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 Neela Sakaria: Please tell our readers a little bit about your background. Did you study writing at all?
Margaret French: Throughout my years of counseling in schools, state agencies, and private practice, I have noticed my clients appreciate little tools and techniques that turn disaster into opportunity, but when I tell stories based on a recognizable reality, they can see for themselves how to synchronize their mind and body to a world that works effortlessly. Although I have no special training in writing fiction, I have read a lot and, thanks to my mother and a couple of superb teachers in junior and senior high school, have written many successful essays and reports in my schooling and work, always seeking to make the subject vividly real. Auditors have asked to read my reports because they read so well. I'm not sure I want to attract the attention of auditors, but I appreciate the compliment.
Neela: What is one thing that you hope your readers gain from BURNING OFF THE OLD SEED?
MF: The reader of "Burning Off The Old Seed" can learn how to win freedom from isolation and despair through action, welcoming the heat of crisis that burns off the old seeds of self-doubt and anger. In this book, Mary Ann resists her changing reality, angry at the injustice of losing her hopes and dreams when a drunk driver killed her husband and daughter. She courageously continues the life begun by her dead husband and stands up to her symptoms of trauma with creativity. But feelings of being forced into a trap of helplessness never go away and she is exhausted by the terrifying need to guard against more loss. In spite of her friends' advice to develop her own gifts and make her own life, she can't because she doesn't know how. She clings to the familiar security of her memories instead. Then, on her annual backpacking trip, close contact with her friends and their children in a Colorado canyon allows her to see how they use traumas, large and small, to burn off outgrown beliefs, draw nurture from a loving community, and reclaim their sense of Self.
Neela: Tell us about the title of the book -- where did it come from, what does it mean to you?
MF: "Burning Off The Old Seed" refers to that exhilarating process in which the dried-up seeds of old habit are burned off and leaves behind the seeds that still vibrate with life. The lesson, of course, is that you have to engage in action to clear out the trauma of your fractured history and make room for new opportunity.
Neela: What do you see as Mary Ann's greatest strength? Her greatest weakness?
MF: Mary Ann's greatest strength lies in her courage to face her feelings and thoughts, however grim, and her willingness to fit the expectations of those she loves. Her greatest weakness is that she has never learned how to build a strong personal identity, allowing others to tell her who she is instead.
Neela: These days there is often a sort of stigma that is placed on self-published writers, especially with the internet and the increase in alternate publishing methods. What do you think about that? What would you say to critics, in order to dispel some of the negative talk about sel-publish?
MF: I'm surprised that anyone would shun a book because it was self-published. America's flame was set alight by self-published thinkers and it continues to burn brightly because we won't allow our self-expression to be pushed into a formula that doesn't fit. If you want to find a fresh voice, a new Mark Twain or Celestine Prophecy, visit book fairs, Bowker, anyplace you can find the independent publishers of today. It may not have the structure you're used to, and maybe you can't "get the drift" by skimming it, but is that a bad thing? Wouldn't you like to be drawn into a new world, a fresh pace, a story about people like yourself caught in the crux of a life-changing event that is resolved in natural action, without guns or gratuitous sex to pull you along?
Neela: Tell us how the writing process works for you -- from the conception of an idea to the actual publishing of a book. What are some of the key moments during that process?
MF: I always have ideas cooking in my mind, front or back. When it's time, I just sit down at the keyboard. My fingers reach into parts of my mind that I would never see otherwise. If I had a tidy life, my ideal schedule would start with early-morning writing, have a complete break, then revise in the afternoon with an eye toward the next morning's work when I am freshest. The reality is that zillions of interruptions bring natural breaks and my task is to maintain focus. Fortunately, I'm probably ADHD, and I had to learn how to take advantage of a multi-tasking mind many years ago. Now I consider it a gift. My family and friends may have another name for it, though.
Neela: Who are some of your favorite writers and why?
MF: So many favorite writers. I started out with the Children's Book of Knowledge and love to say that George Bernard Shaw finished bringing me up, but he wasn't the only one. Joseph Conrad, Walt Whitman, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Jefferson, Henry Steele Commager, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Eudora Welty, Rita Brown, Robert Pursig, C.S. Lewis, Madeleine L'Engle, Teilhard de Chardin. All the great mystery writers. Any publication from the Unitarian Universalist Church. And certain topics: chaos theory, cosmology, genealogy, buddhism. Anything that offers insight into how the world really works and what that means in everyday life. See what I mean? Lots of writers, many self-published.
Neela: Are you working on any future projects?
MF: I am developing more little workbooks under my professional name Margaret Glendinning. I hope to have the workbook on death and loss ready by fall. The next fictional account is based on bringing my mother's ashes back home and demystifying her story. Like "Burning Off The Old Seed", the story details aren't completely factual, of course, but the issues, the characters and the landscape are grounded in a reality experienced by myself, enriched by the experience of family, friends, and clients.
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