childhood Archives - Elizabeth Maria Naranjo

Posted on February 14, 2022 ·

Every author has that one novel–the one cherished above all others, the one that makes her think, If I never write anything else, that’s okay, because I wrote this. I’ve written eight books, and while each is special in its own way, the fourth one is the book of my heart.

The House on Linden Way began as a short story in the summer of 2017. I was waiting for a car repair and began sketching out an idea for a haunted house story. The house would be the main character’s childhood home, which she was revisiting for the first time in many years. When her young daughter vanishes inside, the mother tries searching for her but keeps getting trapped in memories. I soon realized I had a book on my hands, and when it was finished nearly two years later I wrote the following query:

While passing through her hometown a decade after she left, Amber Blake impulsively revisits her old house on Linden Way. She only means to stay a moment, to show her three-year-old daughter Bee the place where she grew up. But when the kindly new owners invite them inside, Amber cannot resist.

Soon Bee is missing, the owners have disappeared, and Amber finds herself in a houseful of ghosts. Time takes on new meaning as she loses herself in living memories and a past that does not wish to be forgotten.

As Amber fights the powerful lure of a childhood she’d long left behind, her tenuous hold on the real world slips further from her grasp. Is it merely nostalgia she’s battling, or something far more menacing? Who haunts the house on Linden Way, and where are they hiding her child?

When I began Linden Way, I didn’t know yet who or what was haunting the house. Like many of my stories, I’d imagined something sinister and evil and ended up with something more complex. What I did know was that I wanted to write a story about the trappings of nostalgia and the lifelong imprint of our childhood homes.

The book is personal because it includes so many things that are important to me, including the power of sibling bonds, the bittersweet memories of growing up, and the fierce strength of motherhood. It is unequivocally the book of my heart, and I’m thrilled to begin publishing it today on Kindle Vella. Read the first chapter here, and follow the story as new chapters will publish every Tuesday and Thursday from now until June. Enjoy!

Some January/February Highlights

Posted on February 28, 2017 ·

Image from Flickr by Jorge Jaramillo

It’s the last day of February in what was just a brand-new year—how did that happen? The past several weeks have been incredibly busy at the nursing facility where I work as we’re implementing an electronic health and medical records system. But I’ve managed to squeeze in plenty of writing, including a few blog posts that you’ll never read because I simply ran out of time to post them and now they’re outdated!

Anyway, I’m happy to say I have a new CP (critique partner), and we’ve been exchanging chapters for a few months. She’s made it all the way through my middle grade WIP and offered tons of great feedback, which I’ve been working through intensely. When you’re knee-deep in edits on a project, you often end up hating that project, and that pretty much sums up my feelings at this point. But with my CP’s encouragement and reassurance, I also feel like it’s close to being a good book and stands a chance. No matter what happens, I’m proud of writing it.

One of my goals for 2017 was to keep better track of my writing and submissions. I was genuinely shocked at how little I wrote toward new fiction last year, and how little I submitted. It’s very easy to deceive yourself about how much you’re writing when you’re constantly thinking about writing and surrounded by writers talking about writing. Now that I have a system in place, I can see the actual numbers. So far this year I’ve sent out 14 submissions, received 4 rejections and, most importantly, 1 acceptance! That piece, about siblings outgrowing each other, was published mid-month in a wonderful parenting magazine called Motherwell: You can read it here.

I’m no longer counting the hours and words I put into edits (that was last year’s mistake); in addition to those efforts it’s important to me to draft new material. Much of January was spent working on a new creative nonfiction piece called “Transient,” which was excruciating to write. It’s about something that happened in my childhood that’s memorable, not because it left a scar, but because it didn’t. While considering whether to commit this memory to paper, I did some research into those involved, and discovered something that both devastated me and inspired me to tell the story. The essay’s out on submission now, and I hope to share it with you someday soon.

Finally, I was recently invited by Superstition Review to create a podcast for their Authors Talk series, discussing the inspiration and creative process behind my short story “The Woman in Room 248.” I am so excited for this because it’s something I’ve never done before, and I have a few ideas for how to make it interesting/fun. My podcast is slated for March 28, so stay tuned!