UNTETHERED tells the story of Char Hawthorn, the stepmother to a fifteen-year-old, Allie. Before the book begins, Char’s husband dies, leaving open the question of who Allie should live with--Char, the devoted stepmom who has raised Allie full-time for the past five years but has no legal rights to her, or Allie's self-involved bio mom, who lives across the country and has never been interested in parenting, yet who now has sole legal rights to the teenager. While this situation plays out, Char and Allie get swept up in the life of a ten-year-old girl, Morgan, who was adopted out of foster care and then subsequently “rehomed” by her adoptive parents.
Reviews:
"Timmer handles the sensitive, emotionally charged nature of her plot with reverence and openness, avoiding harsh judgments. Untethered is a beautiful mosaic of love’s many fragments, no matter how shattered." Library Journal (starred review)
"[A] thoughtfully written and ultimately uplifting celebration of families that are not bound by blood or by law but by love." Kirkus Reviews
Tell us a little bit about yourself, and how you started writing.
I am a just-turned-50 mom/stepmom to 4 teens. I live with my husband, Dan, and two of those teens (two are in college) in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I grew up in Stratford, Ontario, but have now been living in the states for longer than I lived in Canada.
I am a just-turned-50 mom/stepmom to 4 teens. I live with my husband, Dan, and two of those teens (two are in college) in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I grew up in Stratford, Ontario, but have now been living in the states for longer than I lived in Canada.
I made some lazy efforts to write at various stages of my
life, but the year I was turning 45, I decided I needed to buckle down and
really make it happen. A few months before my birthday, I decided I would not
turn 45 without a completed draft of a novel. Having that deadline in mind was
a huge help. Also at that time, I lost a friend to cancer, and her death
inspired me to write my debut novel, FIVE DAYS LEFT (I dedicated the book to
her). Having my friend as a guiding light was incredibly motivating. Any time I
considered giving up, I thought about her, and pictured the dedication page
which I knew from the start would have her name on it, and that was enough for
me to sit back at the computer and keep writing.
What are some things you enjoy when not
writing?
I love reading and spending time with Dan and the kids.
I’m interested in personal fitness, and spend time taking classes (spinning,
barre, Pilates, yoga, etc) at a terrific gym in town. I’m a recovering
CrossFitter and often do “TimmerFit” with Dan, who has rigged our basement up
into his own personal CrossFit gym. I also love spending time at my favorite
place on earth, our cottage north of Ann Arbor. We have no Internet or TV up
there so we completely unplug--relaxing, reading, sleeping in. It makes me
smile just to type that!
Do you have a ‘day job’ as well?
Yes. I’m a lawyer, and I work as in-house legal counsel
for an automotive company. In 2015, I went part-time at work, and this has made
a huge difference in my life! I used to write from 4am-6am every morning, and
now, thanks to the additional days at home, I can sleep until a much more sane
hour.
Where do you get your ideas?
Some materialize in my head based on a fleeting notion
about a character--I tend to start with characters and build stories around
them. But some ideas have come from friends, and one in particular (also a
writer) who has a wonderful habit of sending me articles she thinks I should
base stories around. My newest book, UNTETHERED, came from one such article.
Is there a particular author or book that influenced or inspired your writing or decision to write?
Is there a particular author or book that influenced or inspired your writing or decision to write?
Margaret Atwood. When I was just out of law school, I
read CAT’S EYE, about a regular girl growing up in Southwest Ontario. Until
then, I hadn’t thought that I, a regular girl who grew up in Southwest Ontario,
had anything to write about. Reading that novel made me see that it’s not so
much in the story--explosions! Disaster! Mystery!--but in the telling, and the
characters, and finding a common human emotion or experience that readers can
identify with.
Can you tell us about your challenges in
getting your first book published?
Oy! I queried easily 100 literary agents before I landed
my agent. I was shopping around FIVE DAYS LEFT, my debut novel. That took about
2 years, during which I rewrote and rewrote and rewrote the book so thoroughly
that its final form bears almost no resemblance to the first draft. My journey
from agent to publication was short--21 days!--so no complaints from me there.
It was the querying that was exhausting. I became an expert in receiving
rejection.
If you had to go back and do it all over, is there any aspect of your novel or getting it published that you’d change?
If you had to go back and do it all over, is there any aspect of your novel or getting it published that you’d change?
I would be sure to celebrate every single step more, and
to worry less about the steps to come. This is the advice I give to people who
have a first book coming out: cherish the exciting moments and try not to let
yourself be consumed with the stress of impending deadlines, publicity
requirements, etc. This is a lifelong dream for most of us, yet we can manage
to turn it into drudgery if we fail to remind ourselves to stop, breathe,
smile, celebrate.
How do you market your work?
Ha - not very well! I’m the worst when it comes to
selling my book. Usually, in response to the question, “What’s your book
about?” I’ll answer by talking about someone else’s book, and hand selling
that. I’m much more comfortable promoting other authors than I am in promoting
myself. For this reason, I rely on the publisher’s marketing and publicity, and
with UNTETHERED, I’ve also used an outside publicist.
What are you working on now?
I’m doing publicity for my second book, UNTETHERED, which
came out in June, and I’m about to start edits on my third book, MRS. SAINT AND
THE DEFECTIVES, which comes out summer 2017.
Is anything in your book based on real
life experiences?
Yes. UNTETHERED is told from the point of view of a
stepmom, and I’m a stepmom. It also tells about the practice of “rehoming,”
which is, sadly, a real-life phenomenon involving adoptive parents giving away
their adopted children through ads they place on the Internet.
Do you have a favorite chapter or scene?
Good question. I always tend to like endings, as they
wrap everything up, and I feel UNTETHERED ends in a satisfying way.
Do you have any advice for aspiring
writers?
Be careful about taking writing advice from other people,
including me! We all have to find what works for us. I hear about a lot of
writing “rules” and I fear some aspiring writers take those to heart. I’m a
believer in making up your own rules based on trial and error. I don’t write
every day, for example, and that is often the #1 rule in any list. It doesn’t
work for me, so I don’t do it.
What are the downfalls of your writing
career? The best parts?
A downside I’m really feeling this summer is the sense
that I never have a day, or even an hour, off. “I should be writing” is a
phrase that haunts me every time I sit down to watch a movie or read a book or
do anything that’s not writing. That’s a problem when, as I’ve said above,
writing daily doesn’t really work for me. But it also doesn’t work for me to
feel guilty on days I take off. I’m trying to figure out a way to assign myself
days off and take them without guilt.
Is there anything you’d like to say to
your readers and fans?
I am so grateful for readers, fans, book bloggers,
booksellers, librarians and (to the extent not covered by those categories)
family and friends. Support from these groups is not something I ever take for
granted. Every email or phone call or post on social media from someone who
enjoyed what I wrote is an absolute gift.
Julie's Social Media:
Twitter: @JulieLTimmer
Instagram: JulieLawsonTimmer (https://www.instagram.com/
