Tag: A Promise to Break

Family Secrets: To tell or not to tell

by Kathryn Spurgeon, posted in Memory House Publishing

My new novel, A Promise to Break, which will be released in June 2016, is based on a true story. Some family secrets will be exposed. Is that good or bad? I’ve talked with living family members involved and assured them I don’t mean any harm, but how do I disclose information without hurting feelings? Where do I draw the line?

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First, I tried to address the disclosures with grace, not in an ugly, malicious or sensationalist way. And there are ways to do that, without hiding the facts, but by revealing deeper motives, hurts and struggles. We all have secrets, some best left unspoken, and some helpful to other people going through the same scrapes in life. Second, I had to choose carefully what and when to expose confidences and when to let those awkward issues lie buried in the past.

Why do we keep secrets anyway? Maybe we don’t want to hurt someone else, we don’t think anyone cares, or we’re flat-out embarrassed. Face it; some things are better left unsaid.

At my niece’s bridal shower last week, I thought about advice one would give a new bride. Do you tell her that relationships are difficult? Nah, probably not the best time to express that. But I really wanted to say that we shouldn’t keep secrets from our spouses. It’s easy to do when we we’re either hurt or have done something foolish again.

For example, this past week, I backed into a van, dropped and destroyed my phone, and failed to get the oil changed in the car when I said I would. All those things I wanted to put off telling my husband. Even more serious, what about the times my feelings are hurt? Maybe it’s just me, but I might pout, nag or turn a cold shoulder. After all, I’m tempted just like anyone else. And we do tend to keep our hurts secret.

What does the Bible teach about secrets? That’s a lengthy study, but many people’s weaknesses are exposed in the Bible. Remember David and his lusty affair? Moses and his disobedience? However, all secrets are not revealed in the Bible. There would be too many to list. So it appears that when a secret is beneficial to us, the reader, then at the appropriate time and place, it’s proper to disclose.

There are no secrets from God, Psalm 44:21, for He knows our hearts. But there are fitting times and places to reveal our vices. The goal is to glorify what God has done through our weaknesses.

I have tried to incorporate Psalm 102:18 into my writing. “Let this be written for a future generation, that a people not yet created may praise the Lord.” May anything I write offer praise to God, even the family secrets in A Promise to Break.

You are loved, Kathryn

Historical Novel info from Mable’s book #historicalnovel

by Kathryn Spurgeon, posted in Writing

“I was 92 years old yesterday. . . and since time is getting short and I lay awake nights trying to remember certain things, I must get it down on paper.” This is how Mable Bennett Trimble, my great grandmother, started her memoir.

Much information for my upcoming 1930’s historical novel, A Promise to Break, comes from Mable’s 1982 autobiography, Nothing but the Truth. She had an awesome memory. Her book is replete with details all the way back to her turn-of-the century childhood.

She was born in Michigan in 1889. Her book is filled with recollections of the snow on Mount Pleasant, outdoor skating with her friends, toboggan rides on Warner’s Hill, and wearing long black stockings and Kitty hoods and scarfs to keep warm during the cold winters. She also remembered how ill her mother had been, so ill with asthma that she was convinced she would die. She had even made herself a black shroud for burial.

Mable’s older brother, a doctor affectionately referred to as “Dr. Clay,” suggested that warmer weather in the south would help their mother regain her health. So the family sold their house, chartered a box car and shipped their furniture to Arkansas. Then they purchased a covered wagon and two horses and joined a wagon train.

Mable could not have been over seven or eight years old when they ventured across country toward Arkansas and Oklahoma. Travelling about fifteen miles a day, they forded the Merrimac River, made money along the way with a medicine man for Dr. Pierce’s Favorite Prescription, and crossed the Mississippi River at St. Louis, where, out of fright, the horses stood on their hind feet all the way across the bridge. The trip took six weeks. As it turns out, Dr. Clay was right, the warmer weather was better for their mother’s health; she lived a resounding 75 years. I must mention that Mable also lived to a ripe old age—106! That trip from Michigan to Oklahoma must have been worth it!

All this information is just from the first few pages of Mable’s book! If this spunky lady in her twilight years was motivated to write her life story, then what keeps me from publishing a book at my age?

Stay tuned! I am excited about sharing more of this 1930’s story with you in the next few months as I prepare to publish my exciting historical novel about Mabel’s daughter, Sibyl Trimble.