Monday, March 6, 2017

Faith Blum on Savior, Like a Shepherd


Faith, welcome back to Homeschooled Authors. What have you been up to since the last time you were here?
I honestly can’t remember when I was here last, but I think it was shortly after the publication of my second book. Since then, I was able to quit my part-time job to concentrate full-time on writing. It’s been great! Of course, that means I’ve been doing a lot of writing and editing and marketing as I work on serving God through this media.

What draws you to the old west?
Ever since discovering my dad’s Louis L’Amour book collection and reading my first one, I’ve been drawn to the ruggedness and wildness of the Old West. I think it’s such an open genre to explore and I’ve loved writing about that time.

What inspired Savior, Like a Shepherd?
One of my novellas. Seriously. I wrote a novella about a young lady who becomes a mail order bride and on her way to meet her husband, she comes in contact with Titus. Titus is a twelve-year-old orphan who is trying to take care of his brother and sister but is disadvantaged by the fact that he and his siblings were born illegitimately to a lady of the night. Adelaide does what she can, but I wanted to explore his story more and see what happened to him after she left.

Which character are you most like?
Adelaide Brown. I have an advantage that anyone who reads only this book doesn’t, I spent a lot of time with Adelaide while writing her story and this one. Miss Brown isn’t actually in this story for very long, but she and I are quite a bit alike in many ways, but not all.

Was this book harder or easier to write than your last book?
My last book published book was my novella collection, but all three of those novellas were published last summer, so I guess I’ll base it on The Solid Rock instead since that was my last published novel. Tough question, honestly. I think it was harder and easier in some ways. The Solid Rock came together so easily in the first draft and the editing went pretty smoothly. I had to add some scenes to both books and make some hard decisions about others. On second thought, I think they were really about the same. Savior, Like a Shepherd may have been a little harder mainly because I had to do a little extra research.

If you could spend a day with one of the characters from Savior, Like a Shepherd, which would it be?
You certainly know how to ask hard questions. All of them! Okay, that’s not a good answer because that would be too many people. I’ll say Tabitha from about halfway through the book. I’d love to sit down and talk to her for a while and see what she thinks about certain things that happen to her. (Sorry to be vague, I’m trying not to give too much away.)

What is next for you?
The next three books in the Orphans of the West series. All the books in this series are easily read as standalones, but they will also all connect in the next series, Soldiers of the West. Somehow. I have to figure that out exactly sometime.  Right now, though, I’m concentrating on the Orphans of the West. I have the second book in the editing stage and the third one will hopefully have the rough draft finished by the time this interview is published. That’s my goal anyway. Then I need to start doing a better outline for book four.

Where can people keep up with you?
How about too many places? I feel like I have too many social media sites and blogs. The best places are probably my Wordpress blog, Amazon, and Bookbub since you’d get emails from them either when I post or when I release a new book. If you want more fun details than those, Facebook and Instagram are probably the best places. Here are the links: Website | Wordpress | Blogger | Facebook | Pinterest | Twitter | Amazon | Bookbub | Instagram

Any final thoughts?
Thanks for letting me come by! It’s been fun!

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