a band called Skyrocket in Austin, Texas (www.skyrockettheband.com). I can’t wait. They only let me play on Come on Eileen. It’s crazy fun.
How do you find time to connect with God?
Unfortunately, I’m a little bit like my main character, Dylan Foster, when It comes to connecting with God. Truth be told, I sometimes relegate God to the status of Emergency Road Service. Call the 800 number printed in the trunk when you’ve got a flat or have run out of gas in a dangerous urban area. I’m working on it, though. Time is never going to be abundantly available to me. So for me, it’s a matter of focus. I try to keep my eye on the ball. (That’s two baseball analogies in one interview and the season’s just started!)
Who are your favorite authors? Favorite books?
Favorite authors? Anne Lamott. David Sedaris. Both write hysterical non-fiction. Anne Lamott also writes novels. They’re more serious, though. I like her irreverent prose and her sense of humor in her essays. I also love Truman Capote and Harper Lee. In Cold Blood is just amazing, beautifully-crafted prose. It knocks me over.
Tell us about your journey to publication.
I’d written my first novel, called The Permian Game, and was at a party at a friend’s house in Vail, Colorado. I was living in Texas at the time. I was just in town for a visit, though I’d lived in Vail years before. My friend, who is a fan of my writing, pointed across the room at a person who had come to the party with another guest. His name was James Langteaux, and he’d just published a non-fiction book with Multnomah. My friend suggested I go talk to him and tell him about my book. By this time, I’d had a couple of agents and was just sick of the whole thing. So I grudgingly agreed and had a nice conversation with James and he said, yeah, sure, send it to me. And I sent it to him and then didn’t hear anything for six months or so. Then one day, he sent me an email. He’d been sick all week and had finally settled down to read my book and loved it. He sent it to his editor, who walked it down the hall to the senior fiction editor at Multnomah, Rod Morris, who is with Harvest House now. Rod liked my voice, but wondered if I’d be willing to write anything with more obvious spiritual themes. I said sure. I eventually finished the first book in the Dylan Foster series, When the Day of Evil Comes, sent the manuscript to Rod, and they signed me to a three book contract. I have never seen or heard from James Langteaux again. Neither has my friend, by the way. We both met him that night and never saw him again. It was a completely flukey thing.
The Permian Game is sitting on my desk right now, begging for a re-write, by the way It’s my next project, I think.
Tell us about your current book?
My Soul to Keep is about a little boy, Nicholas Chavez, who is kidnapped in broad daylight from a crowded park. My main character, Dylan Foster, spends the rest of the book trying to find him, with the help of a six-year-old girl named Christine who has a compelling spiritual connection to Nicholas. On the other side – the opposition – is Peter Terry, who has become a bit infamous as a villain. He’s a pasty-white, other-worldly creep with an open gash in his back who has appointed himself as Dylan’s spiritual stalker. He’s really a metaphor for all the opposition we have in our lives. All the things that make us feel weak and hopeless, all the things that steal our serenity. He’s bad news.
My Soul to Keep, like all my novels, is a suspense novel, but it’s character-driven. Most suspense fiction is plotted out ahead of time, because the plot is really the star of the book. My writing happens more organically than that. The story unfolds on its own as I go along. My characters (some of whom have shown up uninvited and messed up my story) decide what’s going to happen. I just follow them around and write it down.
How did you come up with ideas for this book?
It flowed naturally from the previous two stories, actually. In the first book, When the Day of Evil Comes, Christine exhibits an unusual spiritual radar, which Dylan has as well. She’s such a terrific character that, of course, she stuck around for the rest of the series. Nicholas appears for the first time in the second book, The Soul Hunter, as the child of a local physician who is raped by a serial offender named Gordon Pryne. The doctor, Maria Chavez, chooses to raise the child, who becomes an object of Peter Terry’s attention. So, in book three, My Soul to Keep, the natural progression is that someone or something would come for Nicholas. It’s a great story. I like this book a lot. It was difficult to write. Lots of Peter Terry-like opposition in my life at the time. But I’m really happy with it. It’s a terrific read. I cried when I wrote some of the scenes, the characters had become so real to me.
List your most recent books.
When the Day of Evil Comes, The Soul Hunter, and now My Soul to Keep. All published by Multnomah, which was recently published by Random House and which is now known as Waterbrook Multnomah. Don’t worry – it doesn’t make any sense to me either!
What’s next for you?
I’m hoping My Soul to Keep does really well (tell all your friends!) so that I’ll be able to extend the series. I think there are more stories there. I’d like to find out what happens with all those loose ends. Since I don’t plot my books ahead of time, I find out what happens about 15 minutes before the readers do. I’m sure we all have some questions we’d like answers to.
Where can visitors find you online?
Check out www.melaniewells.com or www.myspace.melaniewells.com. I also have a Shoutlife profile. And a Facebook profile. And a Linkedin profile.
My business website is www.wefixbrains.com and I do a blog with my best friend on the perils of the creative life at www.thelmaandlouisegrabthekeys.com. So basically, I’m all over the place. You can’t miss me.
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