It’s true.

Like a lot of women, my mom and I clashed over many things. What comes through in my fiction are larger than life echoes of those conflicts.

Unfair as it is, the things I admire most about my mom — and there are a lot of them — usually find their way into other characters.

Conflict Conflict Conflict

Storytelling requires conflict. Because of that my protagonists typically have challenging relationships with family members, face situations that make it hard for those around them to support them, or both.

When Tara in The Awakening Series tells her mother she’s pregnant and yet remains a virgin and doesn’t know how this could’ve happened, her mother assumes her daughter is having trouble taking responsibility for her choices.

Also, Tara’s mom is generally hard on her daughter.

Lynette had a difficult childhood. She simultaneously strives to create a better life for her daughter yet envies what she sees as Tara’s easier life and greater opportunities.

Quille, the heroine of my Q.C. Davis mystery/suspense series, has a mom who is essentially not there for her. She has suffered from depression all of Quille‘s life and as a result really never connects with her daughter. Quille‘s grandmother, though, steps in to help raise Quille and remains a tremendous support for her.

In Gram, I instilled many of the things I admire about my mom. Her practicality, reliability, and her determination to raise Quille to be an independent, healthy person all remind me of my mom.

Confidence

I’m still recovering from a broken foot (and still in a cast) so I continue to catch up on reading novels and listening to audiobooks, including non-fiction. Right now I’m finishing The Confidence Code: The Science And Art Of Self-Assurance — What Women Should Know.

While I’m not sure I agree with everything in the book, it has made me see the positive ways my mom influenced choices I made and successes I had.

Try And Try Again

One of the best messages my mom conveyed was about trying and failing. Whenever I didn’t achieve what I wanted, my mom’s answer was that what mattered was not winning but doing your best.

If I tried out for a play and didn’t get the part I wanted, or a part at all, but I had prepared well, showed up on time, and put my whole heart into it, she told me I ought to feel proud of myself. And if I really wanted to be in a play in the future I should keep trying. If I hadn’t done my best, then the next time I better do that and I’d have a better chance of getting the results I wanted.

She also pointed out to me people who hadn’t been good at things to start out — who hadn’t been a “natural“ — and who later excelled.

As a result, when I started learning to play guitar, I didn’t expect to be amazing right away. I knew it would take many hours of practice. I also knew that anyone who was really good had put in those hours.

No Easy Way Out

My mom also set high standards, and she didn’t hesitate to say so if she thought I hadn’t met them. In some ways, that led to me being a bit of a perfectionist, something I have struggled with. But overall, I still feel it was a good message. What she was telling me was that I could almost always do better.

She also taught me not to coast.

When I was little my mom thought I seemed pretty sharp. She started teaching me to read almost before I could talk.

By the time I started school, I was already reading books a few grades ahead. This made my classes pretty boring, but that only caused my mom to push me to enter experimental programs and to try to find more challenges.

Sitting back and taking it easy was never considered to be a good option. There was always more to be learned.

That more than anything is what I appreciate, whether it makes it into the mothers in my novels or not.

The post Our Mothers, Ourselves, Our Fiction appeared first on Lisa Lilly.

My first memory of visiting downtown Chicago involves my mom taking me to a protest. I was about nine or ten. My mom was strongly pro-life (or anti-abortion, depending how you frame it). The rally took place at the Daley Center. Groups of people waved signs and shouted slogans. I also remember my mom pointing out The Picasso in Daley Plaza. (She asked me what I thought it was supposed to be. I said a bird. She told me a lot of people held different views about what the sculpture was and struggled to explain the concept of abstract art. I still saw a bird. Really — look at it, it’s a bird.)

When I was in grade school, our suburb’s village president was charged with income tax fraud and extortion. My mom helped form a citizens’ group to seek more information about the charges and spread the word as, in true Chicago-area style, the man and his political party remained extremely popular. The former president was eventually convicted, and the citizens’ group morphed into a competing political party. My mom never ran for office herself, but I remember her going door to door talking to neighbors about the issues, distributing political literature and posters, and organizing fundraising events.

When then President Nixon was impeached over the Watergate scandal, my mom had me watch hearings about it on television though I was in third or fourth grade. She told me I needed to pay attention because I’d never see a president impeached again in my lifetime. She also took me to the movie All the Presidents’ Men. While what I mainly remember from the movie was the popcorn tasting like buttered cardboard (and while my mom was wrong about never again seeing a president impeached), that experience prompted me to read All the Presidents’ Men as an adult as well as In the Arena by Richard Nixon.

I’m grateful to my mom for letting me know early on that being a citizen is a privilege and imposes responsibilities. And that if I don’t think something in the world is right, I need to go out and try to change it, not wait for someone else to do something.

Today (September 26), is my mom’s birthday. This post is one way to remember her. Another way I honor both my mom and my dad, whose lives were ended in 2007 by someone else’s choice to drive while intoxicated, is to support AAIM, an Illinois non-profit that works to prevent DUI-related deaths and injuries and to help victims of DUI drivers. If there’s a woman who influenced you in a positive way, please consider donating to a cause today in her honor. And if she’s still here with you, please take a moment to let her know how she inspired you. I wish I had done that more often with my mom.

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Lisa M. Lilly is the author of the occult thrillers The Awakening and The Unbelievers, Books 1 and 2 in the Awakening series. A short film of the title story of her collection The Tower Formerly Known as Sears and Two Other Tales of Urban Horror was recently produced under the title Willis Tower. If you’d like to be notified of new releases and read reviews on M.O.S.T. (Mystery, Occult, Suspense, Thriller), click here to join her email list.    

The post Why I Admire My Mom appeared first on Lisa Lilly.

My favorite book on those shelves was The Elegant Witch. Set in England in the early 1600s, the writing style and sense of irony remind me of Jane Austen, but the plot and mood is suspense/mystery. Protagonist Margery, youngest sibling and misfit in her Puritan family, is sent to live with her kinsman Roger, a Justice of the Peace in the small town of Pendle. Mysterious deaths and illnesses occur often in Pendle and accusations of witchcraft are common. Margery is smart and brave, and she helps Roger with his Justice of the Peace duties and helps unravel the source of the evil in Pendle. (See my full review here.)

The post From My Mother’s Bookshelves (Favorite Books Post No. 3) appeared first on Lisa Lilly.