Allie Pleiter - What's a book to you?

What’s a book to you?

Escape.  Inspiration.  To slow down.  To learn something. To pull my brain out of life’s everyday.  For entertainment.  To fight boredom while waiting.  There’s a million reasons to read.  And a million ways to devour the books we love.

Of course, those who don’t cherish books will tell you TV or music can do many of those things.  They can, but not like books.  Stories spun with words in the confines of your imagination have a particular power, don’t you think?  Books offer a kind of companionship I don’t get anywhere else--and not just because a book or an e-reader fits in my handbag or on my iPhone.

I was stuck waiting in the car the other day, pulled out my iPad, and was transported to Regency England for fifteen minutes. Yesterday, I dropped off more copies of my WWI historical HOMEFRONT HERO to a relative because more of her friends wanted to read the book.  After that, I drove an hour to meet some friends and the audiobook coming out of my phone educated me on how to build a better blog.  Then I came home and spent time with the characters from my upcoming book FAMILY LESSONS (April 2013) in 19th century Nebraska.  

Only my beloved Doctor Who can pull off better travel and time and space!

What about you?  How many places do books take you in a single day?  A single week?

Homefront Hero Interview

How exciting to have Captain John  Gallows the hero from Homefront Hero written by  Allie Pleiter a May 2012 release from Love Inspired Historical Romance.

1.  Captain Gallows, tell me the most interesting thing about you.

There’s a great deal interesting about me--at least if you ask the Army.  They seem to consider me quite the hero for crawling out on the stay-wires of my airship over France.  It’s not that astounding the lengths a man will go to save his life--calling it bravery and lauding me with all these medals and honors seems a mite disingenuous.  Still, I’ve never been a man to let a golden opportunity go by

2. What do you do for fun? 

Not much fun to be had in the Army at the moment.  I’ve been working like a madman to get my leg back in shape.  That means endless painful laps around the camp gymnasium.  The fun in that usually comes from my lovely company, Nurse Leanne Sample.  She’s no end of diversion.  As a matter of fact, she’s proven to be as much irritating as she is diverting. She knits for fun--if you can call it that--and I’m convinced she takes endless fun in watching me attempt the stuff.  I’m rotten at it, but if the US Army tells you to knit in front of cameras to convince boys to join the sock knitting campaign, then that’s what a smart Captain does.

3.  What do you put off doing because you dread it? 

I’m not the kind of man who puts anything off.  I’m mighty short in the patience department.  The only thing I’m dreading at the moment is not getting sent back to France to combat where I belong.  Well, maybe that and my next knitting lesson with the insistent Nurse Sample.  Come to think of it, I don’t really dread that at all--I rather look forward to that kind of  “combat.”

4.  What are you afraid of most in life?

I’m not afraid of anything, but it’s absolutely important to me that I get back to France.  I don’t want to end this war as a walking poster boy for yarn and needles.

5.  What do you want out of life?

Up there on that airship, the most important thing to me was to stay alive.  There was no bravery in it...either I fixed the ship or the ship went down.  I suppose that means what I want most is to feel like I earned this medal the pinned on my chest.  At the moment, it feels like they lauded the wrong man.

6. What is the most important thing to you?

Honor.  Sounds funny from a man boasting a medal of honor, don’t you think?  I’ve got more honor than I deserve, and I mean to change that.  My goal is to get back to France and prove my honor.

7. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

I spend nearly every waking hour trying to build enough strength so I can walk without this cane.

8.  Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet?

Unless you count the countless little buggies crawling around this army camp, I’ve no pets here.  I had a wonderful horse once, but that was a long while back.

9. Can you tell us a little interesting tidbit about the time period you live in?

I don’t think the Spanish Influenza Pandemic qualifies as an “interesting little tidbit,” but it’s shaping up to be one of the most challenging public health issues ever to face the United States.  I think the children’s jumprope rhyme is the most poignant:

            “I had a little bird

            Her name was Enza

            I opened the door

            And In-Flu-Enza...”

A morose little thing for youngsters to be chanting, don’t you think?

Allie Pleiter on Faith and Sock Heels

Faith and sock heels

I thought I'd share with you a piece that I wrote for fellow author Cara Putnam's blog last month.  It's a personal favorite. 

I’m often asked where my story-lines come from, how I pull my unusual plot lines out of the mist of my muse.  I know people are looking for some stunning formula, some admirable technique, but I haven’t got one.  I just pull on a threat and start unraveling, following where it leads.

I was standing in the First Division Museum in Wheaton, IL, looking for a thread to tug.  I knew I wanted to write about WWI, but not much more than that.  My knitter’s eye caught a WWII olive sweater vest in an exhibit, and when I read the description “hand made according to a Red Cross pattern,” I knew I’d found it.  A little more research turned up the WWI “Knit Your Bit” Red Cross knitting campaign poster to produce wool socks for soldiers, and the rest is HOMEFRONT HERO.

Wounded war hero John Gallows finds himself in the unenviable position of having to learn to knit socks in public so that boys will join the ranks of Red Cross knitters.  You can imagine his lack of enthusiasm.  Nurse Leanne Sample takes her knitting very seriously, and isn’t about to let an arrogant poster boy make fun of her efforts.  She sees through Gallows’s bravado to his very deep pain.  It takes faith on both their parts to see why they make good partners.

At one point in every knitter’s life comes the challenge to “turn a heel,” or do those wondrous stitches that take a two-dimensional tube around a corner to make a three-dimensional sock.  It’s complicated as a whole, but simple when taken in small steps.  It looks daunting--and it is.  But it is doable, and a wonderful thing when accomplished.  Still, a knitter has to have faith in her instructions and in the truth that each row builds toward an end she might not yet see.

Sound like life?  Sound like faith?

John’s journey to making a sock isn’t about yarn and needles at all...it’s the perfect metaphor for his journey toward Christ, toward love, and toward healing (or in this case is it “heeling”?)

I hope you’ll enjoy this tale of wartime love that’s so near and dear to my romance-writing, sock-knitting, story-collecting heart!