A Greenville writer tackles dreams deferred and renewed in her first novel.
Greenville resident Jayne Jaudon Ferrer has always loved the written word. A poet who has also worked in journalism and advertising copywriting, when she couldn’t find a book focused on the vibrant middle-aged women like the ones in her life, she wrote one herself. The result is Hayley and the Hot Flashes, released in June. It features five women who trade carpools and casseroles for a country music concert tour, and the friendship, love, mood swings, and mayhem that follow. Vive asked Ferrer about her inspiration, her shifting career, and her advice for people who have a novel idea.
Have you always wanted to write a novel? What prompted you to write it?
I wrote a lot of short stories early on but never made much effort to publish them. While I was raising my sons, I focused on poetry. I didn’t really think about novels until my guys were teenagers and I had more periods of uninterrupted time. Hayley and the Hot Flashes started as kind of a lark with a writer friend. We had so much fun brainstorming and saying, “What if . . . ?” When several unexpected events changed the trajectory of my friend’s life, she lost interest in the project, but I couldn’t let it go. For me, editing is the real key to writing, so I kept tweaking and revising and rereading and rewriting until it felt like everything worked. I have another completed novel and one that’s about half-finished, so if this one is well received, I may focus on fiction instead of poetry for a while.
Why did you want to place your novel in the world of music, and country music in particular?
I come from a musical family, so that’s a world that’s comfortable to me. Harmony, instruments, performing . . . those are things I grew up with. My brother was a booking agent in Nashville, and I’m a first cousin to Mel Tillis, so I’ve had a bit of behind-the-scenes exposure. I actually contemplated a career as a studio singer while I was in college but decided I loved writing more than singing.
Why was it important for you to include middle-aged women and focus on dreams deferred? Do you think this is a common feeling in this age group?
Mostly, I think there’s a dearth of fiction portraying middle-aged women as the vibrant and interesting people they are! When I got tired of reading about twentysomethings and went looking for older protagonists, they were either seriously older, dealing with dead bodies or divorces, or nursing one traumatic event after another. I like to read happy stories, about smart, compassionate women in beguiling small towns, with happy endings. So I wrote one.
What is YourDailyPoem, and why did you create it?
Back in April 2000, in response to my brother’s and brother-in-law’s assertion that poetry was “boring,” I launched a month of emails during National Poetry Month in an effort to prove them wrong. My “Poetry Parade” to friends and family every April continued until, in response to constant requests, I committed to a daily poem. YDP (yourdailypoem.com) was born on June 1, 2009. It now features more than 400 classic and contemporary poets from around the world, and more than 4,000 poems in the archives.
What do you do when you aren’t working?
I write something almost every day, but when I’m not at my keyboard or don’t have a pen in hand, I’m usually in one of my gardens (rose, vegetable, butterfly), taking my grandchildren to a library or symphony event, hiking a trail with my husband or sons, enjoying time with my siblings (both my brother and sister moved here after I sang the praises of Greenville for twenty years!), or watching an old movie.
Did you have a certain message you want people to come away with after reading this book?
I write with the goal of making people smile, but I’d like to think that reading Hayley might encourage women to rekindle a friendship they hadn’t meant to let slide, or to pursue an interest they’ve always wanted to explore but never made time for.
Any tips for people who want to try their hand at writing?
Spend some time figuring out what genre feels most comfortable to you—fiction? poetry? memoir? essays?—then read extensively to see the variations in that genre. When you’re just beginning, a support group of fellow writers can be hugely helpful and, of course, online or in-person classes are always valuable. We are blessed here in the Upstate with several entities that nurture and guide writers in their efforts; definitely take advantage of those.
