As promised, today I have an interview with Sentimental Journey author Holly Schindler. For more about the book and the Ruby’s Place Christmas Collection, including links to buy, see Tuesday’s post.
Welcome, Holly! Tell us a little about the inspiration for Sentimental Journey.
Actually, I found the inspiration for Sentimental Journey in some of the more minor passages or descriptions from the earlier installments. You can have such tunnel vision about a book while you’re drafting and revising—you’re so busy focusing on the overall plot structure and character development, you don’t really have the ability to spend much time thinking about the side details you wind up including in those descriptive passages. But when I began brainstorming possibilities for this year’s Ruby’s Place installment, I returned to those previous releases, and was really struck by a passing mention in Christmas at Ruby’s about the building having once been a speakeasy.
Dorothy, a speakeasy singer, also appears in both Christmas at Ruby’s and I Remember You as a very minor character. Again, when I was drafting those books, I wasn’t focusing on Dorothy at all. Or even, at that point, planning on developing her further. I considered her, in some respects, part of the setting. She added color to the background. I was far more concerned with other characters: Angela and her Aunt Elizabeth in Christmas at Ruby’s and Geena and Rob in I Remember You. But when the dust of tightening those specific stories settled, I kept coming back to that speakeasy passage…and Dorothy…Suddenly, I found myself wanting to draw her into the series in a more prominent way.
I think this can make a great revision technique—even for a single book, rather than a series. Let your manuscript rest a little while. When you return to read it, pay close attention to the smaller details or asides in the text. Often, something you just accidentally threw out in the drafting process can help shape and tighten the book overall. You should never discount mining your own work for inspiration or direction!
I love it when a minor character in an earlier book becomes a major one later in the series.
While the ghosts are certainly an important part of all the stories, I felt that Christmas at Ruby’s and I Remember You focused more on the living characters. In Sentimental Journey, the ghosts take center stage. Was this an intentional switch, and does it say anything about the direction of the series?
I’ll confess: I’ve gone into each new installment with only a vague idea of where the book will go. I honestly didn’t even think I would write a series—the original idea was to release a single Christmas novella.
Authors often talk about whether we’re “plotters” or “pantsers.” Frequently, it seems as though authors start out as pansters and then—as they learn more about the drafting process—they become stronger plotters. This is also a move made out of necessity—it’s not unusual for an editor to request a complete manuscript overhaul in a month. And those overhauls almost always require a writer to draft new chapters or sections. In order to meet deadlines, it’s a necessity to know some strong plotting techniques!
In my own work, I find that the opposite is becoming true—while I’ll always be something of a plotter, I feel increasingly more confident to run with unexpected turns in a story. It doesn’t make me panic or worry that the project is going off the rails. I find myself saying, “Hey, that’s interesting—I wonder what will happen if I pull on this thread for a little while…” Often, this is where I find my projects taking some of the more interesting turns.
I can’t wait to return to Sullivan, Missouri—and Ruby’s Place!—to draft next year’s tale. Mostly, I’m excited to find out exactly where it will take me!
I’m mostly a plotter, too, but I’ve found that sometimes you have to let your pantser side take over or you’ll never get anywhere. The title is from a song by Doris Day, right? What about this song makes it the perfect mood piece for this book?
I’ve played with song titles for the last two installments: I Remember You refers to both the Skid Row song from the ’80s (I was a giant fan of the hairbands back then—I still love me a guitar-laden power ballad) and the Johnny Mercer song of the same title from the ’40s. The lyrics of the Mercer song are so beautiful, really—you should totally Google them, or even give the song a listen. There’s this great line that goes something like, “when the angels ask me to recall the thrill of them all, I’ll tell them I remember you.” It seemed such a perfect fit—after all, I do have a cardinal who appears in the series, along with the saying, “Cardinals appear when angels are near.” But that song title also wound up allowing me to make pop culture references to love stories that occurred in two completely separate eras: in I Remember You, I depict the youthful first love between Geena and Rob a well as the late-in-life love Geena’s dad found.
The lyrics to the Doris Day song “Sentimental Journey” describe taking a trip in your mind. Really, I think those lyrics are so perfectly suited not just for this book but the series as a whole. Sometimes, I think that’s what ghosts really are—a memory so strong, it has its own “life.”
What a beautiful idea. Memories are all around us this time of year, so it’s no wonder that Christmas is a great time for ghost stories. I lived in the Midwest for eleven years (and I have a lot of Midwestern readers on this blog), so I can easily imagine the small town setting you describe. Can you tell us about Sullivan, Missouri and why you chose to set the story there?
I’m a lifelong Missourian—actually, I’m a sixth-generation Missourian. Sullivan is a fictional town, but it’s exactly like so many small cities here in Southwest Missouri. The kind of place with a square lined with hundred-plus-year-old stone buildings. It’s also a collection of all the best parts of small-town life: the quaint loveliness we all long for, especially during the holiday season. For the most part, even the gossip that runs through Sullivan tends to be sweet and well-intentioned!
If only that were true in real life! Why is Ruby’s Place the perfect fictional locale for readers to visit at Christmastime?
A few years ago—about the time my hometown of Springfield, Missouri decided to ban cigarette smoking in all public places—the local news ran a story of a small downtown bar and the woman who owned it. She was pretty upset about the new ordinance; her clientele came for affordable drinks and a smoke (and a bit of camaraderie and good conversation) at the end of a long day. She was older, and had been running this bar for I forget how many decades, and she insisted she knew how to do one thing really well—run that bar.
For some reason, the image that ran in the story—a closeup of her face peering from the front plate-glass window—really stuck with me. I kept coming back to that image, playing with possible scenarios for a story.
That’s really how the entire thing got started: In 2017, I drafted a novella titled Christmas at Ruby’s, about a woman who had also been good at running a small-town Missouri bar…so good, in fact, that she was still running it, years after her own death.
My fictional Ruby’s Place is a bar populated by the ghosts of Christmases past. A nightspot where the term “spirits” refers to far more than just the top-shelf liquors…and it’s also a place where, on Christmas Eve, the living can enjoy one more evening with a long-lost loved one. Where it’s possible to connect with the dearly departed—to finally express what you never got to say. Perhaps to show gratitude. Express love. Explain a wrong. Even tell them you’re sorry.
After all, I thought—what would be a better Christmas gift that one more night with a loved one you had assumed you would never see again?
The series just keeps building with each new installment. This year, the main difference is that I’ve inserted a bit of a mystery into the pages of Sentimental Journey. The stakes are higher than ever. The old bar is in danger. A face from the past has returned to the small town of Sullivan, Missouri. And he’s determined to get his revenge…
Any hints about next year’s installment? I’m hoping Angela gets her own happy ending!
While I still just have my vague idea about the direction, I do know that Geena (one of the main characters from I Remember You) is coming back into next year’s installment in a major way. She has found a way to make her dreams of being a writer come true—but it could cost Ruby’s Place dearly…
Thanks for taking time out of your holiday weekend to join me for an interview with Sentimental Journey author Holly Schindler. Happy holiday reading!
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Holly Schindler is a critically acclaimed and award-winning author of books for readers of all ages. You can get in touch, subscribe to newsletters, and find all social media links at HollySchindler.com.
All three of the Ruby’s Place installments: Christmas at Ruby’s, I Remember You, and Sentimental Journey are available as a wide release, in both print and e-book formats. The full Ruby’s Place Christmas Collection (to date) is also available as a single download on Amazon. You can find purchase links at HollySchindler.com and at Holly Schindler’s Amazon Page.
Really enjoyed this interview , learned a new term , “pantster” and would love to read this series .
I think the plot line is so unique and interesting .
Thanks to both of you for an awesome interview !