Artist Spotlight: SARAH HAYES

You need to meet this woman.

The first time I met Sarah Hayes, I was a Junior in college. Some friends and I were having brunch on the quad after church, and were suddenly greeted by this lovely girl with Disney-princess-shiny blonde hair and bubbly energy. We started chatting, and discovered that we were both former homeschoolers and were now English majors. Before I knew it she had convinced me to join Intervarsity's dance team. Flash forward to Senior year, and we both tutored in the Writing Center. When it was slow, we chatted for hours about books we were reading, books we wanted to write, and which professors to avoid. Besides working on the college newspaper, Sarah also served in our chapter of Intervarsity, and was involved in many theater and dance productions.

These days, she is blogging up a storm, and has begun work on her first novel (yes!). This week, Sarah was so very kind, and agreed to let me interview her about her work thus far (and her exciting work coming up). Her blog can be found here, and you should go there immediately! Well, maybe in a couple of minutes...read her interview first.

Sarah, you have launched a successful blog, and are now working on your first novel. What was the push to start a full length book?

It’s something I’ve wanted to do for pretty much as long as I can remember, but for a long time I was focused on some other writing endeavors, one of them being the blog. I’d been sort of stuck in a creativity rut for a while and knew that I wanted to write a book, but I felt like every plot I came up was super cliché and the last thing I want to do is write a cliché book that’s been done a hundred times in a hundred different ways. As far as what pushed me to write it now, I suddenly got inspired with several different ideas at one time and unexpectedly had a lot of time in my hands when my boyfriend and I broke up. It was also almost November, which is when NaNoWriMo takes place, so it just seemed like the perfect time.

In college, you were pursuing Journalism, but have mentioned that God changed those plans rather abruptly. Could you describe what happened?I’ve always wanted to write books. It’s literally something I’ve wanted to do for as long as I can remember but, to be perfectly honest, I was scared. Saying, “I’m going to be an author someday” is, in some ways, akin to saying, “I’m going to be famous.” In high school, I joined a program called Cappies, which combined two of my loves – writing and theatre – in the realm of journalism and theatre critique. Through that, I eventually decided to major in journalism and was chugging along on that path until the end of my fall semester during senior year. It was at that point that it finally started to hit me what it can really be like to work in the journalism world and I realized that, as much as I loved journalistic writing, I didn’t want to deal with the politics of the journalism field and I didn’t want a career that had I had to be married to in order to do well.

So, over Christmas break during my senior year in college, I had a little chat with God and He showed me that writing books is what I’ve been meant to do all along, and journalism was the “easier” and less scary route. Saying “I’m going to be a journalist” doesn't sound half as crazy as “I’m going to be a published author.” So my choice to be a journalist was, in some ways, me saying to God, “I don’t trust that if I decide to do what You’ve created me to do, then You’ll provide for me.” And well, that’s just dumb. So I decided to take a leap of faith and not pursue a career in journalism and, well, we’ll see where that takes me.

Originally, you had four plot points that you were considering. How did you come to settle on the story you are now writing?

I was hanging out at Hard Times Café with two of my guy friends and my roommate the day before NaNoWriMo started and we got to talking. I told them I still couldn’t decide what plot to run with and I needed to decide fast since, technically, I needed to start writing the next day. We nixed one plot right away because it’s a historical fiction novel that would require a lot more research before I could start writing. And then, essentially, I had them all vote. It was two to one and so I settled on the plot I’m working on now. I’m still planning on writing those other three at some point, but the plan is to get the current one finished and (hopefully) published first and we’ll see where things go.

Are you targeting a specific audience for this novel? What genre are we looking at?

I’m not definitively targeting a specific audience, but I feel like, based on the story itself, my audience will probably be primarily female and in their 20s and 30s. It’s also possible, because the book deals with the topic of Alzheimer’s, that it may draw in an older generation who has personally dealt with that and/or other people who are dealing with a family member with the disease, be it a grandmother/grandfather, parent, sibling, etc. And chances are, any men who end up reading the book will probably be my friends and family who are just trying to encourage me.

As for the genre, I generally just define it as literary fiction, which I know is rather loose, but it doesn't really fall into suspense, thriller, romance, action, young adult, or historical. So, yeah, literary Christian fiction...if that's a genre.

Most authors and bloggers don't have a full-time job, but you manage to balance all of the above. How do you find time to maintain a blog and work on a novel?

It’s been a little difficult, to be honest. I do a fair amount of my blogging during little breaks at work, because there are certain days when there just isn’t a lot for me to do in the office. You can actually tell how busy I am at work based on how much I’m blogging because when life is crazy in the office and my evenings are full, blogging falls to the wayside.

As for the novel, I similarly try to work on it when are there little lulls during the day and dedicate time in the evenings to writing once I’m home. I also use a lot of time on the weekends to catch up. For example, I got very behind after a couple of busy days and proceeded to spend five hours in a Panera on Monday (which we got off because of Veteran’s Day) writing over 6500 words.
I’m slowly learning that, while it may be difficult at times, and the more I write and the more my career builds, it’s going to be hard to balance until I can make enough money writing to quit my day job, but if it’s something that’s worth it and what I really want to do…then I need to take the time to make sure I do it.

Your posting on the problems with Christianmingle.com is one of the most popular on the web. What generated your response?

My response to ChristianMingle was out of frustration based on an ad I saw online. The ad used Psalm 37:4, “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” This irked me a lot because it’s the Prosperity Gospel. It promotes the idea that if you love the Lord, then He will give you exactly what you want whenever you want it. I used to think that and the Lord showed me that that is not the case at all. When we delight ourselves in Him, He does give us what we want, but that’s because delighting yourself in the Lord changes your heart so that what He wants for you becomes what you want for you.

As I explain in the post, I don’t have anything against online dating in general. It’s not for me, but if that’s how someone chooses to find their spouse (and how the Lord brings two people together), then kudos to you. I just don’t like the idea for me personally. But my issue comes not with online dating but with a company (which it turns out isn’t even run by Christians) using the Prosperity Gospel as a marketing ploy. It’s deceptive, dishonest, and unbiblical.

As for the response from others, it’s my most read post largely because people continue to find it by searching questions about ChristianMingle on Google. I still giggle when I see how many people find my blog because they’re looking for good things said about ChristianMingle and, well, obviously, my blog doesn’t like ChristianMingle very much.

Recently, you wrote a series online documenting your own dating life. Did you ever have fears or doubts that these blog posts could backfire?

Well, it’s important to note that that isn’t how I expected the saga to turn out. Based on my initial impression of Office Boy (as he is called on the blog), I never thought we would date. I even said as much to my mom about a week after I started documenting the saga on the blog. I just thought it was just going to be a collection of ridiculous little anecdotes about the crazy conversations I had with a cute guy in the office. Obviously, that’s not quite how it turned out.

There were certainly moments where I considered whether or not it was a good idea to publish the posts. The scariest moment was when Office Boy and I actually started dating and I realized that I legitimately needed to tell him that I’d been writing about him for the last…oh, fourish months. I planned on ending the saga once we actually started dating so that our relationship wasn’t under a microscope, but Office Boy himself actually really wanted me to continue writing it and so I did.

A lot of people thought I was crazy for writing it, but it gave me a chance to spread my blogging wings a bit more, and honestly, I’m glad I did it. I’ve slowly learned that if I really want to be a writer, I have to be more transparent about who I am as a person and what’s going on in my life. This throws a lot of people, especially in our privacy-obsessed day and age, but if I’m going to really be a writer, I want to be a genuine one who is honest with my readers about who I am, what I’m going through, and what’s happening in my life.

What bloggers are you following these days?

Oh jeez…the list is really quite extensive. I follow the blogs that are all across the board. Some of them are blogs related to fashion, food, hair, makeup, or other health and beauty things. Those are the ones I follow sort of for fun. A few of my favorites in that category are Keiko Lynn and Hair Romance.
I also follow some humor blogs that I read both because they are well-written and they’re just funny. Sometimes it’s nice to read blogs that aren’t so serious or heavy in their subject matter. Two favorites in this category are Teenagers are Ridiculous, The Bloggess, and my absolute favorite humor blog, Snark Squad. 

Another category is that of faith. I follow several blogs that dealing mainly with the topic of faith ranging from living it out in our modern world to just answering some tricky questions and dealing with current issues including The Cripplegate (one of the authors also happens to be my pastor), the Good Women Project, and blogs that my friends write like Color Me Captivated (written by my wonderful college roommate, Kacie Lynn).

Then there’s what I call the “writing blogs.” They’re blogs that are primarily tips about writing like the Christian Writers Guild blog or blogs that people write on for the sake of just writing and practicing their craft, like Popping Rainbows. Two blogs that fall into both the “writing” category and the “faith” category are those of authors Francine Rivers and Donald Miller. They’re both Christian authors and they both write about issues of the faith and some of the nitty-gritty issues of actually being a writer.

And, finally, when I first started getting into blogging last year, I found an amazing community through the website 20 Something Bloggers. Several of the blogs I follow that don’t fall into any of the above categories are blogs that are written by regular people like me. Some of them want to be writers and others just write their blogs for the sake of writing. I’ve developed some wonderful friendships through blogging and even though I’ve never met any of my “blogger buddies,” I really truly feel like they are some wonderful, wonderful friends. A few favorites in that bunch are Charcoal Renderings, Argyle State of Mind, Love Woke Me Up, Late to the Party, and Confessions of a Cruciverbalist.

Over the past five to ten years, the most popular fiction has been Gothic or violent romances, often targeted at young woman and teens. As a young, aspiring female author, would you want to change the current trend, and if so, how?

I would absolutely want to change that current trend. I’ve avoided a lot of current popular fiction specifically because of that trend. I never read Twilight or Fifty Shades of Grey or any other the other books dealing with vampires or werewolves or sex or “romance” or anything like that. In fact, I didn’t even read the Harry Potter series until last year.

Back in 2007, I read “Redeeming Love” by Francine Rivers for the first time. That book touched me in a deep part of my soul and I finished it earnestly desiring to know and love my Savior more. That is what I want my books to do. When people finish reading my books, I don’t want them to just think, “That was a great story.” I want them to be inspired by the story to dig deeper into the Word and to deepen their relationship with God – or seek after one, if they don’t already know Him.

Because most of what I write will probably be “Christian fiction,” I don’t know how much of what I write would really change the current trends of mainstream popular fiction, but I would hope that young women, in particular, might be able to read my books and realize violent romance and sex is not what defines love. A relationship with Jesus Christ is what defines love.

Finally, what are you reading now?

I’ve always got at least two books open in some form – what I call a “Jesus book,” which is essentially a non-fiction book dealing with some sort of Christian topic and then a fiction book.

The current Jesus book is “The Problem of Pain” by C.S. Lewis and for fiction, at the moment, I’m rereading the second book in the Hunger Games series, “Catching Fire.” This is mainly because they recently finished casting the movie and I need to refresh my memory as to who the different characters are so I can see if I agree with the casting decisions or not. >.>

But next on the list of fiction books is To Kill a Mockingbird and Beloved as I continue my goal to read all of the Pulitzer Prize Winning Novels.

Thanks to Sarah Hayes!!! Now go check out her blog (link is at the top of the page). Also, if you know of an artist (yourself included) who should be spotlighted. Shoot me an email. My contact info is on the homepage.

LOVE