Nan McCarthy

author of Since You Went Away, Chat, Connect, Crash, & Live ’Til I Die

  • Home
  • About
  • Titles
    • Since You Went Away, Part Three: Summer
    • Since You Went Away, Part Two: Spring
    • Since You Went Away, Part One: Winter
    • Chat: book one
    • Connect: book two
    • Crash: book three
    • Coming Soon
    • Live ’Til I Die
    • Chat (1998 edition)
    • Connect (1998 edition)
    • Crash (1998 edition)
    • Quark Design
  • Excerpts
    • Live ’Til I Die: excerpt
  • Blog
  • News
  • Events
  • Shop
    • Buy: Since You Went Away (Part Three: Summer)
    • Buy: Since You Went Away (Part Two: Spring)
    • Buy: Since You Went Away (Part One: Winter)
    • Buy: Chat (book 1)
    • Buy: Connect (book 2)
    • Buy: Crash (book 3)
    • Buy: Live ’Til I Die
  • Contact
  • Amazon
  • iTunes
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

How I Got the Idea for Since You Went Away

  • April 12, 2017
  • by Nan McCarthy
  • · Blog · Books · Family · fiction · Military life · Publishing · Since You Went Away (Part One: Winter) · Titles · Writing
A lot of people ask writers where we get our ideas. Here’s how I came to write my latest novel, Since You Went Away.
Nan McCarthy

In 2008, my husband was on a year-long deployment to Iraq. Staying home on a Friday night, I happened upon a 1944 film on Turner Classic Movies called Since You Went Away. Produced by David O. Selznick and starring Claudette Colbert, it’s about a mom and two daughters fending for themselves on the homefront while the dad is off serving in World War II. The film is at once poignant, lighthearted, and somber. I immediately fell in love with the story.

Further research led me to the 1943 novel (of the same name) by Margaret Buell Wilder, on which the movie is based. Discovering Wilder had written the book in epistolary form (one of my favorite genres), I couldn’t help but fall even more in love with the story.

My first thought was, why has no one updated this story for modern times? Since You Went Away is an unusual kind of war movie in that it focuses completely on what’s happening with the family back at home. You could say it’s a war story without the war. I loved the idea of creating a modern-day story that gives readers an intimate glimpse of contemporary military family life in a way that’s accessible and—above all—entertaining. That’s what I set about doing when I started writing the four-part series in 2012.

(The entire quartet of the Since You Went Away series is now available via the links below and wherever books are sold.)

Click CreateSpace to order Nan McCarthy’s Since You Went Away (Part One: Winter) in paperback.

amazon logo.120x35 (small)Download_Chat_on_iBooks_Badge_US-UK_110x40_090513

nook logo.100x44(small)

small kobo logo cropped

Click one of these to order Nan McCarthy’s Since You Went Away (Part One: Winter) in ebook.

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

  • Tweet
  • Email
  • Share on Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

creativity deployment email epistolary novel Iraq war letters military family life military spouse milspouse Writing writing process
  • « Prev
  • Next »
Leave A Comment   ↓

Comments

  1. chuckie2glove April 13, 2017 · Reply

    I love that you share the background on “why this” Nan. Keep it up!

    LikeLiked by 1 person

    • Nan McCarthy April 13, 2017 · Reply

      Thanks Chuck! I’m glad you enjoyed this little tidbit.

      LikeLike

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

Trackbacks & Pingbacks

No incoming links found yet.


Website Powered by WordPress.com.

  • Amazon
  • iTunes
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Follow Following
    • Nan McCarthy
    • Join 126 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Nan McCarthy
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Copy shortlink
    • Report this content
    • View post in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: