Home

Guest Amy Anguish

Home.

Just four short letters, and yet, it’s a word that packs a powerful impact. Think about all the songs and sayings related to it.

“Home is where the heart is.”

“There’s no place like home.”

“Home is where you hang your hat.”

“Who says you can’t go home?”

You get the idea. Okay. So, home is important. We all have one, right? That depends on how you define home. If you simply define it as the address where you receive your mail, then yes. We all have a home. If you define it as something deeper, a system of roots, a place full of memories and love and growth and all that entails, then no. Some of us don’t have that. Not in one place, anyway.

I’m a preacher’s kid. My daddy has always preached in small congregations in small towns. Unfortunately, that meant we moved every few years. I’ve never lived anywhere longer than six years. When people ask me where I’m from, I simply say “the south.” It’s easier than saying, “Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee.” I’ve added Texas to the mix since I got married, for the record. I grew up everywhere. As a child, that was hard. After all, no one wants to leave their best friends behind, start a new school, try to fit in. Especially in high school. College was a balm to my soul, with all those people who just accepted me because almost none of us had been there our whole lives.

Now that I’m an adult, I can see benefits to the way I grew up. After all, not having an earthly place to really think of as home keeps me focused on the heavenly one I’ll get one day. And it’s helped me lose any shyness I had when younger, giving me a willingness to put myself out there and find friends. And it’s helped me help my husband learn to acclimate to new places as we’ve moved around in our fourteen years of marriage (he grew up in the same place his whole life).

The more I write, the more I find my “lack” of a home has also affected my writing. “Home” has become almost a recurring character in my stories. It started out sneakily, but has become more and more prominent.

In my novel, An Unexpected Legacy, my characters Jessica and Chad are both transplants to the central Texas area. After they start dating, they find out their families are actually from the same small town in Arkansas--the town Jessica thinks of as home because of all the good memories with her grandparents and aunt there. Unfortunately, when her aunt demands she quit dating Chad, that sense of home is ruined for Jessica unless she can figure out what the aunt has against her boyfriend.

In my novel coming out in April, The Greatest of These, two sisters Faith and Hope are thrown together for the summer, despite not getting along. Faith has chosen to live in Texas with her husband Sam. Hope made her home in Mississippi and hates to leave it, but needs a job. Hope has to overcome her prejudice against the state of Texas as well as realize that location isn’t so much what makes a home as the people.

I have a couple of other stories still in edits before I can have them published, too. In one, Michelle moves back to her small hometown after being away for several years. But everything is not the same, including her best friend, Greg. She comes back with dreams, goals, and a baby, and has to figure out how to fit back in to the place she loves most. And in another, my character, Adrian, is a lot like me. She grew up a preacher’s kid, moving every few years. Unfortunately, that caused her to give up on God and choose to live working a job that doesn’t allow her to settle. After all, if she never settles anywhere, she won’t have to go through the pain of leaving friends behind. She also has to learn the true meaning of home.

The house in Kansas where I lived as a baby.

I didn’t set out to write my stories to be so “home-centric,” but it’s there in each. It’s not necessarily the main struggle or even the main theme, but it’s big enough that you know it’s there. Each character has to realize that home is more than just a place. It’s wherever you can be yourself, be comfortable, be loved. Because without love, it’s just a place.

Last summer, I was privileged to attend the Ken Ten Writers’ Retreat in Tennessee. In one session, Linda Fulkerson, an author who is amazing at marketing, told us that to market well, we have to figure out what our platform is. Then, we need to write about that. At the time, I wasn’t sure what my platform was, besides getting the stories out of my head and into people’s hands. But the more I think about it, the more I think it’s “home.”

After all, everyone wants a home. It’s a God-given desire, the longing for a place to belong, to be comfortable, to be loved. And if I can tie that in to my stories, as well as the longing for our eternal home, that sounds like a great platform, a way to reach out to my readers and find a common ground.

The house my husband and I bought last year here in Tennessee.

What about you? Do you have a theme that is so big you can almost call it a character? Do you have something in your past that sneaks its way into your stories and somehow ties them all together? I’d love to hear about it!

*****

Amy will be doing a giveaway today! Just let us know you'd like to be entered.

An Unexpected Legacy

When Chad Manning introduces himself to Jessica Garcia at her favorite smoothie shop, it's like he stepped out of one of her romance novels. But as she tentatively walks into a relationship with this man of her dreams, secrets from their past threaten to shatter their already fragile bond.  Chad and Jessica must struggle to figure out if their relationship has a chance or if there is nothing between them but a love of smoothies.

Amy R. Anguish
Author of An Unexpected Legacy
Amy R. Anguish grew up a preacher's kid, and in spite of having lived in seven different states that are all south of the Mason Dixon line, she is not a football fan. Currently, she resides in Tennessee with her husband, daughter, and son, and usually a bossy cat or two. Amy has an English degree from Freed-Hardeman University that she intends to use to glorify God, and she wants her stories to show that while Christians face real struggles, it can still work out for good.

Follow her at http://abitofanguish.weebly.com or http://www.facebook.com/amyanguishauthor