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Today's Featured Biography
Lin Carney Wilder
More than a few friends and readers of my novels have asked me why I took so long to write fiction. Friends knew that writing novels had been a goal from my youth. For years I held the story of Margaret Craven close to my heart. Craven was sixty-five when her stunningly beautiful first novel, I Heard The Owl Call My Name was published, therefore I had plenty of time. Until I didn’t.
I feel privileged to be writing the 4th in a series about Dr. Lindsey McCall, scheduled for release during the fall of 2017. She, Rich Jansen, and the rest of the characters have taught me so much about life, lessons, and faith.
Because I have published a variety of non-fiction articles, book chapters and the like, I am asked frequently to explain the difference between the two. Which is easier?
The writing of a novel is so completely different from a textbook or chapter on specialized knowledge or an article about the methods of solving problems faced by everyone in the field (all the subjects I once tackled) that it’s hard to know where to start to convey just how humongous is the difference.
Mostly, I think, it reduces to fear. At least it has been for me. ‘Sure I can write, I’ve written and published for my entire life’. ‘But’ (that wonderful acronym- behold the underlying truth) ‘can I write a compelling story? And when I do, will it end up revealing things about me that maybe I don’t want made public?’
Not that writing non-fiction is easy. It isn’t. Just that the dream of writing novels felt too big or I was too little-maybe not crazy enough or unhappy enough. So I persuaded myself that I really didn’t want to write that novel, it was merely the dream of the kid English major I had been many years ago. I loved the research that always preceded an article or chapter or the textbook, the high that came with reading, re-writing and reading again, “Yes, this is the best I can do…it’s clear, it’s accurate, its good.”
Until one day back in 2005, on a hike in the mountains behind my house, when a character named Dr. Lindsey McCall appeared in my head and heart and wouldn’t let go. I could see her, literally. And I knew she was a woman who had never questioned her ability to do anything, anything at all. What would that be like, I wondered, having that kind of self-confidence?
Early in the writing of the first book, I decided to use the ‘rule’ for the classical novel: The indifferent narrator, someone through whom we learn about the foibles of the protagonist. What better twenty-first century ‘observer’ than an investigative reporter?
But once the characters are created, they take on a life of their own, I have learned. Kate Townsend refused to stay in the background, she gained flesh, bones and muscle as she sat beside me while I wrote. And she was far from indifferent.
And so it began.
Here’s a bit more about my former life written by a publicist:
Lin Wilder is a former Hospital Director with a doctorate in Public Health from the University of Texas at Houston. Lin is presently a self-employed writer who works from her home in northern Nevada. She finds peace and channels her creativity in the remote valley that offers her just the right amount of silence, stillness and solitude. She has written throughout her entire adult life but made the switch from non-fiction to fiction in 2006.
“I found, long ago, that the best way for me to understand something is to write about it.” Lin explains. Writing helps her to better comprehend even the most challenging subjects. Lin feels her line of work should be viewed like any other business, advising others, “In the beginning, expect to be in the red.” After years in the industry, she has learned the value of a good editor, finding that editing is far more than proofreading. “Writing is hard work and requires exceptionally thick skin. Once we decide to publish our work, we’re in the public domain where others can criticize, perhaps even in a hurtful way.” Wilder states.
Prior to her decision to switch to fiction, Lin Weeks Wilder had published over 40 articles and book chapters as well as a textbook. She was also written four self-help books. Lin’s first novel, The Fragrance Shed by a Violet, was published in July of 2015. The second edition, The Fragrance Shed By A Violet: Murder in the Medical Center and the sequel, Do You Solemnly Swear? A Nation of Law: The Dark Side, are available to purchase on Amazon. When asked why she chose to create a second edition, Lin quotes Chesterton, “Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly” and explains that the multiple errors in the first edition begged to be fixed. The third in her series, A Price for Genius, was planned for a spring release but has been trumped by a non-fiction account of an “unplanned surprise” story of the return to faith, Finding the Narrow Path: Faith, Patterns, and Searching. Her series of medical thrillers are situated in Houston, Texas with many references to the local Medical Center where Lin worked for over 23 years.
In her free time, Lin Wilder enjoys exercising, hiking, listening to beautiful music, gardening and last but certainly not least, reading. She is married to a former Marine and psychologist with 25 years of experience counseling ex- combat veterans. They reside in Nevada with their two dogs.
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