Blog Tour Stop – Debra Coleman Jeter

[author title=”Debra Coleman Jeter” image=”https://www.almostanauthor.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/DCJeter-in-Theatre.jpeg”]A Vanderbilt University professor, Debra Coleman Jeter has published fiction and nonfiction in popular magazines, including Working Woman, New Woman, Self, Home Life, Savvy, Christian Woman, and American Baby. Her story, “Recovery,” won first prize in a Christian Woman short story competition, and her nonfiction book “Pshaw, It’s Me Grandson”: Tales of a Young Actor was a finalist in the 2007 USA Book News Awards. She is a co-writer of the screenplay for Jess + Moss, a feature film which premiered in 2011 at the Sundance Film Festival, screened at nearly forty film festivals around the world, and captured several international awards. She lives in Clarksville, Tennessee, with her husband.[/author]

What is the title of your latest book?

THE TICKET.

Tell us more about your book:

When her father is given a ticket that wins the state lottery, Tray Dunaway thinks her life is about to change. And it does. It is 1975, an ordinary year for a seemingly ordinary Southern family. Like thousands of teenagers around the country, Tray longs to be part of the popular set at school. She’s growing too fast, and her clothes no longer fit right.
The only person who understands is her grandmother, but the kids at school make fun of her when she wears Gram’s hand-sewn clothes.
Tray’s mother, Evelyn, lies in bed most days with a headache, and her bipolar tendency toward extreme highs or desperate lows veers more and more often toward depression. Then something extraordinary happens. A down-and-out friend of the family buys an extra lottery ticket. He gives it to Tray’s dad as a thank-you for driving him to Hazard, Illinois, where he purchased the tickets. And what do you know?
Pee Wee Johnson, who bought the ticket, believes he deserves a piece of the proceeds.  When he learns his view isn’t shared, he threatens to cause problems for the family and begins to show up unexpectedly at every turn.

Why do you write what you do?

I feel there is a need for Christian writers who write for non-Christian audiences, as well as for Christian readers. I like to write about relationships, be it family, friends, or romantic, with some suspense thrown in.

What are you currently working on?

I have two adult novels almost ready to go; they are set in the fictional town of Sugar Sands, Alabama, a small Southern beach town. I am also currently writing an ambitious saga about my grandmother’s life, which is based on the facts that I know, but fictionalized. I start when she is twelve and cover fifty years of her life.

How does your work differ from other work in its genre?

There are certain topics, certain words, and certain aspects of life that are rarely, if ever, addressed in Christian fiction. Anything sexual is typically avoided, and definitely anything explicit. When I started writing The Ticket, I was not planning to break this taboo. But as the novel unfolded in my head and on paper, it took on a mind of its own.

We all know that bad things can happen to good people. But do we want to read about them? Readers of a particular genre grow to know what to expect, and there’s a certain comfort in that. Yet the books that stay with us long after we finish them are often the ones that veer into an unexpected pathway.

Sexual abuse in its varied forms is way too common in our society. The victim may suffer repercussions throughout his or her entire life. Are we better off by pretending that our family is exempt from this risk, or by opening a dialogue about how to react if it should ever happen to someone in our family?

How does your writing process work?

Fortunately, my hours as a professor are fairly flexible. This allows me to start the day on certain weekdays by writing at least a couple of pages, although I aim for five pages. I can make up for this by doing my class preparation late at night, right before I go to bed. One of the challenges I faced in writing The Ticket was getting past inertia at the start of a writing day. For me, the first sentence of the day is almost always the one that comes hardest. The more I tell myself I need to get on with it, the harder it is to make my pen move (yes, I write the old-fashioned way using pen and paper). I didn’t discover any magic tricks here, though I tried copying a passage from a favorite novel a time or two. What I avoided was giving up for the day. Instead I would tell myself that I could always trash the pages later if they stunk, as I often suspected they would. Then I’d force myself to start moving my pen. As a part-time writer, I didn’t feel I had the luxury of waiting until later in the day. Usually, after the rough start, the words would start to flow. But not always. Some days I’d have to grind out every word. Later, though, I discovered surprises in both directions. When I would reread what I had written, the stuff I wrote when I felt inspired sometimes turned out to be lousy; and some of the most painfully written pages turned out to be pretty good. Also, I use Robert J. Ray’s book on writing, The Weekend Novelist, to provide a structure. In it Ray describes a fifty-two week program designed to produce a finished novel writing only on weekends. I didn’t follow his plan exactly.

You can find Debra Coleman Jeter online at:

Social Media and Blog: Book trailer:  https://vimeo.com/50187275

Website and Blog:  www.debracolemanjeter.com

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/njjeter/the-ticket-a-novel/

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/debra.c.jeter

Twitter:  https://twitter.com/DebColemanJeter

Media page:  http://www.meaghanburnett.com/the-ticket/

Amazon Link: The Ticket Amazon page:  http://www.amazon.com/dp/1941103863/