News and Thoughts
Savvy Q&A: Rosalie Rayburn
Author Rosalie Rayburn (shown at left) has just published her first novel, The Power of Rain. I was Rosalie’s editor on the project, and it was a true joy to inhabit for a little while her moving story of healing, belonging, family, tenacity, idealism, and love.
From the Amazon description: New Mexico is an arid land where rain is both a life-giving blessing and a destructive curse, where traditional cultures are threatened by development that is heedless of the landscape. Elizabeth “Digger” Doyle is a tough young reporter at a small newspaper in Las Vistas, New Mexico. She has a nose for uncovering political intrigue at City Hall, and there’s plenty of that in a town where developers call the shots. When a protest group contacts Digger about their campaign to stop a road that threatens a historic Spanish chapel, she sees it as the powerful story that could expose how sprawl development is harming the fragile landscape. But she hadn’t counted on falling for protest leader Maria Ortiz, a local artist who is fighting to prevent the Hispanic heritage of the area from being erased by people moving to the city who have no respect for New Mexico’s ways . . .
Rosalie was kind enough to do a Q&A with me:
SJH: Is The Power of Rain your first book?
RR: I’ve written a few manuscripts before, but this is my first full-length work of fiction to be published.
SJH: How long did it take you to write it?
RR: I had the idea and wrote a few chapters, then left it for several years. When I came back to it and really got going, it took about 18 months. After that, I had several people read it, and over a few months I made revisions based on their feedback.
SJH: How did you land on this particular setting, plot, and characters?
RR: The cliché is “write what you know,” so I did. When I started the book, I was living in New Mexico, a place I love deeply. I was a newspaper reporter, like my protagonist, Digger Doyle, and for several years my “beat” was city and county government. So I’m familiar with the processes of government, local elections, and the kinds of problems that get people riled up. I witnessed fights over proposed new developments, and I observed how people who moved into New Mexico from other states were often not open to understanding the unique culture of New Mexico.
After working in a newsroom for about 20 years, I’m also familiar with the daily routines, the sights, sounds, personal interactions, deadlines and stresses of a reporter’s life. I know how reporters gather information and the challenges they face. I’ve also witnessed the gradual decline of print journalism and how it affected the staff of the newspaper where I worked.
So it was natural that my protagonist should be a reporter, and then it was natural to create a cast of characters like Mayor Jack Kimble, the city councilors, and some of the complaining residents.
SJH: Could you share a little bit about your writing process? For instance, do you tend to write at a particular time of day or in a particular place, or set expectations to turn out a certain number of pages each day? Or are you more free-form about it?
RR: I almost always write on my computer at a small desk in my spare bedroom. I am not as disciplined as I would like to be. I do try to write every day, but I also do some freelance journalism and write a blog, so the writing I do is not always focused on the novel. I don’t have a set number of pages, but if I write 500 to 750 words toward my novel in a day, I am pleased with that. Sometimes I have to spend most of my “novel writing” time doing research. For example, I use Google Maps and Google Earth to make sure of some of my physical settings are accurate.
SJH: I’ve spent some time in New Mexico, and your descriptions of the place and the people (and the food!) are also just right. Tell me more about your experiences with that wonderful place.
RR: When I was very young, my family lived in California, and we used to go visit my aunt and uncle and cousins in Albuquerque. New Mexico is called the “Land of Enchantment,” and it has always been that for me. I moved to Albuquerque in 1998 and lived there for 21 years. I love the high desert, the mountains, the endless blue skies, and the spare vegetation. I love the food. Some of the dishes, like posole and green chile stew, which I describe in the book, are so unique. People who live in New Mexico are very proud of their traditions. For example, in New Mexico, the spicy green vegetable is always spelled “chile,” like the country—never “chili”!
I now live in Portugal, having moved here three years ago. I enjoy Portugal, but I very much miss the desert scenery and the food of New Mexico.
SJH: Have you taken writing classes or participated in writing groups? How have you honed your skills?
RR: In the summer of 2021, I did an online fiction writing class through the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College. I was also part of a writing group for about 18 months in Albuquerque.
SJH: Is there anyone who particularly helped you to research or write The Power of Rain, anyone you’d like to mention here?
RR: I’d like to thank the members of my writing group: Susan Stiger, a former features editor at the Albuquerque Journal; Donna Olmstead, a former features writer at the Journal; and Talia Freedman, who is a realtor in Albuquerque. Several other people read the manuscript and gave me valuable feedback. I was originally going to make Digger’s romance with Maria a more direct affair, but another former Journal editor, Ellen Marks, suggested it would be a breach of journalistic ethics for Digger to get involved with a source, so I made that an important focus of conflict in the story.
SJH: What types of books are your favorites?
RR: I am very eclectic in my choices. Nowadays I mostly enjoy books in audio format, because I can use the Libby app on my phone and listen in my car or when I am cooking at home. I mix nonfiction with a variety of fiction genres. Some of my favorites from the past 18 months are Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes, Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show by the journalist Jonathan Karl (much of this has come out in the Jan. 6 hearings), The Bone Code by Kathy Reichs, and The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel, a variation on a WWII resistance story.
SJH: Sometimes authors create protagonists with whom they share some qualities; sometimes not. Other than being a newspaper reporter, is Digger like you in some ways? Unlike you in some ways?
RR: Digger Doyle is not my alter ego. For starters, she is a lot younger. But in other ways, she is similar to me. Like me, she has experienced traumatic loss. My mother died when I was young, and my older son died of a rare illness when he was 11. So I know a lot about loss and the feelings of helplessness and the question you always ask: Why them?
Digger is a lesbian, and this is also a world I came to know while I lived in Albuquerque. I didn’t necessarily want to make The Power of Rain an “LGBTQ novel," but I did want to make the protagonist a lesbian and for her to have a romance. I liked the idea of Digger yearning for the warmth of a large family because she hadn’t had that. It seemed obvious that Maria Ortiz would represent all these things to her and that they would be attracted to each other even though they come from different worlds.
SJH: I thought it turned out beautifully.
RR: Maybe the “lesbian reporter” novel can become a new subgenre!
SJH: Were there any parts of the book that were difficult to write? How did you work through those, if so? And what parts, if any, came easily?
RR: I found some of the emotional parts of the book hard to write. For example, the scene where Digger confronts Armando, the man who caused the car crash that killed her parents. I had to think about some of the therapist’s advice that I have been given. Advice from my writing group also helped.
I also found some of the scenes with Maria hard to write, because I wanted to show the growing attraction between them but also keep the tension going.
The procedural parts of the book, such as how Digger did her research or the atmosphere at some of the public meetings, were easy to write because I was so familiar with them from my work. Oddly enough, I found developing the characters of Mayor Jack Kimble, his rival Dave Johnsen, and the developer Johnny Raposa easy, because I could play them off against each other.
I also had a little private joke in naming Raposa. I had originally given him a different name, but a beta reader told me it was too similar to that of a real person. The word raposa means “fox” in Portuguese, and I thought it suited his character.
SJH: What would you like readers to take away from the experience of reading The Power of Rain?
RR: I would hope that readers who have never been to New Mexico may get a feel for what a magical place it is. I wanted to show the culture of the old Hispanic families and some of the unique traditions.
I also want people to understand how important it is to appreciate differences in cultures. When people move to a different state or country, they need to be open-minded and respect the culture and customs of their new environment.
For me, the book is also an homage to the world of print journalism and the really important work that local newspapers perform within their communities.
SJH: Are you working on another book, or do you plan to? Specifically, do you envision The Power of Rain as part of a series? I know that as a reader, by the time I finished the book, I was really invested in Digger and the other characters, and I found myself hoping you’d write more about them. But you might want to try something new instead!
RR: I am working on another. It is not exactly a sequel, but it does continue Digger and Maria’s story and is set in New Mexico. It has several of the other characters who appear in The Power of Rain. It also has an environmental theme and involves a scam and local politics.
SJH: Any advice you would give to someone who was thinking of writing a book?
RR: Join a writing group where you will feel comfortable, where you will get encouragement and honest feedback. This helps motivate you to keep writing the next chapter and the next chapter.
Think about who your target readers are. This is important if you want to get it published.
Also, write an outline. It helps you know the direction of your story and who your characters are. That said, you will find they take on a life of their own and sometimes surprise you!
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The Power of Rain is available on Amazon in print or e-book formats.